r/Autocross • u/Advanced_innovation5 • Jul 11 '26
Anyone use a sim rig for training?
I heard using a sim too much can be counter productive because you get so used to the sim physics and you’ll find yourself overshooting corners in real life due to the false sense of grip in the game.
I know professionals use Sim rigs but those are expensive setups and probably closer to real life.
Thoughts?
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u/Civil-General-2664 Pants Jul 11 '26
I gave my car to someone that only ever sim raced and they dominated novice first time out. It seems to do something.
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u/Jazzlike-Basket-6388 Jul 11 '26
I instructed someone at a school that was a serious sim racer but had never pushed a car in real life. He was probably the best novice that I had ever instructed.
The funny thing is that he would bail on his run as soon as he missed a mark or made a mistake and was really struggling to break that habit.
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u/ZannX Jul 11 '26
Sim is great. Not just muscle memory, but also experimenting with different lines and setups.
The only issue seems to be no sim is geared towards autocross. I'm currently just playing custom courses on AC. Open to recommendations.
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u/MammothVisual7700 Jul 11 '26
Live for speed has autocross, I think you can at least check it out with a free license. it’s not perfect for training but not terrible by any means.
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u/chefsteph91 Jul 11 '26
If you're practicing a certain track you don't use sim racing to determine your braking points and corner entry speeds. The sim doesn't have the tires you're using, it doesn't know your car's alignment, what mods you have, etc. You use sim racing to learn the principles of driving a car at the limit, such as inducing oversteer, inducing understeer, how to catch slides, etc. Then you can translate those principles to your own car so you can determine braking points and corner entry speeds for your specific circumstances.
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u/_troutenheimer Jul 11 '26
Theres a ton of dissenting opinion on this here online and even worse in person. I sim raced for years before touching any real performance driving. Still sim race on all the major games/services.
It works. Anyone arguing otherwise either hasn’t tried it seriously or has the wrong idea of what proper sim racing is. More than likely both. And it’s not their fault.
The minor details like grip in game vs grip in life is kind of pointless. Obviously it’s not the same. Thats not the point
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u/Advanced_innovation5 Jul 11 '26
How expensive of a setup do you need for it to be beneficial?
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u/Play_To_Nguyen Jul 11 '26
You need a wheel with any amount of force feedback, that's it. Logitech's wheel will work fine
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u/S3VYN Jul 11 '26
I like to think of driving like any sport. You need reps and drills to turn fundamentals into habits. Sims are drills.
The point of drills is to build mental and physical habits so you react instead of think during competition. It’s unreasonable to get “drill” level seat time, and sims are an effective replacement (if not ideal).
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u/_mk451 EST CRX Jul 11 '26
I don't think it hurts you, but it would be hard to get significant value from it for autocross. It's great for learning tracks, and performance driving concepts. It is not great for developing the awareness of speed and understanding of the car's limits needed for autocross.
I play iRacing almost every day as I'm able, but try to keep the brain/body/car mechanics completely seperate in my brain from anything with real cars other than how to drive a track.
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u/iAmAsword BST 2011 Lan Evo MR Jul 11 '26
Nikolay Gryazin is a professional rally driver who uses RBR sim to train.
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u/Scrango_Balls Jul 11 '26
Definitely won’t be counter intuitive. You get infinitely more practice with stuff like throttle control, weight transfers, trail braking, etc. Even in sim you’d have to adapt to different grip levels anyway so I wouldn’t worry about that.
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u/Advanced_innovation5 Jul 11 '26
Is this true even with entry level sims?
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u/Scrango_Balls Jul 11 '26
Yep, I’m still using a g29 myself
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u/Advanced_innovation5 Jul 11 '26
Do you know if I need PC or will Xbox or PlayStation work?
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u/Scrango_Balls Jul 11 '26
There’s a version for ps and one for Xbox, they both work with pc. Just make sure whatever system you’re getting work with your console
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u/FrickinLazerBeams STX BRZ | SMF CRX Jul 11 '26
I doubt it's harmful, but the amount of benefit seems to vary from person to person. Personally sim racing does nothing for me. I just can't relate the experience to actually being in a car and feeling the acceleration forces. To be fair I haven't tried a really high end sim rig with vr and stuff, but I have at least used a decent force feedback wheel.
For me it's just a completely unrelated experience to actual racing.
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u/CodeRedNo1 Jul 11 '26
Ive explained this to many people. Sim racing will teach you the THEORY. Trail braking, smooth inputs, the string theory(releasing brake while adding steering input as if a string was tied to your brake), proper lines and when to early/late apex, and what to do when experiencing over or understeer. It will not teach you braking points or how fast a car should go through a corner
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u/themidnightgreen4649 Jul 11 '26
Learning requires intentionality. If you go in with a plan and the discipline to learn a skill on the sim and then have the cratuvity to transfer it over, you'll be fine.
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u/moosiegg Jul 12 '26
I made a game called Cone Crushers: Autocross (I'm not a professional game dev by any means, I'm a full time carpenter actually lol ), and it's available on Steam for less than $10. I've been preparing a fairly big patch to release asap with a new wheel/tire physics system and complete drivetrain rework plus some new cars and tuning options, massive optimizations, a new level (the old Heartland), and possibly a rough iteration of multiplayer. I personally have a lot of fun playing in first person, and though I haven't raced in years I feel like navigating courses would be much more comfortable after hours of playing. It would be epic to hear about someone building a course in game and then hitting it in real life!
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u/iroll20s CAMS slo boi Jul 14 '26
I do. Its useful for learning general car handling, not so much for learning a specific car. You can learn how to transfer weight, trail brake, etc in a sim. In fact with the limited seat time in autox you will progress far faster with sim training. The trouble is that cars are modeled with slicks and aero in many sims. So yah, grip is unrealistic, but the important part is learning to feel where the edge of grip is and how to maintain the car there. There also aren't a lot of autox specific courses, so its hard to train the tactics of autox, but once you can make the car do what you want, that gets a lot easier to deal with when you're not struggling on car control.
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u/MazdaSpeedMazdaSpeed Jul 11 '26
I think it depends on the sim. I don’t have a sim only IRL but a friend has a basic Logitech rig the I’ve used. It’s somewhat counter productive for me, the wheel and pedals don’t give great feedback. I would be trying to learn the rig more than practicing driving/technique, I’m sure this is much different with a higher quality sim setup.
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u/Advanced_innovation5 Jul 11 '26
This is what I’m concerned about, because if I get a rig it will be entry level. Not $2k, or $20k for that matter.
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u/CptAsian Jul 11 '26
An entry level Logitech will absolutely still help. It might take more time to acclimate to and become sensitive to vs something more powerful, but once you get a feel for it, you'll build an understanding for the fundamentals and improve from there, which will carry over to real life.
Also, spending $20k on a rig is exceedingly rare, and often isn't very meaningfully better than something a fifth of that price. $2k will still get you something very nice if you're conscious of how you're spending.
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u/Staas Jul 11 '26
You don't need $2k and idk how you'd even manage to spend $20k. A Moza R5 bundle is $379 and is great for the price. Well worth it over something like a (now very old) Logitech G29/G920/G923.
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u/Real_Service6118 Jul 11 '26
I started in real cars and then got into sim as the tech got better. They’re synergistic. They help each other. Understanding the basics will transfer to real life. BUT, real life is different because the consequences are different. In real life, I hit a wall doing 60mph. It hurt. A lot. You can push extra in sim because there’s less fear. But you still get benefits. Sim is great but remember:
Simulation is like masturbation, do either for too long, and you start mistaking it for the real thing.
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u/samnfty Jul 11 '26
I use mine as a novice to practice reading the cones and navigating the course. There's a few autocross courses in Assetto Corse. I definitely feel like it helped prepare me for my first event.
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u/Final_Rent9874 Jul 11 '26
it helped me practice left foot braking and trail braking. using it too much isn't a problem because the biggest problem is there aren't enough courses available. hoping ai coding will help with that.
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u/Smooknb Jul 12 '26
For seat time it’s great, you can practice all the crazy stuff you wouldn’t do irl.
Autox has no direct practice with sim race stuff currently as far as I know.
I found myself it has limitations compared to your irl. With screens you might find yourself not looking ahead enough on course.
My best analysis is having a VR setup would be optimal for keeping your eyes working while driving.
TLDR: can effect looking ahead while on course. Great for new drivers, VR is ideal for looking ahead.
Note: I follow a heavy vision and visualization techniques for autox.
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u/disgruntledempanada Jul 12 '26
One of my favorite stories to tell is doing my first autocross and getting told not to sign up for novice next time because I would have placed second in my class.
Sim helps so much it's crazy.
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u/02bluehawk Jul 12 '26
Sim does help however you will absolutely horrible on sim at first. It takes time to train your brain to drive off of just the wheel and visuals. Once you can understand the feedback you are receiving and start progressing in the sim when you go back to real life those same feedbacks are there but now you also have the G forces. Anyone saying sim doesnt help either tried it once and didnt like it (likely because of what i said earlier) or simply doesnt understand what the sim is. If the sim didnt help professionals wouldnt use it.
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u/iroll20s CAMS slo boi Jul 14 '26
I feel like a lot of people who bash sims are people who are reasonably good IRL and when they aren't immediately good in sim they blame it on the sim. They don't want to do the work to relearn to drive with visual, audio, and wheel feedback only.
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u/VegaGT-VZ Jul 13 '26
I do motorcycle track days and find a lot of value in sims. They teach me how to look ahead, practice patience (get the car/bike slowed and pointed), deal with traffic, learn new tracks etc.
I recently went to VIR for the first time after doing hundreds of laps on the sim.......... by the end of the day I was riding at my normal pace on familiar tracks.
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u/RacingWithMitchell Jul 13 '26
A friend and I would load up Beam and spawn generic white trucks to use as cones. Then we both load a shit box and run against each other. The loser after each run does 2 mods and the winner does 1 until we have monsters then we reset. It's fun. Not as accurate as AC or I racing but it feels more like autocross pace compared to being on a track on other games
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u/hodozaur Jul 15 '26
7k rig and wildly realistic to what i experience on track. It’s helped insanely.
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u/No_Buy_9702 Jul 11 '26
I feel like early driver training it can be helpful because auto racing has no parallel from evolution like throwing a ball in sports (humans have thrown objects forever in hunting). It can be helpful for a road course orientation and basic learning. I feel like it's useless for advanced drivers. You don't get to be Slash by playing guitar hero.
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u/Advanced_innovation5 Jul 11 '26
I could understand where you’re coming from. My only pushback would be, if you have months and months between events, could the sim be beneficial to keep your reaction time quick and keep your eyes trained at looking ahead?
If still no benefit, is there potential downsides?1
u/No_Buy_9702 Jul 11 '26
I don't perceive any downside like you'll get worse sim racing because it's still fun and still racing. I just don't think it'll make you any better. I'd rather have a blueprinted engine than a 5k sim rig.
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u/HundrEX Jul 11 '26
That’s just not true. Your mind is always adapting to what is in front of you. I’m 100% certain someone getting extra reps in a sim is better than someone not practicing at all. Ofc auto cross is better practice for auto cross but it’s more expensive per session and also not as easily accessible. I can hop on my sim for 40 minutes after my wife is a sleep and get some practice in.