Sure, you could just head to a sim racing game center, and pay an hourly fee to use the racing setups there. But if you’re looking to race with comfort at your own house, and choose your own game and your own rig, try sim racing at home.
If you’re looking to get started with sim racing, you’ll need to choose a racing sport, the right game for that sport, and acquire the proper racing setup. We’ll cover all those ends in this article.
What Is Sim Racing?
Sim racing or simulation racing is a video game that simulates the real-life aspects of racing in the best way possible. Sim racing games utilize cutting-edge technologies to recreate the driving physics of the real world. Combined with devices such as a wheel, shifter, handbrake, racing seat, a massive display monitor, and more, sim racing can mimic racing to the point where it’s no different from real racing.
Sim racing has improved so much that even the F1 world champion Max Verstappen sim races for practice. With a good setup, sim racing can improve your real-life driving skills no matter if you’re a pro or an amateur.
Professional sim racers usually race on PC, as there are more sim racing games available on PC compared to consoles. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t sim race on a console. One of the best sim racing games, Assetto Corsa, is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
What Sim Racing Sports Should You Choose?
Just like real-life racing, there are many types of sim racing sports you can get into. Even though you are essentially racing a car in all of them, these sports drastically differ. Being a brilliant F1 driver doesn’t mean that you’re also a great rally driver.
Formula Racing: Racing with extremely fast open-wheeled formula cars. In F1 racing, you will often go as fast as 370 kilometers per hour. Formula racing takes place in special formula racing circuits. Going with such speed puts lots of stress on your car’s tires, and you’ll have to make pit stops to get new tires and get back in the race. Drift Racing: Drifting your car is the essence of this sport. In drift racing, you have to deliberately over steer and lose traction to drift the vehicle. These races have a judge-based system, where you earn points in every turn based on how well you drifted. Formula drift is one of the most famous tournaments, where you participate with high-powered cars built to drift. Rally Racing: Racing in rough terrain, with tough cars. Asphalt is one thing that rally cars rarely drive on—rally races take place on gravel roads or even on snow. These races have a point-to-point form where you race from the start to the finish, rather than lapping in a circuit. Aside from the primary driver, a co-driver sits on the passenger side to navigate, telling you where to turn and how hard to turn. Tour Racing: Racing with modified street cars. Teams soup up tour racing cars to withstand more stress and have a higher power output compared to their stock versions. Tour racing usually takes place in circuits, where you have to lap the circuit and finish first.
Of course, racing isn’t limited to the four sports mentioned here. There are many types of motor racing sports, with the ones mentioned being some of the most popular.
Which Sim Racing Games Are Best?
There’s a great variety of sim racing games for you to choose from. A determining factor here is the gaming platform you’re playing on (PC, Xbox, PS) and the racing sport that you want to play. Some of these games offer less realism than others but are still reasonably realistic for simulation racing.
Assetto Corsa: Assetto Corsa has one of the most realistic physics and even has annual championships with tempting prize pools. The title is available on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. Assetto Corsa has an avid community, which makes new mods for tracks and cars for public use. iRacing: Super realistic racing physics and cars. iRacing has a wide variety of manufacturer-approved cars, including streetcars, open-wheeled cars, and much more. The only thing about iRacing that you might not like is that it is subscription-based, and you have to pay extra money to buy additional cars. iRacing is available on PC. DiRT Rally 2. 0: The full rally simulation experience. This title has an awesome set of legendary cars that come with the base game, and some more that come with the DLC. DiRT Rally 2. 0 is available on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. rFactor 2: This is the simulation used by professional racing teams and NASCAR manufacturers. It comes with a limited number of cars and tracks on the base game, and you’ll need to pay extra money to buy more tracks and cars separately or in bundles. rFactor 2 also has a very active community, that adds new cars and track to the game as mods. rFactor 2 is available on PC. F1 2021: The official F1 game. This game has a story mode plot, along with other modes, and it features real-life circuits, cars, and teams. F1 2021 is available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5. Forza Motorsport 7: Forza Motorsport isn’t an absolute simulation game, but it has a fair sense of realism in its physics. The franchise is anticipating a make-over where it will have brand-new racing physics. Forza Motorsport 7 is available on PC, and Xbox One. The game isn’t available in digital form, and you’ll need a physical copy if you want to purchase it. Gran Turismo Sport: The full-on simulation racing game exclusive to Sony. Gran Turismo features a wide variety of tracks and cars and is a fan favorite among PlayStation gamers. The series is about to get its latest addition, Gran Turismo 7 this year. Gran Turismo Sport is available on PS4.
What Do You Need for a Proper Sim Racing Rig?
Of course, you can get into sim racing simply by installing a sim racing game and playing it with a controller. But that would defeat the whole purpose of the simulation, as driving a car with a controller will probably shatter the realism of your sim experience.
So, to get the full simulation experience, you’ll need to get a proper sim racing rig. This part of getting set up for sim racing is the most expensive one and the price increases depending on how realistic you want your setup to feel.
Gaming Platform: First things first, you need to have a platform to install the sim game on. If you’re going for PC, get a high-end one. Sim racing games are demanding and frame-drops and other issues such as that can seriously damage your racing experience. Gaming Monitor: In a real race, you’re looking at the road through the car’s windshield. In a sim race, you’re looking at the road through your monitor. This means that ideally, you’ll need to get a gaming monitor as big as a windshield to achieve full realism. Multi-monitor setups and curved monitors are popular choices for sim racing. Aside from the size, the refresh rate and response time are also critical. Wheel: This is where you build your gaming setup into a sim racing setup. There are many types of wheels available at different prices. One thing to look out for is the feedback. In a real car, when you throttle the wheel wants to return to the neutral position. Sim racing wheels have motors inside them that do exactly this. Depending on the wheel you buy, this feedback might be very realistic, weak, or nonexistent. Pedals: Pedals are the next actual sim racing gear that you need to get. Depending on the racing sport you want to get into, you can either get a clutchless set of pedals (just throttle and brake pedals), or one with gas, brake, and clutch. You can also get each pedal separately to your liking. Sim Racing Cockpit: This is the piece that takes your setup from amateur to professional. A racing cockpit includes a racing seat, and stands and brackets for the monitor, the wheel, and more. Peripherals: There are more instruments you can add to your setup. If you’re not satisfied with paddle shifters that usually come with your wheels, you can invest in an H-pattern shift stick. Or if you want to get into drifting, you should get a handbrake.
Drive and Practice
There are many elements to consider if you’re looking to get into sim racing at home. Once you’ve picked your sim racing game, and the racing sport that interests you most, you’ll have to acquire the appropriate sim racing gears.
Finally, when you’ve got everything set up, it’s time to take the driver seat and put your foot on the gas pedal. From here on, it’s all on you and you alone. Getting a top-tier sim racing setup won’t turn you into a racing champ, but practicing definitely will.
