How Long Have You Been Sim Racing?

Greg Latty · Feb 17, 2023

this was technically my first " sim ". In the late 80s , my brother and I got our first gaming system, the mattel intellivision, from our Uncle . And this was one of the games we got with it. Then I had a Al Unser game for my fisrt computer in 96. So Ive been racing for over 30 years. Sheesh. And i still suck.

roadyroad · Feb 17, 2023

A special mention for TOCA / DM / V8 Race Driver 3 : the driving was solid and how fun it was driving everything, even monster trucks! No other game has been able to bring so much diversity.

Well, I've just searched and... there are monster truck mods for AC!

Well, only one is available...

Coming back to TRD3 and simracing, thanks to that game we got many of its tracks converted in ISI engine games, also tracks from its predecessors, TRD1 and TRD2. In this way these titles have had a huge impact in simracing. Thanks to them Outlon Park became one of my favorite track ever and when it was converted in GTR2, I spent hours and hours racing on this track. With their strong downforce and their huge power on acceleration without any TC, GTs on this track were absolutely insane and still are...

Ole Marius Myrvold · Feb 17, 2023

I voted 15-20 years, as I joined my first league, and thus got properly into simracing when I was 12 years back in late 2003.
Though, I did get a "Sierra Simulation Pack" in 1997 or 1998 that contained SODA Off-Road Racing (great track editor in that one), IndyCar Racing 2 and NASCAR Racing 2. I also got Sports Car GT when that was released, and Grand Prix Legends for free in a PC Magazine around 2000.
But at that time my age was still in single digit, so I didn't really understand too much. Grand Prix 3 with hot seat mode was fun though.

JonP01 · Feb 17, 2023

I have been sim racing for 25 years. I was actually a very late starter for my age group simply because I did not own a personal computer until the age of 32. I had enough computing at work since that was my profession - I did not want to take work home with me. Prior to that though, I would still go to the arcade and throw 20 cents into some (actually quite good) racing machines from the early 90s. One of them even had brakes and a clutch that were operated with hydraulics. Even the steering had hydraulic force feedback! i remember the forces were actually very convincing.

But my first ever "racing" product for that first PC I ever purchased (if you could even call it a "racing" sim) was Monster Truck Madness 2 (!!) which came bundled with my very first wheel - a Microsoft Sidewinder (which was actually an excellent wheel for its time - it lasted me from 1998 to 2004 and only wore out because it never really had any proper bearings on the steering shaft - not because the mechanism itself broke or wore out). I will never forget Army Armstrong's immortal words "If that were alive, it would be roadkill now.....

I then ran Sports Car GT (the first software I actually outright purchased) then GP Legends (which got me on the hardware upgrade path). Went from that to Rally Trophy for a literal change of scenery before moving to GT Legends. I actually ran GT Legends for a few years before spending a couple of years on iRacing. But I eventually got sick of drivers on iRacing deliberately wrecking other drivers - even to the point of parking cars on the side of the track and then waiting for a victim to come around and driving into them. In the end it became so frustrating given the effort I put into taking it seriously and driving well - that I gave it up and vowed to never go online ever again. I have never raced online since and never will again.

From iRacing I briefly tried rFactor but went to Race07 with all the updates to bring it up to what you get on Steam as of today. And although this sim is now considered ancient in 2023 terms it is still the one I use today and I have no intentions of changing it unless a future computer configuration compels me to. I have tried other sims in the last 12 years including most where any demos were available or where Steam offered their 2 hour or other short term promotional trials but for various reasons they were always very disappointing compared to Race07.

Hoksu · Feb 17, 2023

Long enough to have spent a lot of time on it but not long enough to learn to drive

zzjorzz · Feb 17, 2023

Pitstop 2 on atari was my first!

Gregoryleo · Feb 17, 2023

Well, this sent me down memory lane. In my childhood I remember going to the penny arcade at the local amusement park, and dumping my entire 25 cent allowance on a game in which you would race a late 50s miniature formula 1 car, penny a lap.
Then we built a box car for cub scouts, raced it once then it sat on the side of the house for a couple of years, and became my race car, and I was Elvis Presley in a gold GT, racing in the Grand Prix. I spent many hours on that 2x4 frame with wheels. I know neither of those is a racing sim but for the early 60s it was what we had.
Fast forward to 1990, a game called stunts hit the market, and my 12mhz pc could just handle it. All my free time was spent playing that with a joystick for a couple of years. Then Bill Elliot’s nascar came along and took its place.
In 95 I moved to Hawaii and didn’t touch a computer for the next 7 or eight years. But then I eventually got an iphone 3 and started playing real racing, that got me hooked again. I eventually bought a gaming laptop (because I needed it for work) and a $50 wheel that had a vibrator in it ,no actual ffb, and started playing GTR2 ten years ago, which I guess would be when I actually started official sim racing. A friend told me that single player and online are two very different experiences, and I should try both to see what fits me best. So I joined a league, and also spent time in singlePlayer. Because of my life style (I have 9 horses) and time to play I am a single player racer. My wife bought me a G27 for Easter shortly after I got my computer, and I have been in love ever since. I have upgraded to a better pc and play mostly raceroom and rf2 now a days. But I do have most of the pc based racing sims and a couple of arcade racers available on steam.

Cooknn · Feb 17, 2023

1996 Papyrus NASCAR Racing 2 was my first taste of sim racing. I had a TSW wheel and pedals before force feedback. Loved that setup. Later in ‘96 I got my first on-line race experience with NROS on TEN. The names on the leaderboard back then are the same names on the iRacing AI today

WeirdKiwi · Feb 18, 2023

VirtuaIceMan said:
This was my first "sim"

damn the sound is just so disturbing

vonmanstein · Feb 18, 2023

Hi everyone I started with gp2 then indycar 2 the years have passed I am now 63 at the start I played with the keyboard then with a logitech g27 then a thrustmaster t500 rs I am now with a fanatec csl dd 8nm installation and a steering wheel clubsport formula v2 and I find it fantastic in terms of sensations
passionate about motorsport I did several years of karting with a Tony kart 100cc and slaloms in motorsport with the first golf GTIs and I watch all the f1 gp on tv since 1970 victory of regazzoni at monza tv in black and white
my favorite game is assetto corsa there is something new every day for the game I thank all those guys who post and offer this to us I ride every day about 1 hour and I think I will start doing some races online to test that
Thanks to all the guys who publish on the site and who keep this game alive and dynamic thanks also to the whole race department team
best regards to all
Racing its live anything that happens before ....................
Phil

Frank · Feb 18, 2023

About 25 years and counting

markie44 · Feb 18, 2023

Being a certain age, I spent many hours in the arcades addicted to steering wheel and pedal "SIM's" - Sega Outrun (1 DoF - traction loss

), Supersprint and Pole position.

At some stage I definitely had a wheel and pedal set - probably for a console of some sort - but this never cut the mustard.

Fast forward to 2019 after thinking I'm too old for 'games' - I went all in after watching a freeroam AC video and realising "its not a game anymore" and I dont need an F1 team's budget to get one. Well not a top team anyway...

Harbsch · Feb 18, 2023

I've been playing racing games for over 25 years. Starting with GP2, Nascar Racing 1 and then the first big step into the online community happened with Sports Car GT, where I learned about Speedsims. For me it was never about competitive racing, but enjoying content. Eventually I started doing my own paintjobs etc and joined various mod teams over the years, doing my part in creating mods like F1-Seven for F1-Challenge and Touring Car Legends for rFactor.
Now i only occasionally take cars for a spin, just for the fun of it. Especially when I discover a new track or a car I always liked

neilparky · Feb 18, 2023

Microprose Grand Prix started it for me.

Marc Majnes · Feb 19, 2023

NASCAR RACING 1 1994 was my first but Sports Car GT got me hooked

the_last_name_left · Feb 19, 2023

1974: homemade

Sprint 2. 1976.

1982: Atari/Namco Pole Position

1983: Chequered Flag (Spectrum)

1985: Revs (BBC)

cockpitview · Feb 19, 2023

IndyCar Racing on dos 1993.

roadyroad · Feb 20, 2023

WeirdKiwi said:
damn the sound is just so disturbing

Yes, I always wonder how I could play these awful games at that time. I don't have any nostalgia for them.

I think some games from the mid to late 90s are still good today though and even quiet unmatched : lucasarts games in general, a few FPS (better say some levels of a few FPS), 2D fighting and beat them all games. Sim racing games from that era, just no, they just looked bad (early 3D graphics) and the physics were far from being perfect.

The first time I told myself "wow, now it's the real thing", was for GTR1. The graphics (with the desaturated colors, a nice touch unfortunately lacking in GTR2), the sounds, the FFB, this is when simbin raised the bar. For sure, in terms of handling, it shared the awful loss of grip at low speed from F1 Challenge (the spinning effect you could not catch). Simbin refined the physics with GTL and then came GTR2 based on rfactor's engine, better to say, simbin absolutely made this engine shine in every aspect. Then, imo, it became THE thing. And it still is a solid simracing experience today...

When Project cars came out, I thought the bar had been raised again, with these graphics and features, but no, GTR2 and the Race series were still more serious titles. Only ACC is in the same league and a good successor, raising the realism bar, although I don't really like the GT3s. When I state realism, I include the possibility to run an offline championship with all the real rules and random weather conditions, and realistic presentation, with a coherent AI on each track in all conditions, which haven't been done since the old simbin titles until ACC (and maybe iracing, which I don't use, but I consider it in another league considering its price). It took more than 10 years to get this high level of realism back.

Apart their limited graphics and physics, most sims before GTR, since the 90s, usually included realistic features (fully working AI, different weather conditions, championship), they were considered normal features. In some way, it means we had a decade of full packages of features simracing titles, but ugly, followed by a full decade of half sims, good experiences with good visuals and sounds, but just unfinished experiments. A decade of experiments, it makes sense. It is time to open another simracing chapter.

AMS2, AC2, GTR Revival, Rennsport, I hope we, at last, are entering an era of full sims with realistic visuals. I don't expect graphics and sounds to go a lot further than the current titles. We don't need more polygons and overdone postprocessing effects, just better shading. Gran Turismo has been doing that for years, giving realistic visuals even with outdated graphics, ACC is not bad in that aspect too. Personnally, if the job on crucial offline racing features is not done, I won't jump into these titles, because other experiments won't bring anything new on the table, except flaws. Well, I already got AMS2, so I hope this title will be the experience I expect, there is still work to do.

roadyroad · Feb 20, 2023

Harbsch said:
I've been playing racing games for over 25 years. Starting with GP2, Nascar Racing 1 and then the first big step into the online community happened with Sports Car GT, where I learned about Speedsims. For me it was never about competitive racing, but enjoying content. Eventually I started doing my own paintjobs etc and joined various mod teams over the years, doing my part in creating mods like F1-Seven for F1-Challenge and Touring Car Legends for rFactor.
Now i only occasionally take cars for a spin, just for the fun of it. Especially when I discover a new track or a car I always liked

F1-Seven, what a mod! Glad to have the opportunity to say thank you.

Fernando Deutsch · Feb 20, 2023

First real simracing experience was in 1996 with Papyrus Indycar II.
I do remember in 1994 I bought a Sound Blaster audio card and there was a copy of Indy 500, which I believe never launch, so yes, up until 1996.

How Long Have You Been Sim Racing?