Sunday, November 28, 2010

Do Car Driving Games Make You a Better Racing Driver?

By Raymond Anthony


Truth be told, there is simply no question that car driving games tend to be fun! Getting to drive cars of your own selection on quite a few of the leading tracks throughout the entire world, while pitted against other sim racers couldn't be anything but a good time.

What is simply not as well recognized, is if car driving games really make for a good training aid?

According to Dale Earnhardt, Jr, the correct answer is truly a resounding Yes!

During a recent interview, Dale was quoted as saying that when he goes to a brand-new track, its takes him just about an hour to get himself up to speed, and its not until that hour has elapsed that his feedback actually becomes beneficial to the team's engineers. Now, instead of "wasting" that hour, Dale heads out onto the new track on his computer, well before he ever gets to the real track.

So, how is it that a racing video game might actually make you a far better racing driver? Lets take a look...

Above all, the tracks in modern PC racing games are exact replicas of the real thing. Advanced technology, including precise GPS information is used extensively by developers when making a new track. This translates to a seriously realistic virtual racing experience and equipped with this, racers might get to learn not only the entire layout of the track, but also their braking and turn in points for every single corner.

One example is, when you go to turn one at the track of your choice on your computer, you'll find the fact that the trackside objects in the game are exactly the same as the trackside objects in real life. Moreover, their placement around the side of the track, relative to the corner, is precisely the same as their placement in the real-world.

Most likely the next most pertinent portion of the online racing experience is the car setup. The engineers that design today's games put immense effort into the game's physic model and this results in a considerably more "realistic" feeling race car. Add to this the plethora of adjustments that one can come up with in the garage, and the outcome is that the virtual racer has the chance to do extensive testing of varied race setups; all from his computer. Even though the exact settings might not transfer to his race car, the principles behind the adjustments to transfer over, and that is going to make the driver substantially more valuable to his team when giving feedback to the race engineers.

And finally, we have the actual head-to-head racing that today's online racing experience provides.

Within the real world, many a race has been lost because of an accident that occurred when the driver made an oversight in judgement. Basically, many races are lost in the first turn due to a crash.

With online racing, the mental aspect of the competition is exactly the same as it is in the actual world. The value of being able to uncover all this additional competitive seat time is huge, and without going through the PC racing experience, the only way to get all this seat time was to go to the track. Now, without spending any cash, today's budding racer can log literally 1000's of hours of practice against other racers; all from the convenience of his PC. Of all the added benefits we've just covered, this one is quite likely the biggest.

Trust me, I understand from experience.




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