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Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

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Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#211

Post by chinesempire »

dvtrn wrote: post #205
chinesempire wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, seasoned, with no motivation whatsoever... I have beaten a seasoned champion in a Rally competition a couple of times (means I arrived before him), but he won the championship that year, I was in the lower 20% of the rankings at the end of the season Being a champion is not about the single performance, is about consistency over the years

he won the championship that year, I was in the lower 20% of the rankings at the end of the season What was the cause of that? You mention "no motivation whatsoever" but I know nothing about the racing world or what kind of preparation-mental or otherwise-goes into being a competitive driver; what does that mean here in terms of how it affected the results so disparately for the two of you at the end of your season (…

> What was the cause of that?

Well in my case it's quite easy to explain: I'm not a professional driver, but I've been competing in the same races over and over, there are tracks were I have good runs, because I know the place since when I was a kid and I remember every curve and know every trick, others I just try to get to the end safe and am generally terrible with regards to timing.

The other thing is experience in difficult conditions: if my gearbox get stuck in fourth gear I just retire, I don't have the skills to drive in those conditions and still enjoy it, professional drivers know how to handle it to get to the end of the special stage without losing too much time, get the car fixed and keep going.

Every single point counts when you're racing for the lead.

Another aspect is the kind of risks you're willing to take.

In rally competitions in Italy, especially the smaller ones, local drivers usually get out on top after the nightly stages, but when the sun comes up the real pro start climbing the rankings and fight for the victory.

They don't wanna risk anything when it's dark and are simply so much above the average that their "night strolls" allow them to be in the first ten positions, without too much hassles.

Having dealt with pro drivers as a technician on the field and as an hobbyist pilot, the real difference is the attitude.

A professional driver can make mistakes, like everybody else, but won't get easily distracted or get down by them and consistently race at the best of their abilities even when it's not the best day.

That's why they win championships while I simply try to look good when I race in my hometown in front of my friends :)

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#212

Post by thsealienbstrds »

saberdancer wrote: post #165
thsealienbstrds wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GT Sport has a DLC-mode where you can do time trials vs. Lewis Hamilton's lap times. On a track where he clocked 1 minute 37 seconds, I was pretty shocked to find that the top 10 GT Sport players _all_ clocked lap times around 2 seconds faster than that.

Whats so shocking about it? Hamilton probably spent an hour or so for each of those laps, maybe less. Top 10 guys spend days or weeks doing it.

Yeah it makes sense when you think about it, but the first time you see it you're like wtf.

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#213

Post by BoorishBears »

Retric wrote: post #195
BoorishBears wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is about gamers also... The jump to F1 and even NASCAR is ridiculous... Again, SCCA is a 50,000 member organization. NASA is another large racing org. You should imagine that most NASCAR racers are not racing for the first time when they first enter a stock car, things like Spec Miata and even competitive go-karting are not any less “real” racing, to say otherwise is gatekeeping.

It’s not about how real the sports are, or even the level of competition. It’s about what abilities transfer. A world class marathon runner needs serious endurance like a world class biathlon athlete, but they don’t need very good vision. Physical abilities can be improved within a range, but once the competition gets good enough you need a baseline genetic competence to be competitive. As in you don’t need to be 6’1…

Instead of having a circular argument where you continuously make the obvious point “simulators are simulations”, I’ll leave it at how is this any different from a flight sim, which are widely accepted as letting you get transferable skills.

Realistic racing sims will give you skills that transfer to racing. Period.

They will not give you _all_ the skills you need, they will not train your neck muscles to withstand 6gs, but they will let you understand the concept of a racing line, they will help you understand how shifting mid turn can unsettle a car even if they can’t replicate realistic shifting and a host of other useful lessons.

What this thread seems hellbent on doing is pointing out the sim won’t give you all the skills needed to race.

Well duh?

Especially if you set the bar at skills needed to race at a level .000001% of people who even race will ever be exposed to.

The average driver in any sort of competitive driving event (read: race) is probably doing something closer to a HPDE than an Indycar race...

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#214

Post by sigspec »

Yhippa wrote: post #208
raiyu wrote: post #204

I've tracked my car for 5 years, then started racing for the past 5 years, and moved up to pro racing two years ago competing in Pirelli World Challenge and MX-5 Cup. The simulators today are fantastic. The skills you learn in the simulator are 100% transferable to real life, and they happen without you having to think. I went 9 years without using a sim and then two years ago started using it. What gets transferred…

Do you have a recommendation for a beginner VR setup?

2nd this. Sounds very interesting.

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#215

Post by modoc »

raiyu wrote: post #204

I've tracked my car for 5 years, then started racing for the past 5 years, and moved up to pro racing two years ago competing in Pirelli World Challenge and MX-5 Cup. The simulators today are fantastic. The skills you learn in the simulator are 100% transferable to real life, and they happen without you having to think. I went 9 years without using a sim and then two years ago started using it. What gets transferred…

I am no where near your level, or that of a pro racer, however I have spent a lot of time on tracks in various cars (Audi S4, BMW M3, BMW M6, etc..) and held a race license for motorcycles for a while.

However, when using the pretty amazing racing sim setup at Turner Motorsports (NH based BMW shop who runs some successful race cars) I couldn't make it a single lap without spinning out. There's a lack of physical feedback that kept me from feeling the approaching edge of traction or the frame balance shifting, etc...

One my friends who would always beat me in any racing games, has backed into his own mailbox at least 3 times.

So... :)

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#216

Post by Measter »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #203
Measter wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree that it's impossible to tell what the rear's doing in a sim. I've never driven a real vehicle outside of a few times in a low-powered kart, so I don't know what it's like in that scenario. I assume there's some physical feedback through the seat about what the car's doing. But when I'm driving in VR in iRacing or Assetto Corsa I can tell when the rear is about to step out. It can't be track-based mem…

> driving in VR ah well that's something I never tried; do you have the same sensation of control while driving on a standard monitor?

It's been several years since I last drove with a monitor (my sim rig doesn't have one nearby), but from what I remember not as much. One of the biggest things I remember noticing when I switched to VR was I very quickly got better at car control. I had a much better sense of where my car was, what it was doing, where the edge of the track was, and where other cars were.

This actually had a fair effect on my race performance, too. I was typically around the middle of ACRL's second split in performance for GT3. You can see the effect VR had on my results (split 2 unless noted otherwise):

* Imola: 18th

* Red Bull Ring: 19th

* Monza: 6th (split 3)

* Spa: 16th

* Paul Ricard: 10th

* Bathurst: 4th (got VR the week of this race)

* Silverstone: 2nd (my first podium)

And then from the season 3 months later:

* Mugello: 8th

* Donington: 3rd

* Zandvoort: 8th

* Nurburgring GP: 5th

* Interlagos: 21st (got into split 1 for the first time)

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#217

Post by Retric »

BoorishBears wrote: post #213
Retric wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about how real the sports are, or even the level of competition. It’s about what abilities transfer. A world class marathon runner needs serious endurance like a world class biathlon athlete, but they don’t need very good vision. Physical abilities can be improved within a range, but once the competition gets good enough you need a baseline genetic competence to be competitive. As in you don’t need to be 6’1…

Instead of having a circular argument where you continuously make the obvious point “simulators are simulations”, I’ll leave it at how is this any different from a flight sim, which are widely accepted as letting you get transferable skills. Realistic racing sims will give you skills that transfer to racing. Period. They will not give you _all_ the skills you need, they will not train your neck muscles to withstand 6…

Ahh, ok I don’t think the skill portion is that relevant. I am saying that something like 20% of people are capable of competing at that level based on the genetic lottery and general health after training. That’s mostly true of both racing sims and F1/etc but while there is overlap it’s still a significantly different 20%.

Aka 30% of the population could do either, but only 10% could do both. (Percentages picked from thin air.)

Flying is extremely skilled focused, but you also need to pass an eye exam. The bar for airline pilots is low enough most people could do either, but with fighter pilots it’s less useful. With them people fail out of high g training before setting foot in a fighter, or have hay fever, or are to short or to tall, or etc etc.

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#218

Post by 0-_-0 »

nitrogen wrote: post #210
fredzel wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should just go full Trackmania

I would pay to watch a remote-piloted robotic Trackmania if there were good enough systems to transfer track feel to the remote controls.

I hope 0G F1 racing becomes a thing in the space age (basically in space but in an arena filled with air where the only force that keeps the cars from floating is the downforce). Imagine roads at any angle!

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#219

Post by AaronM »

Swizec wrote: post #79
creyes wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a risk thing too, i don't think it's just physical exertion. F1 drivers could literally die if they make a mistake. Not so much a problem in a sim

Or someone else making a mistake like in F2 recently where a crash lead to a death and severe injuries. Car that slammed (survived) into car that stopped (dead) at 300kph had zero seconds to react. Full speed over a blind crest into a stopped car. But if you don’t go full speed over a blind crest, you won’t be in even the top 10. Takes a special kind of person.

I wonder if technology could fix that, some sort of HUD display that signals a crash on a part of the track. Could update faster than it takes for the safety crew to get out there.

Re: Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races

#220

Post by semerda »

BoorishBears wrote: post #118
semerda wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha racing on an empty track in a car that’s built to handle like a go cart is nothing like the stress of a circuit race with other cars. I used to race my modified turbo 500hp and I can tell you that game racing is nada to real life racing. Even knowing that taking a risk can cost you $$$ or your life is stressful enough. With other cars on the track it’s many more variables to calculate and consider. So let’s no…

I’m not a race car driver but I do track my car pretty often There are people out there who use simulators and very detailed data logging in their track cars to try and experiment with things like braking habits. Saying it’s “nothing alike” honestly feels like gate keeping. Obviously a video game played from your couch is not going to feel like hurtling thousands of pounds of metal around a track, but if you can’t dr…

I'm sorry I should have been more clear that my car was built for the race track. Came on 2 bar of boost really hard and with a twin plate clutch meant only few people managed to drive it without stalling. A car built for the race track is not the same as your normal car. This is the difference I was trying to allude to.

But yes if you have a stock car and you take it on a race track you'll most likely be ok as long as you follow the rules.

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