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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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

... yeah literally changes nothing.

Bone stock vs track prepped literally makes no difference (for the record my car is as track prepped as it really needs to be for the events I run and my goals on consumables, coilovers, roll bar, upgraded intercooler, fuel injectors for E85, ultralight brake kit)

I mean subie bros are out there running race clutches in street cars for no reason other than to say they do (even if they’ll never admit that).

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None of this has anything at all to do with the fact simulators let you practice _a lot_ of very important lessons.

Saying “nothing transfers” is 100% an ego play, because you’re really saying “oh yeah racing lines and all that textbook stuff is meaningless it’s all about if you can push it with the nerves of steel when you’ve got tens of thousands on the line in damages and possible injury”

... I mean there are people who unironically think that, but having those fundamentals that a sim can and will leapfrog you over someone starting from scratch.

Even just learning the track layout and markers is an incredible advantage that you can find in a realistic sim (and the friend I mentioned who treats racing much more like a science project than I have the time or funds to does this)

I mean, otherwise in what universe would someone be able to be compete in Spec Miata as their first door-to-door racing experience ever and not make a mess of literally everything:

https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/2018/02/21/john-allen-trans...

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

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link to show?

apart from Netflix's Drive to Survive, there is also Amazon Prime's GP Driver. https://www.amazon.com/GRAND-PRIX-Driver-Season-1/dp/B078WFL...

That's the one I was thinking of. Thanks!

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

#224
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a recommendation for a beginner VR setup?

2nd this. Sounds very interesting.

I did this recently and am extremely satisfied. For years now now I kept on buying games that I never played because I just couldn't get into it them like I did when I was young.

I recently put together a rig with fanatec csw 2.5 wheel, formula v2 wheel, csl elite pedals, the simlab tr1 frame, and an NRG innovations seat I bought off amazon for 200$. All in all probably set me back around 1600$.

I'm having a grand old time getting into iracing.

Best investment I've made in ages. Also a great coronavirus shut-in hobby.

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

#225
post #208
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?

Do you mean a sim setup? VR sucks compared to a sim.

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if it is the same thing that this commenter was thinking of, but the show "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" was a breakaway hit on Netflix (not Amazon Prime) when season one was released last year (which followed the teams across the 2018 season) and brought a ton of new fans to the sport. It is really well done and very engaging. Season 2 just released in February and follows the teams across the 2019 seaso…

I spent quite a bit of time with NASCAR last year (I attended the Daytona 500 and previously visited their HQ and archives). Most of the up and coming drivers are previously accomplished eRacers, but the transition to experiences in a real car are enormously different. Not many make the cut, the tracks rote memory is very useful but real life is exceedingly different

Yeah remembering a NASCAR track is hard.

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

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any sport involving any sort of physical contact is really difficult. The sports without are pretty easy to do while following CDC recommendations: poker, chess, golf, bowling, racing, biking. Sports like track & field are somewhat in the middle but they're just timed. It would be feasible to just have people do these alone in standardized conditions with a single moderator.

Don't you think to be considered a "sport" there needs to be an element of physical aptitude? Poker and chess are both games of skill, but I wouldn't call them sports.

The line is pretty arbitrary. This is an article about e-sports. Play with the semantics if you will.

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

#228
post #207
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…

what’s the ongoing costs on the bmw like? i assume mx-5 cup is not hugely different from spec miata, which i race now.

Not OP, but I do (a fair amount of) HPDE/TT with an m240i, converted to the cup car spec.

Running costs for me are ~$500 / 2-hour day on 100-TW tires. These cars aren't exactly light, so they eat through consumables. Tires are the largest part, then repairs, then brakes. This doesn't count fuel.

If I had to guess for OP in PWC, 50-100% more, mostly driven by slick costs.

EDIT: added fuel note

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

#229
post #215
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 feed…

You typically aren't reversing at any point in the race track, so that particular skill will obviously not transfer from a simulator (as it's not practiced).

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

#230
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fr…

The difference is the skills a racing sim enthusiast has would take literal years to cultivate even if you have the ability to learn it.

Here’s a guy who went to Spec Miata as his first exposure to racing other cars from a sim:

https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/2018/02/21/john-allen-trans...

To put into perspective how insane that is, at High Performance Driving events (non competitive events where you get to drive around a track), you might expect someone to move to the advanced group where you’re still not allowed to pass in turns, and have to be pointed by after multiple years!

Some places would actually require you to take a year's worth of events just to get into a group where passing is allowed at all without an instructor in the car

This guy went straight into full on Spec Miata with purpose built cars and full on passing for his first event!

That would be like someone playing baseball for the first time in Minor League Baseball, it takes some extremely real and difficult to develop skill to do so even if it isn’t MLB...

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