Creating a guide for (sim)Racing

[Rouke]

An idea was born to collect ideas, experience and knowledge and then merging it all together in one main guide.

We are all simracers with our own background and experience and seeing the recent posts about this it is maybe indeed time to just do it.
Lets try to create a simracers guide with which we collect essential data, basic knowledge, advanced techniques and whatnot.

First and foremost for Legends members by Legends members. over the course of the years we have seen people handing out many tips and tricks, over and over again. members are helping eachother out behind the scene's allot as well. Instead we should be pointing at this guide, taking anyone by the hand into whichever level of simracing is needed or desired or fixing common problems.


My own idea's about this are fairly simple:

• In this thread we first try to determine what we want to add
  Then we start to collect the good stuff from members, we could even use sources from the web (no need to re-invent the wheel)
  We discuss whatever we want
  Then the guide gets created. either on the website or using the wiki.

In my opinion such a guide would start with asuming the reader doesn't know anything about driving techniques. so we start with the basics.
And then using a chapter or tree-system we spread out to the more advanced topics.
If this guide becomes anything worth while reading/refering to, i would like to suggest we keep it about general racing techniques for the main guide and seperate sections for specific sims/mods/whatever.


In my experience of helping people with simracing, less is better. a 100 page essay why slow in/fast out is the best way is not effective, people just stop reading after the first 23 pages. (says the man whom is currently writing a bigass post)
Moreover, graphical examples like pictures often do a much better job explaining what we mean.


So lets see where this will take us. Everyone can chip in and please leave your championship desires for the future at the doorstep. your own special techniques that you asume no1 else knows about should be in this guide as well!

Fire away!


http://legends-league.com/wiki/RacingGuide

[Rouke]

Ok so what do we think that should be covered?

Lets talk topics first. i will update this posts with your suggestions as they come in.


From the top of my head:

• Topics:
  * Basic driving techniques
  * Moving into advanced driving techniques (which will probably spread out in seperate sections)
  
  * A chapter about how to setup a car (not sim specific)
  
  * The psychology behind racing (dealing with pressure, keeping the birdseye view, how to intimidate others, whay concentration is so important/etc.)
  
  * Hardware (wheels/pedals/seats/etc)
  
  * A Motec specific chapter (explaining how it works and what can be done with it)

We dont have to create everything ourselfes, we can also simply link to existing guides but as mentioned, huge guides with pages and pages of text might not be very efficient. we could even use portions of guides and link to them anyways (also to protect IP)

If you have any interesting guides to offer please post them up.

a few simple examples:
Hosted on our own site, the GTR2 and Universal Set Up Guide http://legends-league.com/twfr/index.ph ... info&id=17
http://legends-league.com/wiki/LegendsRaceEtiquette
http://legends-league.com/wiki/RFactor
can all come in handy at one point or another.


What other topics should be covered?

[Leo]

A daunting task, Sir. Here's a bit from me, and it's not even close to 23 pages:

If you don't see the car behind in your mirror anymore, you must assume he's next to you. Don't try to defend your line by making a clever move, BECAUSE HE CAN'T SEE YOU EITHER! Just stick to 'your' side of the track and hope he has read this bit as well and will stick to his half. It's the only way to survive in simracing, for BOTH cars.

[Rouke]

Thx Leo!
I will add it to the guide.



Guy's ive created a wiki-version for the guide.
So far just things i could think off, that seemed logical to me.

Each item in any of the list is suposed to become a link to a single wiki-pake or a link to something external.
anything can be added/removed, both chapter-items or chapters themselfes.

The formatting of the wiki is limited of course but i dont think we need anything fancy anyways. i might add some graphical stuff in the future to make it abit more attractive.
If you are interested in becomming an editor as well let me know (in principle any legends member is an editor btw)

If you have articles you want to add please post them in this thread and we will both work out the best way to add it to the wiki.
If you have example's like pictures etc i need to upload them so best to attach them here or link to them. (of course original content is prefered, we will not be hotlinking from other websites)

I've created the first article today about slow in/fast out.
let me know what you think of it and dont hesitate to comment. and yes, grammar prolly needs adjusting


http://legends-league.com/wiki/RacingGuide

[MarioW]

I'm reading, reading. Planning what to write, looks great rouke!

[Sulla Looming]

I'm usually well into exit speeds because i like exiting turns hard on the power because it's fun. However it always depends on what's after that exit. I'm talking about speed on the straight....sometimes the straight preceding the corner. Ok we go for the fast exit because if we leave a corner a couple of mph quicker we maintain that extra speed to some extent for the length of the straight that follows. However if the straight after the turn isn't very big the return for the faster exit decreases, basically we maintain that extra few mph for a much shorter time. It can therefore sometimes be better to 'lengthen' the straight before the corner by braking as late as possible, which may mean we have a slower exit speed from the turn but we lose less in that than we gained by staying flat out for that fraction longer on the preceeding straight.

A slightly screwy example would be T1 Monza in the last TWF1 race, your exit speed means nothing out of the first part of that chicane, it's far more important to brake as late as possible, screw the corner up in classical terms, have terrible exit speed and sort yourself out for the second part where exit speed becomes very important. In effect the straight between the 2 parts of the chicane, or is it the 2 chicanes, is so small that exit speed means little. Like i said that's a screwy example but even if you stretched that bit imbetween to a 100m the straight before the 1st part is still more important.

How much extra speed can you gain through better exits....5 mph ? Whereas braking kills speed so very quick that you may be traveling for a short period at 10, 15, 20, 50 mph faster even. It's only gonna be for a short period but if you don't maintain the 5mph advantage gained through a better exit for long enough to overcome that...if the straight after is long enough though you will be better with the fast exit.

There is some good stuff written by Senna about this, i'll go looking I'll just type it out here as it's a book i got

[MarioW]

You are right on most parts there Sulla. But its not only the top speed you get on the next straight, but the length you are on more speed.

It is sort of what you mean with the brake late approach, but starting when you exit the turn. Monza first chicane is a good example for the screw up in between. But also for the exit speed. You need to exit that second bit very good because there's straight, straight and more straight after that.

In and ideal world the ideal line, is the ideal line. But in most cases you loose a lot less time when you brake a bit early and nail the apex and corner exit. Because if you mess up the entry, everything else gets messed up too, the line, the apex, the exit and the next straight.
But if you give just a little on entry you gain on all of these. And things get easyer, you leave yourself more room to breath and the car will do what you want.

And we should clarify we mean break a tad early, like 10m or maybe 20m sometimes. Not much more, not 100m.

It adds up, and for racing its the way to go. On a qualifier i try to do all 100%. But i need usually several trys to get one really good lap that way. In a race i leave myself a small margin, and so get more consistency and less accidents. well usually anyway

[Sulla Looming]

No not really what i meant.

To get on the power earlier you hae to 'straighten' the exit somewhat, what i'd call making a late apex, meaning you hit the inside part of the track later. Some people call making an earlier apex because the apex to them is the mid point of the corner regardless of how that relates to to the actual track. Either way if you look at the late apex approach you should be braking later, i think i missed this bit out, and braking more because the first part of the corner is actually slower and tighter so that the exit can open up as you get on the throttle earlier.

When i said about lengthening the straight prior to the corner you have to brake less and hopefully later but the main difference is that you carry as much speed as you can into the turn and yes that messes up the exit somewhat but not that you nearly crash or have to save the car but you are not making a late apex in order to get a better exit speed. You have gained more by braking less and carrying more speed through the corner than you will gain on a short straight after it. All depends on the relative lengths of the straights before or after the turn.

T1 at Monza was a screwy example because there is no straight between the 2 sections of that chicane. It is in a way 2 chicanes placed next to each other but the rule still applys. The faster people tend to brake late for it and carry a lot of speed through the initial part of the chicane and their slow exit speed from that initial part of the chicane doesn't matter because the next part is right upon them. Now that 2nd part has priority in many respects and that is why it was a screwy example. We sacrafice the first part in order to get the 2nd part spot on in terms of exit speed.

A better example would be a short straight going into a fast right leading into a slow left that is followed by a long straight. In that exaple you would sacrifice the exit of the fast right in order to get a good line for the slow left that would optimise your exit speed. You need that exit speed to make best use of the long straight. Now if we swapped the corners around the same would still apply, we sacrifice the slow left to give us the best line around the fast right because that leads onto the long straight etc.

If we however swapped the straights around then it's different. Coming off the long straight into the fast right we would take a more natural line around the fast turn carrying as much speed as possible through it, the higher entry speed requiring less braking. This would mean we do not have a good line for the slow left but the exit from that turn doesn't matter as much because it is only a short straight or lets say that the slow left is infact just the begining of a series of slow turns. It doesn't have to be fast into slow, it could be 2 slow turns, the same applies.

I've found the book but it's more confusing than me ! So i'm working on it

[MarioW]

I think i get it now.

[Rouke]

Thx guys. i've added the bit about braking earlyer Mario.

Sulla:
slightly screwy example would be T1 Monza in the last TWF1 race, your exit speed means nothing out of the first part of that chicane, it's far more important to brake as late as possible, screw the corner up in classical terms, have terrible exit speed and sort yourself out for the second part where exit speed becomes very important. In effect the straight between the 2 parts of the chicane, or is it the 2 chicanes, is so small that exit speed means little. Like i said that's a screwy example but even if you stretched that bit imbetween to a 100m the straight before the 1st part is still more important.

This is allready in the article Sulla, its at the bottom under 'additionally'.
If the wording is not right or it could be better explained just shout.


For the majority of other stuff mentioned i think most of them belong in the yet to be created article about ideal lines. This would be a much more extensive article which will go abit deeper into it all then the slow in/fast out article.
or at least thats my thought process atm
i will go through the comments again and try to see which ones belong in wich article. or you can just point them out to me.

[Rouke]

A few things to add:

If anyone want to do an article or is allready preparing for one, please let us know. no sence in having multiple people doing the same thing in the background.

And if anyone wants something to be added (like Frank did in another thread) please post your request here as well.

[Jaka Ursic]

This is starting to look very good, nice read, keep the topics coming.

[Rouke]

Track Knowledge article has been added: http://legends-league.com/wiki/TrackKnowledge


Once again, from the top of my head, just using my experience. if for some reason i got it wrong, or its unreadable or whatever, just shout and it will get altered untill we are happy with it.


Done two articles now and it struck me how i want to just add more and more stuff into an article. stuff that will be covered in other articles.
so restraint is key i think, for example in the TrackKnowledge article i mention setups for a while but we will also having a seperate setup-article so i limited it to what it says now.
i dont mind some things get repeated, some info is important enough to keep saying but we (i) should try to avoid going off-topic too much in any given article.

[MarioW]

Some spelling errors here and there, but i like the content very much, good work rouke.
i cringe only at surtain, its certain, and shoud, its should. My firefox marks those with the added english dictionary, easy as

To add to the track knowledge, i dont know how to login:
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It also an very good idea to test the pitting procedure, driving some laps then requesting a pit stop, and get into, to the pit stop place and out the pit lane as fast and safe as possible. Same goes for a drive through of the pits. This could be crucial in a race and will safe time.

Another thing to explorer on a track is the starting area, testing several starts from different positions helps for the race start. Some grids are in a turn, some go up or downhill, you know these things when you test them and don't get surprised.
Just drive an out lap (as pace lap), line up on the grid and try some practice starts.

Track knowledge should also included the Starting lights and pit lights. Where are they located? When does the pit light turn green, if you have to start from the pits.
In some sims it helps also to know where marshal flags are shown.

Some benefits can be take from driving a reasonable fast lap on the left and one on the right side of the track, this will help to have more knowledge in racing situations with other cars. Where can i brake late on the inside line, or where can i give easy and safe room to a car lapping myself.

This all is easily explored in test sessions, without the added tension of other people or an race start. rfactor allows one to test starts and race sessions with AI as dummies, its good to try those things!
It helps to know what will happen and focus on the main thing at hand, racing.
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i found the login button and my password, added this bit if thats ok.

[Sulla Looming]

I very much like what Mario just said about driving a few laps sticking to one side of the track, i do that and you do discover where inside / outside lines are just a no no. It's rehearsal isn't it. As i've said to certain people on many servers...there are no blue flags in practice, or atleast there shouldn't be, simply because it benefits everyone to practice everything. So a car leaves the pits infront of you on cold tyres and is slower etc etc and gets in your way....fine because that is practice for what can happen in the race for both drivers involved. Rehearsal.