iRacing dirt: HELP

 So I've discovered that I am just terrible at dirt racing on iRacing.

Like, awful terrible.

No matter what I try, I can't seem to get the hang of it.  I end up half a second or more slower than the faster cars.  I end up finishing well due to others crashing into each other, so my iRating keeps going back up even though I am doing terrible.

I've been mostly running the 305 sprint cars (D class), but even in the dirt street stocks I'm not that great.  I turned on the ideal racing line and that isn't helping much either.

Does anybody out there have any tips?  Thoughts?  Ideas?  Help!

A little sparse on the iRacing updates

 Yes, it's about 5 weeks into the iRacing 2021 season 1.  I've been a little lax on updates.  

I've been running a lot of the Cup series (Class A oval) and surprisingly, a lot of the Class D Ferrari GT3 road series.  The Ferrari is a lot of fun to drive.  I'm not a good road racer, but I've been turning a lot of laps in the Ferrari and have gotten very, very slightly better.  I've even raced against a few NASCAR drivers in that series.

The Cup cars have been fun on some of the tracks the series doesn't currently run.  Rockingham last week was an adventure.  Tonight I ran at the Legacy Texas.  This morning I snuck into a Xfinity series race at Chicagoland.

Surprisingly, I've been avoiding most wrecks in the oval series, and only a few here and there in the Ferrari series.  So my SR and iRating have been ok on ovals.  They're not as good on the road courses, but I haven't plummeted.

I haven't been doing a lot of dirt racing just due to lack of time and honestly lack of interest.  I'm not very good on dirt and just haven't had the time to practice a lot.

And while I've been enjoying racing them, I haven't been doing a lot of NASCAR Legends series or the Indycar series.  Again, just not enough hours in the week to spend racing.

So as of tonight:

Oval:

SR:  2.75
iRating: 1646

Road:

SR:  2.38
iRating:  875

Dirt Oval:
SR: 2.28
iRating: 1105

Dirt Road (still a rookie, haven't run much in this series)
SR: 2.74