This is the third in a series of developer chats with Diego Sartori, creative director of Simbin, about the art and craft of racing in a videogame. Simbin's RacePro, the studio's racing debut on the Xbox 360, will be released on February 17.

Read part one here.
Read part two here.

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Call it the music of the race track. It's the sound your car makes as you take lap after lap, going up and down through the gears. The whine of the engine as it powers up on long straights and revs downward when braking. The squeal and scrub of the tires in the corners. It's the melody of a lap in a race car and, if you can manage to drive consistently, it's a melody that doesn't vary much from lap to lap. Pay attention to that tune, learn that melody by heart, and it's one more tool you can use to make yourself quicker on the race track.

In practically any other sports videogame genre, practice sucks. I spend next to no time in practice modes in Madden or NCAA (which probably explains my lack of skill). Same thing with hoops. I eventually even tired of running created plays in NHL 08 last year. Though there's inevitably some value to simply running things over and over, practice only feels enjoyable to me in racing games. Part of the reason is that, even when turning laps in time trial mode, you're always competing, if not against other drivers than at least against yourself. There's always a better way to attack a particular turn, always a chance to exit a corner with more speed, always a way to take time off your personal best lap. As a result, there's always a chance to feel like you're making progress.

When it comes time to put all that practice into… well, practice in a race, Simbin's Diego Sartori has more than a few tips to keep in mind. First and foremost? In order to win a race, you have to complete the race. Simple, right? Well, if you've spent any time in racing online, you know that races are more often than not ruined in the very first corner. With all the drivers darting off the start line and sprinting to be the first in the turn--disaster is bound to happen. My personal plan of attack is to fall back as far as possible, wait for the carnage to pile up, and then methodically weave around the traffic and settle into the race. That works when you're up against less experienced drivers, but what about when you are battling with folks who know what they're doing?

Sartori's advice comes down to a single word: focus. Whether that focus is trained on your braking point, or the car in front of you (who, often, will dictate your braking point if your running close to one another), or getting through that turn you have trouble with, or whatever else, that first lap is all about settling down into the cockpit--or the comfort of your couch--and getting a feel for the race in general.

After you pass the start/finish line and enter the second lap, it's time to work your plan. That plan is based on a number of different factors--where your opponents are currently oriented in the race, the number of laps remaining in the race, the weather conditions, the condition of your car, and the skill levels of the players both ahead and behind you. It's that final factor that looks to have the most bearing on your plan.

For example, if you have slower drivers ahead of you, sooner or later, you'll catch up and it's then that you need to engage a plan of attack. Sartori is quick to point out that a good plan of attack puts an emphasis on the "plan". "You shouldn't do anything spur of the moment," Satori said. "Just as you probably have a bad place on the track, you probably also have a spot where you are better [than your opponent] on the track. Know where you are good and where you're not so good. Be ready and in position to attack in the spot where you're good."

When attacking a car ahead, you don't necessarily need to force a pass on the inside in order to be successful. Often, Sartori said, just simply putting pressure on a car ahead of you by staying close will force them into a mistake. A truly advanced technique, one that will require tons of practice to get right--is the feint. Here, when approaching a corner, you make like you're going to attempt a pass on the inside, forcing your opponent to change his or her line and/or braking point in the process. If they try and switch things up drastically, your feint move might just result in them making a mistake, allowing you to pass on the outside after all.

The difficulty with a feint, of course, is that if you're not in control of the move, you can run yourself off the track or into an opponent. It's an advanced move, and Sartori recommends lots of practice before putting it into practice. In RacePro, Sartori suggests using ghost cars when running practice laps to set yourself up an easy practice situation. First, Sartori suggests running a lap at around 95 percentof your maximum speed. This lap will serve as your ghost you'll practice against, so make sure you are following the correct line throughout the lap. With the ghost lap set, you immediately have an imaginary opponent you can practice your feint move on to your heart's content, without fear of crashing into one another.

Though passing a tough opponent is difficult, and advanced techniques like the feint sound complicated, Sartori believes that attacking on a race track is actually a simpler task than defending a position. "The big mistake that [a driver makes] is looking back," Sartori said, referring to the natural propensity for a driver to check the position of every car around him. "I look back a lot, just to see where people are. If someone is really close, I look back too much. What that [often] means is that I'm half a second slower than I should be. I just offered [my opponent] my position…"

Again, practice helps here. Sartori suggests practicing with friends before the race begins. To that end, RacePro online race sessions have been designed to allow players to drive on the track while they wait for the room to fill up. As you wait for other drivers to enter the lobby, you can take laps on the track, play games of cat and mouse with your friends, and take impromptu "race laps" without worrying about crashing and ruining your race or that of your fellow racers.

Ignoring the natural tendency to constantly check on your foes' position is a tough task and while practicing with friends is one effective way to wean yourself of the tendency, in the end, Sartori brings it all back to focus. Instead of worrying about how close (or, indeed, how far away) your opponents are, worry simply about driving as consistently as you possibly can. "The mindset should be: you have to make them take something… don't give away anything. The best way is to pretend they aren't there."

Forget your opponents. Focus on the lap you're running. Keep an eye on your surroundings, but don't worry about them. Focus on the turn ahead of you and the turn after that. Know your trouble spots and where you're strong on the track. Focus on the sounds of the engine, and the tires, and the brakes, and gear shifts. Listen to the melody of the race track--you know what a good lap sounds like. Focus yourself and do your best to create your own beautiful music on the track.
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One more item before I go. In the last article, someone requested a list of tracks in RacePro. Here you go:

• Amderstorp Raceway
• Brands Hatch
• Brno Circuit
• Curitiba
• Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
• Grand Prix Macau
• Monza
• Motorsport Arena Oschersleben
• Circuit de Pau
• Porto
• Road America Circuit
• Valencia Race Circuit
• Circuit Park Zandvoort