Do Playing Video Car Games Make you a More Efficient Racer?
There is no question that car driving games are fun! Getting to drive cars of your choice on some of the best tracks throughout the entire world, pitted against other sim racers couldn’t be anything but fun.
What is just not as well known, is if car driving games actually help to make for a good training aid.
As stated by Dale Earnhardt, Jr, the actual answer is without a doubt a resounding YES!
During a recent interview, Dale was quoted as reporting that when he heads to a brand-new track, its takes him approximately an hour to get himself up to speed, and its not until that hour has gone by that his feedback actually becomes usable to the team’s engineers. Now, in lieu of “wasting” that hour, Dale heads out onto the brand new track on his computer, some time before he ever gets to the actual facility.
So, how is it that a video game can genuinely make you a far better racing driver? Lets take a peek…
Most notably, the tracks in modern PC racing games are exact replicas of the real thing. Advanced technology, including precise GPS statistics is used extensively by developers when building a new track. This contributes to a seriously realistic virtual racing experience and armed with this, racers are able to get to know not just the rough layout of the track, but also their braking and turn in points for every corner.
For example, if you go to turn one around the track of your choosing on your personal computer, you will see that the trackside objects in the game, are precisly the same as the trackside objects in the real world. Moreover, their placement along side the side of the track, relative to the corner, is exactly the same as their placement within the real-world.
Likely the next most helpful part of the online racing experience is the car setup. The engineers that design today’s games put immense effort towards the game’s physic model and this makes for a considerably more “realistic” feeling race car. Ad to that the plethora of adjustments that one can make in the garage, and the outcome is that the virtual racer has the possibility to do extensive testing of varied race setups; all from his computer. While the exact settings tend not to 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 with regards to giving feedback to the race engineers.
Last but not least, there is the actual head-to-head racing that today’s online racing experience provides.
In the real-world, many a race has been lost as the result of an wreck that occurred when the driver made an error in judgement. To put it differently, many races are lost in the first turn as a result of collision.
With online racing, the mental component of the competition is precisely the same as it is in the real world. The significance of being able to get all this bonus competitive seat time is tremendous, and without having the PC racing experience, the only way to get all this seat time was to head to the track. Now, without spending any cash, today’s budding racer can log literally thousands and thousands of hours of practice against other racers; all from the convenience of his PC. Of all the positive factors we’ve just covered, this one is possibly the biggest.
Believe me, I understand from experience.
Angelo Dyrzra has been a NASCAR games enthusiast for over 10 years. To learn more about car driving games and also enter to win a free game, visit his car driving games website.
