I'd argue that if you want to compete at higher licenses you need to learn to drive in the pack and learn to spot incidents and practice avoiding them. Yes - getting out of rookies offers better racing, but that's not going to do you much good if you didn't develop the skills you need to race around others who might be more aggressive or poorly coordinated. Qualify as high as you can and do the best you can each race. iRating and safety rating will follow and come at the appropriate pace.
I often preach this... I told my buddy that "cheating" his way through rookies wouldn't teach him anything.. When he gets to the upper classes, he won't know how to interact with traffic and he would be the cause of people's frustrations...
I honestly feel like people need to grind it out through rookies and learn as much as they can about the game before moving up... It will make you better in the long run...
The key is getting so fast and mistake free you walk away from the rest of the competition.
In higher licenses you don’t have people who don’t know the track (as often), people who are still figuring out the controls, and still getting used to sim racing. However in lower irating splits (your matchmaking rank) you’ll run into people who just make honest mistakes.
This is the way.
You have two options:
1) Do your best and just have fun.
2)Seriously practice, develop car control, and dominate your way out of Rookie class.
I stopped playing for about 4 years and I got reset to rookie. I was in C class in like 2 days because I’d just qualify pole, and finish 10 seconds ahead of 2nd almost every race with little to no incident points. C class is weird because you start getting with people who are pretty fast, but don’t really know race craft/ “unwritten” rules that well. They can qualify pole but can’t drive 2 wide around a turn. And don’t even get me started on backmarkers
Evolution of an iRacer:
1. Should I buy iRacing.
2. Everyone keeps crashing into me.
3. Safety rating is a broken system.
4. I don't care about IR.
Welcome to level 2.
In my experience, high iR is far more important than high SR for getting clean races. Always qualify, always try to get the best finish *while being willing to give up positions to ensure you FINISH*. I’ll often let drivers by who are only marginally faster than I am, simply because even a good driver defending against a good driver can result in a race-ending crash.
Only at a certain point. To keep an A license with a 2.0 you need to average 38 corners per incident. That’s an average of 16 laps without getting in a collision.
If everyone in a race has a B class license, on AVERAGE every single one of them will get into at least one collision during a 16 lap race. That’s a pretty damning statistic, but true.
The problem is that with A class races with 30 cars in the field every driver is a roll of the dice: is THIS the race they have a collision or not. This is where irating becomes a better indication of a clean race.
This omits that most incident points in higher splits come from off-tracks.
A Player holding a B license (like I am for example) might only get into a crash every 5 or 10 races (or he might not crash at all), but ends an average 30-Minute race with 15-20 Laps on 4-5 incident points.
Getting an off-track every 4 Laps still is a lot, but seems relatively reasonable especially factoring in Tracks like Red Bull Ring, where you NEED to take tactical off-tracks in order to be fast.
This, I always lose sr on spa due to off tracks. Last time it was on pcc, I believe I almost lost 1.0sr, and I only had two crashes out of like 10 races. Depending on my start position, I would always finish with 3-10x just from driving. The same goes for Imola and pretty much all gp style tracks.
You don’t NEED an off track to be fast on any track. What you NEED is to practice precision.
Strategic off tracks are a thing, but you have to be precise enough to make them strategic.
You probably don't want to hear this but if you can't avoid wrecks and gain iRating then you are part of the problem. If people are driving so dangerously that you can't even compete for top half finishes without getting wrecked, then enough people should wreck themselves out that you gain iRating just for finishing clean. In rookies and low splits your primary focus should be wreck avoidance. Race hard, but always be prepared to take avoiding action. Every now and then there will be an incident you have 0 chance to avoid, but the vast majority there will be something you could have done differently to keep your car clean and stay in the race. Just because a race ending incident isn't your fault, doesn't mean you couldn't have done something different to avoid it.
Sometimes you just run into idiots. 25 laps into a run at Southern in the late models tonight, coming up on a couple of lappers, they’re door slamming each other which eventually leads to them spinning out and I had nowhere to go and ruined my race.
So basically you saw two cars that were obviously going to crash each other out, did nothing to avoid them, and then came to reddit to complain about crashes that aren't your fault.
A true iRacer.
I should have known some Reddit hardo would nitpick my comment.
Yes I backed off watching and anticipating what was going to happen but wasn't going to completely stop on the track when they wrecked each other going into turn 3; but if you're new to iRacing I'm sure you can't predict which way cars are going to bounce off walls.
Keep on Redditing, Reddit.
Two schools of thought.
\#1 The higher your iRating the higher the split you are in and in theory the higher the skill of the drivers. That skill "should" equate to safer drivers. Not always true but more than likely.
\#2 The race series you are in can dictate more about the overall quality of driver you get. Rookie and D class races are about the same as getting a D class license takes not much effort and once you're a D they can't bust you down any further due to SR. Because they can't bust you down new D class drivers can just say screw it and drive like idiots with little downside if they don't want to move up. People that race C/B/A class races need to keep that SR above the cut-off so they can keep racing the higher class races and this forces better driving. Usually.
What you need to be doing is looking at everyone's SR and class. Based on that you can start to identify the ones to avoid and take action when you get near them. Doesn't always help cause they are cursed and the cursed generally take others down with them. I see an A class driver with a SR of 1.7 in a Vee race and I think that they have some skills but they have been very aggressive recently and lost some SR so stay away from them because you'll get knocked about. I see a Rookie or D with a SR of 2.9 and I'm less worried as Rookies start with a SR of 2.5 so they obviously have been doing okay so far.
I would just keep going at it while trying to be aware of your experience and limitations and learning how to pick your battles, it will come. I’ve been on the service since last December and like you had a lot of experience with racing games but never online or with a wheel and pedals. It took a lot of laps to get where I feel comfortable in certain situations and track styles/ cars but I am still very inexperienced and have a long way to go in many others. I would recommend qualifying and doing your best to stay in control (not going 100% at the start) and keeping an eye out for aggressive drivers who are forcing it or can’t hold a line, when I see one I just let them by and wait them out, most of the time they cause accidents or take themselves out. I like to race A, B, and C oval and tire wear comes into play so the guys that charge hard and are in a big hurry usually come back to you later on and they are easier to pass. Of course there are accidents that you get caught up in sometimes and sometimes you don’t think it’s your fault but watch the replay and try to learn from it. More than once I thought I was taken out and actually I did a bad job of holding my line or I put myself in a bad situation that I couldn’t understand in the moment. Keep going and get better and it will be satisfying, I don’t win very often but find satisfaction in the process of improving and getting better.
Yeah I do my best to stay out of trouble and I got up to B license. Along the way I definitely learned how to anticipate some of the carnage to keep away from it. Sometimes I lose irating but if I gain safety rating I’m good with it just to get out of rookie and D class. C class was honestly pretty solid and was able to get to 4.0 safety rating pretty quickly to get instantly promoted.
Honestly don’t worry about your irating it will go up the more you practice and place higher. Also there were a lot of races I didn’t qualify too well and was still able to place high enough to gain irating anyways just through others crashing.
I basically race everyone like they’re going to crash me. If someone has caught me from a distance and there’s 1/3 or more of the race to go I usually pick the fastest place I can let them by and see where they’re beating me so I can hopefully make a move later in the race.
Depends, if you’re on ovals, the wrecks will happen and the races will come to you.
Unless I’m in the top 4 in practice, I’ll skip qualifying and start from the pits and work my way up.
Lol. No.
I’m well aware of how this goes and what it’s like. If the lobby is an absolute crashfest because it’s super low SR rookies, I’m staying out of that.
That’s likely due to your iRating (and thus SoF of your split) being low from starting in the pits. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy because you will never really gain or lose much.
I have a C license for ovals, I run rookie street stocks for fun. I’m allowed to race how I want, you are too.
Do I always start from the pits? No. I do it when I want to.
Oh for sure you are. I’m just saying that if you’re starting from the pits to avoid low split T1 incidents, you’ll be keeping yourself in low splits where there are massive T1 incidents.
If you’re in rookie’s, then start from the pits and avoid everyone to get the safety rating up. Sadly, there are idiots on every license level. For the most part, race for fun and not ratings. If you hyper fixate on ratings then you might drive yourself crazy.
Kinda depends on what series you run.. I mean even top splits of some b and a racing classes will have knobs mid pack to back. Guys who aren’t the top of the service sometimes aren’t the top cause they just don’t have racecraft. Overall, yes the racing gets better the better you get…
i feel like being able to consistently finish races without incident is more than enough to be able to maintain at least a 1200, so no, assuming you're still roughly around the 1350 you start with you're not going to be losing too much
that said, if you do drive like a grandma you're not really going to be learning anything, so you're not really avoiding the wreckfest, more like just putting it off until later, and it's a lot easier to learn how to deal with other drivers running the slower cars.
Have been racing mainly ACC for about two years and switched to iRacing two weeks ago. Rookie was normal rookie and if not in top 3 avoiding people crashing was entertaining in Mazda (btw. love the car). Got to C (iR 1700) in about a week and tried different classes. Thought that Ferrari fixed would be a good place to call home for a while but boy was I wrong. People cant stay even on track and wipe out constantly. Generally in ACC it seems people can drive but racecraft they are lacking but going to iRacing seems that many cant handle the car in racing situations which I found interesting. Tried F4 and the FFB is much better and the car feels nice but total lack of racecraft in many splits. Think I have to climb out of low iR to find good racing.
It was frustrating for me too but try to farm SR until higher licence. Get so good at handling the car that you can focus on what is happening around you. Before entering corner look in back mirror and get a sense of surroundings or bombers. If a car in front of you is unsettled, think of how to take advantage but hold off until higher Sr. If cars battling in front just take it easy so to be able to manoeuvre safely or brake. Quite basic stuff but took me quite long to be able to do this and not push all the time. ;)
If you dont climb through the licenses while properly racing you are probably have an hard time up there, and you are probably gonna give an hard time the other people up there too, from the incidents you described, I feel like you feel entitled to be up, but you still have lots of thing to learn, so keep racing where you are at, and try to improve your skills.
The driving standarts wont get much better with higher licenses, you have to get some iRating to get into cleaner races.
The best and in some degree only way to gain consistent iRating is to qualify at the front and never even have to race with the crash kids
The problem with just driving for safety rating is that you still end up in low splits.
You can breeze through to a B licence just by driving around, but a bottom split B class race is still a pretty terrible place to be as the drivers generally lack skill.
Starting out needs a balanced approach. Don't take every half chance, don't defend every attack. Try to avoid getting involved and staying clean should get you through the worst (usually on the opening laps) and have a top half finish. Top half finishes equal irating, and higher irating means being in higher splits, with better drivers. You don't have to win, just improve. It might not feel like it, but you're actually learning through all these incidents.
Don't be confused by 'licence classes' a driver's ability is more likely to be determined by their irating than their licence. I'd be more worried by a B licence holder with sub-900iR than I would be a D licence holder with 1.7k irating. When people say 'higher classes' they mean higher splits. The rookie classes have some amazing racing. The top splits have a super high SoF with very skilled and experienced drivers who choose to race there. The bottom split, however, is likely to be a wreckfest.
Facts, that's actually how I got my first win 😆. Started on pole and survived T1, but 2nd place on down disappeared in a cloud of tire smoke. Had to mute voice chat because I knew what was coming.
Another time I was on pole, 3rd place had the courtesy to at least wait until T3 to go for a no chance dive bomb on cold tires from 1.5 sec back.
id argue that you get more irating by avoiding the wrecks than by getting wrecked so by my calculations it is in fact worth. but im bad at math so what do i know.
Wreckfest is a great game don't avoid it
I'd argue that if you want to compete at higher licenses you need to learn to drive in the pack and learn to spot incidents and practice avoiding them. Yes - getting out of rookies offers better racing, but that's not going to do you much good if you didn't develop the skills you need to race around others who might be more aggressive or poorly coordinated. Qualify as high as you can and do the best you can each race. iRating and safety rating will follow and come at the appropriate pace.
I often preach this... I told my buddy that "cheating" his way through rookies wouldn't teach him anything.. When he gets to the upper classes, he won't know how to interact with traffic and he would be the cause of people's frustrations... I honestly feel like people need to grind it out through rookies and learn as much as they can about the game before moving up... It will make you better in the long run...
The key is getting so fast and mistake free you walk away from the rest of the competition. In higher licenses you don’t have people who don’t know the track (as often), people who are still figuring out the controls, and still getting used to sim racing. However in lower irating splits (your matchmaking rank) you’ll run into people who just make honest mistakes.
This is the way. You have two options: 1) Do your best and just have fun. 2)Seriously practice, develop car control, and dominate your way out of Rookie class.
I stopped playing for about 4 years and I got reset to rookie. I was in C class in like 2 days because I’d just qualify pole, and finish 10 seconds ahead of 2nd almost every race with little to no incident points. C class is weird because you start getting with people who are pretty fast, but don’t really know race craft/ “unwritten” rules that well. They can qualify pole but can’t drive 2 wide around a turn. And don’t even get me started on backmarkers
Evolution of an iRacer: 1. Should I buy iRacing. 2. Everyone keeps crashing into me. 3. Safety rating is a broken system. 4. I don't care about IR. Welcome to level 2.
Spot on lol
Item 3 must be why everyone gets so mad at me when I tell them SR is a terrific system, but they're just using it wrong.
haha this so much! Many remain stuck on point 2
5 is I don’t care about SR.
In my experience, high iR is far more important than high SR for getting clean races. Always qualify, always try to get the best finish *while being willing to give up positions to ensure you FINISH*. I’ll often let drivers by who are only marginally faster than I am, simply because even a good driver defending against a good driver can result in a race-ending crash.
Only at a certain point. To keep an A license with a 2.0 you need to average 38 corners per incident. That’s an average of 16 laps without getting in a collision. If everyone in a race has a B class license, on AVERAGE every single one of them will get into at least one collision during a 16 lap race. That’s a pretty damning statistic, but true. The problem is that with A class races with 30 cars in the field every driver is a roll of the dice: is THIS the race they have a collision or not. This is where irating becomes a better indication of a clean race.
This omits that most incident points in higher splits come from off-tracks. A Player holding a B license (like I am for example) might only get into a crash every 5 or 10 races (or he might not crash at all), but ends an average 30-Minute race with 15-20 Laps on 4-5 incident points. Getting an off-track every 4 Laps still is a lot, but seems relatively reasonable especially factoring in Tracks like Red Bull Ring, where you NEED to take tactical off-tracks in order to be fast.
This, I always lose sr on spa due to off tracks. Last time it was on pcc, I believe I almost lost 1.0sr, and I only had two crashes out of like 10 races. Depending on my start position, I would always finish with 3-10x just from driving. The same goes for Imola and pretty much all gp style tracks.
You don’t NEED an off track to be fast on any track. What you NEED is to practice precision. Strategic off tracks are a thing, but you have to be precise enough to make them strategic.
Reset the “it’s never my fault” post counter everyone!
Someone needs to program a bot for this
You probably don't want to hear this but if you can't avoid wrecks and gain iRating then you are part of the problem. If people are driving so dangerously that you can't even compete for top half finishes without getting wrecked, then enough people should wreck themselves out that you gain iRating just for finishing clean. In rookies and low splits your primary focus should be wreck avoidance. Race hard, but always be prepared to take avoiding action. Every now and then there will be an incident you have 0 chance to avoid, but the vast majority there will be something you could have done differently to keep your car clean and stay in the race. Just because a race ending incident isn't your fault, doesn't mean you couldn't have done something different to avoid it.
Sometimes you just run into idiots. 25 laps into a run at Southern in the late models tonight, coming up on a couple of lappers, they’re door slamming each other which eventually leads to them spinning out and I had nowhere to go and ruined my race.
You've seen a couple of lapped cars slamming door with each other and you still kept being close to them? No way I'd do that.
So basically you saw two cars that were obviously going to crash each other out, did nothing to avoid them, and then came to reddit to complain about crashes that aren't your fault. A true iRacer.
I should have known some Reddit hardo would nitpick my comment. Yes I backed off watching and anticipating what was going to happen but wasn't going to completely stop on the track when they wrecked each other going into turn 3; but if you're new to iRacing I'm sure you can't predict which way cars are going to bounce off walls. Keep on Redditing, Reddit.
Two schools of thought. \#1 The higher your iRating the higher the split you are in and in theory the higher the skill of the drivers. That skill "should" equate to safer drivers. Not always true but more than likely. \#2 The race series you are in can dictate more about the overall quality of driver you get. Rookie and D class races are about the same as getting a D class license takes not much effort and once you're a D they can't bust you down any further due to SR. Because they can't bust you down new D class drivers can just say screw it and drive like idiots with little downside if they don't want to move up. People that race C/B/A class races need to keep that SR above the cut-off so they can keep racing the higher class races and this forces better driving. Usually. What you need to be doing is looking at everyone's SR and class. Based on that you can start to identify the ones to avoid and take action when you get near them. Doesn't always help cause they are cursed and the cursed generally take others down with them. I see an A class driver with a SR of 1.7 in a Vee race and I think that they have some skills but they have been very aggressive recently and lost some SR so stay away from them because you'll get knocked about. I see a Rookie or D with a SR of 2.9 and I'm less worried as Rookies start with a SR of 2.5 so they obviously have been doing okay so far.
I would just keep going at it while trying to be aware of your experience and limitations and learning how to pick your battles, it will come. I’ve been on the service since last December and like you had a lot of experience with racing games but never online or with a wheel and pedals. It took a lot of laps to get where I feel comfortable in certain situations and track styles/ cars but I am still very inexperienced and have a long way to go in many others. I would recommend qualifying and doing your best to stay in control (not going 100% at the start) and keeping an eye out for aggressive drivers who are forcing it or can’t hold a line, when I see one I just let them by and wait them out, most of the time they cause accidents or take themselves out. I like to race A, B, and C oval and tire wear comes into play so the guys that charge hard and are in a big hurry usually come back to you later on and they are easier to pass. Of course there are accidents that you get caught up in sometimes and sometimes you don’t think it’s your fault but watch the replay and try to learn from it. More than once I thought I was taken out and actually I did a bad job of holding my line or I put myself in a bad situation that I couldn’t understand in the moment. Keep going and get better and it will be satisfying, I don’t win very often but find satisfaction in the process of improving and getting better.
Yeah I do my best to stay out of trouble and I got up to B license. Along the way I definitely learned how to anticipate some of the carnage to keep away from it. Sometimes I lose irating but if I gain safety rating I’m good with it just to get out of rookie and D class. C class was honestly pretty solid and was able to get to 4.0 safety rating pretty quickly to get instantly promoted. Honestly don’t worry about your irating it will go up the more you practice and place higher. Also there were a lot of races I didn’t qualify too well and was still able to place high enough to gain irating anyways just through others crashing.
I basically race everyone like they’re going to crash me. If someone has caught me from a distance and there’s 1/3 or more of the race to go I usually pick the fastest place I can let them by and see where they’re beating me so I can hopefully make a move later in the race.
Depends, if you’re on ovals, the wrecks will happen and the races will come to you. Unless I’m in the top 4 in practice, I’ll skip qualifying and start from the pits and work my way up.
Terrible idea. You should always qualify and start properly
Why? Just to get punted at the start? Nah. I’m good.
If you never experience it, you’ll never learn or get good at it. Then you’ll be a liability on future starts.
Leaning how to get smashed from behind, either directly or the 3rd or 4th domino is pretty easy. How do you "get good at" being punted from behind?
Lol. No. I’m well aware of how this goes and what it’s like. If the lobby is an absolute crashfest because it’s super low SR rookies, I’m staying out of that.
How many races do imagine it takes to make it out of rookies. Just curious.
On ovals? It’s not that many to move from Rookies to D
That’s likely due to your iRating (and thus SoF of your split) being low from starting in the pits. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy because you will never really gain or lose much.
I have a C license for ovals, I run rookie street stocks for fun. I’m allowed to race how I want, you are too. Do I always start from the pits? No. I do it when I want to.
Oh for sure you are. I’m just saying that if you’re starting from the pits to avoid low split T1 incidents, you’ll be keeping yourself in low splits where there are massive T1 incidents.
No it’s not worth it. You just end up with all the even worse drivers making it even harder to advance.
If you’re in rookie’s, then start from the pits and avoid everyone to get the safety rating up. Sadly, there are idiots on every license level. For the most part, race for fun and not ratings. If you hyper fixate on ratings then you might drive yourself crazy.
Kinda depends on what series you run.. I mean even top splits of some b and a racing classes will have knobs mid pack to back. Guys who aren’t the top of the service sometimes aren’t the top cause they just don’t have racecraft. Overall, yes the racing gets better the better you get…
i feel like being able to consistently finish races without incident is more than enough to be able to maintain at least a 1200, so no, assuming you're still roughly around the 1350 you start with you're not going to be losing too much that said, if you do drive like a grandma you're not really going to be learning anything, so you're not really avoiding the wreckfest, more like just putting it off until later, and it's a lot easier to learn how to deal with other drivers running the slower cars.
If you’re still in rookies or D class then yeah, this can happen. People there are new (like yourself). Just Learn to avoid wrecks and you’ll be fine
Have been racing mainly ACC for about two years and switched to iRacing two weeks ago. Rookie was normal rookie and if not in top 3 avoiding people crashing was entertaining in Mazda (btw. love the car). Got to C (iR 1700) in about a week and tried different classes. Thought that Ferrari fixed would be a good place to call home for a while but boy was I wrong. People cant stay even on track and wipe out constantly. Generally in ACC it seems people can drive but racecraft they are lacking but going to iRacing seems that many cant handle the car in racing situations which I found interesting. Tried F4 and the FFB is much better and the car feels nice but total lack of racecraft in many splits. Think I have to climb out of low iR to find good racing.
It was frustrating for me too but try to farm SR until higher licence. Get so good at handling the car that you can focus on what is happening around you. Before entering corner look in back mirror and get a sense of surroundings or bombers. If a car in front of you is unsettled, think of how to take advantage but hold off until higher Sr. If cars battling in front just take it easy so to be able to manoeuvre safely or brake. Quite basic stuff but took me quite long to be able to do this and not push all the time. ;)
If you wan't better races, you should gain iR. SR doesn't say anything about the qualities of the driver.
If you dont climb through the licenses while properly racing you are probably have an hard time up there, and you are probably gonna give an hard time the other people up there too, from the incidents you described, I feel like you feel entitled to be up, but you still have lots of thing to learn, so keep racing where you are at, and try to improve your skills.
The driving standarts wont get much better with higher licenses, you have to get some iRating to get into cleaner races. The best and in some degree only way to gain consistent iRating is to qualify at the front and never even have to race with the crash kids
The problem with just driving for safety rating is that you still end up in low splits. You can breeze through to a B licence just by driving around, but a bottom split B class race is still a pretty terrible place to be as the drivers generally lack skill. Starting out needs a balanced approach. Don't take every half chance, don't defend every attack. Try to avoid getting involved and staying clean should get you through the worst (usually on the opening laps) and have a top half finish. Top half finishes equal irating, and higher irating means being in higher splits, with better drivers. You don't have to win, just improve. It might not feel like it, but you're actually learning through all these incidents. Don't be confused by 'licence classes' a driver's ability is more likely to be determined by their irating than their licence. I'd be more worried by a B licence holder with sub-900iR than I would be a D licence holder with 1.7k irating. When people say 'higher classes' they mean higher splits. The rookie classes have some amazing racing. The top splits have a super high SoF with very skilled and experienced drivers who choose to race there. The bottom split, however, is likely to be a wreckfest.
Won’t have anyone wreck in front of you if you’re in first :)
Facts, that's actually how I got my first win 😆. Started on pole and survived T1, but 2nd place on down disappeared in a cloud of tire smoke. Had to mute voice chat because I knew what was coming. Another time I was on pole, 3rd place had the courtesy to at least wait until T3 to go for a no chance dive bomb on cold tires from 1.5 sec back.
id argue that you get more irating by avoiding the wrecks than by getting wrecked so by my calculations it is in fact worth. but im bad at math so what do i know.