Hey all, I'm in my first week of Iracing and pretty new to sim racing! I'm loving it so far but what kept me away for so long is I'm a bit nervous about racing others. Seems dumb to be nervous but I want to be decent and not mess up things for anyone else.

I feel like I'm doing really well so far! I did a few races at Oulton last weekend but didn't have enough time to get comfortable with that track and the best I could do there was a 1:55ish Im just learning in the Mazda series but I grabbed my first pole last night with a 139.103 and was so nervous! I couldn't quite keep that pace the whole race and ended up finishing second with my average lap time falling a few seconds just because of traffic and some netcode nonsense, but I don't think this is too bad for my first week!

My thing is I'm definitely getting nerves and I'm still new so I don't really know how to pass people and am very hesitant about it, I also definitely need to practice different lines through corners and racing in traffic, are the AI races good for this? I would like to battle more but not mess someone else up learning.

Also I am slowly getting faster, I know it's hard for you to say without seeing a running lap but I see guys doing 136's in the Mazda in practice and I think what I need to do to get faster now is probably a little more speed through the apexs across the entire track but I feel like where I struggle the most is the slower corners actually, I'm trying to trail the breaks in turn 2 and turn 11 but probably not quite doing it right or getting the braking distance slightly wrong, it's hard sometimes for me to get the nose around on these tight corners and get back on the gas.

Also I'm still a rookie but looking ahead I'm thinking about just spending next season on the Mazda too, I don't really know where to go after I get more comfortable, thinking gt4's or something, think I would have to also do gr86 first. I will eventually give the rookie formula series a shot too.

Anyways besides my stupid nerves and somehow doing way better in qualifying then I should lately I'm having a blast. I bought a rig recently and couldn't be happier with it.

Thanks!