Tips from most certainly not the master...

I thought I'd share my early life as a 'sim' racer. I say 'sim' as I race on a PS4 - which puts me in the Luddite category as far as the master race is concerned. That's fine, it's taken about 30seconds to read this far - time for you PC folks to do an upgrade, no need to read on.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my wisdom with a small "w". Some of it may be useful, some of it may be useful if you do the exact opposite...

Assumptions

• You've got a PS4
• You've got a wheel, pedals and a shifter
• You've got a few games, namely:
• Project Cars 2 - Plus the DLC
• Assetto Corsa - Plus the DLC
• Something Rally (WRC7, Dirt Rally, Seb Loeb, they're all dated and good)
• (Shudder) GT Sport
• You've got a ready supply of beer

Hero to Zero

It's highly unlikely you're Sir Stirling Moss - and if you are well you're unlikely to be an expert at sim racing.

You see the challenge is that what you do with the wheel relates to what's going on on the screen - and for some that takes an age to get right. Judging distances on a 2D television can be tricky to start with - and getting braking distances right is even harder.

If you're 'da'man then grab a 935, run it at 100% turbo and try any track with a few corners... go on, report back... 

But seriously, the feeling of speed is as artificial as the game, but it is there. And read on for tips on how to get up and running...

Initial setup

Assuming it's all new you'll have a few new gadgets to get sorted on. As such, when you start racing you'll have to adjust a load of things:

• In-game force feedback settings - default is OK. Games like PCars2 really benefit from some tailoring. Note this is per-game too!
• Potentially pedal/H pattern setup - you might have adjustable pedals. Certainly, all should be set up where you can reach them easily and if you can; at the right pressure.
• Steering wheel - I've found closer than I would normally have in a real car. Arms get tired racing all the time, and a bit more leverage is no bad thing.

Really it's worth putting in the effort. Not everyone likes the same thing. Personally, I like a lighter wheel that's more fidgety so basically like power steering. Others like a heavy wheel, probably reflecting the use of a more stable setup than me.

First drive
Pick a relatively slow car class, but a race car class. Also, pick a track you know that's not too long as a reference track.
The car - having something that handles well without too much power is a good thing, as you'll experience:

• PIO - Pilot Induced Oscillation (it's a thing). Basically, you'll overcorrect like mad at first.
• Outbraking yourself. Getting the corners right is the biggest pain!

My suggestion would be Assetto Corsa, MkII Escorts on Brands Hatch Short. Not only is this a reasonably challenging track for it's four or so corners. Also, the car revs like nothing else and has great traction (whilst being rear wheel drive!). There's a reason club racing is in slower stuff! 

Setup of cars in Assetto is finicky, I'd leave well alone for now.

In both Assetto & PCars2 I'd be setting the difficulty of the AI to low/easy. In PCars2 you can also set the aggressiveness to low too, not a bad idea, but be prepared for them to virtually stop on the corners.

Having a reference track is a good thing - different setups and cars can be tested here and you'll generally know it's the car not the track when testing. Brands is good as it has a longer version of the track for faster cars. And for sure, on a race night when you casually pick a GT3 car, it's for certain that the other racers have tested every car for handling and performance - probably on the track we're about to race... 

Race time

I'd be moving to PCars2 for this in fact. It's a better immersive race game, and a bit easier too (Go back to Assetto in time, the racing at Spa, for example, is amazing).  I'd say anything racing is good in PCars2, just needs practice.

Setup in PCars2 is worth a note, we set radiator openings smaller and generally shrink the brake cooling ducts to try and get some straight line benefit (I race with visual damage only normally). The other option to mess with is engine braking, setting that correctly is a huge benefit in PCars2.

There's also a lot of wheel settings to be had, as well as default button assignments etc. I think I have the right setup (for me!) and am always happy to share.

Be the driver!

I'd recommend using H pattern for all cars that have it, and paddles for sequential and of course paddle cars. Asseto will force that in any case if your H pattern is connected. 

In terms of driving ability, heel & toe is king in both games if you don't want to loop it on every bend. Trail braking is something I'm not good at yet and it probably would help. If you're using paddles then left foot braking will help a great deal into bends.

A mistake I made was always going from accelerator to brake, in fact the engine braking on some of these cars is far better than hatchback outright braking. 

Overall it's true you get out what you put in. If you race with traction & stability control on along with automatic gearbox it'll feel just like a Prius...

Having said this, leave ABS on, with no feedback in the pedal you'll be faster with it on initally. As you get into racing then look to turn off for a better racing experience.

Online

Get a good crew to take you through all of the above. My details are on the blog (PSN: andyc709292) and I'm happy to entertain new drivers to the group for sure. Beyond that, find a mate online who can help with the nuances of sim racing...

Do stay away from public lobbies for now. We tend to avoid, but on race nights of late we've taken to raiding a few rooms, with 3-4 of us in a race we can avoid total carnage. Basically... every lobby online is populated by kids or people acting like kids...

What was my last race?

Worth noting what I raced with a mate in the last race night as it sums up sim racing well.

The first race was 25 minutes of 24Hrs of Daytona. In a GroupC XJR-9. Evan fared better than me. But the whole overnight racing thing was exceptional.

The second race was Formula Ford at Cadwell Park Woodland. A super short race that couldn't have been more different to our previous 'enduro'. 

The last race of the night was the same Formula Fords at Long Beach for 10 laps with a mandatory stop. 

All most excellent races!