How to Practice and Finish Well

This is just a bunch of notes for your dumb ass to read, they'll be all over the place so read it, apply it, then forget everything when the lights go green and become a wrecking ball that would make the small hat tribe I mean American Airlines Flight 11 jealous.

Practicing

Stop trying so hard. You're not going to beat those top lap times. Nail it into your head that you're not going to win. Don't worry about being "slow." Worry about finishing without incident. Simple fact is a) you're not good enough (yet 🤠) and b) they reset 50,000,000 times to get that lap. It's pointless and pretty much just for dickwaving.

Car Choice

Sadly, the first thing I can say is pick an easy to drive car. Whether it's something like iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione, GT: Sport, or even an /ovg/ series. Even if car [x] is known to be the fastest, if it's a handful to drive then don't touch it. You're not going to get better if you're having to wrangle both the car and your brain cells. Generally, front engine cars will be the easiest to understand and exhibit the most predictable characteristics. For an /ovg/ series in particular, check the wiki page for the series. The easiest car will probably be written down.

Consistency

You'll be surprised at how high up you can finish, in any multiplayer racing game, if you just get consistent and develop a sense for reading other players around you. A majority of people playing racing games are so pathetically shit (because their consistency is in the toilet) that if you simply have races without incident, you'll end up very high up on the race results, even against people who are considered statistically to be better than you.

Work on being consistent. Can't figure out the racing line? Watch (either in game, or Google a video) someone fast to see what the racing line is. Copy the line they're doing, but don't do it fast. Copy what line they're doing. Not where they're braking. Not where they're hitting the gas. Just the line. Drive even slower than what you're comfortable with. Just work on hitting the racing line. If you're managing to go off the track, spin under braking, getting loose on the gas or just any sort of thing that upsets the car then you're still going too fast. Do this for awhile, which means 20-30mins+ all at once. Don't reset your car or whatever, just keep driving.

Once you're able to very consistently drive slower than what you're comfortable with, remember it. That's your baseline. It's what you'll fall back to if you feel yourself pushing too hard and making mistakes in the race. If you earnestly practiced it, your "baseline" will get you to the finish (and a good result none the less) just about every single time.

Now that you've got that in your head, this is the part where you try to look for a lower lap time. Brake a bit later. See where the fast guys are braking. Look at their apex speeds. Find something comfortable that's faster than your "baseline" and run that for a bit. If you can very consistently do that, that's your new baseline. Congrats. Rinse and repeat until you're pushing too hard.

tl;dr eat shit for skipping to this and read the whole thing. Drive slower and work on hitting your marks VERY consistently. There's a huge chance you're overestimating how good you are, especially if you've been playing racing games since you were a toddler and your subconscious thinks you're hot shit because you can destroy the AI. Actual people are much better and way more (un)predictable.

Driving With Others

If it's an /ovg/ series, there's almost guaranteed to be a practice server up 24/7 on the track being raced. Ask in the thread, Discord or Mumble if someone wants to hop on the server with you. Or even check the Live Timing to see if someone is on at that moment. The server will be at it's fullest in the hour or two before the race, so if you're wanting plenty of cars to practice driving around that time is your best bet. Nobody is going to care if you accidentally bump or wreck them in practice, because that's what it is. Practice.

Remember, the other cars have people driving them as well. Unless you know for sure how the other player drives (something you can quickly pick up on as you gain experience) don't do risky things.

Race Starts

They can be very hektik, so if you're trying to play 100% safe (which you should be doing if you're reading this in the first place, remember you want to finish not win) then don't go for any iffy gaps at the start. Just roll with the flow of traffic like you would on a packed highway that's still managing to do the speed limit. You do have your driver's license, right? If people behind you pass you then so be it. The field will spread out after a lap or two, and if they started behind you then chances are they're slower than you anyway.

After it's spread,

Getting Lapped

Anyone that says "stay on the racing line, it's the job of the guy lapping you to get around you" is a moron. It's a very black and white guideline, and being lapped is anything but. Giving him an easier time passing you usually ends up saving time for both drivers, rather than him having to work you to get around like a car on his lap.

Unless it's a long(40min+) race on a fairly short track, this should only be happening if you've done the section right above. /ovg/ races are rarely above 30 minutes, so unless its a VERY short track then you've fucked up somewhere.

The game should be displaying a blue flag somewhere on your HUD. In your mirror you should see the cars coming to lap you.

If you're coming up to a braking zone for a corner and they're very close to you, watch your mirror. Expect them to dive up on your inside. Just give way and don't fight it as there might be more than one car coming through.

If they're almost on your ass coming out of a corner, just take the racing line as normal. If they know what they're doing they'll get a better run out of the corner and pass you before the next one.

While completely unnecessary, if they're a bit behind you and you're on a long straight you can move off the racing line and slow down (either let off the gas or just barely tap your brakes a few times to signal) to let them pass.

Don't move off the line if they're right behind you and gaining quickly. This usually ends with you being rear ended and both of your races being ruined. You'll end up moving over the same time as they do, and you'll take it up the ass and gg.

Other Notes

I hate to sound like a fucking shill but learning all of this (consistency, racing around others, developing a "shitter" sense) is honestly pretty easy in iRacing. There's various promotion codes out there which are usually listed on the right of the iRacing Reddit page, one of which is a 3 month subscription for $5. Don't feel inclined to buy anything, just run the rookie Mazda MX-5 Cup series. It'll throw infinite curveballs at you, and it'll teach you how to deal with all sorts of shit.