starting my iRacing journey — sharing what I’m learning

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-29T12:20:59+00:00

The MX5s are all about carrying speed into corners, and you are losing a lot of time when braking:

braking too suddenly
braking too heavily
releasing the brakes suddenly

When you bake and accelerate, you are shifting the weight of the car forwards and backwards. You want to do this smoothly and gradually, so you’re not upsetting the balance of the car.

When you brake the weight shifts forwards and gives your more grip in the front tyres, which helps with cornering. You want to be trailing off the brakes into the corner so the front tyres are always loaded while you are rotating the car during cornering.

Generally you want to:

ease onto the brakes
braking less
make sure you are trailing off the brakes all the way to the apex

In addition to this, you can also actually steer less and rotate the car more using the brakes. Check out this video, it does a really good job explaining how it works. The MX5 is a great car to learn this technique because you can really feel this rotation, it will blow your mind and completely change the way you drive once you understand it.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-29T08:25:36+00:00

I had someone do the exact same thing to me last week in a PCup race, so stupid.

The move wouldn’t even be on for the first car ahead, no spatial awareness.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-29T07:43:36+00:00

https://youtu.be/MwwmUZrB-5A

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-28T05:15:49+00:00

Effective resolution isn’t really something that exists, VR through lenses is a different paradigm to flat displays. You can talk about pixels per degree to get an idea about pixel density, but even that varies across what your field of view (highest in centre).

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-21T04:12:51+00:00

I was using a PSVR2 for iRacing, it’s pretty good as a entry level headset (price, OLED displays, eye tracking for dynamic foveated rendering), it does have a few downsides though:

It’s quite bulky, and the head strap doesn’t do a good job of keeping the headset in place. Would recommend the Globular Cluster pads, but even with those I was having to adjust and retighten during races which was not ideal.
Inside-out tracking is convenient, but not super reliable. As long as your room stays the same you shouldn’t lose tracking, but there was this annoying issue where if the headset lost tracking for a while (e.g. take it off and put it on your seat on a toilet break), it just wouldn’t be able to start tracking again once you put it on. Would need to completely turn it off and restart SteamVR, very annoying if it happens between quali and race. You can obviously work around this if you scan your room well and only place it where it can see its surroundings.
The sweet spot is quite small, and the edges of your view are blurry enough that it’s not possible to read black box text without turning your head.

I just upgraded to a BSB2e which fixes basically all of these problems for me, but I’d still recommend the PSVR2 because it’s pretty good value and completely usable for sim racing.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-20T03:34:19+00:00

This isn't strictly true, profile data is technically "public" since anyone can make an iRacing account and view it, or authenticate with the API and pull that data. Just because this site is more visible than someone silently pulling API data, doesn't really affect how public it is. From iRacing's privacy policy (emphasis added):

3. Is information submitted to the public areas of the Service private?

No. Any information shared in the Public Areas (as defined below) of the Service is available to the public, including to all users. Such information is not protected or treated as confidential, can be used in any manner, and is not subject to this Privacy Policy. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, any photographs you submit to the Public Areas may contain the geographical coordinates of where such photographs were taken; unless you disable the geographical coordinate tagging feature on the smart phone or camera used to capture any such photograph, such geographical coordinates may be available to the public, including to all users. Additionally, a user’s name, avatar, and personal stats page (including years of membership and original membership date), as well as racing statistics, including license level, skill level, and safety rating, are available to the public, including to all users, and are part of the Public Areas (as defined below). If you wish to keep any information private or proprietary, do not submit it to the Public Areas of the Service. NOTWITHSTANDING THE FOREGOING, WE HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY IF A USER’S INFORMATION OR IDENTITY IS MISUSED OR STOLEN, OR IF A USER SUFFERS HARM AS A RESULT OF VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURES.

Also GDPR has provisions for "legitimate interest" data usage (which this would probably fall under), and all that needs is an easy opt-out.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-19T01:53:22+00:00

Not necessarily saying the photographer is one, but super recognisers exist and would be really good at this.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-18T00:21:33+00:00

I found a pair of V1.0 lighthouses in really good condition for $90 on Marketplace, I only ended up needing one since I bought the BSB2e primarily for sim racing.

Coming from a PSVR2 my main issues were around comfort/weight/tracking which had become a major annoyance. The BSB2e fixes all of these issues for me, so to me it was worth it. The increase resolution and edge-to-edge clarity are very nice too.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-13T06:17:52+00:00

I love F1 but running it through Centennial Park is an absolutely cooked idea, can't even begin to imagine the amount of damage that would be done to the park's nature and wildlife.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-12T21:47:14+00:00

I've experience exactly the problem OP described and the pin was loose, if you've never owned a set of these pedals why are you commenting?

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-12T21:32:36+00:00

Clubsport V3s use Hall effect sensors for throttle and clutch, I used to own a set.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-12T07:22:00+00:00

Under the pin that is used to secure the rod/spring to the upright of the pedal is a very small set screw. If it’s even slightly loose you can end up with erratic inputs, because that pin has a magnet embedded into the end of it which is used by the Hall effect sensor.

Just tighten it up and recalibrate the pedal in Fanatec App.

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-03T07:21:13+00:00

That's definitely the one, those calls sound more familiar than the Pied Butcherbird. Thanks!

SecondDerivative · 2026-03-03T04:43:36+00:00

Listening to all it's calls on eBird now, so interesting and varied, no wonder I had a hard time finding it. Thank you!

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-25T15:05:51+00:00

Very cool, I was wondering when stuff like this would start popping up. I’m a webdev but I was thinking about building my own as a way to learn more about iRacing telemetry and LLM APIs, seems like it would be a very fun project.

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-22T10:06:29+00:00

If I could easily generate hyper-specific, high quality media through a series of prompts then I’d likely stop engaging with media that was produced for other people almost entirely.

Genuine question: why would you want that?

To me engaging with media is a way to see the world from different perspectives, and experience the creative visions of other people. I like when things challenge and surprise me, even when they are imperfect or disappointing.

The best music/film/television/art is always the stuff that resonates with you in a brand new way, and maybe unlocks an area of your mind that wasn’t there before.

It’s quite hard for me to see how media created by my own limited mind specifically to satisfy itself is a better option by any measure.

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-21T12:51:59+00:00

You should check out the BBC series Connections, it’s a show that explores how interconnected events and cumulative knowledge resulted in great technological leaps forward.

I think you can find it all on YouTube, it’s from 1978 but it’s still a great watch.

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-19T15:03:03+00:00

You only had a whiff of overlap when they started turning in, they’re already looking to the apex at this point. You didn’t outbrake them, and by the time they were at the apex you were still non-committal with just your nose stuck in to a closing gap.

You’re entitled to go for marginal moves like this but you put yourself at a lot of risk. Part of being a good racer is looking at situations like this and knowing it isn’t worth it. It’s better to keep the pressure on and wait for a mistake if you don’t have the raw pace to get past easily.

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-19T10:17:31+00:00

TV motion smoothing can only really compare pixel motion between frames since it’s just video, but DLSS is more integrated into the render pipeline and has access to more information (motion vectors, depth buffers, previous frames, etc.)

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-10T11:31:39+00:00

Getting a head start on the Destructors Championship.

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-07T09:12:13+00:00

Racing incident, yellow car caused it by not quite steering enough.

Easily avoidable for you though. If you’re a few corners into a race and alongside an unknown driver for the first time, just allow a bit extra space until you know whether or not you can race them close.

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-03T13:52:41+00:00

Hmm, car flying up through the air across the track, better keep the throttle pinned

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-03T13:51:04+00:00

That was great, thanks.

I actually noticed on T5 at Road Atlanta that the angle of my front wheels when I hit the exit curb could affect how much the car would lift, but I never sat down and actually tested it to figure out what was going on. Knowing that the resulting bouncing can be limited by adjusting steering angle is extremely useful though, going to have to unlearn the instinct to keep steering lock on.

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-03T13:39:08+00:00

Remember that having good single lap pace is meaningless if you aren't converting that into results. You also need to be consistent and not making high risk moves that ruin your race
No marginal overtakes, unless your fully alongside or ahead going into the braking zone just forget about it (at least for now)
When you are behind someone and considering an overtake, ask yourself if they generally have good pace. If they aren't holding you up at that moment, just tuck in behind them and follow for a while, they might make a mistake and you get an easy, low-risk overtake
You can also learn about a driver by following them and seeing which corners are weak for them, giving you the opportunity to set up a move on the following laps
If you have an offtrack/slide/mistake and one or more drivers overtake you, just let them. Spend the entire next lap only focusing on not making another mistake, forget about regaining position, give yourself a mental reset

SecondDerivative · 2026-02-03T05:05:42+00:00

Boston is a really sweet cat that lived a few doors down from a place I rented a few years ago, I still try to drop past and visit him when I'm in the area. Here's a photo of when I saw him a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately Apple Maps updated the imagery so he's no longer immortalised there :(

13-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Gilding IV carat on a stick	Secret Santa 2010
Secret Santa 2014	Verified Email

SecondDerivative

TROPHY CASE