Sim Racing and Esports News Roundup for August 18, 2022

This week in the Sim Racing and Esports News Roundup I bring you tips from yet another sim racer who has transitioned to the real thing, details on the eSports component of this year’s Motorsport Games, a summer sale at iRacing, dirt racing on consoles and more.

• Fitzroy Motor has a great article from sim racer turned real life clubman competitor Mathieu Gauthier-Thornton called Sim Racing To Reality: Mathieu Gauthier-Thornton’s Tips For Track Success. “In this week’s article I’m going to explain exactly how you can use your home sim racing setup to help you prepare for racing success in real life. While it might sound easy to translate time in the simulator to the track – just spend a small fortune on fancy equipment, load up your favourite circuit, and off you go, right – sadly that doesn’t really work. If you truly want to use your home simulator as a training tool, rather than just a bit of evening fun, here are some crucial things to consider to get the best out of both your sim, and yourself…“

• Racing News 365 explains how simulators have become one of the most important tools in F1. “Join AlphaTauri drivers Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda as they talk through the key elements of a simulator session and what’s involved in extracting the most from their virtual set-up.”

• The world’s finest esports competitors are set to take part in the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games, with Esports confirmed as one of the 17 competition disciplines for the second edition of the event being staged 26-30 October in Marseille. More details can be found here.

• GT Champions World Cup have announced that they are taking signups for Season 4. “This will be our first sanctioned season in Gran Turismo 7! In this series there are ten 90 minute races that will pressure you to race hard but you will have to keep in mind Fuel and Tire wear will be a factor in every race!“

• iRacing is having a summer sale where you can join iRacing for 75% off their normal membership cost. Full details can be found here. The sale ends August 22nd.

• The Coach Dave Academy advises on The Top 5 Best Cars to Buy on iRacing. “iRacing has a vast range of cars available for purchase, covering everything from dirt ovals, endurance racing, Nascar and even Formula 1. However, most people tend to have their favourites and typically limit themselves to racing only a handful of cars. These are our Top 5 cars that we recommend you purchase in iRacing that we think have the best balance of driving enjoyment, high driver participation as well as thriving support for setups and performance information.”

• On August 8th, rFactor 2 released their Q3 2022 update and content release. “Bringing a wealth of updates and improvements to the simulation, the new build update deployed today brings with it some important changes for the ongoing development of rFactor 2. Of the main highlights from this build, the introduction of what we are calling ‘Real Road 2.0’ is perhaps the most significant – as we look to add new layers of realism to the driving experience, introducing dynamic surface temperature changes that will significantly affect how the drivers and cars interact with the circuit and its behaviour – across an array of different weather and temperature conditions. Although this change isn’t immediately visible to players in the way a graphic update would be, for example, we are massively excited to see and hear how these quite fundamental improvement helps to expand the whole rFactor 2 playing experience.”

• Traxion looks at the best sim racing steering wheels for PlayStation 2022. “In this guide we will explain the best sim racing steering wheels for PS4 and PS5, highlight their best and worst features and it’s all laid out from the pinnacle to the more affordable beginner set-ups.”

• The World of Outlaws returns to console gaming for the first time in over a decade on September 27, as World of Outlaws: Dirt Racing hits the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. The official game of “The Greatest Show on Dirt” features six different dirt series, from the premier World of Outlaws NOS Energy Sprint Cars and CASE Construction Equipment Late Models to four DIRTcar classes, and more than 40 tracks, including Eldora Speedway, Knoxville Raceway, and Volusia Speedway Park. Pre-orders started on August 15 at worldofoutlawsgame.com, with three-time World of Outlaws Sprint Car champion Sammy Swindell included as a special bonus for pre-orders only.