How Long Have You Been Sim Racing?

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How Long Have You Been Sim Racing?

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I've been asking myself this question. There are so many sim racers here on RaceDepartment. So many different levels of experience are present. So tell us a bit about yourself and your history! How long have you been sim racing?

And to break the ice: let me start with my relatively recent story.

It all started in a dreaded year. We now look back at it in disdain as one of the worst years in recent history:

Welcome back to 2020.​

The start of the pandemic forced many people to stay inside their homes. And therefore, all outgoing people suddenly had to find something to do at home. I was not one of those, rather, I had been a gamer for years. Add to that my previous interest in racing, and you have the great combination of some games lying dormant in my Steam library.

One of those games was Project CARS 2, which I had bought at some point or another in the past, but hadn't enjoyed with my trusty gamepad. I thought of booting it up again, but then read that playing it with a wheel and pedals would be the wisest decision.

I immediately knew what to do because in the past I had read of Logitech wheels being sold 2nd hand on a local platform. However, for the first time looking at such a product, I had money to spare. So I thought to myself: "Screw it, I'm going all in and buying a new Logitech G920!"

My First Wheel Led to Massive Enjoyment​

And boy, did I have an amazing time! I ground the leaderboard of Brno with my trusty Honda NSX GT3.

Why Brno? I had been going there live for over 10 years to watch MotoGP.
Why the NSX? I just happen to like how it looks, to be honest.

This was such an exciting time for me. At some point I gathered all of my courage and started racing online. Now that was ... more of a 50/50 chance of having a good time. But the one memory that still sticks with me is my first-ever online victory!

It was Suzuka, or Sakkito as Project CARS 2 called it, GT3s and variable weather. With my trusty NSX, I qualified not too well, but after some happenings in the first lap, I was in the top 5. After some great battles, it suddenly started raining. And this is where the magic came in. I happened to choose my pit stop so wisely and perfectly that I immediately made up 2 positions. The top 2 at that time tried running their previous tyres to the end, leading to me catching up lap by lap, corner by corner. Half a lap before the end I finally managed to claw in P1 for my first ever online victory.

But then I Graduated ... To League Racing and ACC​

Fuelled by hype from this success and other good races, I started looking for beginner leagues. I found a promising one on Reddit, with which I spent quite some time before once again switching sims to RaceRoom and founding my own racing community based on that. At some point here, I had also switched to an entry-level DD wheel which I race to this day.

This community has, in the meanwhile, switched to ACC (based on community wishes), and continues to run strongly.

Think of that what you want, to this day, I mainly race on ACC and RaceRoom. And think of THIS what you want, but my favourite category to race is GT3s, no matter the sim.

So, soon I will have raced for only 3 years. Still, these 3 years have been filled with so much excitement, so many buddies I have met online, and so many good memories. I grew to love sim racing and probably won't ever look back.

Now It's Time for You to Tell Your Story!​

Sometimes it's really nice to reminisce and think about what made you the person you are now. I wholeheartedly invite you also to share your story with sim racing. How you started, how you evolved and where you are now.

Feel free to share your story as in-depth or as vague as you want. I can't wait to hear your guys' stories.

So, how long have you been sim racing? Please, let us know in the comments down below!

Ps.: Thank you very much to @AlbertGeorge for allowing me to use their magnificent screenshot for this article.
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About author
Julian Strasser
Julian Strasser
Motorsports and Maker-stuff enthusiast. Part time jack-of-all-trades. Owner of tracc.eu, a sim racing-related service provider and its racing community.

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G
Premium
Lights out and a Passion begins
for me the love to Motorsport and SimRacing started quiet early on the PS2 with Formula one 04 and DTM Race Driver 3 (never Really worked on the back then already old Laptop). That was about 2007ish and in Retrospect its not that much.

After that a while it hadnt really gotten off that much again with "Simracing" titles until 2020 where I got myself F1 2020 mainly with a Controller on the PC. It went like a small drizzle at first but at the begin of 2021 it got to the pouring like Spa 2021. During the Lockdown the love to Motorsport Ignited again with a white hot flame.

My first Real Sim is AC and it is still my Main Stay. Some times i question why I started when Training for a race and just stagnating in Lap Times and consistency. But it pays off and feels way better when hitting my personal Goals and getting something in the Races like a Recovery drive from P19 in last to P13.
 
Antony Snook
I have been sim racing scince i got into F1 in 1990 or so about 30 years. A lot has changed scince i got Geof Cramonds F1 1992. I played that game evrey day after school. It's all about doing what my Heroes where doing every Sunday. Be it F1 NASCAR or anything being raced around a track.
 
Damage Inc
davehenrie said:
I'm sure I had something for my Commodore 64, but my real beginning to sim racing was via the Amiga 500.
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Same here, I had the Suzuki GP500 game on Amiga as well which was my first proper bike sim. Of course I had Microprose F1 GP as well.

First wheel was the wingman formula Force that came with Sports Car GT for my first taste of ISI. Microprose GP500 for Biking.

Got my first (and only as I still use it) wheel rig (Gamepod) with the Logitech GT wheel and Gran Turismo 3) and was more into console racers for a bit.

GTR2 was a game changer moving me back to PC sims more, got most Simbin stuff, then joined WMD for PCARS and have been PC sim only ever since getting most of the top PC sims R3E, RF2, PC1, PC2, AC, ACC, AMS2. Also managed to learn how to use a gamepad in bike games so I could enjoy the Milestone stuff.
 
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2
I used to play the arcade racers when I was a kid and we had arcade centers in malls. Pole Position was the game we used to play.

The game that I started playing all the time was "Ironman Ivan Stewart's Super Off Road" arcade game. in 1989/1990 my ex went to Cal State Northridge and we lived in Buena Park. On the nights she had class I would go with her and while she was in class I would go to the student union and play the game for hours.

In 1999 my brother gave me Gran Tourismo as a graduation gift from paramedic school. I played that until GT2 came out, which I bought and played. I actually tossed that game while racing when I was braking for a hairpin and two AI cars passed me and did the wall turn without damage or slowing.

I then found F1 2001, and then F1 2002. That was when I got my first wheel and pedal set. I played both for about a year and a half but then I got my first laptop and switched to Call of Duty, then CoD 4. I played Cod 4 for years, becoming very good at it. A few of us actually had a very popular server for a few years.

In 2013 my wife (to be my ex a few years later) broke my laptop when she put it in a place I asked her not to put it, and broke it. I was out of a computer for a few months. At the same time my son got Forza and I started playing that. I hated that game due to the physics but it was all I had until I got F1 2012 and then F1 2013.

I was finally able to get another laptop, an MSI gaming laptop and brought it home, eager to upload CoD 4 and join my friends in the server. Once I got back in I played for about 1/2 hour and realized that FPS's were now boring. I left and never went back.

I then went to R3E and AC while waiting for Project Cars. After about a year playing with a controller hooked up to my laptop I graduated to a Logitec G27 with pedals. \

After the ex ( who hated both my gaming and guitar playing-I did not pay enough attention to her...), and I separated I ended up getting a Fanatec CSL Elite wheel base and pedals. I then to a rig with triples, iRacing ( I hated PC and PC2 but that was where my league was until we graduated to rF2 for one season and then iRacing), and now a DD2 with triples on a rig.

I am now at this point:

1676467993949.png
 
NGR_ANDY
My first racing game was V-Rally on the Playstation, followed by Colin McCrae Rally, Gran Turismo 1 through to GT Sport, then Project CARS on PS4 then PC, and finally AC on the PC.
 
HF2000
Club Staff
Premium
I feel like a newbie when I see how many of you have been simracing for such a long time. Now I can use that as an excuse for my poor performance:D.
 
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PiotrGT
I've been playing racing/car games as long as I can remember. Starting probably with some NES/Famicom titles in early to mid 2000s (we had a "Pegazus" home console - a clone of Famicom, heck, the console itself was probably a clone of that clone at this point lol).

Starting in the mid 2000s, some arcade and simcade racing titles I've played over the years include various Colin McRae, TOCA, NFS, FlatOut, World Racing games. A bit later, I've also played Gran Turismo 4 a lot. Back then, though, I would mostly free roam in racing games, and if the game had a damage model - crash the car for fun. I also played some of the more serious sims sometimes, but it was mostly to have fun with all the mods I could find, and again I wasn't really racing much.

I started playing sims a little bit more seriously in the early to mid 2010s. Mostly modded GTR2, RACE 07 and RBR but only offline. In 2014, I got my first wheel, but I couldn't get used to it, and I sold it unfortunately.

In 2019, I bought a PC powerful enough to run modern titles (not the most powerful, but enough), and a bit later I got myself a wheel. This is when I would say that my sim racing days really began. :)
 
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Ryno917
My father bought our first home computer in '94, and shortly thereafter we got Indianapolis 500: The Simulation. That was my first racing sim, though I played a couple titles on my Dad's old Intellivision set on occasion before that, but Indy 500 is considered by many to be the first true simulation. Guess that puts me just shy of 30 years. As a 35 year old, that's not bad. :D

After the first title, we soon moved on to the Papyrus titles (Indycar Racing I and II, NASCAR Racing 1, 2, 4, 2002 and 2003), as well as Crammond's GP2. The next big one for me was SCGT in '99 which I played for years until the modding community shifted to EA's F1C. After than I think rFactor was the next major title I spent time in, though I never really liked it all that much—that's just where the bulk of the modding community went. On the unmodded front I was heavily into LFS in the early-late 2000s before making the jump to Assetto Corsa when it came out. I also got into RBR pretty heavily in the late 2000s/early 2010s.

Modding has always been central to my sim racing interests (though only skinning in LFS). The first thing I ever released publicly was a D2 Privat livery for GP2 waaaay back in the day. But thought my time in all the Papyrus titles I spent at least as much time skinning as I did driving. That dovetailed pretty well into my career and I'm sure is a big part of the reason I do what I do for a living, or at least was a big part of me having a really solid foundation before even earning my degree.
 
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X
Premium
Hi guys, so many games are mentioned that I remember from (long) ago.
Started 'racing' on the Commodore 64 think with Buggy Boy and Pitstop2. That last one was an F1 inspired game, that had tire degradation, which showed as a colored line on the edge of the tire. I think it went from green, via purple to yellow to red or something, and then you had to stop to swap tires. Seeing the F1 color code tires some years ago took me back to those days :)
I then read about Revs, got it at some point, but found it too hard, later on Ferrari Formula one (see the post from davehenrie on the first page for reference), which was kind of a mix between team simulation and driving simulation.

Later I moved on to PC games, with grandprix 2. Around the year 2003 I happened to stumble on a demonstration where they had a professional gaming rig. It was set up on a platform with pneumatic operation much like flight sims they use to train pilots with. One car, one track. The car was a Spyker as raced in Lemans 2003, the track was Zandvoort. Paying 25 eur, one could have a go for 10 minutes or so. I did, and was hooked instantly. To this day I regret not having taken another go.

Anyway, not so long after I got my first racing wheel, a Guillemot one, two pedals, flappy gear shifter. Started with the likes of McRae rallye 2.0, and Grand prix 4. Later I found GP legends in a bargain bin, which quickly became one of my favourites.
A couple of years ago I purchased a second-hand Fanatec CSL wheel and pedals. Still more of an arcade racer than a sim racer.

These days I race Assetto Corsa most of the time, and sometimes Project Cars 2, Dirt 2, Wreckfest (can be fun, can be so frustrating), GT Legends. Should really give GP Legends another go, seeing there are some great mods for it.
 

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