He Richie, welcome to Delta! For as far as I know all assists are allowed, but we do run Simulation damage on most events. I think for the V8 Supercar Event next month we'll have separate lobbies for people who want to use traction control (TCS) or not.
Assists will make you slower though, so the advice is to bite the lemon and go learn the game the hard way, but that's totally up to you.
Furthermore, we've got people at all kinds of skill levels, so you're bound to find someone to race close with We'll probably see an influx of new players when Forza 7 gets out in 3 months as well.