Welcome to a comprehensive review of iRacing, we will cover
some history, membership and a few other areas of this unique MMO. If you are a
fan of racing games for the console or the PC you probably have heard of
iRacing. If you have never heard of iRacing and think it is some new product
from Apple, stick around.
Let’s start with a little history about me (your humble
reviewer) and iRacing as a company. I have been an avid simracer since the
original GranTurismo for PS1. I made the jump to iRacing in late 2010 and
haven’t looked back. I was always a casual race fan but iRacing has made a huge
motorsports fan particularly sports car racing. To me being able to watch
Ferrari’s and Porsche’s and Corvette’s go head to head is amazing. iRacing was founded in 2004 by Dave Kaemmer
previous co-founder of Papyrus Design Group and John Henry of the Boston Red
Sox (Henry loves simracing). It was launched in August of 2008. It was named
the best racing game ever by PC Gamer. The service is based out Bedford, MA
with additional servers in Europe and Australia for customers in those
countries. iRacing currently has over 45,000 members worldwide and races take
place 24/7/365. More on that in a little bit. iRacing is also a way for real racers to
practice their craft and learn new tracks before taking on the real thing. Race
cars and track time don’t come cheap!
iRacing is a membership based MMO. AI does not exist in iRacing, when you jump on
track with other cars you are racing another human somewhere on the planet. The
person could be down the street from you or on the other side of spaceship
Earth. Memberships can be purchased on a
Ok, that sounds good what about the prices you ask?
Currently iRacing is running a special for new members only and it looks something
like this: 1 month $6, 3 months $15, 1 year $49.50 and two years $89.50. That
is currently half of the normal pricing. Once you have joined you have
immediate access to 7 cars and 10 tracks. There is a large choosing of other
cars and tracks that are priced per item. Additional cars are $11.95 and tracks
are either $11.95 or $14.95 depending on the track. One quick note about this, every car and
track is done to finite detail. Each track has been laser scanned and is
accurate to 1mm. I have experienced this personally at Lime Rock Park in
northwestern Connecticut. After hundreds of laps in iRacing I had the pleasure
of going around the track in a Mazda MX-5 race car and each bump I felt in the
iRacing translated to what I felt in the real car. You will also need a wheel
and pedals those can be had quite cheaply about $75 all the way to VERY
expensive at $4000+.
There are over 60 tracks in iRacing with more on the way.
World famous Monza and Imola in Italy were announced recently and the community
is very excited about their arrival! There are also over 30 cars in iRacing
from the Mazda MX-5 to the new Ford Fusion NASCAR. Mostly recently iRacing
added the Ruf (pronounced Roof) RT12R. This car is based on the Porsche 911 and
due to licensing iRacing did what they almost never do and made a compromise.
It might not say Porsche on the badge but it sure drvies like one! iRacing does
strive to provide a racing experience for everyone. Many people feel iRacing is
too expensive to get started; they feel as if they need to buy everything NOW!
While I understand this sentiment and I may have thought the same thing at
first, this system works. The cars you receive as a new member is more than
enough to get you on the road (pun not intended but intended).
iRacing works best as a big picture simulator, due to the
high fidelity tracks, cars and physics it takes time to become a fast racer.
Just like in prison there is always someone tougher than you there is always
someone faster than you on the track and practice does make perfect. If you
prefer road racing the MX-5 is the place to start learning. You could go and
buy the Corvette C6R or the Williams F1 car but I can almost guarantee you will
hate it as a new racer and become frustrated. If you prefer turning left the Ford
Legends and Street Stock is where you will want to go. iRacing itself does not
have a goal like GranTurismo in which you slave away to earn licenses to be
able to buy better cars to earn more money to buy more cars, etc. iRacing is
more like a virtual racing career. Each member starts as a rookie with the cars
and tracks mentioned above. As you become a better and safer racer (this is
very important) you will earn a promotion out of the rookie class to D class.
iRacing has a safety rating (SR) system that counts the number of incidents per
race. For example dropping your wheels off the pavement is 1 incident (1x),
running into another racer is counted as 4 incidents (4x). These are tallied up
at the end of the race and too many will have your SR drop but a clean race
will see your SR rise to the point of promotion to the next license class. This
is a no-fault system whereby even if you are rear ended you will still receive
incidents. While new racers tend to dislike this system, and for experienced
racers it can be just as frustrating, it is the fairest way to attempt to keep
the racing clean and by and large is does work. iRacing could not have live
admins due to the amount of races that take place day and night worldwide.
To that point above there is a protest system in place for
intentional wrecking and abusive language. iRacing is geared to be a family
friendly service and while racing tends to get the blood flowing name calling
and foul language is not tolerated either on voice or text chat. iRacing keeps
a template on their home page to file a protest against another driver should
their actions warrant it. There is very clear documentation on what constitutes
a protest and how to file one.
License ratings are split between the road and oval side.
You do not have to participate in both. Licenses are ranked: Rookie, D, C, B,
A, Pro. Each license allows the ability to race with specific cars designated
for that license. For example on the oval side should you want to race the Ford
Fusion NASCAR an oval ‘A’ License is mandatory. The Pro license does not gain
you access to any other cars or tracks but has its own series that usually is
broadcast on the net with full commentators.
iRacing official races require at least 6 racers for the
Rookie series and 8 for all others. Everything is centralized in one location
in your browser so you can see how many have joined a particular race at a
certain time. Races go off at least once an hour; some are spaced further apart
depending on the series. Races take at least 20 minutes and the higher road and
oval races can take up to an hour.
iRacing has 4 seasons throughout the year each lasting 12 weeks with the 13th week being a week where new updates and content is deployed and it allows the year to be divided neatly not to mention after 12 weeks of hard racing and practice a week off is welcomed! You do not have to participate in all 12 weeks but if you do participate in 8 weeks in any one season iRacing will give you a $5 credit that can be used toward content or membership. Track selection typically runs the same for two seasons; this allows people to not have to buy new tracks for the upcoming season if they do not already own them. iRacing also supports lots of private league racing so for those that would like a specific type of racing there is most likely a league out there for you. Members will also run onetime events: a good example is a very popular road racing endurance series where the races are up to 3 hours in length. I am currently running in a European road racing championship that is 4 weeks in length. One race every Wednesday, races are 90 minutes in length, with all the tracks being in Europe.
iRacing has 4 seasons throughout the year each lasting 12 weeks with the 13th week being a week where new updates and content is deployed and it allows the year to be divided neatly not to mention after 12 weeks of hard racing and practice a week off is welcomed! You do not have to participate in all 12 weeks but if you do participate in 8 weeks in any one season iRacing will give you a $5 credit that can be used toward content or membership. Track selection typically runs the same for two seasons; this allows people to not have to buy new tracks for the upcoming season if they do not already own them. iRacing also supports lots of private league racing so for those that would like a specific type of racing there is most likely a league out there for you. Members will also run onetime events: a good example is a very popular road racing endurance series where the races are up to 3 hours in length. I am currently running in a European road racing championship that is 4 weeks in length. One race every Wednesday, races are 90 minutes in length, with all the tracks being in Europe.
iRacing is also a place where you will make new friends,
it’s a little hard not to when you have that many like-minded people gathering
in one place. I even made friends with a Canadians fan which is very difficult
when you are a die-hard Bruins fan.
In closing I will leave with you a bullet list of likes and
don’t likes about the service. Overall I rank iRacing a 9/10. I hope you have
found this overview to be helpful and you will consider joining iRacing in the
very near future!
What I Do Not Like About iRacing
·
The lack of day/night transitions, NASCAR will
often start a race a little before sunset and go into the darkness. iRacing
needs this feature. Lack of weather, racing in the rain isn’t a
whole lot of fun but the idea that it could
rain would add some more dynamics to league racing. However, cloud
cover/temperature changes/fog is available and that makes for different
challenges.
Intimidation factor: iRacing can be daunting for
simracers coming over from GranTurismo or Forza. This includes the pricing
model. Lack of low speed grip: iRacing is continually
working on improvements especially with the tire model for each car and the
math involved would make Will Hunting cry in his cereal. Some cars do not
handle well at lower speeds and this can be frustrating when your car does a
low speed spin.
Lack of participation: It’s Saturday morning and
you have an hour or so before the ‘honey-do’ list begins. You jump on iRacing,
register for a race and…..only 1 or two others join. While this doesn’t happen
very often to me it is frustrating. I’m not saying I want AI but GranTurismo
never turned me down for a race. The forums: A lot of information can be found
there, but so can troll behavior. Mostly it is good.
What I Like About iRacing
· Strong community: the forums are full of people
that can answer your question about video cards, wheel upgrades the whole lot.
No set goal: I believe that my length of
membership is due to the fact there is no goal to reach. If for one season I
want to concentrate on the NASCAR Nationwide Series car I can do that.
·
Officially sanctioned races: iRacing has
partnerships with NASCAR and other series. iRacing will follow the full NASCAR
schedule for 2014 so each week when your favorite driver is at Phoenixor
Martinsville or New Hampshire Motor Speedway you have the chance to race that
same track.
·
Customizing your hardware: I started racing at a
computer desk with an office chair (nothing wrong with that many fast racers do
the very same) and now have a custom built PVC rig with a homemade triple
monitor mount with a real race car seat. Part of the fun is building this stuff
to suit your needs.
·
Updates that come at least 4 times per year. New
content, updated graphics and new features that improve the service. It’s
almost like a continually evolving beta test phase and I mean that in the best
way possible. As long as iRacing is around the product will always be evolving
which is awesome because real racing is a nothing if not constant change.
