Relativly new WRS'er here, here's the story of how I started racing virtually
Before Gran Turismo came to me, I used to be an amazing Need For Speed: Underground 1 & 2 player, So in a sense I started out street-racing, always challenging my friends to come over and play the game with me just so I could waste them.
Then Most-wanted came out, I got that, and my dad hooked it up to a really, really good Stereo set, so whenever I played it sounded like a real street race, And the sounds of the engine always made me want more, and then I starting 'getting in trouble with the law', always out-running the cops and such, just for kicks and to push myself
Then one day a friend brought over GT3 to my house with a proposal, we buy a car, modify it, and take turns racing it, We bought a white Miata MX-5, and only had managed to get it an new set of wheels, Sports exhaust, Stg. 1 Weight reduction and Racing Chip, and down-graded the tires to N3's so he would have a challege (he was a good player at the time), he did all the tuning though, back then I had no knowledge of car tuning, just how to drive them.
He did a few races to dial the car in, and then handed it over to me, And previously only being used to NFS physic's, I had a hard time for the first couple of laps, once I had ticked myself off and blamed the game enough, We called it a day.
The same thing happened for about a week, and then I slowly started to get the hang of the slippery car my friend had set up, but he was still easily blowing me out of the water, And so I asked if he could keep the game at my house for a few days, He agreed, And I played my heart out at Mid-field for about 3 days straight in Practice, and had managed to come close to his record time with that car
Then during one practice session, I got really close to the edge of a corner exit, and dropped my rear tire onto the grass, causing the back-end to slide on me, I guess it was instincts, but I started to almost immediatly correct the slide, but thanks to the low-grade tires, the car continued to slide, and I used that to get through the corner
After that 'rough' experience, I started to mess-around with sliding the car more, first with the e-brake, then with the car's weight transfer, but kept it all quiet when my friend was around, until one day I challenged him to a Time Attack at Mid-field, fastest time wins
He made his run, beating his old time by about a half-second, and thought even though I had improved, he was safe, Then I made my run unveiling the sliding technique for corners that I had been working on, and to my friends amazement, beat his old record by about a second, winning the challenge and showing I had potential, which interested my friend into racing with me more.
We kept playing for some time after that, eventually selling the MX-5 for an RX-7 which we fully modded as the money was earned, And then GT4 came out, I got that and started with a red Evo I (which I plan to some-day restore, that or the old MX-5), worked through the game like everyone else, got this, earned that, sold this, aquired that, learned this, applied that, became faster than I thought I'd ever be, and eventually settled down with my Impreza (see link below) at Costa Di Amalfi, 100 %, 80 golds, and became the fastest GT4 player at my School, where none of my friends can even challenge me anymore, Track race or Street race in some NFS game
So then I went on-line to see who else is out there for a challenge, and started at a smaller forum, idforums.net in their GT section, and became one of the faster GT4 players there, then I graduated from small time to biggest GT site on the web, and presented myself out there as a capable judge for tuning contests and such to get my-self out there, and with sucess, establishing a name for myself as a fast driver with the knowledge necessary to manipulate cars as I need to go faster, stock or tuned, then the WRS got my interest, an official series where you can see exactly how you stack up against others, and I submitted a time as I wanted to see where I stacked up, and ended in Div. 1, higher than I expected, but I now had the proof I wanted to show that I'm not just a good driver, but a potentially fast one as well
So now I'm hanging around here at GTP, checking this and that out as they appear, participating in the WRS when I get the chance during a week that interests me, looking to make myself faster and more precise than ever before