Reason I ask is I joined a lobby and the track was Watkins short and I did a few practice laps and noticed I was 4 seconds off the top practice lap time.
I know I’m not the fastest but I’d be surprised if I was 4 seconds a lap slower than anyone around that track.
Tried career race instead at Daytona and wow the AI cars at the start are shocking. Took 4 restarts to get a clean get away. And the rolling start in first gear. Had to quickly change up to 3rd.
All I thought was Multiplayer will be absolute carnage!
Default setup isn’t even fit for an oval, not to mention the infield racing. Basically these cars need a different setup for each oval and then for infield layouts. Camber + tire pressure, gears and aero are the most important ones to consider
I’m guessing there might be some aspect of these cars’ tuning that makes a big difference in lap times.
Most of the drivers in these featured NASCAR lobbies I’ve been in so far have similar lap times except for one or two stand-outs that are substantially quicker than everyone else despite the restrictions for the car remaining unupgraded.
If anyone finds out what this magical combination of tuning settings is, I’d love to know.
Gearing definitely plays a part, stock they seemed to be geared for drafting on superspeedways so on short power tracks like Watkins Glen you really need to drop the final drive down a chunk, otherwise you won’t even get in to 5th before the Inner Loop.
The easiest tuning adjustments for oval racing are:
aero: get rid of it
gearbox: push 1st up high since you don’t need a launch gear (rolling starts, so 80-90mph works), then evenly space up to 5th. 5th is what matters; after dropping all areo, do a few runs to find V-max, then adjust 5th so you have another ~10-15mph of overhead to allow for drafting room.
You can mess with the rest, but the returns are incremental if we’re talking ovals. I’d be weary of tire pressure as I believe the defaults heat relatively evenly and excessive changes here (and to your alignment) can accelerate wear, which is arguably more important over these longer races.
Camber/caster are the easiest changes to make if you want to fine tune for wear (try keeping the outside wheels around -0.5° under the most taxing corners).
Run hards.
To get on the podium, you’ll likely end up having to work with at least one other person. A large part of your strat revolves around teamwork:
drafting is necessary. When in packs, do your best to time your passes. Ideally, get the run on them by the latter half of a straight section and hold the inside line around the tighter sections. Expect to trade places.
breaking away from the pack works by either driving consistently and having the better setup, or more easily by finding a singular buddy to work with. Without a better way to communicate, you can initiate this work by calmly bump drafting someone who looks trustworthy to follow (ie not erratic on the field), and avoid making any early attempts at passing while in their draft. If they have any semblance of racecraft IQ, they’ll pick up on you not trying to battle for position and should be likely to cooperate. Just keep bumping while staying in their tow.
Your goal should be to eventually break away from the others while the two of you bump draft through the pack. Always try to hold close distance when coming across others in case someone tries to get in between you and your buddy’s tow.
Absolutely stay glued to whoever you’re working with, so keep a watch for when they pit, (if the race is long enough to warrant pitting). Assuming they don’t make any dumb pit decisions, like going in too early or late, you need to fall in with them.
If you miss a pit, try the next lap and hope the two of you link up organically. If you lose your buddy, you’re likely out of podium contention if the lobby’s halfway decent.
Is it just my bad driving/tuning or my imagination, or do the race tires on these 3 new NASCAR cars feel/respond different than typical race tires on other cars in this game? They seem more gooey/slippery laterally, and with faster wear, almost like drag tires.
With oval racing some great tips are to learn the track most ovals the preferred line is inside line in the turns and outside on the straights but there are some exceptions like homestead miami its oval circuit through the turns the best line is right at the top but its difficult to master.
Of course drafting is a big help in oval racing especially at superspeedways like Daytona drafting there lets you cut down on tire wear and fuel consumption.
Like in most other racing events wrecking someone intentionally is frowned on but with nascar oval racing trading paint will happen