A recurring theme with iRacing is that some offseason updates tend to all-out break how certain cars drive. Today is no exception as iRacing’s newest update appears to have given the NASCAR Sprint Cup cars copious amounts of grip, upsetting some of the best sim racers in the world.
Dillon Raffurty, the fifteenth best oval racer on iRacing, with 138 wins in 563 starts and a perfect safety rating has found that the Sprint Cup cars appear to be half a second faster at Michigan International Speedway for no apparent reason.
Both Ray Alfalla and PJ Stergios, two of the best overall drivers on iRacing, echo this performance change, and seem upset that the cars have been totally dumbed down.
Jesse Atchison, another fantastic oval driver sitting just outside the top 50 stock car drivers on iRacing, makes fun of former fixed setup builder for iRacing David Cater as being the culprit behind the performance change.
Wyatt Foster, an iRacing alien , revealed that it’s entirely possible this unexplainable gain in performance may be due to simple human error.
However, average joe Mitchell Lancaster comes along to praise the change in handling. Mitchell’s iRating, the iRacing version of ELO, is barely above the starting value of 1500 despite over 1200 starts.
Starting from scratch with a free dummy account via the Blancpain 2015 promotion, I was able to achieve the same iRating as Mitchell in five starts, where as his path to the same ranking took 1200+. In short, this is probably the last guy who should be giving feedback on how the cars drive compared to previous updates, because with a rating barely above what the game starts off your account with, there’s no way this dude has the skills needed to push the cars and discover physics oddities – probably why he doesn’t find anything wrong with how the cars handle.
This is common for iRacing – guys like Mitchell (sorry) don’t find anything wrong with how the game behaves, yet avid sim racers actively speak out about the broken physics.
Some of these avid sim racers happen to do this for a living away from the computer screen.
Gonna trust Mr. 1800 iRating guy when he says the cars drive fine? Probably not.
Wow. You devote half the entry to complain that a certain Mr Lancaster is a slow coach, therefore he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about and he’d better keep his mouth shut, because fast fellas, like a Mr Ogonoski, for instance, know better. You know, slow guys also have a right to express their opinions, which must obviously be a royal pain in the ass for you, and there really is no need to make such a fuss about it. If I were Mitchell, I’d probably punch you in your lightning fast face and told you to get a life.
BTW: When I raced in iRacing I was not much better than Mitchell in terms of rating, yet I was still able to find many faults with iR’s physics, changing wildly from one update to another. It was the main reason why I quit. I know now I shouldn’t have been able to feel absolutely anything and be happy with how it drove, coz I was too slow. Sorry!
You ought to devote your next entry to a certain Luca Badoer, he was sooooooo off the pace while substituting for Massa, and yet he was a Ferrarri test driver. Those Italians really must be dumb knobs for keeping him and not employing a certain Canadian smartass.
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It’s the “How do they know what they’re talking about?” syndrome.
You’ll see it today when Danica’s in the booth for the Nationwide race. Can’t take anything she says seriously because she’s hardly a world class driver.
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I agree with anon, its kinda weird you spent so much time putting down some random guy from the forum. No one’s ever heard of him, why even mention him at all? There are probably some other slow guys who /can/ tell when the physics are broke too.
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Wait, if Dale Jr said that the cars have glass tires before, isn’t it a good thing that they have more grip now? I’m not really sure what this post is about beyond mocking a random iRacing user who did nothing other than state his opinion.
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The reason feedback can’t be taken seriously from any driver under 2000 irating is cause you are no where near the limit of the physics and therefore have no clue what it does on the limit, especially since iracing tire model has made the NASCAR side of things so easy to drive its unacceptable to be more then a second off pace on an oval if you have any clue what you are doing. At the NPAS/DWC level there are so many setup exploits that are nowhere near realistic and is commonly why you hear high irating drivers bitching about iracing physics. They are nowhere close to realistic if you want a competitive setup. Yet even in fixed those drivers are capable of winning easily in high SOF races cause they understand the limitations of the physics in game. So ya a low irating driver can give feedback and be correct on somethings, but the fact is that anyone who praises iracing physics always tends to be 3000 ir or less and clearly has no idea what the limit actually is on the iRacing engine.
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As a mediocre driver, I very much enjoy the blog, but I do think your position regarding faster/slower driver commentary, at least insofar as realism, is fallacious, Similarly, your argument that Mr. Lancaster’s speed (and therefore his ability to drive his car of preference at its limits) can be determined from his iRating alone, is equally unconvincing. Finally, your inclusion of the Dale Jr. tweet is confusing, as it initially appears to counter your specific premise concerning S3 2015 build changes. After noting the tweet’s actual date, I assume S3 2014 build changes unrealistically lowered the car’s grip, which does make sense, but I imagine you understand my point.
If you’d like me to explain my arguments further, I’ll happily do so.
Nonetheless, I very much enjoy your writing style, and agree with the majority of your arguments. I’m a little surprised by your disenchantment with iRacing, but perhaps you’ll explore that in a later post. I also enjoy your genre histories (e.g. the recent monster truck game library), and hope you’ll continue with similar features.
Thanks for your efforts.
Michael Henke
BTW, although rookie iRatings are unpublished, road careers begin at 1350 (unnecessarily high, IMO). Perhaps oval careers differ, but you may want to check your facts.
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