Strategy: Gaining an Edge

Clearly, Racing Live is not a game of skill when it comes to the actual race. Your result is determined through some formula that is unknown to the public, but is a function of your and your opponent's Speed and Handling points, cars & parts and number of crew. In order to win more races than your opponents, you need to do things more efficiently than them.

Here are a few good ways of getting an edge over other racers.

Always buy the property with the best ROI
Use a calculator. Lots of people have severely unoptimized City properties. If, for instance, the cost of 2 Parking Spaces is less than the cost of one Used Car Lot, you should buy the two Parking Spaces. It seems obvious but at a quick glance of random people's profiles seemingly 90%+ of people have an inefficient purchasing strategy.

Be careful in choosing who you race
A lot of times people race me who really have no chance of winning. Take the time to look at people's stats before you race them. There's no bonus for winning races against better racers so it's best to race weaker players (just not too much so you don't get a reputation as a farmer).

Use Skill points wisely (in Speed/Handling)
Integrity/Focus/Fuel can be convenient but don't help you win races. Integrity and Focus do help you race more quickly, but quality is usually better than quantity. Allocating the vast majority of Skill points to Speed and Handling will give you an edge over racers who don't do that.

Optimize Car Parts
Many people have extremely poor selections of car parts. I saw one racer recently with 86 Stage III Twin Turbos, who had barely purchased any zero upkeep parts. Those 86 Twin Turbos cost 8170 in upkeep (235,296/day given that he was a Bankroller) and give a total of 430 speed and 172 handling points, plus the purchase price of 860,000. Consider an alternative: buying 86 each of Front Spoilers, Twin Tipped Mufflers and Cold Air Intakes. That would cost 0 in upkeep, give the same 430 speed and 172 handling points and cost a mere 326,000, which is a massive advantage in terms of cost and, most importantly, upkeep. Always max out the zero-upkeep parts first, and then buy the cheapest parts in terms of speed/handling points per dollar of upkeep, depending which attributes you want to focus on.

Be careful about spending too much on upkeep
There are serious diminishing returns when it comes to creating a good setup of cars and parts. At Level 15, say, If you maxed out with 75 BMW M3s plus all the available cars and parts, it would cost about 72,000 upkeep per turn. You would win almost all your races since you would be maxed out (assuming your Speed and Handling skill points were not holding you back). Let's say you win 95% of your races given that setup. That's great, but it's a large amount of upkeep per turn. Consider a similar set up with 75 Renault Clio v6s, which have zero upkeep. You would still probably win maybe 90% of your races, but save 30,000/turn = 864,000/day as a Bankroller, which is a lot of money for that level. There's not really a "right answer", but consider how much you are spending to win those last few percent of your races.

Camping
You can gain an advantage over those at your level by staying where you are for a long time (by not winning races and not doing street jobs) and building up real estate. You'll be making more income, which can go into better cars and parts than those people who leveled up too quickly and can't afford a better setup.