With your first championship in the books, it’s finally time to head back, not only to our race shop, but our iRacing Arcade Campus!
This space is MASSIVE. There’s so much room for activities… and buildings! But, these shops, garages, and other decorations cost money, and at the start of our career, money is a little tight. Not to worry, as you’ll earn plenty over your career. Right now, however, it’s about learning and implementing the basics.
It’s a little… small… in this starting garage, to say the least. This “barn” isn’t going to hold us for long, especially as we rise up the ranks. Thankfully, as long as we didn’t completely botch our first series, we should have enough money ($7,500) to upgrade to the first real tier of a Garage.
From here on out, however, it is completely up to you as to how you spend your money, and on what to put around your campus. You could be a minimalist, only having the buildings you need to add boosts and unlock features, such as the Hire a Driver option by adding a Team HQ. Or, you could be like me and fill every possible space with either a building or a decoration.
Make it your own!
BUILDINGS
There are five main buildings to build and upgrade as you progress your career—the Garage, the Engine Shop, the Chassis Shop, R&D, and the Team HQ. Each building will enable different features, and in some cases, boosts to enable during races you do during your Career Mode.
You can choose to place as many of these and any other buildings as you see fit. You can upgrade one building, or you can make every one individually. They all cost varying amounts, and each tier will unlock better perks. We’ll discuss the boosts and what they’re all about in a couple of weeks.
Everyone starts with a Tier 0 Garage – the “Barn”. Increasing the Garage Tier will simultaneously increase the number of cars you can own at a time. The Team HQ is a building that you don’t start off with, but by setting one down on your campus, you’ll unlock the ability to hire drivers. Again, that’s a topic for a later date!
DECORATIONS AND TROPHIES
The build menu also lists two more options—Decorations and Trophies. Starting with the latter, as players win championships in different series, new trophies become unlockable, in gold, silver, and bronze variants. Winning a championship will unlock all three trophies to place around your campus, while only finishing third will unlock the highest trophy you earned. Of course, if you don’t place in the top three, there’s still Crocolate Milk to take home!
With the Decorations, there are a ton of fun things to place around your campus to fill in some of the space. You can wrangle some of those trees into specific areas, add parks, bus stops, museums, a café or two, bike racks, hospitals… you get the point. There are so many different add-ons to make your campus glow. Not one campus looks the same out there!
While the racing is extremely fun, I’ve found myself spending hours moving structures around to my liking, deleting roads, completely covering my campus in road blocks, and placing a perimeter of bike racks around the entire thing. Again, it’s completely up to you how much effort you want to put into making a small motorsports town or not.
Some tips and tricks I’d share include paying attention to the action keys at the bottom of the screen. In certain menus, you can relocate or demolish things, and there are also ways to rotate whatever you are trying to place as well. Another trick to building is to let your imagination run wild. So what if you have 17 R&D centers? Those Tier 4 buildings look COOL! It will take time to earn the money to unlock everything, but once you do, your imagination is the only thing stopping you.
ONGOING TIME ATTACKS
- Time Attack #1: Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit | Formula GP
- TIME TO BEAT: 36.291 seconds by TB77
- Time Attack #2: Tsukuba Circuit | Touring Car
- TIME TO BEAT: 31.192 seconds by YT | FINNASTRI
- Time Attack #3: Bahrain International Circuit | GTP
- TIME TO BEAT: 34.115 seconds by LOWCROW.TTV
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 taking a look at all of the different cars you can race with on iRacing Arcade!
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.
To learn more about iRacing Studios, visit iRacingStudios.com.
