
Pro drivers are competing with gamers after F1 and Nascar canceled races - LiweiZ
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/22/21184192/sim-racing-coronavirus-f1-nascar-iracing-veloce-esports-max-verstappen-lando-norris
======
raiyu
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 immediately are how you turn the steering wheel,
catching the car in slides, and your gas pedal application while this is
happening.

People often forget that our bodies are complex operating systems and they are
operating distinctly. There is plenty of documentation that shows mirroring
for knowledge transfer works, and when you use a sim the habits that you
develop are available subconciously to you.

I'll give you two examples, the first is at my last race in Global MX-5 Cup at
Laguna Seca. At the start of the race on the opening lap I was going through
the corkscrew and got hit at the apex of the right hand corner. The car
immediately went into a large slide because of how much steering input I had.
I immediately started to correct with both steering input and gas pedal
application. I had to correct the two slides to save the car. Immediately upon
impact my body was doing what I needed to do, it was completely subconscious,
so much so that the only conscious thought I had was, wowee fun, just like the
simulator. There was no fear, despite the fact that the slide was massive and
I was likely to hit the wall if I didn't catch it.

The second happened a couple of months earlier. I was testing at Sonoma in my
BMW m235ir for a Pirelli race. I was going out on old tires, that we were
going to swap for fresh ones at the next session. Going through the double
right hair pin, I applied a bit too much throttle, car started to slide, I was
correcting, but under corrected and went back to full throttle too soon. The
car spun, hit the wall, caused $10,000 in damage. The reason that happened was
whenever I played the sim I always kept my foot in the gas. Just trying to
save the car and have fun. Then I realized, that when I use the simulator I
can't approach it from a "fun" mentality, because my brain is remembering what
I'm doing. I have to treat it like real life, or I will do something stupid in
the car.

There are certainly differences between how a real car handles and a simulator
handles, but the skills are the same and what you are really honing is the
ability to control the car which is completely transferable. The brake points
are very transferrable so it is a great way to push yourself in a simulated
practice to get ready for a real race. Learning the track is obviously a
benefit.

iRacing has done a fantastic job at all of the above. Coming from a tech
background I'm actually blown away by the realism and how much it teaches you
transferrable skills.

If you take one of the top 5 people in iRacing that's never been in a car
before and put them into a race car they will be quick. This is because
everything that will be happening they have already trained for. They won't
have fear because everything will feel the same. As long as you don't have
fear, and have the underlying skill, subconsciously you will do what you need
to.

The reverse isn't as true. Being quick in real life doesn't mean that you will
be fast in the simulator. This is simply because it can't replicate the
physics 100%. In iRacing it is very sensitive to understeer as you enter a
corner, where in real life you can get the car to slide a bit more with some
hard inputs into the steering wheel.

But overall I would say it is a 90%+ effective tool, so much so, that anyone
who isn't using one in pro racing today, is really at a disadvantage.

The other thing that is critical to racing is practice. Any sport you take
seriously the more time you spend doing it the better you will be.
Unfortunately racing is extremely expensive, and so no one but the absolute
pros can spend as much time as they would like in a race car. Being able to
hop on the simulator, at any time, is amazing to help you continue your
training and stay sharp during the offseason, or at times like this when all
racing is pretty much cancelled.

Anyone who is saying that this isn't transferrable is simply incorrect.
They've already taken pure sim racers and put them behind the wheel of real
race cars and those people did phenomenally well.

There is more strain physically in a real car, g-forces, breathing, pulse will
be higher, but these things are much easier to train for.

There is a reduced amount of feedback certainly, one of the biggest issues for
me is not getting a great feel for the brake pedal, but this is where muscle
memory comes in, you keep doing laps and refining and your muscles will
recognize what inputs you need even though the g-forces aren't there.

Furthermore I tried VR iRacing for the first time and it was insane how
amazing the VR is. It is completely life like, just missing the rush of air
around me.

I was at Road Atlanta doing laps and went through the last corner on my first
lap. You come down a massive hill, hit the compression, and turn right into
the fastest corner of the track where you also have walls on both sides that
are very close. This is not the corner to fuck up. There is tremendous
g-forces in this corner in real life. On the way down the hill I feel fine in
VR. The second I hit the compression I get dizzy. This is because my eyes and
everything around me is recognizing this part of the track and my body is
tensing because it remembers real life. But my body isn't feeling the
compression. So the difference between what my eyes see, my brain interrupts,
and the lack of sensation in my body is making my brain go haywire and makes
me dizzy.

The first time I just thought it was odd. The second lap same exact thing
happens. The third lap again. It happened every time I had to take the VR off
because I started getting a headache.

Anyway those are my real life stories. If there is anyone on here racing or
tracking their car I highly recommend they get a great sim and install it in
their house. It will be a lot cheaper than tracking and infinitely less
expensive than racing and it will tremendously improve your skills.

This is probably less relevant for top of the sport racers, but if you watch
today's youngest F1 athletes all of them do sim racing and all of them are
extremely quick. Specifically Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.

~~~
Yhippa
Do you have a recommendation for a beginner VR setup?

~~~
sigspec
2nd this. Sounds very interesting.

~~~
koalaman
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.

~~~
Measter
Though it should be noted that you _really_ don't need to spend that much. You
could start off with something like a Logitech G29 for $250, which would clamp
to your desk.

------
djaychela
It's definitely not circuit racing, but I had some experience in Rally driving
for about 10 years. Did mostly gravel stuff, and did the UK WRC round 4 times
in a self built car. Definitely low budget (and low talent!) stuff, but I
think I have some experience and know how a car should handle on a loose
surface.

I've never found a rally driving game that handles like a real car. The
physics always seems off - in Dirt Rally (the last one I tried seriously, and
the one that everyone raved about), the car still seems to have the old
physics of pivoting around the centre of the car, but whatever, it's miles
off. The mini cooper in there is about the same power and weight as the Skoda
Felicia that I drove, but it behaves nothing like it. I wish it did, as I no
longer have the money or time to do anything like this, and if it felt
anything like the real thing I'd have a fun hobby to take part it. But I
always get hugely frustrated when I can't get anywhere near what I used to be
able to do - place the car with precision on the road, get a good rhythm up
and start to flow, and don't seem to be able to adjust to the way the cars
handle in these games. I'm sure some of it is that you can't feel what's going
on - through the seat, steering wheel and pedals - in the way that you can in
the real thing, but I think there's more to it than that.

Forza was pretty different - even playing it using just controllers showed
that it was handling much like a car would on track (I've done some tarmac
rallying as well, so I'm used to the limit on tarmac as well as gravel), but
I'm not really interested in circuit racing, alas!

~~~
ehnto
The biggest missing factor in sim drifting versus real drifting, which I
suspect is part of the issue in rally too, is not being able to detect that
moment just before countersteer is required, as you can't feel when the rear
of the car starts coming around. It means you have to preempt from experience
when it happens rather than actually feeling it. With practice people get good
at it, but sim drifters will often end up over rotating in a real car at
first. They tend to hold onto the wheel too long while letting the rear of the
car come around.

For what it's worth, my real car pivots pretty much where my seat is
positioned, it feels surreal sometimes, ironically like I am in a video game.

~~~
ricardobeat
I think it comes down to equipment. A good racing wheel can already give you a
feeling of understeering. I just got started with entry-level stuff, but
supposedly a Fanatec wheel + good seat + buttkicker (vibration generator) can
get you a long way. Then you have motion platforms at €3k+ to get to the next
level :)

------
W-Stool
As someone who has raced formula race cars and who has been an enthusiastic
participant in racing simulations since way back in the old days of Grand Prix
Legends let me assure you - a simulated race car has almost nothing in common
with the real experience other than your hands are turning a wheel and your
feet push pedals. The sensations in a real race car are simply overwhelming -
the noise, g forces, heat, and the lack of being able to see much other than
straight ahead. Grand Prix Legends and iRacing were/are both tremendous fun
and a real achievement - but they are nothing like the real thing.

~~~
antientropic
On the contrary: there is probably no sport where the sim is so close to the
real thing. Being good at FIFA 19 in no way will make you good at real
football. But if you put a decent sim racer in a real race car, they are often
able to put together a decent lap pretty quickly. See for instance some of
Jimmy Broadbent's recent adventures in real-life racing. Conversely, real-life
drivers tend to be good at simracing (e.g. Max Verstappen or Lando Norris in
iRacing) because so many of the skills carry over. By contrast I wouldn't
expect Lionel Messi to be any good at FIFA 19.

~~~
lmilcin
FIFA is a football simulator as much as Mortal Kombat is fighting simulator.

FIFA is a game.

The difference is simulator's main focus is reality, games' main focus is fun.

If FIFA was for reality it would be closer to first person QWOP than isometric
view of half of field where you have perfect information and you press a key
and your player does whatever trick the key was designated to perform.

The substance of the game is lost and only visuals are left.

~~~
dasil003
Cars have artificial controls that are relatively easy to simulate. Any sport
where the primary impact is full human body mechanics is not likely to have a
sim with transferable skills.

~~~
lmilcin
Car racing. In car racing as a driver you typically get your input through
your seat and steering wheel. Due to lack of g-forces in typical simulator
this is all compressed to force feedback in steering wheel. There are really
powerful steering wheels that have very high definition of vibration and
forces they can transfer and this gives a lot of information about how the car
is doing on the track, whether you are loosing or already lost the grip.

~~~
dasil003
I’m not saying a sim is like real racing. I’m saying that human-car interface
allows for play-control that maps to the real activity in a way a soccer or
snowboarding game never can.

------
firekvz
An online tournament of FIFA 20 (soccer game by EA Sports) just finished
between the 20 teams from "la liga", spanish league.. Each team sent their
best player and it was streamed at twitch.tv

At some point I think it had over 50k viewers

Heres the link of the channel of the one behind the idea:

[https://www.twitch.tv/ibai](https://www.twitch.tv/ibai)

I think its worth to mention that all the profits of the stream and donations
are going to charity

It was casted by actual tv commentators and it had media coverage from major
sport newspapers:
[https://www.marca.com/esports/fifa/2020/03/21/5e763cd522601d...](https://www.marca.com/esports/fifa/2020/03/21/5e763cd522601d26358b4578.html)
[https://esports.as.com/fifa/Torneo-FIFA-20-Ibai-LaLiga-
Chall...](https://esports.as.com/fifa/Torneo-FIFA-20-Ibai-LaLiga-
Challenge_0_1338766120.html)

------
jedberg
This reminds me of the time they got bands to play Rock Band with their own
songs. They put them on expert mode and some of them failed.

The best was when the singer failed despite sounding identical to the track,
since he was singing over himself.

I wish I could find that video.

~~~
sk0g
Rock Band is really nothing like playing the actual instruments though. Wonder
how the guitar and bass players would fare in Rocksmith, however.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Only to an extent. Rock Band 3 added a "Pro Mode" which, on the highest
difficulty, required playing the song note-for-note. The pro mode keyboard and
guitar peripherals double as actual MIDI controllers.

------
puredata
Correction, it's not the only e-sport that translates well. Much smaller scale
but FPV Drone racing is heavily practiced on simulators as well and skillsets
translate to one another pretty well.

~~~
dumbfoundded
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.

~~~
tempestn
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.

~~~
yreg
In a this ESPN article on Fabiano Caruana, they noted "In October 2018, Polar,
a U.S.-based company that tracks heart rates, monitored chess players during a
tournament and found that 21-year-old Russian grandmaster Mikhail Antipov had
burned 560 calories in two hours of sitting and playing chess -- or roughly
what Roger Federer would burn in an hour of singles tennis."

[https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-
grandmaste...](https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-
magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#1873%E2%80%931945:_Birth...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess#1873%E2%80%931945:_Birth_of_a_sport)

~~~
lobotryas
That doesn’t address OP’s point at all.

------
notacoward
My daughter immediately asked: who's winning? Darn good question, and I didn't
find an answer in the article (though admittedly I skimmed a bit).

~~~
tc313
The gamers are generally faster because the games are not perfect simulations
of reality.

~~~
lucb1e
Or even if they were, the "real" drivers are trained to respond to a
completely different set of sensations. The simulation can be perfect, but
when you're sitting still, you don't feel things such as whether the simulated
car is slipping at all (just an example, there are of course a thousand other
things).

~~~
Scene_Cast2
Well, you feel it but in a different way. People spend a lot of money on Force
Feedback wheels, with the fancier ones running into 4 figures.

Through the wheel, you're expected to feel everything including tyre grip,
slip, road conditions, etc.

~~~
Hamuko
> _Through the wheel, you 're expected to feel everything including tyre grip,
> slip, road conditions, etc. _

Well, there are other solutions for that as well, but that's beyond most
mortals.

------
dron01
As a viewer I dont really feel (and defiantly do not see) the difference
between how physically prepared e-sports or real life drivers are. I see
track, cars, racing lines, overtakes. So I really enjoy watching e-racing.
Only complain is that e-racing spectating camera work needs improvements.
There is huge untapped potential in how e-racing is presented. I hope games
will experiment more in this (spectating) direction.

~~~
saberdancer
Camera work is a really underappreciated feature. Most sims do not have
realistic looking cameras and this makes them look worse on TV. Usually camera
is centered on a single car while in real life camera operator usually focuses
on a group of cars (for example if there are two cars fighting, he is aiming
between the cars, not at one of the cars).

This is a feature I'd love for sims to better develop. It shouldn't be
massively difficult to do so hopefully we get it sooner than later.

~~~
dmos62
Depends if we want an automatic solution, that is filming and directing
automatically, or if we want to have the facilities for people to come in and
control the cameras individually (and direct the resulting feed). The labour
intensive approach is probably simple enough in terms of tech.

------
jpatte
After reading the article I'm not entirely sure all these drivers did
participate in the race using their own setups _while staying home._
Especially after this part: _" [Pike] and Majors tried to fill up a field that
reflected this big tent, letting in fellow NASCAR crew members, as well as
some public relations and social media specialists."_

Can someone please tell me they did not turn a strong recommendation to avoid
public events (which lead to the competition being cancelled) into an
opportunity to gather tens of people at one place?

~~~
leereeves
Metaphorically, "field" means the group of people competing, and "big tent"
means an inclusive group. So there's a natural interpretation that doesn't
mean they all gathered in one place.

~~~
jpatte
Ah thanks, I suspected something like that but wasn't sure how to read this.

------
BooneJS
I enjoyed many hours of GPL before I had a family. Now that they’re a bit
older... any steering wheel recommendations? ;)

~~~
Fuzzwah
[https://www.reddit.com/r/simracing/wiki/buyingguide](https://www.reddit.com/r/simracing/wiki/buyingguide)

------
namelosw
Wow, this is nice. I hope there are more events and platforms like this.

Let's face it, most of the Olympic games are boring. If we can model things in
the virtual world good enough, the Roman-style arena games would be more
popular than the Olympic games.

~~~
BooneJS
Winter Olympics are not better “virtually”

------
reilly3000
I've been thinking about getting my sports-starved friends and family into
watching CS:GO tournament play. It would have never crossed my mind before,
but we live in a different world now and that is among the best esports has to
offer.

~~~
dmos62
It must have some pretty accessible commentary to engage with non-gamers.

------
edsancha
I love the initiative, but I disagree with the paragraph saying: "That’s
obviously not the case with other sports." Esports cyclist racing is growing
and it translates almost 1:1 real-life skills.

~~~
scrumbledober
That's hard to compare with but honestly difficult to even call that an
e-sport. It's more like a remote sport?

------
protomyth
Well, NASCAR driver have been using computer games to practice for tracks for
a while. [https://expmag.com/2020/03/these-hyper-realistic-video-
games...](https://expmag.com/2020/03/these-hyper-realistic-video-games-help-
nascar-drivers-on-real-speedways/) There is a video of Dale Jr and Martin
Truex Jr talking about using a networked video game to test a strategy at one
track.

~~~
TomatoTomato
Dale Jr was well known (at least in the community) for playing/practicing
heavily with the Sierra/Papyrus NASCAR Racing series even in the late 90s.
AFAIK, he was one of the first big time names who attributed some of his
success to the game.

------
unfocused
You guys should check out "Le Mans: Racing is Everything (2017)" on Amazon
prime.

In it, Nissan has a driver that was a gamer, and converted him to a
professional driver!

------
roamerz
This was an invitational. I suspect without any supporting evidence that they
tried to keep this to to Nascar participants # 1 for the familiarity it brings
the fans (Go Jr!) but also because I doubt a ‘real’ racer would have won the
race had the best of the online only competition been allowed to complete. And
after watching the race it was sadly just as good as a real race. They have
become quite boring the last few years.

~~~
psh1295
At a recent sim competition in Miami ("Miami's Fastest Gamer") in which
various real-world drivers competed with sim racers, the top three spots were
real-world drivers -- Juan Pablo Montoya, Ed Jones, and Eduardo Barrichello.
However, the best sim racers can definitely hold their own (eg James Baldwin
came in fourth) and perhaps some of this boiled down to experience more than
anything else. Although there's definitely a _lot_ of differences, the skills
between e-racing and real-world racing seem somewhat more compatible with each
other than other e-sports.

Reference: [https://wtf1.com/post/juan-pablo-montoya-won-a-sim-racing-
co...](https://wtf1.com/post/juan-pablo-montoya-won-a-sim-racing-competition-
in-miami/) [https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-juan-pablo-
montoya...](https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-juan-pablo-montoya-
impresses-everyone-by-beating-many-youngsters-to-win-miami-e-sports-crown/)

~~~
rozab
Its worth noting that real world drivers do put incredible amounts of hours
into these consumer simulators. It's not like they're winning on their real-
world experience alone.

------
hammock
These comments all say "x hours ago" but I swear I saw this thread and the
exact same comments a few days ago. What twilight zone am I in? @dang

------
deltron3030
I'm suprised that they don't explore VR telepresence, where they could drive a
real F1 car, or a miniature version while sitting in a simulator. What's hard
to simulate in virtual simulators besides gforces are the tyre models, it's
basically the main interface between car and environment.

~~~
dmos62
Something along those lines might open up venues for new sports that aren't
constrained by danger to crew. FPV drones are a version of that, though I was
imagining something more grandiose.

------
lordnacho
Soccer clubs are arranging matchups between pro players who now have no real
matches to play. Could be a big thing for eSports.

It's well known that a lot of pro soccer players spend a lot of time on
consoles, to the point where they complain if they feel their virtual stats
are too low.

------
bitL
Watching an e-sports race is as boring as watching a real F1 race. The
interesting part of e-sports is actually playing it and not watching another
bunch of dudes having fun. I think F1 is completely missing the point here.

~~~
ricardobeat
Presumably people who enjoy watching real F1 will enjoy it too then? Pro
racing is already a lot more interesting on TV than in person (besides the
experience aspect).

------
elchief
I beat Paul Tracy in a mountain bike race when I was a teenager. I can only
imagine the thrill of beating a pro driver in a driving game

------
yakshaving_jgt
I went in a big expensive F1 simulator that one of the big oil companies was
showing off with at the tennis tournament in Qatar about 9 years ago. The guy
to go in it before me was Rafael Nadal, so it wasn't a toy. Three screens, the
entire machine moves to simulate acceleration and braking, the lot.

It was less intimidating than a child's go-kart.

------
johnnymonster
I wish other athletes from other sports did the same!

------
justlexi93
Pretty curious how the "real drivers" are going to do for gaming driving. My
family had a stock car growing up, and afaik the simulated races have almost
nothing in common with the real experience. Yeah there might be a wheel to
turn and even in fancy driving games feet pedals, but the other sensations in
a real race car are simply overwhelming - the noise, g forces, heat, and the
lack of being able to see much other than straight ahead.

Will be pretty fun to watch how these drivers play out in the simulated races!
imo they are probably going to get pwnd.

