So I finally bit the bullet this afternoon and signed up for my first ever iRace! I've been nervously pondering all week about racing with others partly because I've only had the service a week so I'm really not very good yet, I use a beat up PS3 controller not a wheel so precision isn't great and above all else I don't want to ruin anyone else's race and/or their ratings.
Building up to it I'd been running offline on the 13th Week Mazda Mx-5 tracks, ran as a Ghost Racer for a few laps in a couple of races yesterday, did some online practice sessions last night and today to see what it was like when people could see me and that went ok so I figure I'd give it a shot since I'm feeling fairly comfortable at Summit Point.
My main goal was to just stay alive til the end, I wasn't going to drive aggressively or try hard to take positions, I just wanted to get to the end of the race with as little fuss as possible and as it turns out that was THE best approach to take! I started in the pits and got on track right near the back of the 16 strong field and proceeded to drive from there, passed a few people that went off or were going slow from an off-track excursion, had a little back and forth with one driver though I was never comfortable trying to make an easy / safe pass so I backed off each time.
I finished 20 laps with only 6 incidents (1 time I slightly overshot a corner, the rest were just 2 wheels off track running a bit wide), had a best lap of 1'25.429 and was mostly in the 1'25/1'26s but best of all.. I finished 4th!!