iRacing

Iv watched quite alot of iRacing vids on youtube and it appeared the cars were understeering horrendously but have since seen some nice neautrally drifted skip vids where the car looks setup (and driven) well. And the real tracks look great. I used to love driving NR2003 at Watkins Glen and Sears Point and can see this will be a similar experience but with new cars. I also used to race GPL quite alot, and yes, managed sub 8 at the nurburgring

Id say your LFS issues were mostly setup as thats how I like to drive and can acheive it most of the time. The cars I drive in LFS (mostly the single seaters) can be made to feel like completely different cars by making changes to the suspension, wheel geometry and downforce. With a bit of setup time I can dial the cars in beautifully to fit my style. I often have many different setups for qual and races depending on how savage the setup is on the tyres. I drive in a BF1 (BMW Sauber 2006 F1) league (oneGP: http://www.onegp.net/).

The Solstice is a bit understeery, but it all depends on how you take it through the corner... If you brake then gradually turn in using more and more turninglock, then yes, the car will understeer. If you get off the brakes entering the corner, turn in a bit sharper, and get on the power again just before the apex, you can get the car to almost 4wd drift out of the corner (that or a bit loose with the rear). Great fun when you get it right

Sounds like how the NASCARs were best driven on road tracks in NR2003

With the safetyrating system, it acctually takes a bit of nerve and balls to be doing that though, as drifting wide on the gravle/grass or spinning gets you negative points :

Probably makes people race more like they where in real cars (accidents tend to be expensive and can hurt in real cars), but still can be pretty annoying at times. It also adds to the sense of excitement, so i'm a bit devided about the whole rating system

You can do practice though without any risk of loosing out on the ranks though

Tenmantaylor, I'm an iRacing signup so I don't intend this as a knock at the sim, but the overall feel of this is very much like N2003 at the road courses. The way oversteer kicks in, and can be saved. The way concrete grip reduces over normal tarmac. The way the kerbs affect the car dynamics etc...

As I say, it's not a knock, but think of this (in terms of feel) as a highly polished n2003 mod. If you got on with that you will get on with this.

Of course the subscription is pretty expensive when compared to what we're used to but then I can excuse that for the absolutely top class track modelling (n2003 was good but the track surface typically has much more subtle differenciations now) and, more importantly, the truly professional feel of a 'race weekend'. In probably 40 odd races of my first month I've been involved in minimal scrapes and dings yet the average race pace is pretty ferocious.

Cotchin of Mike fame? GPL?

Aye, it be Funnily enough seen a lot of old GPL guys lately who've migrated back due to iRacing ;)

I am still waiting for my free invite

How you get free invite? Iv bought every Papy since GPL including n2002 and 2003... am i in? Surely sub 8 at ring gets me in!

Afaik a 'free invite' just got you into the beta testing stage of development, even then you had to pay for the priveledge. No real freebies or anyone, though I suppose if Herr Schumacher was to say he liked it they might waiver his sub cost.

I know it's odd to pay for a demo but it is only $20... and it is a good product, though still far from perfect.