Hey All,

Like usual, I’ve written a short article sharing my thoughts and experience on a given topic in sim racing. My goal with these articles ultimately is to help give people a bit more information about the hobby we all love, while also hopefully making for an interesting read.

If you don't know me, I'm Tom, and I've been working full-time for the last two years on a sim racing coaching business, so my thoughts in this mini essay draw on the 700+ hours of coaching I’ve done in those 2 years. Just to say that the thoughts I’m sharing here aren't pulled from nowhere, but come from everything I’ve seen during my time coaching drivers of all ability levels.

How to Know if you’re Braking TOO Late

When you are trying to find lap time, it is the natural instinct of 95% of drivers to try and brake later, because... well, braking later means going faster, right? This notion that the way to find lap time is to brake later is the myth I want to dispel in this article. But of course, there are instances where braking later will make you faster, so I also want to give you the tools to recognise when braking later helps your lap time, vs when braking later hurts your lap time.

Why Braking later feels Faster

The main reason why braking later feels faster is that our intuition on what feels fast isn't quite aligned with what actually is fast. Instead, what feels fast is more accurately described as being “more on the limit”. When we brake later, and really have to hustle the car through the rest of the corner as a result, we necessarily have to handle the car being more on (or over) the limit of grip, and as a consequence, it feels faster. We pushed the car harder, so that must be faster?
But in reality, pushing the braking later necessarily compromises corner exit. If you take a look at the visualisation in the video, you can see that the comparison (blue) brakes earlier, and is naturally slower on entry. The red car points to the apex, lengthening the straight line braking zone, allowing them to brake later and gain 2 tenths on entry, but by the exit of the corner, blue has gained that time back, and will continue to increase their advantage down the next straight. It would be easy to look at corner entry in isolation, and assume that the red approach is faster, if only they had done a better job on corner exit, but we can’t isolate corner entry. Braking later will be faster, until it compromises your approach through the remainder of the corner.

How to Know If You're Braking Too Late

As soon as you hurt your exit as a result of braking later, that is a clear sign that you have pushed the braking too far. There are 3 common ways that late braking can compromise your exit, and knowing they exist will allow you to recognise when you’re braking too late.

1. When your braking forces you to take an early apex
2. When your braking forces you to point your car to the apex (as shown in the video)
3. When your braking makes it impossible for you to be consistently on the limit throughout the whole corner

If any of these three are true, then it is likely that you are trying to brake too late. If you find yourself falling into the trap of pushing the braking point later and later, then the reframe you want to use is this;

Brake as late as possible, while making sure that you aren't braking so late that you’re not in control of placing the car exactly where you want to through the corner.

if anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to respond to any questions in the comments. As always, thanks for the support on these mini articles, and if you know of someone who would benefit from this article, sharing it with them would be greatly appreciated :).

I'll include a couple of links if anyone wants to check them out, but I'm happy to remove them if it goes against self promotion rules.

PerfectLap: 3D Telemetry Analysis Tool (from the video above)

Noakesy Coaching: 1-on-1 Coaching and Online Courses

Cheers
Tom
Noakesy Coaching

Looking at upgrading from my 32” to a 49” widescreen, has anyone done so? How’s the experience, and what’s the viewing angles like?

Ultimately just want to be a bit more immersed and see a car to the side of me when wheel to wheel racing. I understand triples would obviously be better, but I don’t have the space and they’re too much for what I’m after. How does a 49” widescreen go in iRacing?

First P1 in Porsche Cup, spun it by myself into a wall 5 turns in, towed & repaired, black flagged with a 4x on pit exit as someone crashed and crossed into the pit exit, towed/repaired, back out and on first lap my son (he's very young) comes over and accidentally tabs me out of the game and crashes me out fully.

Tldr; pain ted talk

So over the last week and a half, Ive lost about 350 irating and demoted a licence, from A to B at spa (F4 and SFL). At first I would get titled when I crashed, I started to lost both irating and safety rating and that only served to make me more annoyed. But then I read up on reddit and watched a few videos and came to a revelation.... its all my fault, car crashed and didn't hold it's brakes leading to a crash? my fault. Car behind me missed its braking point and takes my rear wing? My fault I could've predicted that based on its speed. This mindset change help me see clearer and find the cause of all my incidents, the common denominator.... me, it even help me go all the way back to the root cause, why in the world was I racing at spa😭

I know this isn't the right reddit, but the right reddit is pretty much inactive, but where did the iracing arcade updates go?

Hey everyone! I promise this isn't an AI Slop app, although it might be Human Slop...

I wanted to share a quick project I threw together and make it public if anyone else wants to use it. It's a stint calculator that allows you to change regulations easily based on what series you're running.

2 things before I start:

1. I know there are websites and apps that do this already. However, as an engineer, I want to be able to understand the inner workings of the planner and make changes as the race progresses, and enjoy the planning of setting everything up myself.
2. This isn't entirely my work. The stint planner section of the sheet I found online, and full props goes to u/Crispy.iRacing on YouTube. I could've done it myself but it would've taken a lot longer otherwise. I took his work and changed around the user interface for the current and future seasons. I used the original calculator for the Rolex 24 and it stayed accurate to within 5-15 minutes by in game sunrise when I had to go to bed with no changes mid race.

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I'll write a brief explanation of how each page works, and if there's interest I'll post a YouTube video explaining everything in more detail. CHANGE ONLY VALUES IN RED OR AS DROPDOWNS, the sheet can break otherwise.

"Stint Tracker" - This page is the primary calculator and will take fuel and driver data to calculate stint laps, length, tire wear at end of stint, as well as tracking in sim and IRL time. When planning for the race, each driver can tick checkboxes of availability giving the team leader an easy way of scheduling drivers. You can change the number of tires being changed at each stop as well. The pit time and tire wear will reflect this. Again, shoutout to Crispy.iRacing for developing this masterpiece of a spreadsheet.

"Race Overview" - This is a simple page where you can select the race you want to do from a list of predefined Special Events on "Race List". You can also override the track, for instance if you're running GET with GP pits at Spa instead of endurance. All car and track references are pulled from their respective "___ Data" sheets. Included is a start time delayed based on warmup length, as well as an incident tracker to make sure you are within the "bonk" limit at any point during the race.

"Race List" - This page as mentioned above contains all races you've run in the past or expect to run. Input the track name (This MUST match "Track Data" entries for vlookup() to work correctly), race length, in game start and more surrounding the race. I will be working on implementing compatibility with distance races rather than just timed races soon, but it requires another level of development

"Car Data " and "Track Data" - Both of these sheets control pit stop times and fuel calculations. Input time for tires as well as the max fuel tank size of the car you wish to drive. On the track page, input the time lost in pits, solely by driving through without stopping (As if you were serving a drive through). The data here is not updated, I suggest you do your own testing to confirm these values. There is a VERIFIED column on each to check if cars/ tracks are up to date.

"Drivers" and "Driver Specific Performance" - Here you can list all drivers as well as their time zones if you race with others across the globe. The "Stint Tracker" page will show local time for each. Make sure that the lists in both are identical or it will cause issues. You can also add specific values for each driver. For example, if you have a 4k and a 2k driver on your team, they will have different stint times and this can adjust for that. There is also a toggle for Time Of Day adjustments, ensuring nighttime running is faster on average than daytime.

"Fuel and Stint Calcs" - On this page, input average push lap fuel, and saving fuel as well as the average lap times for each. Best way to get these values is by running a stint of each, and pulling data from G61. Input the worst tire wear on each corner as well as the number of laps done and the stint calculator is all set! The last part is a qualifying fuel calculator to estimate the amount of fuel required as well as time required.

"Optimal Race Plan" - Last but not least, I included a planner that attempts to optimize fuel saving strategies. This makes numerous assumptions, including that you take tires every stint, however it provides a baseline to hone in the race plan with the fully fledged "Stint Tracker". This pulls data from the push laps listed in "Fuel and Stints Calcs", showing the required fuel per lap target to hit. Run laps hitting that target and input the time lost. The green check will show you the optimal stint length to play with.

"BoP Comparison" - Almost forgot but there's 1 last page that shows what cars are the biggest losers and winners in every BoP cycle. Nothing special.

Link - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17A1tOEv-xVTL_OxLCasDqC2GHec8zfDWdBN_dxw60uo/edit?usp=sharing

This is our second league event with the Euro NASCAR, and it turned Milwaukee in an extremely great racing track. The car allows for contact unlike any of the stockcars in the service, perfect for short track racing, and turns out even flat miles are fun.

I'm relatively bad, my best lap is a 2:08 in a Corvette GT3. If anyone is willing to team up for one of the last 2 timeslots that would be cool. I also have an AMG GT3 if the willing person doesn't have a Corvette. As long as you don't crash and stack up incidents pace doesn't really matter.

I race a fair amount of AI for the practice and honing of clean/close/aggressive driving and I've found the right setting of AI skill that allows me to adjust the setting a click or two either way depending on where I want to be running. Question is, I guess, how quickly does adaptive ai adjust and where does it place itself in relation to you? Any other quirks it has? Obviously I should just do it and answer my own question but I'm interested to hear other's experience with it...

As per title - halfway through a race, my brake P-HPR started constantly vibrating and did not stop until I killed the power to the pedals (continued vibrating after race end and even quit the session). The 'Vibrate Pedals' is unticked in iRacing and I'm using SimHub, with all effects disabled in SimPro and only using gear change and ABS in SimHub.

Any ideas?

All three incidents happened within just 6 races.

1. Wrecking attempt:

Context:
I’m the blue car.
It’s the last lap.
The white car was P1, but got spun a few laps earlier.
He has 2.7k iRating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7PvRRagwV4

My verdict: To me, his line makes no sense unless the goal is to push me into the wall. I protested it as intentional (attempted) wrecking instead of block because, in my opinion, I was just lucky that the push didn’t send me straight into the wall.

iRacing verdict: “After reviewing the replay, we understand your frustration, but we do not feel that the accident was caused intentionally or with malice.”

So, if I understand correctly, if this is not punished, does that mean it is allowed?

2. Blocking:

Context:
I’m the blue car, and I decide to defend the middle of the track.
He still tries the inside, so I leave him enough space to go through on the inside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0hY7thqODk

My verdict: If there had been no contact with my car, the red car would not have been able to make the corner without ending up in the grass.

To avoid any contact, my only option would have been to follow him straight into the grass.

The contact was a 0x, allowed the red car to overtake me, made me lose two positions, and damaged my car and aero, which heavily reduced the fun of the race for me. So I protested it for blocking.

iRacing verdict: “After reviewing the replay, we understand your frustration, but we do not feel that the accident was caused intentionally or with malice.”

So, if I understand correctly, neither the Safety Rating system nor the iRacing stewards consider this move illegal.

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So what is the point of racing if, to stop a faster car from passing, you can just push them into the grass?
What is the point if, to overtake someone defending their corner, you can just brake too late, force contact, and not get punished?

If it is not punished, then it is basically allowed.

To test how effective a system is, you have to test it at its limits.

If tomorrow we ALL started following “iRacing rules” — not the Sporting Code, but what the stewards actually allow without punishment

-- What would the races look like? --

They want to increase the subscription price? OK, but I want clean races that are properly enforced according to the Sporting Code! Or you will really understand my frustrutation in your monthly income review.

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Bonus video:

Context:
Last lap.
The yellow car is under blue flags.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8LHrUauE4M

Hello everyone.

I am looking for fellow F4 drivers or a Discord group to join. I live in Nevada on Pacific Time, and my schedule is very flexible for racing throughout the afternoon and early evening.

I recently started iRacing. My Formula iRating is 996. My main focus is on safe, clean driving while I learn the tracks and build my speed. I am happy to race any track.

Please reply if you have an open spot.

I recently setup my first rig. These photos are from day-1.
In the meantime, I've adjusted FOV, wheel, screen distance et.

that there's literally nothing free in D class for sports and formula this week except only gr86, either the car or the tracks are paid. I started a few days ago and graduated out of rookies in sports and formula, was expecting trying something new.

I guess that's the norm?

What's a very cheap progression you can suggest other than sticking to mx5/ff1600 for the whole season? Like idk, "this series has a lot of free tracks in it, just get this car and you're okay."

I'm sorry if this kind of post has been posted a billion times before.

I set up a nice HUD for VR but the problem is, the UI hotkey only brings up the pedal/gear telemetry box. How can I hotkey the entire HUD on and off mid-race?

I know shift K brings up the menu to edit it, but what about a hotkey just to see it?

I bought a new PC a year ago and I wasn't playing iRacing much until I got the bug. For the last 11 months I have been soooo disappointed with the 9070xt and 7800x3d. So much so that I bought a 5080 and 9800x3d for a new build. I was having dramatic drops in fps especially at the race starts and particularly in sports cars, it was an absolute nightmare. BUT... a month ago I noticed that the game was running amazingly well, I thought it was me lol with the clever settings in Adrenaline, however I found out it was a major update with the AMD software. Now I have most settings on high with triple 32 inch screens and getting easily 120fps even at race starts. Now Im wondering if I should just sell the 5080 and save some money 💰. Has anyone else had the same type of experiences??

Trying out itested this week to see the new multiclass start procedure when i realized every race Ive joined doesnt show any lmps or gtps, am i doing something wrong/havent done my research?

I've been trying to grind my license up to C class and was wondering what I can do to find races with only the content that I own. Is there some kind of filter?

Anyone know what overlay pack this is?
It looks really close to NASCAR on TV.
Any ideas?

Getting started in Spec Racer Ford Challenge and trying to find races that have more participants, when I noticed that the averages in the series insights are way off. At 9:45 am they show an average of 13 drivers and there were 2. I understand an outlier session could skew the average but this is consistently way off.

There are a couple of sessions that have like 6-9 here and there but generally they all have 1-2 drivers, or 0 and the session isn't in the results tab.

Qualified 8th and got hit by a turn 1 champion, but the car wasn’t too damaged.

Rejoined the race from the back and was having a good time passing all the snails trying to make the most of the situation. Pulled off the most satisfying lunge up the inside to reclaim a position that was taken from me while avoiding a crash.

Then, Poland’s finest showed up with a state of the art rejoin to end it all. The show goes on.

New to the game and im tryna buy the new porsche cup. what are some good tracks to buy to go along with it?