I searched all over the place for driving tips and can't find any.

I am rather new to Trackmania and am having trouble improving my times. In solo play I can manage to get bronze medal times but struggle with some tracks to get better than that. In multi-player, I am consistently the slowest player on whatever map we race.

Could someone point me to some "tips" on how to achieve better times? I did find that driving with my Logitech Dual Action gamepad gives me better times than the keyboard. What's the secret? Or is the secret many many hours of just practicing?

you can (usually) achieve better times on gamepad, so if you like it, just stick to it. and yeah, the only thing which matters is practice. don't expect to be megapro after few hours of racing.

Search for TMC - Trackmania driving school on tmtube (or just google), I dont know if the content is still around.

Also have look at this: http://tmnforever.tm-exchange.com/main.aspx?action=threadshow&id=2149&page=auto#auto
Its a driving tutorial for old Stadium, most of it (if not all) will still be valid..

....

I am guessing Stadium, as your maps that you uploaded so far are all Stadium

There are no shortcuts, the only way to get better is to practice. You might want to watch some ESWC finals on YouTube to see how the competitive players do it, but other than that... just drive a lot, watch your replays and check where you're losing seconds.

What environment(s) are you driving?
Post a replay of you driving and I'll by happy to comment on it (if it is Canyon or Valley I don't drive Stadium).

Best learning method of all: Download and watch other people's replays.
To do that:
1- go to a track page on this site
2- click the time of the replay you want to watch to download it
3- save it to C:\Users\[username]\Documents\ManiaPlanet\Replays\
4- open the game and go to editors > edit a replay > select your replay > click lauch > view

pfm says:
What environment(s) are you driving?
Post a replay of you driving and I'll by happy to comment on it (if it is Canyon or Valley I don't drive Stadium).

Best learning method of all: Download and watch other people's replays.
To do that:
1- go to a track page on this site
2- click the time of the replay you want to watch to download it
3- save it to C:\Users\[username]\Documents\ManiaPlanet\Replays\
4- open the game and go to editors > edit a replay > select your replay > click lauch > view

At this time, I am only driving in Stadium. However, your suggestions sound good. I will download replays of a couple tracks I drive and see what lines they are using. Thanks for the help.
Jeff

Cool Jeff :-)

You can also try to play online and spectate the fast players
To spectate a player online:
1- hold tab to display the score board
2- right click the player name to spectate him

Note: on tracks that have custom cameras (ie: when you spectate the camera doesn't show from behind the car)
1- click the camera icon on the bottom right to change from "Replay" to "Follow"
2- if the camera doesnt change right click another player temporarily and then right click the one you want to spectate again. (if its still doenst work, press restart to go back to race mode and try to spectate again after)

Thanks for all the suggestions. So far, "practice, practice, practice" seems to be improving my times the most. I also decided that I need to focus on just the White tracks on Solo for now. I've gotten gold medal times on a bunch of tracks now. I had to replace my game pad and discovered the new one has a much better response, including tighter turning radius. Guess the old one wasn't working too well.

Thanks for helping the rookie.

You can also tweak your analogue input settings for your gamepad.
When playing a map, press esc -> advanced settings -> input settings.
A trick here is, if you are not happy with the steering sensitivity you can enter values manually by clicking the number field and select which value you want (e.g. 0.4222). But be careful, sometimes you select a value that is to low for your gamepad and reduces your effective steering of your pad.
For this, each time you change a value compare the turning radius between keyboard and your pad. To do this, simply start a map from the start and press left/right and forward on your keyboard until you hit the wall left/right from the start. Remember where you hit the wall. Do the same with your pad.
If the keyboard/pad match, all is okay.
If the pad is far away, then increase your sensitivity value until keyboard and pad match. Always try to get your sensitivity value as low as possible, else you throw away some advantage of the game pad (which is the possibility to change your driving line by slight steering).

Hope this helps you.

check your fps (with fraps for exemple)
if your are under 40 or between 40 and 60 while you play, it would be the reason.
so try lower graphic settings. you will feel the difference.

even with a great computer it just impossible to play smoothly at high graphic setting
i have meet this issue on many competitive games.

ps: there is also a button in the game to check the fps. don't remenber witch one.
check keyboard setting.