What ‘Active Reset’ could bring to the future of iRacing

Last Thursday (14th July 2022), during The Peachtree Three Benefiting the National MS Society iRacing charity race stream, iRacing Senior Vice President and Executive Producer Greg Hill stopped by the stream to show off some of the upcoming features and content heading to the service in the future.

Alongside the announcement of a re-scanned and updated Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as well as the continued development of iRacing’s rain model, another neat feature was revealed to be nearly completed and almost ready to release.

“Active Reset” is what it’s being called, and essentially it is a time saving mechanism that can be used to hone one’s skills in a particular section of a track without the constant need to reset from the beginning. Per Hill, users will be able to map a button that will save a point in time so that they can return over and over to the same place on track instead of having to make the journey every time from pit road.

Users’ cars will be in the same state that it was when the reset point was created, as will the surround track area. Essentially, the initial button click saves a certain moment, and the proceeding click, presumably from a second mapped button, will transport users back to that exact moment so that they can go back through the section over and over and over.

On the surface, it seems akin to the “Flashback” feature found in Formula 1 and GRID titles by EA or the “Rewind” feature in Forza Horizon games. However, iRacing’s Active Reset will only be enabled during testing sessions at initial launch.

I highly doubt it will come into play during official races as well, but if it goes over well, I don’t see why it couldn’t be utilized in iRacing AI races. Hill did mention that it was “fully functional” as of a few weeks ago, but needing of some polish before its release. While it’s just for testing for now, Hill left it up to the possibility that it could lead to a “more expansive set of offerings,” but did not divulge further.

Now, testing is already a time consuming practice that unfortunately, many on the iRacing service just don’t have time to put towards. Considering every time I want to try and learn the corkscrew at Laguna Seca, or the bus stop at Watkins Glen, or even the right entry point to Turn 3 at Pocono, as of now, it requires taking a full lap every time to get there.

With Active Reset, I could set a point out of Turn 2 at Pocono, or right out of the esses at Watkins Glen, or at the bottom of the uphill climb to the corkscrew at Laguna Seca so that I don’t have to traverse the whole lap to get back there.

Also, as it was mentioned on the stream and probably the biggest pro for this type of system, those brave enough to face the Nordschleife, if that final chicane after Döttinger Höhe straight trips you up like it does me, you don’t have to waste around ten minutes to get back there and try it again once Active Reset is activated.

The only bit of preview came towards the end of the segment with a brief screen captured moment of the system analysis in play. In the featured demo, the corner is shown with four runs, each with a time and the lines drawn on the track surface in either green or red.

That feedback piggybacks off of the future system that not only allows users to take on a specific point, but also to see detailed results. The Active Reset keeps the testing aspect in mind with such feedback, but to me, the clear draw is in the ability to not have to keep resetting to pit road over and over and over.

The clip in the broadcast starts at an hour and 25 minutes in to the show if you want to hear it from the man himself. Personally, I think it’d be a great addition to AI races, as well as hosted sessions for fun to avoid towing. What are your thoughts on this future Active Reset system? Let us know in the comments below!