Ok lets try and get some these answered mate.
First up you can over ride the default gear shift with those of your own choice. You do this while in the sim via the options button at the top right hand corner of the screen while not in the car. Then you simply hit the gearbox button and then select the way you want to shift and the buttons or paddles you want to use. Although if the car was designed to use a H pattern box you may find it better to light ever so slightly on up shifts so the car does not over rev when the clutch automatically cuts in during the gear change. Although they do have a new transmission model now that may of got round this.
To create a custom paint scheme you will need a couple of extra programs. To create the custom paint scheme you will a program such as Paint Shop Pro or the free open source version called Gimp, i use Gimp and find it just as stable and powerful and after downloading the car template you wish to paint from the iracing website here - http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/editcar.jsp - you just load it up in your chosen program and start painting.
Then you will need to sign up with Trading Paints at www.tradingpaints.com . They have both a free and paid version, i use the free one as it has all the options i require, this will allow you to upload your own paints and via the small program you download and run while using iracing you will be able to see not only your paint but all the others you are racing with as well. In fact its worth using trading paints just to see the other great liveries when racing even if you never create your own.
I knew nothing about creating custom paint schemes but after watching these great Gimp tutorials in youtube by a fellow iracer i was able to create our team liveries, https://www.youtube.com/user/nUKerATsKi/videos in fact i still watch them again from time to time to pick up new tips. He shows you how to paint a flat template so that it works in the 3D car model in sim.
You will find help with using trading paints on their website, http://www.tradingpaints.com/page/Help and on the iracing forums in this section, http://members.iracing.com/jforum/forums/show/639.page along with lots of other painting tips, such as saving a reply of the car you want to paint so that you can quickly flick between the paint program and the sim to check your work.
On the oval side the cars in each class, such as C, B and A use the same technical platform with just the bodies being a different design to reflect each manufacturer, so really the only decision is between the one you like the look of or the manufacturer you support as they all perform the same.
I hope this helps clear a few things up, i know the custom paints answer looks a bit long winded but once you start playing about it starts to make more sense, but it does take time to create a new livery for a car and it can get quite addictive as i found out !
Jason.
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