iRacing worth the cost?

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[BowHunt3r]

I have been pondering joining iRacing.  Is it worth the cost?  I am not a fan of public servers for games like Race 07.  Some dumb ass always wants to take out the field in turn 1.  I want to learn the ropes of Sim racing without the headaches, but do not want to drop big bucks to race and have fun.

[rip|buzinator]

I'm still on the fence myself ... it definitely has a different overall attitude to it vs Race07. I think their system is basically quite good as far as weeding out griefers though.

Some items that have given me pause ...

 - No ability to glance backwards, only to the sides

 - Field of view, needs very special attention IMO, in order to achieve good situational awareness, especially when it comes to the mirrors.

 - Forced cockpit view, no hood or bumper cams.

 - A general sense that everything is being taken awfully seriously, can be intimidating, I was afraid to make a mistake for a long time and it made me hesitant to participate at all ... but eventually I loosened up.

 - Real Names ... no aliases to go by, it creates your account based on your credit card details. I can live with it, but some may object on privacy grounds. The response is of course that lack of anonymity keeps the racing cleaner.


Some guys here participate in iRacing community leagues that do look good. Perhaps they can chime in regarding the positives & benefits.

And of course you can always do a trial to see how it feels to you personally.

[Ezeon]

Buz brought up some good points to consider before signing up.

For me when I first signed up I wanted to progress through the license levels and race every week in an official race to see where I stand amongst all the other drivers. It is a rewarding experience as you become better and better as you go through each series. It does a great job at emulating how you might progress in a real life driving career. You start out in slower cars that are less challenging to drive but provide extremely close racing, and move up to cars that are harder to drive and harder to get fast times with. It takes a lot of commitment on your part to dedicate time to getting used to the car, then knocking your lap times down in practice, as well as getting used to driving close to other drivers and figuring out where they are.

Now I have taken a break from the official races because there is a whole other side to iRacing that is great, league racing. If you can find a league that fits your time schedule you will be running with the same racers every week, learning each-others driving style and competing on a much smaller scale than the thousands that run the official races. There's a huge variety of leagues out there for all skill levels. League races do not count towards your license level or rankings so there is less risk involved when you crash, ect.

Overall, you can get what you want from iRacing you just have to find your niche. Some people are die-hard openwheelers same for tin-tops, some people comepete in one series their whole iRacing career, some people jump around series each week, and some people are hardcore and go for the pro license levels where you can start earning real money, although its damn hard to do


There are promos running all the time so as a new member you can get free content or three months free when you sign up.

[BowHunt3r]

Thanks for the reply, more to think about.