Fourteen years ago, I started a ride to satisfy a sim racing craving. After racing online and offline with games like Papyrus’ NASCAR Racing 3 all throughout high school, a busier schedule and cramped dorm rooms in college forced me to take a break. But after graduating, I felt the desire to race again, and Read more about An Anniversary Adventure[…]
It’s a remedy to the modern road course. A return to racing circuit greatness by combining some of the greatest corners out there. And it exists only in my imagination. No, I’m not the first person to piece together a fantasy racetrack from existing elements. Formula 1 drivers including Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo have Read more about My Perfect Circuit[…]
My dad was the first sim racing alien I ever knew. Granted, in those early days of racing video games just after the release of the original NASCAR Racing by Papyrus, he was the only sim racer I knew. And before the advent of live streams, world championship series, or any sort of organized online Read more about The Son Also Races[…]
Endurance racing is all about time. It can be your best friend or your worst enemy, and sometimes both within the same race. It can make or break a strategy. It can show how nail-bitingly close or frustratingly far you came from that next position or, in a championship series, a few more valuable points. Read more about Ten Best Drives, Part 6: The Time of My Life[…]
The classic knock against sim racing is that it’s all too easy to hit the reset button. Whether it’s recovering from a crash without a damage bill, instantly getting a new car with fresh tires already fastened (for free!), or expediting a return to the garage to tune a setup with a few clicks of Read more about Ten Best Drives, Part 5: On the Button[…]
Thinking back on my iRacing oval career, it sometimes feels like an out-of-body experience. Or perhaps more aptly, that some other, more talented oval driver took over my body whenever it came time to turn left. That’s the best explanation I can fathom for how a sim racer who, despite growing up on the Papyrus Read more about Ten Best Drives, Part 4: Doing Left Turns Right[…]
As I was growing up, NASCAR races glowed across my family’s TV screen thirty-some weekends per year. They were standard fare on a Sunday afternoon, like mom’s chicken casserole or dad’s catnaps during the commercials. But a few times each year at critical points on the racing calendar, different races graced our TV, and because Read more about Ten Best Drives, Part 3: Special Events, Special Performances[…]
As my iRacing career progressed, I came to find my niche and I discovered it was endurance racing. Rewarding patience and consistency over raw speed, longer races became my specialty. Before the team endurance racing era began on iRacing, I found my stride in longer solo races such as the Targa Virginia, often finishing ahead Read more about Ten Best Drives, Part 2: Endurance Under Pressure[…]
Ten years ago this summer, I joined iRacing, partially out of curiosity to see how far sim racing had come during my college years and partially to scratch the itch of being away from virtual driving for so long. My own abilities and equipment — including a half-broken set of Microsoft Sidewinder pedals — were Read more about Ten Best Drives, Part 1: Going Full Circle[…]
Dear Dad, Little did you know that a few small actions ignited a passion within me and made me who I am today. Maybe it wasn’t always obvious, because I’ll admit it: growing up, I was a mama’s boy. And while we were doing arts and crafts or collecting Beanie Babies, I’m sure you would Read more about A Letter to My Dad[…]