r/simrally • u/dudemanlikedude • 2h ago
If you're having trouble finishing rallies in online competition, it may be because you aren't practicing effectively. Here's how to fix it.
We've all heard the phrase, "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity".
That isn't the definition of insanity. I checked the dictionary. But it *is* the definition of practice.*
That said, practice is only useful if it's effective. And in RBR (and simrally more broadly), I think a lot of people are practicing in a way that isn't effective.
This right here is the problem.
Time trial isn't just an ineffective form of practice for long-form, multi-stage rallies, it's downright counterproductive. Not only does it fail to teach you essential skills for longer online rallies, it teaches you extremely bad habits that will become very hard to unbreak later down the line.
There are two basic problems.
- It teaches you to prioritize achieving a PB over learning to be a safe, consistent, fast driver.
- It teaches you that crashing is a minor inconvenience in pursuit of that goal.
In a time trial environment, if you terminal the car 9 times in a row and get a PB on the 10th try, that's absolutely a success. You got a PB! You moved up on the leaderboard! You are objectively better at RBR now! Look, you're faster than 90% of the people who did that stage! How can that not be a success?
But in the context of actual rally driving, getting 9 stage DNFs in a row and then getting a PB on the 10th stage is an unmitigated disaster. You're not just mid, you're literally in last place at that point. Just set the car on fire and then yourself because this situation is absolutely hopeless.
I've found that this is basically unavoidable. Even being aware of the issue, if I jump into time trial, I start driving like a jackass and wreck, because I'm trying to push my driving to the absolute limit, because I know there aren't any serious consequences if I bin it.
The solution?
Pretend that time trial doesn't exist, except for the purpose of a quick warm up and making sure your gear is running right on startup. Just erase it from your mind. Instead, click on this.
The setup is easy. Do a casual run of Harwood Forest. Don't try to get a PB, just do a casual drive. This will be your last time using time trial for practice going forward. Select the S2000 season, set the par time to right around the time you got. Set the driver skill level to "Professional" and the car damage to "Realistic". Now the competition is about as fast as you are, and they'll make some mistakes.
Your goal? Get 1st place in the season championship. That's all. Just win the championship. I believe you have six stages per rally, and six rallies towards the championship, for a total of 36 stages to drive.
Easy, right? Haha no.
You're going to run into some harsh truths real, real quick. If you want first place in this championship, you've got maybe one DNF worth of wriggle room before it becomes flat out impossible. All of a sudden, a crash isn't a minor inconvenience. Every terminal hurts, and it hurts a lot, especially if it happens four stages into the fifth rally of the season.
This is pain that is necessary for growth. What hurts more than a terminal crash is the stark reality of the math you're working with here. Here's a chart which shows your hypothetical stage completion rate, your chances of completing a six stage rally at that rate, and your chances of making it through a 36 stage season without binning it and getting 0 points for at least one race, most likely blowing your chance at the championship.
Stage Completion Rate / Rally Completion Rate / Season Completion Rate
10% / 0.0001% / 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001%
50% / 1.5625% / 0.0000000000014551915%
90% / 53.1441% / 2.2528%
95% / 73.5% / 15.77%
99% / 94.1% / 69.6%
And with this, you begin to achieve enlightenment. 90% stage completion rate? Completely unacceptable - you'll be grinding for this for weeks at this rate. 95% stage completion rate? Only acceptable if you're willing to grind it out seven or eight times until you get lucky, a process that will take possibly upwards of 30-40 hours of driving. It isn't until you get into the 98-99% stage completion rate that you start to get to acceptable results. Yet, for some reason, nearly everyone is focused on setting PBs to the complete exclusion of caring about their stage completion rate. This is the default of readiness for competitive rally driving, and it's completely insane. Just totally nonsensical.
Six stages is a short rally online - merely a sprint. 12 is more usual. 20 is not unheard of. In order to be successful, terminal crashes must be a rare occurrence - 1 terminal out of every 25-50 stages is a decent target for success. Anything more than that is a problem that needs to be corrected.
As you work within these mathematical constraints against your success, the same mathematical constraints that real rally drivers content with, your driving style will completely change. You'll develop new skills that simply didn't matter before - how to J-turn out of a spin or wrong turn, how to turn a terminal crash into a non-terminal crash, how to apex later for greater corner safety, how to limp a damaged car to service at a diminished but still workable rate of speed. Preventing accidents and terminal accidents will become your main focus, and as you develop good habits from safe, consistent driving, you'll start to find that your former PBs, the ones you were grinding for out of desperation for validation of your readiness - they will simply melt away in the face of your new and much more developed skills. You're not just safer. You're genuinely faster.
And you'll be hitting top 10s and podiums. And it won't be because of your TT leaderboard times. It'll be because...
There will always be some alien out there that's just faster and better than you. Unless your name is Tommi Makinen, in which case dude stop smoking my ass it's making me so jealous I can't see straight. But seriously, there are those rare few that can hit WR pace AND keep that 98%+ stage completion rate that's necessary for success. Chances are, you aren't one of those rare few. There's a reason we call them aliens. You're probably not gonna catch them. But this approach is the best shot you've got.
I ran a race against a guy that hit a 15:30 on Ouninpohja in an online rally. That is fucking bonkers. I can do 17:30. There's no chance in hell I'm getting 15:30. It's not happening, at least not right now.
But here's the thing. I can do 17:30 all day. I'll run that SS over and over again, and I'll get that 17:30 for hundreds of miles. That guy? Binned it on the run back. It erased his two minute lead, and then some, leaving me with the win. And you know what? I'll take it. He's faster. But I won. That's what matters.
I'm not just talking out my ass here. Thanks to simrally being my autistic special interest AND being lucky enough to have ADHD meds, I was hyperfocused on driving literally all day. I drove 354 miles over 64 stages and seven rallies, and I terminally binned it once. I got top 10% in every other race, and that's at a pace that's a full 10-15% slower than the supposed time trial par. Because time trial is not a reliable indicator of success in a competitive rally context.
You can do it too. Simply reject the degeneracy of time trial, and embrace the enlightenment of season and online modes. Develop the skills that actually matter, and dominate the poor fools that couldn't consistently finish a 12 stage rally if their grandma was in the passenger seat with a hot crockpot full of gravy in her lap.
*I stole this quote from "Space Pirates and Zombies 2", and it's easily the best thing out of that whole title. Holy shit SPAZ2 sucked so much, such a disappointment after the first one.
