Hey fellow Sim Racers, I'm quite new to sim racing, been playing racing games on controllers for years, but in a mid-life crisis moment I thought I should up my game and get a proper wheel and some pedals, I'm now the proud owner of a TX-XW wheelbase with a Sparco Wheel, and a some TC LM loadcell pedals, so far so good, made the mistake of starting with iRacing and the toxicity/elitism put me off, I've now discovered Raceroom from watching a few videos on Youtube, so jumped in and have enjoyed finishing towards the back of the field after few frustrating hours, if I want to improve I need to get some of the basics right, so I have a few questions; 1. I can't afford a cockpit, so my wheel/pedal are on a next level stand and I'm using my Office chair which is on wheels this has been a source of frustration and getting comfortable and being able to apply steady pressure on the pedal is seriously affecting performance, does anyone have any advice on how best get comforatable I'm 6ft 3in so quite a tall guy. 2. What makes good practice? Empty boxés video made me realize endlessly doing laps isn't the answer (it some it I guess) 3. Raceroom have leagues to enter, ranked racing is spot on but i'd like to focus on a series as I'm a beginner and learning 8 million tracks effectively not possible ( Rela life commitments don't help) Many thanks in advance!
If that's the video I think is, he meant that if you don't have a clear goal for your practice, you're wasting time. I wouldn't call it useless if you're doing "endless laps" in order to: 1) learn the track; 2) learn the car behaviour and get comfortable with it (or adjust the setup); or 3) work on your consistency.
Practice is invaluable. Try putting an audio-book on, pick a track you expect to go racing on, and within an hour you'll have it committed to memory. Don't worry about tinkering in the garage for the time being; unless you're supernatural the default setup will be much faster than you - and if you're anything like me you'll just break stuff
Hi Paul and welcome! I've been simracing for decades at a desk or table, a rig is nice but not required at all to enjoy your racing. For me, chairs with wheels don't work when you use pedals. You need a fixed chair and a fixed relationship between chair and pedals. For me, a little rug placed under the chair and pedal base, basically preventing them from moving relative to another does the trick nicely. In long races, I do end a bit rotated vs. the wheel, but the only thing I really can't stand is feeling the pedals moving and, for that, the rug is enough
You need to somehow attach the chair to the wheelstand, so the chair can't move backwards when pushing the pedals. Some kind of adjustable and non-flexible belt should do the trick. It's a cheap solution and adjustable to your height. I used a similar solution for quite some time. An office chair will still move a little bit, but being able to just slam the brakes without cramping to the steering wheel to keep everything in place makes a big difference. It might also be possible to exchange the wheels of you office chair with ones that have brakes. Depends on your chair though as not all office chair wheels have the same size attachments. And the brakes are only an addition to reduce small movements, not a solution by itself, since you will still push the chair around, even with the brakes on, as long as the chair is not attached to the wheelstand. Ah, and somehow wrapping the belt around two of the wheels instead of the central damper of the chair also further reduces movement. Also makes the attach-/detach-process easier. The belt can't be too wide in this case though.
I saw somewhere that someone put 2 of the office chair wheels into trainers or slippers, I can't remember which.
Before I had a rig, i used to drop the rear wheels into those plastic spray can tops and stick some grip tape onto the bottom of the tops. This type of stuff: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-Spot-...ild=1&keywords=grip+mat&qid=1627748723&sr=8-5
If you have room in your house, you can build a wooden rig with a used car seat for under 150€. Used playseat challenge can be had for cheap also and it is very comfortable. Learn by driving online with others, it just takes a bit of time.