Oval Etiquette

[NeilPearson]

Okay Fella's I decided its time for an oval etiquette thread.

First off,

Knappo's Mrs, if your going to flash Knappo whilest he is racing, do it infront of a webcam, its better for everyone. trust me.

Okay back to oval racing.

The point of oval racing is to get to the end, like all racing really, but Oval is alot different. You Give and Take. Or as Darryl Waltrip likes to say Co-oppattion. which means Everyone works together to achieve the maximum. in the 50 lap race at lowes, you pretty much want to find someone you are comfortable following, and usualy that means some one who isnt all over the place, holds steady lines. Once you find this person u just sit on his bumper and log laps. At the same time, if you feel like leading the pack go for it. Just be carefull, and if a car is passing you give alot of room, its not the end of the race yet. When someone is passing me i am usually right on the black/grey transition and hoping the car passing is right on the white line. thats alot of room, and therefor we both can get going. this is my philosophy i notice the americans run you hard, and i dont agree with that at all. but hey we usualy wreck when we race them. When it gets to the end of the race then you can start to get closer to the car in the corners, try to side draft off him, (not sure if iracing simulates this tho). put the defensive moves on, but remember u dont have to run the low line down straights to keep someone behind you. its easy to do if you want to do it.

The most inportant thing i feel is being smooth. when im going through the corners im not even turning much and i can hold my wheel at the same point through the whole turn. Its the best way. it makes you more predictable to others and makes other people not want to jump out from behind you to get away from you. Also down the straights find the dotted white line and keep your car glued to it, i notice alot of you are swearving down the straights, really try to avoid that.

Thats about all i can really think of for this right now. I hope it helps at least one person, and we can have some awesome races!

Neil

[Sarsippius]

One thing I learnt from the iRacing forum is that the ovals are the opposite to road racing when it comes to getting your nose inside someone on the turns. It still seems a bit silly to me but if someone gets inside you, even if they're only part way up your rear quarter you're expected to give them room and stay high. I was getting caught out regularly taking my normal line and getting hit on the rear quarter until I found out about this.
Apparently oval guys were having much the same trouble on road courses, wondering why people were cutting across them when they stuck their nose up the inside on the turns.

[pab]

if someone gets inside you, even if they're only part way up your rear quarter you're expected to give them room and stay high.

There are a few reasons for this IMHO. Firstly, as we have seen plenty of times this week, the car is usually setup quite loose for ovals (combined with the fact that cornering speeds are much higher on ovals than on roads), especially the big ones, so any sort of contact in the middle of the turn will be bad news for either or both of the cars involved (as well as often a number of the cars following them). Giving room as soon as a car gets any ground inside you is simply a matter of survival.

Secondly, many ovals (especially those with reasonable banking, and even more so restrictor plate tracks) can have more than one groove. While in road racing, if you have the inside line to a turn you can be pretty sure you will exit in front, many ovals allow you to run the high line and stil be fast, so if someone gets the inside ground, you don't have to cut them off to defend your position, you can just try the high line instead. The banking often gradually increases as you get closer to the wall, so running higher through the turn means that you can get on the power earlier, you'll often see the outside car lose a little ground entering and through the turn, and gain it back along the straight by having a better exit speed. Having a viable outside groove means that people are (usually) less likely to feel the need to block to the inside when someone makes a move on them. It's what makes oval racing fun to watch (and drive), more than one fast line around the track makes for much more interesting racing.

[Quincy]

Yes pab, I can vouch for the second part of your post. Last night, Neil was able to hold the high line well, and I was left wondering how he was able to pull right up beside and often get a car length on me, along the main straight.

[wenmo]

Interesting

i dont have the invite yet, but reading all the posts, oval racing is the yanks best friend? While aussies like the road circuits and drive to suit various racing styles. Yanks love oval racing,no doubt about it. I hope at some stage soon we can get aussie servers and local racing on the way like AAL & MNR. I'd rather be punted off the track by the WTF team then a Yank any day

[Hz-Lab]

us Aussies can hold our own on the ovals though. Providing we survive the 1st few laps chaos, we are all normally near the front. must piss the yanks off.

[Sarsippius]

Re the different rules in passing on ovals I can understand the reasoning on the big ones but on the short ovals where there is only one line it seems it can just be an excuse for a slower driver to stuff it up the inside on entry.
No big deal but being that most of us here are coming from a road course background it pays to be aware of this. It caught me out a number of times in the Legends until I realised what the deal was.
Shame I've missed most of this week at Lowe's being away, sounds like a lot of fun but I'll probably concentrate on getting up to speed on USA now.