Academy Sim Racing

Thursday Night Lights week one: close racing, contact, and one big spin. Full highlights.

Our new Thursday night league kicked off with a full field of Porsche Cup cars and it did not disappoint, side by side battles, a couple of incidents, and a spin that cost a driver the position.

Racing is fixed setups with a 2k iRating split, so it stays close all night, home or in the lounge.

Come race with us Thursdays: Academy Sim Racing in Tampa. academysim.com

iRacing's September update just dropped, and it's a big one.

Three new cars (one of them free), two Caterhams built for pack racing, and full reworks on
both MX-5s. Here's everything that's coming.

Which car are you most excited to try? Drop it in the comments.

Risk is always better than regret. Sixty-eight cuts in thirteen seconds, and every one of them is a corner somebody actually committed to.

The Nordschleife, Sebring, Fuji, the Red Bull Ring, Super Formula over the mountain at Bathurst, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, Brands, a dirt oval and a NASCAR short oval under lights.

The risk is real. The consequence is a lap, not a season. That is the whole argument for doing it here first.

Which corner do you still lift in? Everyone has one, and everyone knows which one it is.

Academy Sim Racing in Tampa, $40/hr. academysim.com

our wheelbase should be the last thing you upgrade, not the first. Most people get this backwards.

The most asked question I get is what to upgrade first on a sim rig. Here is the order, and it is probably not the one you were planning.

One, the cockpit. Always extruded aluminium. It is the most versatile and the most rigid thing you can build on, and I would not go below a 40 by 120 profile. The thinner profiles work, but they start to flex once you hang a stronger wheelbase and a proper set of load cell pedals off them. Build it once at 120 and you will likely never touch it again.

Two, the pedals. If you are not on load cell pedals yet, that is your next purchase, full stop. They keep getting cheaper. A solid set runs anywhere from $150 to $300 now and there are a lot of good options.

Three, the wheelbase, and here is where people overspend. About 90% of drivers run six to ten newton meters. You do not need 25, 30 or 40. You will feel a bit more detail up there, sure, but the fall off is brutal and that detail is not what makes you fast.

We have pro sim racers who will absolutely dog walk people on an eight newton meter base, $200 load cell pedals, a 32 to 34 inch monitor and a decent cockpit. That really is all you need. If you cannot be fast on that, adding to it will not make you faster.

Start small and work your way up.

Want a list of load cell pedal sets worth buying? Say so in the comments and I will put one together.

Come try both ends of it before you spend anything: Academy Sim Racing in Tampa. $25 for 30 minutes Fri and Sat, or $40/hr Sun through Thu. academysim.com

Drop your car build in the comments. We will go first.

Ours is the 350Z, NASA TT3, and this is Sebring on a February afternoon.

Now show us yours. Track car, street build, project on jack stands, does not matter. Post a
picture below.

One 30 minute race is worth three to four hours of solo practice. That is why you are stuck.

I hear the same thing constantly: "I'm not ready for an online race." With that mentality you will never be ready, because practice is not the thing that makes you ready.

You can only get so fast on your own. In practice it is you versus you. There is no benchmark, nobody to chase, just you in your own head telling yourself to go faster. In a race there are people ahead of you taking different lines and braking at different points, and everybody has enough competitiveness in them that you naturally keep finding more pace.

And the part nobody tells you: every sim racing title is built for newbies at the bottom. Low licences put you against people at your own skill level. People will go off the track at that level. That is the point. That is the learning phase, and your racecraft levels up on its own while you are in it.

Practice a little. Do not obsess over it. Just enter the race.

Somewhere to do it with a proper rig under you: Academy Sim Racing in Tampa. $25 for 30 minutes Fri and Sat, or $40/hr Sun through Thu. academysim.com

New iRacing league starting September 3.

Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. 6 rounds. Thursday nights. Qualifying 7:30 PM ET, green flag 8:00 PM ET, 1 hour races.

New this season we're running Pro and Am classes. Everyone races on the same grid, but Pro and Am score separate championships, so you're racing people at your own pace instead of chasing the fast guys all night.

Schedule:
Sep 3 Road Atlanta
Sep 10 Barcelona
Sep 17 Nürburgring GP
Sep 24 Zandvoort
Oct 1 Road America
Oct 8 Phillip Island

Best 5 of 6 count, so you can miss a week or throw out a bad race.

$20 to enter. Race from home on your own iRacing account, or in person at our sim lounge in Tampa.

Prizes for the Pro champion, the Am champion, Hard Charger (most positions gained over the season) and an attendance drawing. You don't have to win races to walk away with something.

Sign up: academysim.com/products/leagues
Discord: discord.gg/hBsHWYx9cV

Beginners welcome. Post below if you have questions.

Every lobby has these two. The 911 on the Nordschleife, and the guy who brought a diesel Suburban to Sebring.

One is hunting a tenth. One is having the time of his life. Neither is wrong.

Which one are you? Settle it in the comments.

Both are available here, by the way. Academy Sim Racing in Tampa. $25 for 30 minutes Fri and Sat, or $40/hr Sun through Thu. academysim.com

Every lobby has these two. A Type R at Fuji chasing the perfect lap, and a diesel Suburban at Sebring.

One is hunting consistency. One is hunting a good time. Somehow they end up in the same session.

Which one are you? Settle it in the comments.

Both are available here, by the way. Academy Sim Racing in Tampa. $25 for 30 minutes Fri and Sat, or $40/hr Sun through Thu. academysim.com

You do not have to drive the whole lap to practise one corner. iRacing has an active reset point built in and almost nobody uses it.

You do not have to drive the whole lap to practise one corner. iRacing has an active reset point built in and almost nobody uses it.

You set a point on track, and one button drops you straight back to it. Miss the apex, tap the button, you are back at the braking zone ready to go again. No out lap. No four minutes of driving for ten seconds of practice.

It is buried in the menus, so here is the path:

Settings > Key Binds > Advanced Analysis > Active Reset
Save Start Point sets the spot you want to come back to
Reset to Start Point sends you there

One warning. Do not over obsess with it. I have shown people this feature and then watched them sit on one turn for hours. That is not the point. You want to get consistent enough to nail the corner, not to find the last tenth in one braking zone. Once it is repeatable, go and drive the whole lap again.

Somewhere to put the laps in: Academy Sim Racing in Tampa. $25 for 30 minutes Fri and Sat, or $40/hr Sun through Thu. academysim.com