This is the main question for many "future" simracers. The online racing community is growing rapidly by the day. Lets see what you need to get started with this growing hobby.

What is the best equipment to use:

First of all you'll need a fast computer. We recommend atleast a 700 MHz Pentium III, Voodoo5 5000 or better and atleast 128 MB of ram.

Next, you'll need a fast connection. We recommend either Cable Modem, DSL, or T1. Most of the simracers are on a Cable Modem or DSL type of connetion. These are the best types of connections. T1 is the best, of course, but not everyone can afford T1.

NOTE: Connections such as Cable Modem, DSL, and T1 are not available in all areas. Contact your phone company and see if Cable Modem, DSL, or T1 is available in your area.

After you've accomplished that you need to find an ISP that has local access numbers in your area, that has stable connections, and that supports your Cable Modem, DSL, or T1 connection. Two of the popular ISP's are Ameritech and Bell Atlantic.

Now you've got your fast connection and ISP all ready to go. Next you need to find the game you would like to play online. Lets use NASCAR Racing 4 for an example. The retail version is not availble yet so we will use the demo for our example. You would first go download the demo. You have the NASCAR Racing 4 demo downloaded and ready to race.

Now you'll need find your IP address. This can be done by clcking on Start, Run, then type "winipcfg" (without the quotes). Give your IP to people who have the NASCAR Racing 4 demo. In this case we will use a newsgroup, Jacob's newsgroup since this is the one a lot of the simracers use. The address is news.simracing.org. Just simply type "news://news.simracing.org" (without the quotes) in your Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator web browser address field. Now we will proceed and subscribe to this newsgroup. There is no extra cost to do this. Now we will post a message on the newsgroup under the general.discussion area informing simracers what your IP address is.

NOTE: Without your IP address it is impossible other simracers to join your game.

CONCLUSION

This is about all you need to get started with racing online or any type of online game. Lets go over everything you will need to start playing online. Fast computer, fast connection, good ISP that has local access numbers in your area, that has stable connections, and that supports your Cable Modem or DSL connection.