Can home entertainment provide a decent groundwork for a professionally-oriented job of the same genre? As far as video games are concerned we suppose it could, given how modern driving simulators are nowadays being extensively used by racing drivers around the globe. How else can you conveniently polish your skills without having to carry out expensive tests in the actual car?
Racing drivers often use driving simulators as part of their daily training routine. We’ve previously heard comments from the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Matias Henkola, who both acknowledged video games can even be a better path to a motorsport career than the more traditional approaches.
Nasportscar.com found some more evidence of this phenomenon during an interview with two GT Academy champions from the USA: Bryan Heitkotter (2011) and Nick McMillen (2013). Heitkotter, who recently wrapped up a successful season in the Pirelli World Challenge, talks about the important role force feedback plays in driver training:
“The first thing is basic car control. With force feedback steering wheels, one can ingrain proper reactions and feeling into their muscle memory. Learning to feel understeer build, or the onset of oversteer and how to best correct it with the least time loss. That helps remove one thing to consciously think about when jumping into a real car on track.”
Heitkotter also notes simulators can help you mentally prepare for longer stints and learn to adapt to different conditions, whether they be related to your car or the road itself. His racing colleague McMillen chimes in:
“I mainly use sims nowadays to learn racing lines, braking points, or to work on lap consistency before I step foot on track. Being able to prepare before a race weekend really gives me an advantage to make the most of my time on track without needing to take extra time learning a track or learning how a car drives.”
With the sophisticated technology within our hands it becomes possible to act and plan as real drivers would. “You can exploit every little weakness in your car setup or driving technique that you may not find when it comes to the real thing,” says McMillen.
Both drivers agree driving simulators can be just as effective as learning tools as they are as a form of entertainment. Not all drivers rely on them as much though; racing driver Andy Lee prefers using video recordings over virtual simulators:
“I’m still old school when it comes to pre race prep. I prefer watching on board video and composing track notes from credible drivers. This is not to say I dislike sims, I just use them as a secondary addition to watching video, but still very much see value in them.”
Make sure to check out the entire interview here.
See more articles on Bryan Heitkotter, Nick McMillen, and Simulator.
FFB wheels are no doubt the way to go when sim racing. Games can still be enjoyed with a controller but nothing matches the feeling or immersion of even a basic FFB wheel. You can actually feel the physics at work and, in the better sims, make lifelike and natural inputs to maintain control of your car and ride the edge of grip.
@Johnnypenso Johnny, what is your preference when it comes to ‘Degree of Rotation?’ This may be an answer that may depend on the sim and the car for you, so for arguments sake, let’s say for GT6 and Race Cars in general.
I don’t play GT6 and haven’t for 2 years. I’m on pc now and in Assetto Corsa for example, the steering is set automatically by the game to correspond with the real life car so no adjustment is necessary on my end. My master profile on the G27 is always set to 900 degrees.
No one in the second picture is using an interior camera. They’re all using the bumper cam.
Bunch of n00bs.
In a competition you use what is fastest, not what is most realistic. That goes for all aspects, hence why the fasest GTA guys most years are power-sliding the cars and abusing downshifts that would never fly in a real car.