New video by Paradigm Shift Racing - The 4 elements of a perfect corner

[jakeru]

LOVED IT, and all seems pretty realistic and all, but... was it just me a or, is it still a bit hard to take too seriously that all of the concepts discussed throughout the entire video were only demonstrated or "proven" by the mere repeated playing of a video game?

There was NO part in the video where any of the simulation-based findings were actually proven by the driving of a real car through a real corner.

Yes, he said "often people who drive for WEEKS in a simulator apply the findings in real life and find their performance is better", but that statement was totally just floated out there, and far from being proven. If someone spent weeks in real driving time, would their actual performance not be even better than weeks in a simulator?

Certainly, seat time in a simulator would be much cheaper than real seat time in a real racing scenario.

Despite the heavy reliance on "simulator-proven" theories, I do still have a strong feeling these all may be true/well-founded, so they still do make for some very interesting food for thought. (I just have a bit of a tough time getting past that there was no *real* driving throughout the entire video!)

Is this what the world of racing is coming to? (No need to race "real" cars anymore. Just fired up the central processing unit and simulated race-car user input devices; it's the same!)

[thstone]

Originally Posted by jakeru

Is this what the world of racing is coming to?

Kinda, sorta, yes.

Let me explain the thinking behind this - I mentioned karting for the primary reason that it is a relatively easy way to get a lot of seat time while driving at the limit and minimizing the risk. I can slide the car thru almost every turn while learning to countersteer and handle all sorts of driving situations to my hearts content and the worst that will happen is I spin off into the paved runoff area. No harm, no foul. Fire it up and lets do it again. And again. And again. Until I get it right.

The second reason is to minimize cost. Some would say that there is no reason to burn up $1000 in tires if you can do the same for $300 of kart time.

And the same applies to sim driving. Why spend $300 in kart time if you can do the same for $20 of electricity? (yes, I know that I am ignoring the upfront investment, but let's keep this simple for now)

The BIG question is: How well does sim racing or karting translate to the actual track driving experience?

I think that the general answer is that while karting or sim racing can't replicate the car driving experience to 100%, it can be a cost effective substitute for some portion of it.

For example, a day at race track runs me $150 and lets assume that I'll use up 25% of a $1000 set of tires per track day. That's $150 + $250 = $400. Or I could spend the day karting at a cost of $135. The cost difference is 1/3. The question is whether I'll get 33% or more of the benefit from karting as compared to driving my car? I'd have to say the answer (in my experience) is yes. I think that about 50% of the kart time is relevant and transfers to the car at 1/3 of the cost. So in this example and for me in particular, the kart is more efficient at building the skill of driving at the limit. I can do it more because it costs less (and I can minimize risk at the same time).

But this is only a single skill (driving at the limit) and there are many more skills needed to competently race a car, so this method needs to be applied over the full set of racing skills.

When I did this, I found that while karting is a strong contributor to the development of some of my key racing skills (and can contribute at a lower risk and cost), it could never be a complete replacement. I still need a certain amount of seat time/practice on a real track and in a real car to learn to apply the lessons learned in the kart and to build/maintain those skills which are car specific.

Though I haven't done this yet, I imagine that the same analysis can be applied to sim racing. Some percentage of sim racing can replace real driving (whether it is kart or car) at a lower cost, but it probably can't fully replace either.

This approach is now pretty standard for most of the top IMSA drivers like Jordan Taylor who uses sim racing and karting as a way to gain or maintain his skills when he can't physically be in his race car.