Who Says You Can’t Learn from a Video Game?

In the race highlight seen around the world, NASCAR driver Ross Chastain used a move right out of a video game that he played as a kid to clinch a place in the NASCAR Championship.

Not only do I cover this wild finish to a real-life race inspired by a video game, Ross Bentley and Don Kitch Jr. discuss the benefits of using simulators to train for real life racing, especially in conquering the race driver’s fear of failure.

There are also some great new sim racing competitions to register for in Competitive Sim Racing News, details on how to adjust your sim racing steering wheel according to the seating position in the rig and much more.

All this in this week’s edition of the Sim Racing and Esports News Roundup.

From Sim Racing to the Real Thing

• Who says you can’t learn from a video game? If you haven’t seen the footage yet, search and watch how Ross Chastain’s used a last-lap video-game move to land him in NASCAR Championship Series 4. “I think the first time I ever saw a race car do that was on the Gamecube 2005 console,” Chastain said. “I don’t know if anybody else had those, but we did and my brother Chad beat me doing it at the [fake] Dodge Raceway somewhere in a fake city or somewhere in Florida, and we’d always race there.” Now of course, questions have been raised as to whether the move should be banned.

• In a post that was originally from Speed Secrets Weekly, legendary driving guru Ross Bentley comments on Sim racing, and also presents some insights by Don Kitch Jr. into simulators and their benefits. “My friend Don Kitch, Jr. (who co-drove with me when we won the LMP2 class at the 2003 Daytona 24-Hour race) gives us insight into how simulators can be used for far more than just learning which way a track goes. They can be used in a positive way to influence one’s mindset. When Don first told me about getting a simulator, I could hear a change in his voice. There was a lightness in the way he talked about driving his sim; he sounded like one of the thousands of new drivers he’d introduced (addicted!) to sport/performance/race driving at his ProFormance Racing School over the past three decades. There was nothing holding him back from continuing to learn (something that’s at the core of who Don is).”

Competitive Sim Racing News

• Team UK’s James Baldwin won Esports gold at last week’s FIA Motorsport Games. “There was quite high pressure, there were quite a lot of races, but I’m happy to finally come away with the win against some tough opposition.” Full details and the opportunity to re-watch the live stream can be found here.

• Casey Kirwan has won the 2022 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series title in a live finale at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “In his first-ever eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series playoff appearance, and the series’ first-ever live finale from the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, XSET driver Casey Kirwan claimed the $100,000 series title and inaugural Dale Earnhardt Jr. Trophy by outdueling his Championship 4 rivals on Tuesday night on the virtual Phoenix Raceway. Finishing behind race winner and defending eNASCAR champion Keegan Leahy of 23XI, Kirwan withstood pressure from Joe Gibbs Racing driver and title contender Bobby Zalenski to earn the title.”

• The British Racing & Sports Car Club is set to make its first foray into the world of sim racing and eSports, as the Club announces the creation of the inaugural BRSCC Winter eSports Series. The Series will be run using the popular iRacing sim racing platform on PC, with the car of choice being the ever-familiar Mazda MX-5 Mk4 Global Cup Car – a widely accessible car to many using the iRacing service and also providing strong relevance to the Club’s real-world formulae roster and its successful trio of Mazda MX-5 championships. Entry to the Winter eSports Series can be secured by a one-time fee of £20 which covers a driver to race in any and all of the events, and to be eligible drivers must have competed in a BRSCC series or championship at any point throughout 2022. Racing will take place over six rounds between December 2022 and February 2023 at five of the best UK circuits found in iRacing (Oulton Park, Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Knockhill), plus a special venue for the final round taking place on the Laguna Seca circuit in Monterrey, California, USA. All drivers will run with fixed setups to ensure that driver skill and ability will decide the outcome of each race. You can register to compete here.

• Virtual Competition Organisation (VCO) and Low Fuel Motorsport (LFM) are working together to launch FLExTREME, a new racing series on Assetto Corsa Competizione. It is aimed at drivers and teams who will compete in GT race cars in a total of six races between November and February, with a total prize purse of €10,000 up for grabs. FLExTREME also has innovative solutions when it comes to distributing prize money. The teams not only receive prize money for their respective position in the race, they are also rewarded for certain special objectives which can be achieved during the events such as the fastest lap, best overtaking manoeuvre, and most positions gained in a race. You can register to compete here.

• Motorsport UK has launched the Buttkicker Britcar 24 Hours of Silverstone, marking the first community event of the governing body’s Esports strategy. The event, run through TheSimGrid.com on the iRacing platform, will take place from 26-27 h November 2022 around the 3.6-mile Silverstone Grand Prix circuit, with separate classes for GT3, TCR and Mazda MX-5. In total, 20 teams per category will be accommodated, of which the number of drivers can range from 2 to 6, making for a bumper 60-car entry, with all the action broadcast live on RaceSpot TV’s YouTube channel. More details can be found here.

• Immersive E-Sports has launched the Gulf Historic Dubai e-GP Revival. “Attention Sim Racers – We have launched a Sim racers version of the Gulf Historic Dubai GP Revival, which is a celebration of the golden age of motorsport, where museum pieces come to life and the roar of high-octane engines rips across the Emirate. The event relives some of Formula 1 and Le Mans’ most exhilarating generations.” The Gulf Historic Dubai e-GP Revival is available on RaceRoom leaderboard competitions, it’s free to play and there are awesome prizes to win! Once downloaded you are all set to compete in either the Nissan R90CK or Porsche 962 C, both 800hp beasts from the 1980’s. Who will be the fastest? The competition will be held on the Dubai Autodrome Grand Prix circuit, and open to participants from the following countries – Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, U.A.E., Pakistan, India, Kuwait, and Jordan. The fastest person will win the below prizes that will be announced on the 23rd November 2022, and the real world event will be held at Dubai Autodrome 25th, 26th & 27th November 2022. For more information, please visit https://gulf-historic.com/

Sim Racing Tech Roundup

• The Virtual Competition Organisation (VCO) is adding a pioneering and innovative project to its scope of activities: VCARUS – the Digital Race Car Manufactory. Together with the experts at MUNIQ Design in Munich, who can call on years of expertise in the automotive sector, VCARUS will develop unique virtual race cars which set benchmarks in terms of design and driving physics. The plan is to implement the vehicles on relevant sim platforms, allowing the global Esports community to take to the track in VCARUS machines.

General Sim Racing News

• BMW’s M Hybrid V8 LMDh and GTP racer has been developed for iRacing and it is scheduled for release in December 2022, before its on-track debut next season. “iRacing gets very, very, precise data from BMW, from the drivers, from the engineers, and that’s very special,” said real-world BMW driver and 2012 DTM champion Bruno Spengler. The car is the first-ever hybrid BMW competition vehicle, mixing electrification with a twin-turbo V8. It follows the BMW LMR V12 that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring in 1999, and in a sim racing sense, the BMW M4 GT3 which debuted in iRacing last year. You can get more information on BMW’s sim racing activities here.

• The ADAC SimRacing Expo will celebrate its premiere in Nuremberg in 2022 and invites visitors to experience everything to do with virtual motorsport in two exhibitions halls with over 15,000 ^m² of exhibition space. In parallel, the ADAC SimRacing Expo is cooperating with RETRO CLASSICS BAVARIA, which will be held simultaneously in four other halls and will present classic automobiles, vintage cars, young timers and more on the subject of driving culture. From December 1st to 4th, motorsports and SimRacing fans can look forward to a unique event.

• In the video above, Christian Damm will give you a short introduction on how to adjust your sim racing steering wheel according to the seating position in the rig.

• Race Department looks at 5 racing games still coming in 2022. “2022 is not over yet! With just over 2 months to go in this year, a few racing game releases are still on the near horizon. Let’s dive into what the end of 2022 has got going for racing game fans!“

• Coach Dave Academy tackles the question: Assetto Corsa Competizione vs iRacing: Which is better? “Since Assetto Corsa Competizione launched in 2019, it’s always been held up against the sim racing yardstick that is iRacing. In this article, we’re going to delve deeper into the debate between these two sim racing heavyweights and look at the merits of each of these titles.”

• The video above spotlights sim racer Corentin Guinez. “On Sunday he won the Touring Car class of the inaugural race of the IMSA Esports Michelin Global Championship alongside his SimRC team-mate Kieran Harrison: Corentin Guinez! Following this success Corentin talked to Arjuna Kankipati about the action-packed race, his background and his passion for Esports racing.”