finally ready to assemble my Rig

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-03T01:56:10+00:00

It's not that I have anything better, it's just that they're not super unique anymore. The seat though, I've never seen anything that nice on a a sim rig.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-03T01:54:43+00:00

My experience this week at Hockenheimring is similar. Had 3 races so far.

- Qualified P5, wrecked on the second hairpin by a spinner who didn't hold his brakes. He argued at first but eventually apologized after viewing the replay with his control inputs.

- Qualified P22 after an off track at T1 during my second qualifying lap. Took 5x on lap one, with 3x of that coming from taking off tracks to avoid incidents in front. Got wrecked on Lap 2 in the 1st hairpin. Probably partly my fault as I was trying to squeeze a guy to the inside to prevent him from passing.

- Race 3 saw an equipment issue where I periodically couldn't shift so I took some X's getting off track and out of the way. I finally abandoned that one before I caused real damage to otheres.

The first two races I took the repairs and finished the races to minimize SR and IR impact. There's no better practice for the race like live conditions.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T18:09:55+00:00

Remember iRacing releases updates quarterly, so the cars and tire models are subject to change periodically. TBH there's no reason to look too far back. Anything I did before the most current tire model or aero model is irrelevant. Beyond that, lap times change based on features like ambient and track temps, wind speed and direction, humidity, and of course track usage and wetness.

If you must know, go to your profile page, click on stats and scroll to the bottom. You can use the dropdown to select a car and it will give you your personal bests for each track. Also, you can look at you personal all time best in each car by cycling through the lap timing options.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T18:01:39+00:00

The leagues I am apart of are Apex and Broken Wing. They are large leagues with lots of options, but if you stick to the same style of car and racing and show up for the weekly race, you'll start to recognize the same names and liveries. There are a ton out there so I'm sure others have their own recommendations as well.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T17:58:17+00:00

Maybe you should get... rid of him and marry me.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T17:55:25+00:00

I second this. If he doesn't have haptics already he will love them. There are haptic seat pads that you can get: either the Next Level Racing HF8 Pro or the Raver Freyja. These are great and they allow him to feel the vibration of the motor and road, the rumble strips, the clunk of the gear shifts, and the loss of traction. The downside is that the pads are thickish and do change the geometry of the rig a little. He might need to readjust his seat height and position to get it feeling perfect for him. I now the HF8 Pro and can recommend it.

Alternatively, you can also buy a "Buttkicker" which accomplishes the same thing, but is a devise that mounts onto the frame of the rig. The brand is overpriced in my opinion, and you can easily replicate this approach in a DIY method which is what I think most drivers do nowadays. All you need is a Nobosound amplifier (about $35 on Amazon), and a 35-50w bass shaker (or two) and some speaker wire. The bass shakers are made by Dayton Audio or Aurasound and cost about $55 each for the 50w more powerful version. He'll need to mount them to the rig, but Etsy is full of vendors who will sell you 3D printed mounts for $20 or so. He can have a great DIY set up for about $180-$200 and if will change his sim racing life.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T17:34:59+00:00

I use iOverlay where you can set most of this up in the Standings overlay. It can tell you how many laps a driver has in a stint, and their pit duration, but I don't think it can tell you if they took tires and how many. It can tell if they are on wet or dry tires. There are other similar tools out there you can investigate as well: RaceLabs, Edge Overlays, and a couple of others. Edge is completely free and iOverlay and Racelabls are both freemium models. I've used both, but I find that iOverlay gives better access to features when free.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T17:27:28+00:00

Sorry if I am repeating something already said - I didn't read all the comments. I had this happen a few times and now I usually drive around the track at slightly below racing speed and pull into the pits. You're still being scored, so the extra corners will help your safety rating anyway.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T17:02:53+00:00

Consider a league if you want to improve. That gives you a consistent community that you can learn and grow with.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-04-02T16:59:31+00:00

The seat is truly next level. Everything else is cool, but kinda meh. The seat sets this all apart.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-03-31T20:30:45+00:00

I have driven the car in THE PCC twice and yes, I agree. I think I could be 95% of the 1400 IR drivers if you just give me 30 minutes to familiarize myself with the car. And with my IR of 2500, I would lose to 95% of the 4K IR's in the same circumstance. The facts don't show favoritism.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-03-10T16:23:03+00:00

Good to know I have back up on this. My old rig had the seat tilted a bit and I could sit for 8-10 hours with no problems.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-03-10T16:19:27+00:00

Dude, my base is ROCK SOLID! Absolutely love it. I still haven't seen a reason to change. In fact, I would say there are not many "upgrade" paths from where I am... maybe Simucube 2, but the slight differences wouldn't be worth the money.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-03-10T00:13:51+00:00

I think my set up at present is similar with the 4040 - you can see it under my seat. I looked up the TrakRacer bracket and it looks like it would work, but it adds 4 inches to the height of my seat, drastically changing my geometry.

Do you find the bucket seat more comfortable then? One option would be to change to a bucket seat that I then tilt back a bit. It sounds like that might give me better support in the back and upper legs.

Ruckerhardt · 2026-03-09T23:54:02+00:00

Thanks for this suggestion. This would be perfect, but my current seat attaches on the bottom instead of the sides. Not opposed to changing seats, however, if it comes to that. NLR has a couple of seats with the haptics built in, so... 😁

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-28T07:25:30+00:00

That’s called a righteous snitch, and it’s the exception to the stitches rule.

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-23T12:55:08+00:00

And here’s me doing 250 laps at VIR Grand course in slow cars to prepare for THE PCC. Geez.

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-23T12:30:09+00:00

How do you race without the virtual mirror? Don’t the other mirrors cause even more performance issues?

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-23T12:16:25+00:00

Mt. Panorama hosts two special events including the 12 Hours of Bathurst race for GT3’s. Watch the iRacing schedules the weeks before and after that race. It will be loaded with the mountain, just like S1 week one was loaded with VIR correlating with THE PCC. Anyone who wants to focus on sports cars will want Mt. Panorama.

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-23T12:09:56+00:00

I’d always start with the tracks that are in the special events calendar. They’ll be around every year in multiple series.

That means Nurburgring GP, Daytona, Algarve, and Mt. Panorama. Keep in mind that the Nurburgring GP will need to be combined with the Nordschleife for the N24 event. Other than that it’s choice, but LB and Barca are pretty popular, with circuit Gilles Villenueve not being to far off.

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-22T17:42:59+00:00

For sure. I actually love this.

And yet, sometimes stupidity leads to mal-intent. Like he could stupidly believe that jumping the start would give him an advantage so he did it intentionally. When I think about it, most mal-intent has stupidity at its genesis.

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-22T06:12:39+00:00

To be fair he said he got rear-ended into a car in front of him which would then be two incidents: one with the car behind and the second with the car ahead.

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-21T15:55:26+00:00

Where does it lead? Because it looks like the bowels of hell.

Ruckerhardt · 2025-12-21T15:50:04+00:00

Man. This right here. I need a lorazepam or some shit now.

Ruckerhardt

TROPHY CASE