Tired of competing in another Fiat 500 Challenge race to kick off a season? Well, there’s a solution, and it’s called Hiring Drivers!
As much as I personally love racing, sometimes there are just some races you don’t want to do. Trust me, once players start progressing into the faster cars, like the GTP or Formula GP, it’s tough to get back into a Touring Car or Formula Junior. To do another whole season while there are races to win in the IMSA Sportscar Challenge? Sometimes, players just need a break.
By installing a Team HQ on an iRacing Arcade campus, the world of hired help opens up.
CHOICES TO BE MADE
It’s a little more involved than just clicking “Hire Driver”. There are nearly a dozen options to choose from when sending a driver to race in your place. Each hirable driver has a number of stars tied to their name, from one to five, corresponding with the difficulty level of the series that they will be competing in.
If you hire a one-star recruit like Greg Grille or Val-Ocity, they’ll be able to compete decently in the one-star series. However, if you send a one-star driver to a series with more than one star… well, you’ll be saving money on the hire, but you won’t be making much money as they’ll likely be picking up last place finishes.
There are five-star recruits that cost more, but will likely yield better results and more money for your bank.
Besides the star ranking on the top of the Driver Card, on the bottom, you’ll see the cost, which is how much it costs to hire that particular driver for a full season, as well as a driver style. Those styles might read “Tenacious”, “Expeditious”, “Closed Wheel Expert”, “Open Wheel Expert”, or in Tony Carster’s case, “Revenue Up!”.
Styles that are good for that particular series will be highlighted in orange. Obviously, the Open Wheel Experts will be good in the series that include Open Wheel cars, and vice versa with the Closed Wheel Experts in Closed Wheel series. Tenacious drivers will be clutch down the stretch, picking up spots late in the going. Expeditious drivers will be efficient, holding on to their spots through a race.
WHAT ABOUT BOOSTS?
There’s one more element to the Hired Drivers feature, and that’s installing boosts on drivers racing for you. Unfortunately, the computer can’t implement whether your Hired Driver has a Glass Rocket or Secret Storage, but what it does do is adds an extra variable to the mix: Luck.
If you fill up a Hired Driver’s Equipped Boosts with as many boosts as you can, they will get an extra luck point for that race. This could be beneficial for lower-ranked drivers competing in higher ranked series. It won’t guarantee a win in any case, but more than not, I’ve seen a two-star driver take on a three-star series and win the championship just because of adding as much luck as possible. They didn’t win every time, but they did well enough to take top honors.
Of course, the most fun comes from doing the races yourself. However, some Arcaders will relish in the fact that they don’t have to race every single race to make it to the top of the ranks in their iRacing Arcade Career.
Plus, it’s fun to send Gauge West or Steve Tyres over to do the Porsche Cup Endurance races for me, watching their line graphs go up and down, not knowing if it’ll be a win or last place. It makes me feel alive. If I just wanted to win all of the time, I’d just send Caro Buretor to clean up everything. Where’s the fun in that?
ONGOING TIME ATTACKS
- Time Attack #1: Sugar Hill (Reverse) | Formula 4
- TIME TO BEAT: 28.133 seconds by RIPTZZ
- Time Attack #2: Tsukuba Circuit (Reverse) | Formula GP
- TIME TO BEAT: 24.309 seconds by KENZO9326
- Time Attack #3: Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit | Touring Car
- TIME TO BEAT: 46.728 seconds by RIEDEOL1_
Time Attacks can be accessed through the Multiplayer Tab on the Main Menu
Check back in on Tuesday mornings for our Weekly Career Mode walkthrough. Next week, we’re talking about Endurance racing and how to make a pit stop or two during a race.
iRacing Arcade is available on Steam NOW, and it will also release on Xbox and PlayStation consoles later this year.
For more information regarding iRacing Arcade, visit www.iRacingArcade.com.
