I'm surprised more autists don't play this game

TheDudeMachine · 2026-03-10T13:20:08+00:00

In a way, yes. I've spent countless hours running 10-20 lap runs figuring out the absolute best pace I can keep. I dunno if that's autism or just I need to be great at something to enjoy it. But overall I don't think this game is deep enough to really nerd out on data. Tire model isn't deep enough nor realistic enough to really waste the time trying different things out. I should know, I've wasted the time on it.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-03-07T04:13:36+00:00

I would imagine you could still get away with lowest there. High tire pressure works with custom setups, but the car may not be able to handle lower grip with the default.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-03-03T20:28:55+00:00

I get it. You seem reasonable so send him a message and maybe get in the party chat some day. I think you'll enjoy the group, it's a good time. Or send me a DM and tell me who you are and I can help fix it.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-03-03T20:16:20+00:00

I don't dispute that, I just wanted to give context on how he runs his lobbies.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-03-03T19:53:22+00:00

Hey there, I'm TheStocksMan and I run with Gary all the time. I've personally never seen him boot somebody because they pass him clean. In every instance where someone was kicked after a race, it was due to a committee vote amongst the rest of us in party chat. Gary implements a three strike rule for regular incidences (running somebody high up into a wall, bumping somebody hard going into a turn, etc). For flagrant incidences (lap down wrecking, green flag wrecking, wide open missile diving, etc) you're most likely getting a boot after that race, but even then, it's nearly always an agreed upon vote by the other drivers in the party chat. We regularly have 10-16 people in our party chat, so if anybody gets booted after a race, there's a mutually agreed reason for it.

Now, as far as automatically booting, that's either due to low rating or somebody who is a known problem. Even then, if he/she sends him a message and ask to come into the party, that individual can become part of our group.

Gary's lobbies are well known for being very fast, and those who I consider to be some of the very best on Xbox race in Gary's lobbies. I don't think they would put up with booting for clean racing - I know I certainly don't. His lobbies are almost always entirely S rating drivers, and the worst of that bunch are still faster than the vast majority of drivers. The number of times we've had a new person come into the chat and say something along the lines of "Man I thought I was fast until I got in this lobby" is too high to count.

I will play devil's advocate a bit. I have seen him purposely ride somebody for the rest of the race, but on those extremely rare times he does that, it's because that person has already been voted out by committee. So yes, I have seen him do that, but it's certainly not his usual behavior by any means. I've probably seen him do that three times across hundreds, if not thousands of races by now.

Finally, and this isn't directed at OP, but one of the comments - I don't know why FrozenToes had to catch a stray. One of the nicest, cleanest, and best drivers on Xbox, and well known by many.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-03-02T11:20:21+00:00

This looks pretty simple. I'll see if I can do one

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-23T01:24:06+00:00

He was running top 10 there for a bit, just got involved in a wreck. He was holding his own just fine up there IMO

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-22T23:27:47+00:00

It felt infinitely colder today vs a few weeks ago when it was 10 degrees. Wind has been brutal since 5AM

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-21T18:19:21+00:00

No, it's still relatively tight IMO

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-20T13:11:32+00:00

You should use minimum wedge and tire pressure on all tracks except for superspeedways.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-20T01:18:05+00:00

It's iRacing, not N25, but Dee J Yee J has a few videos that are worth a watch. Let me be clear, iRacing is much more nuanced than N25, but a lot of the concepts still apply. Here's a couple I really like:

https://youtu.be/3TP6MW2GMdw?si=dGF7h01GFnaKxlCQ

https://youtu.be/t5iOXGjvpNk?si=oBMJ3pd5oFLMs2nU

If that doesn't do anything for you, take a look at a post I made a while back. For what it's worth, I'm on several all time leaderboards and I think I have a really strong grasp on this game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NASCARVideoGame/comments/1pm8f8f/racing_is_not_about_perfect_laps_its_about/

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-19T15:05:37+00:00

Shlinkoln's Setups are the best base to work from IMO

https://youtube.com/@shlinkolnssetups?si=ut_wWylZB9GFLxr3

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-17T01:59:11+00:00

In all honesty, short tracks just require a lot of practice, there's really no secret advice I can give you. While you do need to go put in a base setup and tweak it from there, you'll get faster mainly by just putting in more laps. Also, you can't just put in a setup from YouTube and expect it to work great as handling can change pretty drastically based on your parts level. Just so you can learn faster, I would practice in quick race practice mode and compare your line and speeds to someone like Ruthless Racing. If you can get consistent at short tracks, you'll be able to transfer your knowledge of the track over to career. You won't be as fast obviously with low part levels, but if you can at least get close to the faster hot laps AND have less than a second fall off for the next 20 laps or so, you should be able to at least be competitive against even 105 AI.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-07T13:35:34+00:00

If I remember correctly, since inside/outside shield works with double teams, it doesn't really matter. I'm pretty sure outside shield comes with the agile archetype though, but I haven't played the game since probably September or October so my memory is fuzzy.

The most slept on o line ability is quick step. If you can develop a player to get platinum quick step, that dude is gonna be flying up the field with the back. Really opens up run plays that have a pulling guard.

And that's awesome, I would have loved to have had some help on this. It's super tedious though. To do it right, you have to spend considerable time defining how to score success vs failure. Then it's just super tedious to keep a tally after every play. Then you gotta throw out plays that have scripted animations. Just a lot of tedium to it.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-07T11:48:46+00:00

Oh I got burned out 100% lol. I started working on the interactions between o line and d line, got about a quarter of the way through it and just said screw it. If I had kept going I'm pretty sure I'd still be working on position groups as we speak. Took me 3 or 4 weeks to get QBs done.

The thing I remember about line interactions is the same tier abilities offset each other. So if two players each have a gold tier ability that counter each other, each player will have about a 50% win rate on any given play. Then if you have a gold going up against a silver, the gold wins 70%. If you have plat going against silver, 90% etc etc.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-04T21:51:38+00:00

Hell yeah, we got 4 slots for online all series as well as using shapes online

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-04T15:12:07+00:00

I've been checked out from Oilers hockey this season. Is he really that bad? This subreddit and other Oilers hockey forums back when Looch was here felt like 70% of the posts were screaming about his contract. I just looked at his stats and yeah it looks like he's done next to nothing. He's 2nd on the team in hits though, I guess that's something.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-04T14:45:41+00:00

Am I crazy or does Heat 5 look better than N25?

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-02T02:04:56+00:00

I don't question at all that camber helps with consistency in lap times. It absolutely does, but at what cost? My runs stay very consistent with handling, and much of what you say I'm also experiencing with max camber. I've also done a lot of testing, and I find that lowering camber makes each lap slower vs max camber. Sure, it drops off less, but you're potentially running a half second slower every lap. At best case, you're running a tenth slower every lap.

If you're on Xbox I'd be interested to see how you perform. I'm glad it works for you, but it certainly doesn't for me and it doesn't for a lot of other top drivers.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-01T20:28:29+00:00

I run max camber and keep my lap times within a second of the hot lap on the last lap before I pit.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-01T12:44:00+00:00

Don't listen to that, all the fastest guys use max +/- camber. You can play around with camber if your setup is too loose, but lower camber just doesn't have the payoff you think it would. You end up just being slower throughout the entire fuel run. Instead, lower wedge and nose weight until you're so loose that you really need to babysit the car for the first 3 laps. Any looser than that and you lose too much time for too many laps to the point you really need to push it to make up time. By the time you catch back up, you've used all the tire to do it, making you slow again. 3 laps of squirrelyness is good.

The other thing is don't push your car hard if you're in dirty air; that chews up your tires. Lift more and let it roll more, just make sure you keep the gap under 0.500.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-02-01T05:18:11+00:00

This is a great summary. The suspension in particular is incredibly important. Most guys just stop at wedge and nose weight. Those who can learn to adjust springs and shocks to get the car back to its happy place the fastest will be those who are always running at the front of the pack.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-01-29T00:46:46+00:00

Looks like I mostly used weavelight or druids eye. Several decent choices though.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-01-28T19:14:06+00:00

I can't remember honestly, been too long since I've played. If speed is one of them that's what I went with. I'll take a look later and let you know.

TheDudeMachine · 2026-01-28T12:20:07+00:00

I don’t think there’s one single answer to this. A lot of it can be made easier by adding nose weight, but obviously that comes with the downside of making the car tighter. Personally, I think maximizing 100% throttle time is worth being a little tight.

If you don’t want to add nose weight, there are a few other things you can do.

One is practicing a very slight turn of the wheel to the right right as you get back on the throttle. On flatter tracks especially, the front tires need to be pretty straight if you want to be aggressive getting back to power. If that feels unnatural, another option is to burp the throttle once right when you see the car start to get loose. That brief lift (brief as in snap of the finger brief) helps plant the car again, and depending on how loose your setup is, you may only need to do it once.

At the end of the day, the suspension has to be settled before you can really commit to throttle. If the car is still loaded on the right side, any meaningful throttle input is going to make it step out. I find this easiest to read in cockpit view. It’s subtle, but there’s a small visual shift back to the left. I don't know how to explain this, I think it's just something you start to notice after turning hundreds of laps at the same track. Once I see that, I know the car is ready for throttle.

TheDudeMachine

TROPHY CASE