rec.autos.simulators

Please post any links you are aware of that discuss the use of racing
simulators by professional race drivers for practice and training for
real-world racing.

I'm scheduled to appear on the Auto Sport Radio Show in Indianapolis
next Tuesday night, Feb. 20.  The topic to be discussed in sim-
racing.  This web-radio show reportedly gets over 1.5 million
downloads each month.  Their web site is http://www.racesimcentral.net/
in case you want to check it out.  They get some big-name guests from
time to time.

The audience are mostly real-world race fans I suppose.  I want to
explain about sim-racing in general.  Part of that is the growing
story of how many professional race drivers use racing simulators to
practice and train for real racing.  I'd like to brush up on published
reports of professional racers using racing simulators.

For those of you in the Indianapolis area, the radio show takes place
in a sports bar on the west side of town.  Look at their web site for
details on the location.  I'm planning to set up the simulator shown
on my web site http://www.racesimcentral.net/ at the show.  Please stop
by and give the UltraForce GS-1 a try!

Thanks,

Pat Dotson

Professional being defined as people who get paid to race, or by
people who spend a lot of money to sim race?

If the latter then this might count:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/racing/02/14/henry.partnership....

I've read a few posts at race sim central forums, but nothing official.
Maybe there's an article in a magazine.

From what I've read, the drivers use simulations for learning tracks
and braking points, using both PC based and console based games.
This would indicate that the accuracy of the physics isn't as important
as the accuracy of the track.

It's hard to know how many drivers use racing games for entertainment
as opposed to a tool for learning tracks.

I've never heard of any driver claiming that any game would teach proper
real world driving techniques, mostly because the real world methods
rely on the forces felt by a driver, something a simulator can't reproduce.

l8er
ronny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVjqNSAHESw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bldERmoLfI

When I said "professional drivers", I mean that I'm interested in
drivers at the top levels of racing.  Jacques Villanueve/Dale Jr./AJ
Allmendinger types.  Mainly, I wanted to refresh my memory on the
Denny Hamlin story.  The "Talladega BR" stuff in the ESPN story on
YouTube is good too.

Pat Dotson

I do recall something about Jacques Villeneuve using GP2 or GP3
to learn tracks he'd never raced on before and being very
familiar with them when he actually jumped into the car and
hit the real track.

It was widely repoted at the time and I can't be arsed searching
for it, I'm sure google would bring something up if you searched
there.

Cheers,
Rod.

Cheers,
Rod.

I actually think it's kind of silly when there are claims that real life
drivers train and learn tracks with simulators.

I've read quotes from F1 drivers who said they can learn a track in a dozen
laps. I've never raced at Silverstone, but I have learned a kart layout in
about the same amount of time. What good would a simulator do me if that's
all it takes?

This combined with the absence of g-forces/fear of injury/death/destruction
of the car makes auto simulators pretty useless as a training tool (iRacing
is blowing smoke).

--
David G Fisher

Id also say it doesnt hurt to have an accurate track in a sim when it
comes to learning it, that 10 lap learning curve can be lowered to
8 ;)

pez

http://www.autosportradio.com/show_archives.html

Even when the drivers themselves make the claims?  Check out the ESPN
story on youtube.  The link is in an earlier post in this thread.

Depends on what you mean by "learn".  I don't believe that any human
being is capable of turning a competitive lap time on an unknown track
in ten laps.  Can you get to the point where you know which way the
next turn goes?  Probably.  Can you go through every turn at
10/10ths?  No way.

I don't think hundreds of laps in a sim will get you to 10/10ths in 10
laps either, but I absolutely believe it will get you there faster.

I disagree.  Apparently so do a lot of other people including some
professional race drivers.

This is a silly debate topic.  Militaries and commercial airlines
spend billions on flight simulation training for their pilots - the
FAA requires it.  Are they blowing smoke?  If simulation is good
enough to help train a pilot in control of a billion dollar aircraft,
or in control of hundreds of lives, it's good enough to help teach a
guy drive a car.

Pat Dotson

    Obvious bullshit claim to some sort of alien superiority over everyone
else - and an attempt to psych out other drivers. And maybe impress their
employers/sponsors! Not to mention that most, if not all, F1 teams have had
their own sims for years now anyway, so maybe 10 laps to recognise the
differences from the sim.

    In this respect simming is exactly the same as the real deal - do you
know any simmers who have done 500 laps at a given track yet did their
fastest lap on lap 10? Total bullshit.

As I said in another post, F1 drivers can run their first laps on a new new
track on Thursday, and be running at 100% by Sunday's race start. Less than
100 laps of practice.

What good is one of our simulators going to do them?

--
David G Fisher

Never drove F1 of course, but I used to do quite a bit of two-wheeled racing
back in my enjoyably misspent youth, and some karting as well.  I had never
been into computer ***, but the first time I tried a PC sim I was really
surprised at how much of  the thought processes were the same as the real
thing.  And I think that's the value really; the same way golfers and tennis
players practice endlessly to make their actions second nature, other
activities use simulations when practice is limited for whatever reason.
Best example might be astronauts; don't get to do a lot of that for real, so
you simulate the hell out of it.  Dogfighting also comes to mind.  As does
the recent collaboration between Marangoni and the nKPro folks for the
Trento Bondone hillclimb; you can drive those open roads all you want, but
you're severely limited in how many times you get to wail up them at full
chat in an Osella PA-21.  Do it a zillion times in a sim to get the rhythm
down and you pretty much WILL go quicker.

Pretty cool 3D model of the climb, btw, at:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/./watch?v=WpgUz-OHr_A.  Only time I'd seen that one
before was during the Giro d'Italia!

I don't race for real anymore, but sims have taught me a lot that I wish I'd
known back in the day; it's a question of studying the science of racing and
approaching it from a technical perspective, plus getting a lot of seat time
trying various things.  And the practice of running in traffic is great for
helping you maintain focus and positional awareness through an event.  Is it
as good as the real thing?  Nope, but it's way more accessible and enables
even well-funded pros to do it more than they would otherwise.  I recall
seeing video recenty of Alonso in McLaren's proprietary sim, and if Sir Ron
thinks it's valuable enough to spend God knows how much they dropped on that
setup, I'm not arguing.

SB