[Russell Sobie]

Skip Barber is a relatively slow car and has relatively few options for setup, but it can be challenging to make it corner at the edge of grip, so it's a great car to learn in (as Igor mentioned). I spent a couple of hours just putting it around Road America today and it is a joy to drive. The Porsche GT3 Cup is a fixed series and if I recall correctly is pretty easy to drive as well, so that's probably an even better choice. I don't think I've driven the BTCC Primera, so give it a try yourself.

Igor's answers were spot on. I'd only add a couple of things:

Download and install Content Manager if you haven't already. It is an alternate front-end for Assetto Corsa with a number of cool additions that I won't go into, except that it is trivial to set up a practice session with the same rules as any SRS race and then save that set up off, so you can have one setup for one car/track combo and another for another car/track combo... except with 170% tyre wear and 200% gas consumption.

All SRS races are done at 13:00 at 21 degrees C track temp (I think? Can someone correct me on that? I'm not on my gaming PC at the moment...) so be sure you are practicing in the same conditions.

For apps:

• Helicorsa or Car Radar (or both!). Especially if you are racing with a single display. It'll help a lot with situational awareness and keep you from drifting into other cars early race (or any time).
  
• CrewChief (add some companionship to your racing experience. Jim will keep you updated with your fastest lap, fuel consumption, who's in first place, and a bunch of other stuff).
  
• Other suggestions are here: http://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=1862
  

I also like to point new folks to this thread (with video link) for tips on how to not ruin races, for yourself or others: http://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=2125

And here's a FAQ put together by members of the forum you might find useful: http://www.simracingsystem.com/showthread.php?tid=2156