The Chicane Podcast

The Ultimate iRacing Guide: Licenses, Costs, and Racing Techniques

• TGS Sim Racing • Episode 8

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Looking for insider tips on mastering one of the most competitive sim racing platforms out there? Join us on the Chicane Podcast as we unlock the complexities of iRacing's pricing model and discuss its extensive variety of race types, from dirt tracks to formula cars, and even monster trucks. With Jeff by our side, we delve into the nitty-gritty of iRacing's subscription costs, individual purchases, and the best ways to score discounts, ensuring you can hit the track without breaking the bank. We'll also share some crucial advice on setting up your trial account, especially when it comes to using your real name for registration.

Ever wondered how to progress from a rookie to a seasoned pro in iRacing? This episode is your ultimate guide. We break down the standardized costs of cars and tracks, strategic timing for subscriptions, and the pathway from rookie licenses to advanced levels. Learn about the importance of safety ratings, clean racing, and the various racing series such as the thrill of NASCAR races and the unique challenges of dirt road racing. Our detailed exploration will equip you with the knowledge to navigate iRacing's licensing system and maximize your racing experience.

Wrapping up, we take a broader look at how iRacing stacks up against other racing simulators like ACC and AMS2. We discuss the impact of its older engine on performance, the revolutionary addition of rain, and the heightened realism it brings. We also touch on the dynamic world of F1, examining the interplay between drivers, engineers, and new regulations that shape the future of racing. Whether you're a sim racing enthusiast or an F1 aficionado, this episode is packed with insights and strategies that will enhance your understanding and enjoyment of the racing world. Tune in and shift your sim racing game into high gear!

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Erick:

The.

Jason:

Hello and welcome to the Chicane Podcast, where we discuss all things in the sim racing world. I'm your host, jason Rivera, and I'm joined here again by Mr Eric Kelly and Jeff Smart. How are you all doing?

Jeff:

today. Thank you, this is Friday. Yeah, man, I'm ready to get into it. Yes, sir.

Jason:

Yes, indeed, it is Friday today, and today we are going to talk about iRacing, which is a massive topic, and we are going to break this down in the simplest manner to get you guys up to date. If you're not up to date on this. There's been quite a few changes with classes, rain, penalties, safety, what have you. But we're going to cover this on a step-by-step case and without further ado. I'm going to start today with talking about what iRacing is. So iRacing started in 2008. It is a sim racing game only available on the PC. It covers dirt racing, road racing, formula racing, nascar racing, you name it. This game has everything.

Jeff:

Jason, it's got everything. It's got Rallycross, I mean it's monster trucks. Yeah, I was doing it the other day. It's pretty sweet. Keep going, buddy. Sorry to jump in there Totally, man.

Jason:

I mean, again, there's things that are being added in there that I might not be aware of, but, um, I know that there was a recent merger with the class system. But, to put this in order, we're going to talk about pricing. Can you cover pricing for us, jeff?

Jeff:

yeah, sure. So uh, I racing is a little bit different design game than uh, your other games that are, you know, think of traditionally when you think acc, uh, f123. So with iRacing you buy a monthly subscription. Um, if you look around on the internet you can get discounts to get at a discount price but it's like a couple bucks a month um, and the membership comes with, uh, think of like a basic class, basic cars. You can get a little like a basic nascar, basic race car, open wheel, formula cars, um, but don't think you're gonna get anything super flashy with that basic membership.

Jeff:

Um, iracing's big uh, the differences them from the other platform other games is that you buy individual cars and tracks so it can get there. There potentially could be a bigger upfront uh, uh investment if you will, um to buy individual cars. It's. You know, if you want to jump around from open wheel to oval to nascar to rallycross, you potentially could drop some money buying cars and tracks to figure out what you like or if you like everything. But once you kind of build a repertoire and you get a bunch of cars that are in your garage and a couple tracks to use them on, man, the sky's the limit for what you want to go out and race on. But don't go in thinking you're going to buy, you know, packs of cars and stuff. There are onesie, twosies that you buy and then tracks are the same. So I think that kind of gives everybody a decent picture of the iRacing platform and kind of how it differs from your traditional games ACC, assetto, corsa, wrc, et cetera.

Jason:

Anything else you want to jump in there and add on jason yeah, so to be um, for those of you that haven't tried iRacing, there's also, as jeff mentioned, there is many ways of getting a discount, so there's a steam discount that's always there and I believe it's 10% off. But if you're a new member because iRacing requires a subscription first and foremost, and if you're a new member, it's I'm looking at the website right this minute and new members get 40% off. If you buy time in bulk what I mean by that is a month will cost you $7.80. We're talking USD, and the regular price is $13 a month, which is quite high for membership. However, if you get three months, it'll be $19.80. If you opt for the year, it's $66. If you opt for the year, it's $66. And if you opt for two years, it's $119.40. So I would do this If you buy Fanatec gear, if you decide to go that route, every piece of Fanatec wheel or wheelbase comes with a three-month trial to iRacing, and I want to let you guys know this because this is really important.

Jason:

Iracing uses your real name, so it'll use the name that's on your credit card. It will not accept, you know, a paypal or anything like that. You could. You could purchase content using pay, but your subscription must be from a credit card. So if you're going to try the game out, let's say, for that three months, then you're not. This discount is not going to apply to you. Does that make sense? So what I would do is create an email, take another credit card that's different from your, from your standard credit card, the one that you use the most and sign up using that three-month code and try it out, because with the game, with the trial, you're looking at a total hold on I got it here of 23 cars that you will get included just by being a subscriber member, so you don't have to purchase anything. And then it also comes with 30 tracks with over 83 unique configurations available for free.

Jason:

So you have quite a bit of content to see to make the decision if, hey, is this for me or is it not for me. So the reason why I tell you guys to make a basically a dummy account is because you won't be able to change your name. So, if you like, your first and last name. This happened to me. So I like you know my things, to have all my stuff, stuff to have my first and last name. So I was forced to use my middle initial because I already had an account. There was already an account with my name on it that matched the description of my address and my credit card and all that stuff. So it is pricey. However, it's probably the most realistic driving that I've ever experienced. I mean hands down the graphics, you know?

Jason:

yeah, you can go, jason, I just want to cut.

Jeff:

Before I jump into the graphics there, I just want to kind of uh bring up a point about the name on your credit card. Is, most people think that's a bad thing, um, or they get kind of not a bad thing, but just kind of uh get nervous about it. Uh, it's a good thing. I thought the same thing, but then I started using iRacing and it's a bad thing. Um, or they get kind of not a bad thing, but just kind of uh get nervous about it. Uh, it's a good thing.

Jeff:

I thought the same thing, but then I started using iRacing and it's a good thing, because you have the spotters saying hey, you got Michael Smith behind you at 2.3 seconds. You don't hear hey, you got cupcake two, three, four, two seconds behind you. You know you have an actual name, but to that point, you occasionally see things on Instagram coming through as hey, look at this, I am racing Max Verstappen in this race because he is a iRacing user and you see his name on there because it's linked to his credit card. So I just say I like it that it's actually your real name on there.

Erick:

Yeah. So I had two questions. One what's the price of a typical car is? Does it depend on the car, does it depend on the class of racing, or is it like a set price per car?

Jeff:

well, I'll jump in there. So I am, I have my rookie license, uh, and I'm getting close to going to a d license. So I and I'm an open wheel racer, um. So I was starting to look at the uh F4 car, um, and it is just to put it in perspective, it's like $11, 11 and change, um. So it's not and I'll, and I'll drive that for probably every time I get into our racing. For, you know, until I get a C license or something better to jump up into. The next was like I forget the class above that one, but you know I'll drive that for three, four months, you know, every time I get in the rig. So maybe that's a data point for you, jason can probably jump in with some more more detailed information for pricing.

Jason:

So for pricing, they'll do a bulk discount. So if you buy, the standard price on tracks, I believe, is $15 per track. But once you buy it, you own it, you own the license of it. Let's be clear you own the license to use the track and you can test drive whatever cars you own on that track, all you want. But here's another kicker for you guys. Just I'm going to throw this in there. This is important when iRacing goes under maintenance and they announce it when they will go under maintenance, they unlock all content on the game because the servers are down right. You can't race, can't do anything. But let's say you wanted to try out the I don't know, they got a W13, which is the Mercedes F1 car. If you wanted to try that car without purchasing it, you're able to do it in the maintenance phase. So don't forget that.

Jason:

I noticed that you bought the car without even having a license to drive the car, because I think the W13 is an A license, which is a good segment for us to get into right now. But to wrap up pricing it's the more you buy, the more of a discount. I think it's in threes, so if you do, it might be in threes or in fours. I got to double check. But prices are standard across the board. They're standard for cars and they're standard for tracks. Is there any other questions? Jeff, before we?

Erick:

I mean jeff eric, before we move on to uh licenses uh, yeah, just a quick one about the trial that you mentioned. Is it like a trial where, because you mentioned that, you get like 23 cars and all that stuff? Is it a time limited trial, where after a certain amount of time that content gets locked again, or is that just a perk of accessing the trial?

Jason:

so it's tied to your subscription. So if you subscribe for three months, you can race them a thousand hours.

Jeff:

You know what I mean as long as as long as you have an active iRacing account, you can get access to those cars and tracks okay, all right the thing is you want to be careful, because if you use that three months right that you get free, then you don't qualify for the new user discount.

Jason:

So what people end up doing, what iRacers do is that they wait until a Black Friday sale and they add time to their iRacing subscription. That way and it's still not as much the highest discount is going to be at the beginning, that 40%. You're never going to see that again.

Jeff:

that is the first and only time to me, it's worth it I mean you pay 100, yeah, go ahead yeah, I mean like if you spread it out over the month, it's like a starbucks coffee. You know it kills me, that gets the eye renting uh uh moniker attached to it. Because you know, as as a sim racer, and you buy a dd, that's a thousand bucks and a wheel and all this other stuff, and then we sit here and complain about 11 car, you know, or a 13 track, just to put in perspective for everybody but you got to think I racing is the most populated um, sim, um you know sim racing, why that's good value

Jason:

yeah, man it's. You know you have the, the user base, and the, the uh like, for example. You know we live in part of the US where, you know 6 pm my time, there's no more racing on LFM because it's two in the morning, three in the morning in some places and not everybody's on there. But I've had way more luck finding a race with a full grid on iRacing. At all times it doesn't matter, and I'm pretty sure you have the same experience, jeff.

Jeff:

Absolutely.

Jason:

All right. So that covers the pricing. And we put that first because that is the most painful thing about iRacing is the damn pricing. So if you can move past the high cost because, think about it, guys, you build the rig, you spend thousands of dollars on a rig. Now you're looking at a subscription-based model and it's like Jeff said, it's a cup of coffee. But then if we look at everything using that logic, man, we'll be in trouble. Jeff.

Jeff:

Yeah, I mean it's death by a thousand paper cuts, Absolutely.

Jason:

Because subscription models nowadays is killing you. If you add up. I don't even want to add up all my subscriptions. I'm afraid to do it because this is probably a lot of money.

Erick:

Yeah, don't hurt yourself, All right so let's get off pricing here and keep moving here.

Jeff:

Let's get off the money here.

Jason:

Let's talk licenses All right, no more money, no more money's talk, we'll go over the licenses. So, all right, no more money, no more money's talk, we'll go over the licenses. So you start off as a rookie in iRacing. But here's the thing you start off as a rookie in all different categories. So now it used to be.

Jason:

The iRacing's old model was road oval, dirt road and dirt oval. Those were the four. Now they separated formula into its own category. So now you have road formula, oval, dirt road and dirt oval, and each one of those has a safety rating attached to it, which we'll go over safety here in a second, after we cover classes and licenses. But you basically the way you progress to a, to a different license, the very next one, it'll be a, d, and then it's going up to c, b, a and so on and so forth. The game tells you the requirements, but you have to participate in events that are, for example, if you're a rookie, you don't have a choice. You have to race clean. You don't have to win races, you just have to race clean. And you have to complete races, not not leave a race or quit or forfeit. You have to. You actually complete them. The other option is to do time trials, which I highly don't recommend get in, because it's not, you're not racing yeah, what are you doing?

Jason:

you're just pretending to race in a time trial and then you go into a c-class race and you don't belong there, because you just don't belong there.

Jeff:

If I can just jump in here as somebody that's kind of just getting into this for the past maybe two weeks as a rookie and getting into a rookie race, I thought it was going to be a total dumpster fire of a race. It's pretty clean racing. I'm working the formula class. It's a lot cleaner racing than I thought it would be for rookie races and you get DNC people in there that just jump in with license, um, but for the most part it's really clean racing and it's a lot of fun. Um.

Jeff:

So yeah, you need I think the minimum to get into D is completion of two or three races and, uh, a safety rating of above three and I think you start at 2.5. And if you complete a race pretty cleanly, I think you go up like maybe 0.1, you know. So if you give it a solid weekend, maybe a long weekend, you could get out of a rookie and into d. But I heard somebody say I was listening to a podcast but a youtube thing. They're like don't rush it. Like you're in there to learn the fundamentals of racing, master the car and, first and foremost, have a good time doing it. Jason kind of gave me a hard time, like what's the rush? He was trying to get your D and I was like you're right, man.

Jason:

I was about to say, man, didn't I text you earlier? I was like, hey, man, just take it easy.

Jeff:

I'm not going to text out to all you guys after my race hey, I came in fourth place. It's totally different driving an ACC when you know that or, excuse me, an iRacing when you know there's a human on the other side of that car from Mike, from Indiana, sitting in front of his computer racing, versus, in, you know, acc racing AI. So I'm having a blast racing. Rookie having a blast. No rush getting into D, it'll happen. Having fun mastering the car, learning technique, et cetera.

Jason:

So I'll pass Jason you can keep going here if you want to, Right? So I was just going to say that don't let the category or the type of license discourage you, because I um, if you look at your timetables, Jeff, um, I'm going to use you as an example cause you just, you know you're getting into it now more serious, serious, right. You'll notice that there's people there with an A, B and C class licenses. Nothing is stopping them from attending and joining those races. It's because this is so much fun. So don't let that discourage you. Take your time, learn the tracks, learn the cars, learn the technique, and then you will see that you will progress. And how do you progress? Well, you have to meet the bare minimum, which is a 3.0 safety rating, and it goes by season. So every season, I think it's about a month or two months. I got a fact. Somebody fact, check me on that, Eric.

Jeff:

Fact. Check me I think it's 12 or 13 weeks, right. Yeah, we're in week two right now. I think currently give or take.

Jason:

All you have to do is make sure that you A participate in the races. I think it's two or four of them, I think for rookie it's two, and then from D on and up, it's four races, it's not hard and then you just maintain that safety rating. However, if you go over the top, you maintain that safety rating. However, if you go over the top, you maintain that safety rating, but at the end of the season you will automatically be promoted to the next and then you start over. Your rating will kind of sit at the default, which is 250 I believe it is, but okay, 250. And then the other kid, the.

Jason:

The other thing you can do is if you're racing a lot and you're racing clean and when I mean clean off track, you get 17 incidents which will cover in penalties. We have a subcategory for penalties, so I won't go over there just yet. Um, I don't want to jump the gun gun, so we're going to talk about licenses. Uh, well, I'll finish off with if you do get a 4.0 safety rating, you will be upgraded on spot, so you don't have to wait for the season to be over so just keep promotion there you go right up, right up, front and center.

Jason:

So if you decide the road series, we're going to go over the road series. So the road series covers the Mazda MX-5 and I think it's a Toyota. So those are the two cars that you'll be using the most During the oval series's nascar. If you like nascar, please go ahead, but be warned that nascar is notorious for having the most craziest wrecks I've ever seen. If you go on, yo it's hard youtube, you know it's hard, you know you go on youtube and search up I racing fails of the week of the week.

Jeff:

Oh my god, like cars, like acc and those games and you think you're gonna get in there and crush somebody in nascar boy, you're about to take a ego check yeah, I mean, I know, you know nascar and and I I didn't want to disclose how I felt about nascar and their left-hand turn racing. However, comma, it is treacherous is the word treacherous with the bank, the banks when you're driving on the bank turn. That's kind of cool all right.

Jason:

So I think so okay, well, I mean, nascar is not for me, so fair enough so dirt road um. As jeff mentioned, uh is a mix of ratty cross and off-road pro trucking, so you got truck race uh, they got everything.

Jeff:

you got trophy cars. Yeah, you're taking this thing off jumps.

Jason:

They even got dirt oval right, which is similar, but in an oval fashion. Right the same thing.

Jeff:

So you're like drifting around the corner in like 100 miles an hour on dirt.

Jason:

All righty. So those kind of cover the licenses and the classes. So I'm going to hand this over to Jeff to talk about the safety rating, his favorite part.

Jeff:

Yes, so I just said that I spent about two weeks in iRacing, maybe two races every night or every other night and it's taken some getting used to every night or every other night and it's taken some getting used to. When it comes to the safety, it's not necessarily the same as your other games for ACC or F123. So Jason alluded to that. At the start of a race, you get 17 incidences and an incident would be anytime you do track limits. It's going to. I think that, jason, I think that's a two incident and then any contact with another car, is it a one, okay, and any contact with a car is two to four.

Jason:

It's four, it's four, and hitting a wall is two. So you're, you're, you're right. It's just that. You know when you pile a car, you go off track, you hit the wall, you know that's one, three, seven incidents right there and you only get 17. And then you get. Dq'd Bye-bye, and I think you know you want to share Sure.

Erick:

And this is 17 per race, right.

Jeff:

Yeah, yep, absolutely. You know, and in the rookie class it's like 12 minutes or 10 laps, so it's not impossible to drive clean. But yeah, I got rear-ended slid into the wall and my car was totally drivable. I mean, I was passing people after the crash, right Building my position back up, and had a uh, black and orange flag, and for those don't know, I didn't at the time that means you have to pit because your car has damage. But I was thinking to myself I'm passing people, it can't be that damaged um, but I was the meatball.

Jeff:

The meatball flag is what they call it and uh, so I'm driving around and every lap I was doing I was building penalties up and then all of a sudden, the iRacing server just yanked me right out of that race. Dq'd, no questions asked. Do not pass, go, do not collect $200 and back into the lobby. So there's, I'm learning. I'm learning. I broke 37 miles per hour in the pits. That gave me some penalty, had to come back in through. So there's a lot of learning curve going on in iRacing right now for me. Um, but it's fun, like, like.

Erick:

I tried to.

Jeff:

Jason helped me out with this. You're not racing to build safety rating to just get to the next class, you're? This is fun, you know, he. You told me that I've viewed it totally different, that, hey, like I got second and I only gained wayne, like 0.05 safety, who cares? I had a blast. You know my sitting, my hands are sweating, heart rates getting up after you know, racing people on the computer it's awesome. So, um, the safety, you do need to pay attention to it, though, because it adds, adds up very quickly. I think that's the big summary here that I need everybody to take away is uh, you need to pay attention. It adds up Um and the same with. I believe that carries over from qualifying. Um, the penalties that you get in qualifying carry over. So don't quote me on that, but I believe that if you get two or three penalties breaking track limits on your qualifying, that carries over into the race.

Jeff:

Um I will fact check this yeah, please fact check me on that one. But uh, anyways, just pay attention to it, um, because it does add up quick, like jason was saying. One, uh, track limits, you know, or bumping somebody, and then you go into the wall, you know that can be a four to seven point, um, jump right there for the penalties. So, but there's a lot of learning in the rookie class. I mean, that's just kind of what I chalked it up to is lessons learned. You know, make them once, don't make them twice. Anybody else you guys want to pile on to the penalties or the safety that elude, that builds up into them so so that pretty much covers the penalties on the uh on.

Jason:

On iRacing, I mean other than the code of conduct that they have, because iRacing does have I um chat. It can be turned off. You have different radio channels so you can speak to a teammate, so if I'm racing and I'm on track with jeff we can join a channel and that way it's private our chat, even though you can just use, you know, discord or discord or whatever. So many options now. But yeah, that pretty much covers, sums up, the, the, the penalties. I don't believe that you it says actually I Googled it last night.

Jeff:

I don't know if it carries over, but you get it still. Hurts your eye rating.

Jason:

The only time.

Jeff:

The only time that you can drive with practice does not Okay. If you want to get out there and push the limits and really get some practice and grinding on where you can really push the car. Do it in practice, Don't do it in qualifying or the race.

Erick:

So question does the safety apply the same across all the different types of racing? Because I'd imagine if you're racing formula, you know you touching the car is going to be a lot bigger deal than if you're doing, you know, at the rally style racing or something like that yeah, jason, I can only speak to the formula, open wheel stuff, so I'm not sure so your question, eric, is if safety is shared across the board yeah, just curious if you know the uh 17 point limit is the same for, like, if you're rally racing or if you're it's the same oval or something.

Jason:

Okay, it's the same, but it's it's per session, so it's not like yeah, yeah damn, you know, I messed up, I got 10 and then I go into the. It doesn't carry over and then your safety rating is tied to the category of racing. So, for example, if you have, if you have a 1.0, which I hope you don't, because you can get demoted, guys If you go down a certain number, the system will demote you down to the next, all the way down to rookie if you're not careful.

Jason:

But I can be a rookie in NASCAR and ovals, which I am for obvious reasons, in ovals, which I am for obvious reasons, and then I can and I'm a b class in formula and a b class in road. So I mean it. It depends on what you're trying to do with you know, with your time on iRacing and what.

Jeff:

What is your focus going to be, you know basically so it's a lot of fun before we move on, just as a, as a rookie who can only get into rookie class races, um, for the open wheel, there is a race that I try to get into. Uh, it starts every uh on the 15. So you know 115, 215, 315, um. So you know one, 15, two, 15, three, 15. Um, so it you know one, 15, you'll have your three lap qualifying, um, and then roll right into a 12 minute race and then whatever you got left for the app for you know, until it hits that the next 15 to go, you know, get some food, bathroom, et cetera, and you can jump right back in. So there's tons of. Don't think, just because you're a rookie, you're going to have find, you're going to have a hard time finding races there every hour yeah, and I want to add to that that's a good point, jeff.

Jason:

Thank you for for putting that out that iRacing has a mobile application. You can log into the app. You can see what races are going on, you can set reminders to end favorites, so that way you know, hey, I'm part of this series, so I want to, you know, be reminded that what times, uh you know, can I jump in the rig and and do my race, and do my races, and they change every week, so the track will change every week. That's so I didn't know that off the download.

Jeff:

I'll have to grab that out yeah, it's free.

Jason:

Free app. I racing companion is called you better be free. After a couple bucks should be free yeah, I mean damn, you know yeah, this is y'all paying for me yeah, I mean, the game came out in 2008, so so when you guys first yes, go ahead, trust me.

Jeff:

I didn't mean to steal your thunder here, but you're paying for the most realistic handling of a car and the racing.

Jason:

Just about to cover that brother.

Jeff:

So here's the alley. Before you go up there and slam, dunk it here, go ahead, off to you.

Jason:

No, please, by all means, because we're both headed in the same direction. So let's hear it. Let's hear from someone that just started and and is actually you know, climbing, yeah.

Jeff:

So the racing is fantastic. The car handling is extremely realistic. Unfortunately, the graphics are not um and it just goes to show you kind of where iRacing, from a business perspective, is putting their research and development you know their companies putting behind the fundamentals of racing. The car handles like it would in real life, the quality of racing, the amount of racing, the user interface on how they, you know, facilitate you getting into the race. It is not the graphics, you know it's not. Don't think you're going to jump race, it is not the graphics. Don't think you're going to jump in and it's going to look like ACC, it's Spa when you get in there. It's not, it's good, it's just not great. Is that fair assessment, jason? Good not great.

Jason:

The graphics are good. I don't want to say they're bad. It depends on your system, because the game does support full triple screen support. It's not like it's stretched out, but there is a flip side to that, though.

Jeff:

That I just thought of is by having not super graphics intensive, you get a very good frames per second rate on that yes, I think I'm not like 120 you know 120 frames a second. We're in acc. I'm at 105 95, you know so there's a give and take to that yeah yeah, and it depends it.

Jason:

You know I racing is an old engine it was. You know they're. They've been building on it. They've been developing things which I'm going to get into. It took them so long to add rain to the game because of the engine. The engine is from 2008. We're talking over a decade long of an engine. There's not really many titles out there other than RBR, which I can cover. Rbr in a different segment, a different episode, which I'm getting into more and more. And it's the same concept. It's like I'm here for the driving, I'm not here for things to look pretty. I mean they can look pretty. If I want things to look pretty, I'll in acc or the regular ac. Those games are beautiful, you can mod them and you can have your experience. Or even ams2. Ams2 is another beautiful graphical game that's nice and polished and even looks great in vr. But rain is the newest thing that just came out, I believe in the last major update, you know, for 2024. That is the new thing. It's it's rain and it's crazy. It's crazy.

Jeff:

It's the most realistic rain that I've ever seen like, when they released the rain, everybody lost their mind. That does ICC or, excuse me, does iRacing? And you're like guys, it's 2024 and they released rain. You know, it was just. It's just funny, right? Just think about it. Yeah, it's rain.

Jason:

The thing, the thing that made it intense, bro, is that a lot of Sims can show you rain droplets and stuff like that. What made this, what made it so realistic, was that your line is wrong in the rain, and what I mean by that is you cannot drive on the race line in the rain. It's too slippery, there's no grip, so you want to get off the race line slightly off the race line to find grip, and then, if you're behind someone, dude, you can look up videos the way the water splashes on top of your windshield and you can't see a damn thing. Can't see a damn thing. And they have official events that are just rain, and they have one on the North Slather, eric. So just think about that, yeah.

Jason:

Pouring rain in a freaking Audi. I was in the Audi R8 just banging out turns and slipping and sliding all the way for about a 13-minute lap.

Jeff:

What did your incidents look like on that one?

Jason:

Man, I don't know man, it was racking up like crazy man, but that's, that's pretty much. Um, that pretty much sums up. I racing, uh, if I could just add.

Jeff:

You know one more thing? Yeah, sure I was. I was more or less, I think I was intimidated about getting in there and actually racing another human being, um. So I kind of stayed in my comfort zone with ACC F123, 24. Now you can race other people in those. But for whatever reason, jason constantly pushed me to iRacing and then suddenly I was like, ah, let me jump in there and see what this thing's all about. And boy man, how long have I been doing this? Nine months, 10 months, and here I am finally in iRacing. So if you're thinking about it, go give it a. Go, give it a try. It's a lot of fun. It's absolutely a lot of fun. So I just want to throw that in there, jason just give it a plug there?

Jason:

No for sure, man. I mean I'm glad that you're enjoying it, because just because ACC is cool, it doesn't mean that it's going to be the main title for you. So you know what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to give you options to see where do you want to put your time into the most, because that's my problem. My problem is I like all kinds of Sims and I can't be a master of one because I play them all. So if you're an F1 guy and f124 did not satisfy, which we spoke about, then your best bet is to jump into iRacing.

Jason:

Yes, it's more expensive, I understand that it's got a mouse though it's got a mouse and it's got some previous episodes, we'll know what we're talking about and you would never think that an f4 car would impress you because it's a slower car, but it but it's so intense.

Jason:

Wait until you come up to the way, until you start climbing and and buying different cars, you're gonna appreciate it more because it's like okay, well, now the options are open to me. I can go and race in the D class or the C class or the B class. Now you have more stuff that you can race in and improve your I rating, which your I rating is kind of like your I racing rating. It's your skill level, if you may, and then you have your safety. Both of those things can still be improved, even if you're racing in a class that's not really you, no more.

Jason:

If you're a B class, if you're a B license holder, there's nothing wrong with going down to rookies. I've been trying to tell Jeff to send me an invite so that I can race with him, and he's been telling me nah, man, you don't want to come down to these slow cars. And I was like, dude, you don't understand. It's like it's not about the car being slow, it's about the skill level, because there's other players in there that are probably higher skilled than me Just because I have a um license rating doesn't limit me to uh a challenge. You know what I mean yeah.

Jeff:

So I do catch myself looking up at the at the leaderboard and I'm like, oh, he's a c class in front of me. Maybe I don't want to dive, take the inside line on him or something in here.

Jason:

So yeah it is nice to know who you're racing against too it is nice to know who you're racing against too, Right? So that covers iRacing and we have one more segment Unless Eric, do you have any other questions for iRacing? Because, you're a console guy and iRacing is not available on console?

Erick:

Yeah, my only other curiosity was is there multi-class racing?

Jason:

Yes, there is Okay, there is.

Jeff:

Is it VR compatible? Say again Is it VR compatible?

Jason:

It's probably the best VR you're going to get on PC.

Jason:

Oh, yes, it's very light too. It's a very light vr. What I mean by light is you don't need a high-powered graphics card to run that in vr now. It's a great experience. However, it's not a gt7 vr.

Jason:

If that's, what, is that what? If that's what you're asking, you know graphically, but we're talking about the driving and the feel, and they just upgraded the game to be compatible. It has 360 hertz of force feedback. Okay, acc is the only one that I've seen. That's over 400. When it comes to um fidelity, but you need to have a base that supports that and I believe, as it stands, I believe semicube is the only one that's pushing out that much uh fidelity currently. So they're working on bringing that to more uh open. They're open sourcing it. You know what I mean. But because semicube is a partner and because fanatec is a partner both of those are partners they kind of get the rights to that first. But if there's no more questions about iRacing, I'm going to hand this over to Jeff to cover some further FIA updates that have been running, been running about the the net. Yeah, so, jeff yeah, absolutely so.

Jeff:

Let me give. Uh, I said, ever, told everybody. I try to keep them in the loop with what's happening with these, uh, f1, uh 26 updates that it comes to the new car. Um, so, for first, starting with, let me take a step back. You're're having what I'm trying to.

Jeff:

What I'm seeing here is you're seeing the racers, the drivers, that are saying one thing about how they think and how they think the car is going to do when it comes to racing and handling. And then you have the engineers, the ones that are responsible for building and tweaking the car to squeeze every little bit of speed they can and out of performance, out of it. And the drivers are saying the car has some potential in it. And the engineers are saying these, these things that you want to do to a car and what you're telling us, what we're going to get out of performance. It's not like it's impossible to achieve this. So I think that you potentially going to see maybe the FIA go back and forth a little bit with the teams when it comes to hey, these are the things we want to do. Understand that you know a lot of the team engineers are saying that's a lot of it to do with aerodynamics and the power unit. I'm saying it's just not realistic. But I'm not going to dig into that Cause I'm not an engineer background, can't explain, can't understand what I'm reading when they're talking about it. But I will talk about a little bit of updated from what the drivers are saying. Max Verstappen from Red Bull is saying that the team's made some pretty good progress in the simulator, simulating the new updates from the car and that the lap times are relative to the current cars and that depends on a little bit of the track dependence, weather et cetera. But they're getting pretty close to the current setup, which is very interesting.

Jeff:

You have Nico Hulkenberg that added. It looks like a lot less downforce, especially in the high speed corners. So straightaways, the drivers are fully anticipating going faster and I'll get into a point, what George Russell said. But I think you're going to see a lot more, a lot faster cars in the straightaway but the corners are going to be slower than where they are now and that's just. That's a cold, hard fact of less downforce.

Jeff:

The uh, the grand prix drivers association director, um, from the drivers, but anyways, he said, uh, safety is going to be an issue because they're anticipating going quote unquote 230 miles an hour on the straights and that's something the fia is going to have to keep an eye on. That's quote unquote. So 200, I think it's in perspective. Now they're hitting. I think the fastest time they've had this year is maybe 210 down the straightaway, maybe 210. But that's peaking, that's like peak speed. This is 230.

Jeff:

But he also goes on to say that they believe that they're potentially, with the new battery, could potentially run out of power mid-straightaway. So they don't think that they're going to sustain that speed as long straight away. So they don't think that they're going to be sustained that that speed as long. But, um, a lot of people are just kind of saying understand, we're going to be going potentially faster, but is the racing going to be better because of the less downforce? Um, as we're going around the corners, you, it's physics. I'm not a, you know, a physics dude, but I can understand that less downforce, slower corners, it is what it is. So we kind of see. I'll keep everybody in the loop. That's the updates when it comes to some of the new regs and arguments and back and forth over the drivers, engineers and the FIA. You have a little bit of a triangle there of power and try to influence. So you guys have any questions that I can maybe try to answer or clarify.

Jason:

No, I mean those are interesting. No, no, well thanks. Or clarify no, I mean those are interesting, no, no, well, thanks, eric um, but no, those are interesting. Keep those coming, because things will continue to unfold as as time goes by. Right, I mean regulations, things change all the time. So but, hearing the changes myself, I just us as the fan we're not going to understand until those come about. And I'm pretty sure the teams will find a way, because they will always find a way to make, maybe tune the car different you know what I mean Around the corners, or drop a drop a different engine map while they're in, while they're, you know, building different engine maps while they're coming out of the corner.

Jeff:

The straights are coolest. The top speeds don't get me wrong is cool, but the corners and when you see a car go from you know 200 miles an hour to 60 in like a second and then back up to 150. That's why you watch f1, it's for the. I like the cornering and the acceleration, the g's on these guys. I don't need a higher top speed in the corner. I want to see or excuse me, on the straights. I want to see faster corners. Give me more downforce, less top end. I'd be happy with that.

Jason:

The technical aspect of the racing, I agree.

Jason:

I enjoy racing, in my opinion, yeah, I enjoy racing in the rain. The rain just flips everything on its head and it's kind of like all right, boys, it's not about the car, no more. It's about the skills and who can manage the car and the skills. And if you guys been watching the races recently, you will see that the man that's winning Verstappen. You put him on a wet track and it's not the case. You know what I mean. It's just not the case. It's a different style. So I believe that what they're trying to do is reinvent the wheel, if you may, and try to get rid of the same anonymous thing If you have the fastest car, you will win, blah, blah, blah. So I mean same loop, just different generation, same thing. So thank you for those updates. I appreciate those. Those are awesome. Those updates, I appreciate those, those are awesome. And I I keep them coming, man, because we're gonna see them change and we're gonna see some radical changes here soon, because I know mercedes just picked up a new driver.

Jeff:

Uh for 25 things are happening.

Jason:

Yeah, he's a rookie, he's an f2.

Jeff:

He's an f2 guy right I think, yeah, they, uh, they, uh, kimmy, they, yeah, kimi. They lobbied the F1 to lower the age restrictions for a super license, so I think it was 17. I think they lowered it to 17 for Max when he came in and now for Kimi it's down to 16. Can you imagine being a 16-year-old and driving an F1 car on the circuit? Not saying he's getting the Mercedes seat, that Lewis is moving, not saying that Because I still got my fingers crossed for sites, but uh, can you imagine being 16 years old and driving f1 car that?

Jeff:

is I don't know how many million dollar freaking car oh you trusted this 16 year old to carry out and, and, and you know can't even drive on the streets, and he's driving, you know, in the most competitive racing in the world yeah, that's, that's wild I think it's wild because, yeah, go ahead, because you know, at 16 I don't think the male body is fully developed at 16.

Jason:

You know what I mean, like your muscles, your joints and all that stuff. So if you get into a wreck you could potentially be damaged permanently, you know. So, yeah, that's interesting, you know.

Jeff:

Yeah, I don't care how big the guy is yeah, ferrari had that uh uh beam beam and bremen uh fill in for sites when he had his you know he had to get that surgery, emergency surgery, and I think he was like 17 or 18, I think he was a senior in high school. I remember seeing monday he had to go into class after the race could you? Imagine that I mean you know how much? Street cred you'll be dude you'll be instantly became the coolest kid in class.

Jason:

Come on driving a ferrari and f1 dang all the girls after him guaranteed so without. I mean, yeah, we'll see how things unfold. 25 is going to be an interesting year for F1.

Jeff:

I mean yeah, I mean my Mercedes close to tighten it up. Man, they're getting faster every week. Here we come, baby making a run at it.

Jason:

I hope so.

Jeff:

It's been a tough. It's been a tough like year and a half man.

Jason:

Yeah, it's a tough year and a half. I know what you know they're on the rebound. On the rebound. All right, guys, that's going to wrap this up. That's going to wrap up our episode for this week. I'm pretty sure we touched on all topics and, of course, send us a message if you have any specific question about anything that we've covered so far. So I'll do the round table. I'm pretty sure, mr Eric Kelly or Jeff Smart, anything else you guys want to add to the episode before we read this.

Jeff:

Nothing here, nothing man. Great Great Hanging out and chatting with you guys again, and everybody drive fast and break late. There it is, I'm waiting for it. That's what I'm waiting for Drive fast and break late.

Jason:

There it is. I'm waiting for it. That's what I'm waiting for.

Jeff:

Drive fast and break late.

Jason:

Eric, we need to find something for you. Mine is just everybody. Just thank you. Thank you for listening. So it is an absolute pleasure to come on here and to talk about these things and help out the community. You can check me out on Twitch. I'm on there every Tuesday, Thursday, sometimes Wednesdays. Sometimes I'll throw in a surprise stream. The other day I was streaming a taxi cab sim, just so you wouldn't have to buy it. I bought the game. I actually ended up liking it.

Jeff:

Go check him out. He's got good stuff going, he's a really good driver. He's got a really cool sim you can check it out and he can drive the hell out of some cars I appreciate it, jeff, I appreciate it, and mr and mr eric kelly as well.

Jason:

He's the tech gent and, um, he puts out, he puts out content from time to time. I'm trying to tell him hey, you need to get back on there, bro.

Jeff:

So but, he when he does put something out.

Jason:

When he does put videos together, they're amazing. They're in full detail Quality's. There it's Harry Kelly Can't expect anything less from him.

Erick:

I appreciate that man.

Jason:

So well, guys, it was fun and we just hit the 50 minutes, so this is by far the longest episode. So with that, everyone stay safe, and thank you so much for your time today, both of you and to all our listeners. Have a great start of your week, thank you.

People on this episode

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Jason Rivera

Host
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Erick Kelly

Co-host
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Jeff Smart

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