Have Your Say: Why Do You Enjoy Sim Racing?

[Maxell]

well I assume I do, I've never actually put it on pole and walked away from the field to be fair

I did it once. IT WAS BORING AS HELL!!

For me simracing is like a huge sandbox for people who love racing. The variety it gives us is just out of my mind, everyone will find what they like, from open wheel through sportcars, touring cars, karts, finishing os such unusual stuff like f.e. sidecars. Also it gives us a chance to be like our idols, heroes we were/are watching on TV. But the most important thing is that feeling when you're fighting with other people, trying to make your best with heartrate faster than your engine RPM and that joy and pride when you win a race or even a tight battle. And after that you're exhausted like you'd be after real race. But you want more, and more, and more...

 

[Filip Carlén]

Don't forget a beer or two!

or 5. I always drive better after a 2 whiskey

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

I always (think) I drive better after a fine beverage too Bizarrely my results fail to back me up on this astute observation

 

[james]

Another thing I like about sim racing, you don't have to wait. For real drivers, it must be excruciating!

 

[Gary Horneck]

I use sims for training. I do a track day or two a month, and the occasional Autocross event. Keeps those synapses firing and hones the reflexes. Several of the tracks I frequent; Road Atlanta, Barber, AMP, have some representation in various sims. First time I hit any of those three, I already had at least 100 hrs at each in simulation. As soon as I got out onto track it was so familiar, I was up to 80% in a couple laps.

 

[DaVeX↯]

I am simracer because...
Well I don't know, I was a simracer when younger (I stopped due to...life...maybe...) but then I discovered FPS, now I am both...
I race because I want to prove me I can be fast as young but, at the same time, I love the idea to be a sort of hunter aiming to my opponent to reach, even if I am a noob I drive like a mad to reach the opponent and shoot is soul passing him where he think I can't...
Even if we are battling for last position...
Sometimes I think I need a cross hair on my windshield to be good...

 

[someur]

I don't always enjoy a race (when it isn't going my way). I just NEED to develop these kind of (sim) racing skills and get as much as possible experience Also love Motorsport in general.

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

I use sims for training. I do a track day or two a month, and the occasional Autocross event. Keeps those synapses firing and hones the reflexes. Several of the tracks I frequent; Road Atlanta, Barber, AMP, have some representation in various sims. First time I hit any of those three, I already had at least 100 hrs at each in simulation. As soon as I got out onto track it was so familiar, I was up to 80% in a couple laps.

Nice one Gary!

Out of all the sims you have direct comparison to real life with, which one would you say in your opinion gave you the closest sensation to the real thing?

Btw for anyone who wishes to derail this thread - the above question is out of curiosity, not an opportunity to start a sim war

 

[Nick Milton]

I have raced coming from uk, and I afforded ,via support, rallycross karting, saloon cars and a little FF, sooo expensive, when I became clear I wasn't Niki Lauda, I took up football

Now at 55, I've been a member of RD Aussie ( live in qld now) , Im probably the worst on the forum, strangely amongst a few who have actually driven brands and silverstone, but completely useless at sim, but I love it, I love going onto my rig, logging to teamspeak, and opening AMS and racing against real people, I can drift into the being there feeling, until I crash, then I'm glad I'm not, some in my group probably think I should just give up, I'm that bad, but I won't, and I'm still there, love endurance, and gp length races, with serious people, to include practise and qualy, pits and damage, don't see any point to not having 100% damage tbh, pits, and race length.

The Aussie forum is fantastic, it includes an american, and being Australia, many are not born on these shores, which makes it great. I thank all RD for helping me drift into a different world and pretend. Even at 55 we need this sometimes

I do still play competitive football though, and do really love that also,.
Oh and snow skiing ⛷⛷

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Hmm, back when I was 10yo I started karting, it was fun but I didn't take it any serious, adding to that I was sorta large. Not obese, but not as skinny as you need to be to potentially get to the sharp end.
The years went by, and after some good results when I was 13, together with stuff that happens in that age, I got more serious with my racing, started hard workouts over the winter, getting in pretty good shape, better than I've ever been. Went up to the Formula Yamaha class (some UK-guys might know about that class) and had instant results. Suddenly, for some reason I was actually battling on the sharp end here in my home country. Topping it all with a 2nd in the "Junior(U17) Festival" in Norway.
And that's where it ended, riding my bike to school the day after that race I crashed on my cycle in an underpass. Of course, helmets are for weak people, so I got it hard. Ended up with a broken skull, and pretty severe brain hemorrhage, and woke up in the hospital with Aphasia (couldn't speak, I could think the words and it felt like I said them, but just a constant "nnnnn" sound came).
After somewhere between 4 and 6 months with total ban on physical activity (other than walking and very slow cycling) and getting my talking somewhat back to normal - will never be OK. I was strongly advised to not do Motorsport anymore, due to the danger of brain injuries, like a concussion, and that my brain would not recover from another hit.
I did get back to karting, but with so many months with a total ban on physical activity I was not in shape anymore, and to get it to work properly, everything must be in order, but my Dad was pretty scared by the doctors words, so things never got back to any serious stuff after that. I did some RX-events when I turned 16, got into an A-final and some stuff, but stopped when I moved from home.

So ye, that's why I do enjoy simracing. It is a way for me to do the things I was "robbed" from due to not using helmet when cycling to school. It is also a good training tool, and while I don't care about setups and such (I always run default), there are much good theory to get to practice and learn from.

I made a micro-comeback in RX last autumn. Loaned a car from a fellow RD-member, got a couple of heat victories, and a C-Final even though I had to skip one qualifying heat. The fact that I hadn't been behind the wheel of a car, road-going or racing for over 8 years showed me that simracing does indeed work to learn the basics. I would never been able to do what I did last year without simracing.

Sorry for making it a "life-story" but it is all down to why I enjoy simracing

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Wow Ole that's some serious stuff man, bloody hell! Glad to hear you've recovered now from all that trauma back in the day, real scary stuff fella

Oh yeah and top stuff on the comeback result, sweet

 

[Rob]

It requires just a little suspension of disbelief to gain a mountain of joy. For most guys, and increasingly more girls, there is nothing more visceral and primal than putting rubber to road. And like any world-class hobby, it's universal, ever-upgradable, yet beautifully simple.

 

[Philip Antonia]

I only ever remember loving Motorsport as a child. Always wanted to be a racing driver, but various reasons (mainly reality) meant it wasn't going to happen. It was in 1993 when I was 15, that a school friend of mine, who was also a big fan of Motorsport, told me about this Sim he tried on the PC called Grand Prix by Geoff Crammond!! I'd played lots of racing "games" before, but my Mum bought us our first PC and a 2nd hand copy of Grand Prix .

From there on I raced through the entire GP series, Papy's Nascar and Indycar sims and have raced virtually every other since.

Once I was grown up and had kids etc, I got into online racing (originally with LFS) as the reality of real Motorsport had long since become a pipe dream. I found the community here at RD that got me into the Racing club and dipped my toes into a few leagues. Made lots of great like minded friend around the globe and I will never get through a working week without my dose of racing. I mainly race in iRacing now, as my work shifts, my wife's job and kids, make committing to leagues etc virtually impossible, but I still visit my old haunts and keep in touch with some friends .

Oh and my friend who pointed me in the direction of Grand Prix when we were at school, went on to work as a mechanic and pit crew for Race Prep, then at Arena Motorsport in the BTCC and finally for a long stint with Prodrive, with their ALMS Ferrari's, Aston Martin DBR9's and the Lola Aston Martin Prototype's in LMES before he moved on to working for BP. Jammy git!! Lol

I love sim racing, for it's communities and racing with people, who feel the same way I feel about our great hobby .

 

[Copef1]

I've loved anything to do with racing since I saw my first Indy 500, in 1972. Mark Donohue won, and I was 7 years old. I've followed Indycar, F1, sports car racing, and NASCAR ever since. I never owned a pc until I saw Grand Prix Legends in a store in a mall. I bought the game and a pc soon there after. That was in 1998, and I have been sim racing ever since. To me sim racing is just a lot of fun. Besides, when else is the average person going to be able to race a Ferrari 250 GTO around Le Mans, except in a sim?

 

[Gary Horneck]

Nice one Gary!

Out of all the sims you have direct comparison to real life with, which one would you say in your opinion gave you the closest sensation to the real thing?

Btw for anyone who wishes to derail this thread - the above question is out of curiosity, not an opportunity to start a sim war

AMP on rFactor 2 is an amazing recreation. It was laser scanned rather recently, and it captures the elevation changes very well.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Wow Ole that's some serious stuff man, bloody hell! Glad to hear you've recovered now from all that trauma back in the day, real scary stuff fella

As good as I can recover at least ^^, Apparently people don't notice it, but I notice it when I speak, I still haven't learned to not notice it Life's mysteries!

 

[Cosmo Marsh]

For me, it's about being able to indulge in my love for automobiles.

I know I'll never be able to be an actual race driver. I don't have the money, I'm not fit enough, the list of reasons goes on. The closest I ever came before I found simracing was watching them going around. I could dream one day I'd be in one but I knew it was just that - a dream.

The reality of simracing though is that it allows me to experience, even if just for a moment, what it might be like to race a car.

It's the closest I can get, and that's what makes it special. I can drive almost anything I want, from 1000hp+ hybrid LMP1 monsters to a tiny sub-50hp skinny-tyred bundle of fun. I can pick any track I want and race it, learn it, experience it. It's the only thing that lets me race F1 at Monaco, the Nordscheife in GTs, and Formula 3 at Brands Hatch all in one day.

I can race against my heroes, or race as them. I can take on the likes of Senna, Prost, Mansell, Schumacher, Patrese, Hill, Villeneuve, Hakkinen. I can fight to avoid last in a Simtek, a Forti, a Life, a Pacific or a Lola.

I can race with my friends, as part of a team or against each other. I've made more friends through simracing than I ever have in real life. I find it hard to talk to new people when they're right in front of me. But give me a microphone and people who share a common interest and away I go.

I don't just race either. Being a simracer has led me into simracing commentary. I've commentated on top flight formula cars and Audi cup cars. My experience grows week by week. It's what inspired me to take the university course I have and pursue a career as a motorsport commentator.

It's my enthusiasm not just for simracing, but for racing in general, that drives me to do what I do. But without simracing I wouldn't be here.

To me, simracing isn't just a hobby. It's given me a direction I didn't have before.

To me, it's home.

 

[Kurupt CDN]

So I can pretend to tell my friends I'm a race car driver while acting like I know things about cars......mostly tho to drive fast and reckless without listening to my wife b*$%h in my ear to slow down.

 

[Spinelli]

- First, because I raced in real life (almost won an F2000 championship and a free entire next season to race against future racers who went on to race in Star Mazda, Indy Lights, and Indy/CART).

- The feel and act of pushing a vehicle and controlling it when finding the limits and going beyond them (also part of what makes simracing frustrating as they all behave different from one-another as-well as real-life especially at and over the limit).

- The challenge of having to learn to drive car X on circuit X and how the car/track experience differs from one to another.

- Not only the exhilaration of racing others but the exhilaration of racing yourself in pursuit of ever-improving laptimes.

- Finding those limits and being able to consistently drive on those limits is extremely rewarding whether you're racing yourself or others.

- The physical aspect especially when using a high-resistance brake pedal and a strong FFB wheel.

- The psychological aspect is another part I love. You really have to think of tiny things you have to do different with your driving technique in order to improve you laptimes, handling, etc. even if it's just to take 1 particular corner in a more stable manner. Racing is extremely analytical and psychologically engaging (arguably even more-so with simracing since bravery and physical feel is a lot less part of the equation relative to real-life).


Overall, it's about searching for and "playing" with the limits of the vehicle/grip while battling with your 4 types of opponents: A) yourself (mostly psychologically but physically too), B) other vehicles, C) the circuit (corners, laptimes, etc.), D) your car (getting the best out of it).

When racing, you're always searching for something, for more. Racing is a never-ending pursuit of perfection and self-improvement.

 

[Lars Hansen]

Guess I'm the odd one out.
I'm not a petrolhead in any way, shape or form. I have a basic understanding of how the internal combustion engine works, but that's about it.
Nor do I have much of an emotional investment in cars as such. I mean, I can appreciate the design of the Porsches, the sound of a rumbling V8 and so on, but I don't go 'wow' at any of it.
I don't even watch all that much racing. Still have the 2016 BlancPain GT3 season somewhere on my harddrive, and I've yet to watch a single race of it.

So why would I spend time and money on it?
Several reasons, I suppose.
Part of it is the social factor. To me, the TS banter is far more enjoyable than the actual racing in the Club Races......Although presumably that might have something to do with the fact that I'm better at banter than racing.
Second, it's a way to do something I'll never get to do in real life. Same reason I do flight-sims for that matter. The odds of anyone ever offering me a ride in a Ferrari are remote to say the least.
But mostly I think it's because I have one of those brains that, whenever things get too mundane, pokes me on the shoulder and says "feed me".
I love learning new stuff, even if it has no practical application in my real life.
Tinkering, reverse-engineering and basically prodding at stuff until I figure out what makes it tick (or go boom, as the case may be).
20 years ago it was explosives (don't ask ), 15 years ago it was wargaming, 10 years ago it was flight-sims, now it's this.
Tomorrow? Who knows.