1. Ape Town tutorial
2. Advanced tips and tricks
3. Dust Devil advanced tutorial

'Ape Town' driving tutorial

Ape town is the 400 meter dirt track available to race on in the free unregistered version of the game, so we'll start the driving tutorial with this circuit.

Choose your formula

Ape Town is an ideal size for the Racer cars, so I'd recommend using those to work through this tutorial, getting used to driving those will make downgrading to Rookie's for your first races feel much easier and give you a good chance of success. If you want to throw yourself in at the deep end you could go for the faster Elite formula, but the track is a bit smaller and tighter than is usually used for Elite races, but if you fancy the challenge...

GO!

Select Go and you're off, assuming you've left the auto throttle option enabled you'll automatically be launched off the line at full power, just make sure you're ready on the steering, the first corner will come up fast.

Steering basics

Before worrying about exact lines you should get a feel for the steering, to turn in use a quick stab on the steering to throw the back around and get the car turning. The key here is to learn how quick the stab on the steering should be, too little and you'll be running wide, too much and you'll be sliding around and find yourself nose first in the barriers. Once you've got the initial turn in right you need to get the hang of pulsing the steering on and off to hold the right line, keep working on this, once you've got the basic feel of the steering you've made your first step to being a successful Oval Racer.

Marker boards

Keep an eye on the corner marker boards, the inner board is always on the start of the actual curve, while the outer board is positioned on the estimated turn in point for a corner if you're out to the full width of the track. When racing in traffic you won't always easily be able to see the corner itself, so the marker boards make an essential reference point, get in the habit of judging your turn in from these.

Ideal line

For an ideal lap time you want to be turning in a little late with an initial tight turn, then easing out the angle as you take a wide sweeping exit line building up speed onto the following straight. In the Rookie car you shouldn't need to use the full width of the track, in the Racer also you can get away with using half or two thirds of the track width, with the extra speed of the Elite you should be trying to use as much of the width as possible.

A problem you'll find in traffic is you're hardly ever able to drive on the ideal line, so practice turning into the corner from various positions on the straight, out wide, in tight and all points in between. Get used to using the marker boards to judge the various turn in points, a good rough guide to where to turn in is as you cross the imaginary diagonal line across the track from the inner to the outer boards.

Ready for traffic

As previously mentioned in traffic you won't be able to drive the ideal line, but it's far worse than that, if you try to drive the ideal line with a wide entry when anyone's close behind you on the track expect to find them barging their way down the inside, overtaking, knocking you wide, ruining your line and basically losing you a lot of time, not good.

You do still want to learn this ideal line for when no ones close behind, it can help you break clear when at the front of the pack, or to make up time and places when at the back. When following someone a late tight turn in and fast exit keeping into the inside of the following straight will often give you an easy pass down the inside into the the next corner.

To get ready for racing in traffic practice driving a tight line, come into corner tight, give it a bigger than usual stab on the steering then hug the inside of the bend coming out tight onto the following straight ready to enter the next corner down the inside of any cars in front.

Cutting the corners

As was just mentioned when driving a tight line you should hug the inside of the corner, you've probably noticed the inside of the bends at each end of the track vary, in the first turn the barrier comes in tight on the exit, you need to allow for this and keep clear of it, nudging the inside barrier is a good way to lose valuable tenth's, so try not to do it.

At the other end of the track the barriers give way to a wide expanse of grass, you can get away with putting a wheel or two onto the grass as you exit the corner. Learning the most effective techniques cutting corners is a much more advanced topic, so we'll leave this for now and come back to it later in the advanced tips and tricks section.

Lets Race

Got all that sorted? Good, you're ready to put it into practice racing, there's a few things to bear in mind when racing...

One thing you'll soon learn in traffic is barging down the inside, using the car outside you as a brake is the most effective form of racing, being the car on the outside being barged into is the least effective form of racing. Oval racer is most definitely a contact sport, you've got to learn how to give and take aggressive driving or you'll never be a winner.

Ape Town is the kind of circuit than generally creates very close racing, lots of overtaking, don't be surprised if you regularly lose or gain 5 or more places in a lap. An important trick is to watch the laps counting down, make a big effort to be in the right place at the right time as you enter the final corner of the race, you want to be the one down the inside making the pass, not the one being barged out wide and losing a ton of places right at the end.