Being fast in the sim rig is one thing, but does that transfer to real cars and tracks? Our own Emily Jones tried to find out at The Bend Motorsport Park.
There is no doubt that @Emily Jones is quick behind the wheel of a virtual car in sim racing. Anyone who followed our Race For Mental Health 6 live stream in November can attest to that - that pole lap in the Ford Mustang Supercar was a sight to behold, and that does not even get into her Porsche Esports Supercup All-Star Series win in 2021.
How about real racing, though? Emily and her partner Jake put that to the test at Australia's The Bend Motorsport Park. Competing in a Hyundai Excel Series race, one of the cheapest series to get into racing Down Under, Emily and Jake tackled The Bend's West Circuit, which skips most of the middle sector of either the longer International Circuit or even longer GT Circuit layouts to form a 3.41-kilometer lap.
The Bend's West Circuit as run in the race Emily took part in. Image: racingcircuits.info
Of course, sim racing played its part in preparing for the event. An official mod of the track, as well as a mod version of the Hyundai Excel, helped Emily get acquainted with the car-track combination, although it was not quite the real deal, of course. To get the layout memorized, the sim rig was good preparation, but naturally, things are a bit different when at an actual event with other cars surrounding yours.
Same Struggles & More Intuitive Shifting
Emily found that she was struggling with the same things in both the sim and the real event, namely turn 3, first and foremost. It is deceptively tight, and as it turned out, this was the case at the real track as well as on the virtual one.On the other hand, braking and shifting were the big differences on the real track. The latter proved to be difficult in particular, as Emily had practiced without an H-shifter, which the real car has - and despite using the clutch, the motions are different when using an actual gear stick in the real car, and heel and toe is mandatory. Emily actually found this to be more intuitive due to the haptic feedback from the shifter.
How did the racing go, though? Pretty well, actually - Emily and Jake saw the checkered flag in first position in race 1, but had the win taken away for being a bit too quick in pit lane - just 0.3 seconds under the minimum pit stop time, to be precise. Race 2 saw an exciting end with a four-way battle for the win, with Emily crossing the line in P2 eventually.
Emily concluded that sim racing did indeed help with preparing for the event: "I turned up for Free Practice 1 and I already knew all my braking markers, I knew where I was going to put the car, and I honestly think, sim racing is fantastic for learning that." The on-track feeling of a real race cannot be replicated, though - but most importantly, "I had a lot of fun, and it was a pretty successful weekend!"
Have you ever had the chance to prepare for a real-life racing event using sim racing? Let us know how it went in the comments below!
