How has Simulated Racing/Driving affected your real life road driving?

More than simming, is reading and learning that help you understand stuff that can actually save you from a bad moment. For example, load transfers is a thing that normally you don't give a ****, but in the event of an emergency brake or manouver, knowing that these stuff exist and can ruin your day can be of great help to avoid putting yourself in deep waters.

 

I had a situation yesterday morning of which i'm quite sure the years of hammering around virtual circuits helped in. My rear left tire destroyed itself on the motorway, before i knew what was happening and had time to say "WTF!" due to the large bang i had caught the car and bought it under control after it snapped sideways. Looking back on it, it's quite weird as i still don't know what i did in those couple of seconds however instinct kicked in and probably saved me from something else.

 

Wow, nice save! Glad to hear you're alright.

 

This is a good example of how people learn differently. I've not read much on this subject however the Skippy/Howston etc teach me an inordinate amount in this area, or so I feel.

 

+1

 

Have you ever been karting? That could help. I grew up karting and when I was 5 I'd sit alongside my grandma and switch gears for her based on engine sound/RPM. When I was 6/7 she'd have me on her lap and maneuver the steering wheel. When I was 8 my dad let me drive on my own, I got through 4 gears on the Gol (equivalent of Golf). Then no driving (except karts) until I was 15.

 

Yeah, been a few times, don't really remember much about the braking though.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

Me too. Drives my wife crazy! Which is why I'll keep doing it!

 

This one time on a miserable sunday morning i was driving to football with a few of the lads in my Clio, as i came down this hill on or around 30ish as it was pissing down, i had to stop as the car in front had stopped to turn right but i couldnt get it stopped she just kept on going sliding towards the back of this Merc it was like it was all happing in slow motion but i was powerless to stop it because of the conditions, my reactions where to try and avoid the merc with people in and hit the parked volvo which is how it panned out. Had to replace the left headlight and wing and more importantly no one was harmed. I never had rf2 then lol.
Stay safe out there fellas.

 

I had a minor bump with my Fiat Punto GT (turbo) and my bonnet was slitghtly bent, not more than 5cm on left side.
Man at my garage said, ok, you can have your weekend vacation, just dont go over 100km.

I was at the motorway, deep in the night coming back from weekend, when going downhill at a lefthander, bonnet came up, blocking my view completely.
Wife and little daughter were sleeping, I had to make quick choices.

I didnt brake, I let car cruise for a bit, I knew I was on the straight.
I knew also that I should make a decision, or deadly crash would happen soon.
I started braking softly and tried to focus through my right side window to the edge of the road, some agonizing seconds till I stopped at the right side of the motorway.
I was very lucky, it was deep at night so not much traffic there, there was a car following, luckilly he escaped me, I heard his reapeated horn on my left.

That was one time I escaped hard injury, Im sure I kept my cool because baby was at the back.

Yes, stay safe guys, prepare for the worst and dont think that it cannot happen to you, better be safe than sorry.
Maybe not relevant but I was deep into RBR back then.

 

Simracing made a huge difference for me the first time I ever jumped in a real racecar. I would have never believed how easy it is to get understeer, oversteer, "hairy moments", locked brakes, hairy moments due to not big enough - or just badly timed - throttle-blips on downshifts, etc. etc. I would have never thought that the vehicle dynamics could be so sensitive to your throttle/brake/steering inputs. Therefore, instead of having a real eye-opener when I first jumped into a racecar, I was much better prepared than most.

Physics aside - the extreme head/environment/cockpit shaking/vibrating/movement of certain mods (more so in rF1 mods, including original ISI rF1 stuff) really, really prepared me for the huge sense of speed and your head and vision bouncing around and banging all over the place, your view just going haywire, everything in your view "shake-rattle-n-rolling" that one gets in a real-life racecar. If I was playing iRacing (back then it didn't exist yet) with it's "I want to fall asleep - i'm driving a soft, roadcar, limousine" visuals, then I would have experienced mega-hyper-sensory overload when I was in those racing cars (I still did, in the beginning, to a certain extent). The over-exaggerated-to-some extreme head/environment/cockpit shake/rattle/vibration/movement that was so prevailent in rFactor 1 (original ISI cars, and many mods) truly got my brain into the same sort of "realm" and experience that I experienced in every real-life racing car I've ever been in. It helped me so much, it really was a huge help - visually and psychologically. (AC and even certain rF/rF2 cara are bad at this, Netkar Pro and iRacing are overall the worst though, just terrible - AC slightly improves on this aspect as long as you disable/uncheck "Lock head to horizon" but it's still way too calm and serene if you're looking to prepare for the overall experience of real-life).

So, the preparedness for real-life racing that simracing gave me, went beyond just vehicle dynamics.

 

Simracing literally saved my butt more than once IRL.
Imagine going about 200km/h on a three lane highway with very few cars on it. Sun just disappeared behind the horizon.
You're going over a small hill still doing 200. On top of the hill you see a car standing 100 meters in front of you in the middle of the road with lots of debris around it.

If you manage to not hit it and not spin your ride you know you got some reflexes and maybe even skills.

Or... just plain luck!

Thank you, ISI!

 

Amazing stuff!

Sim racing saves lives.

 

I live in Los Angeles. Where everybody has a car and poor public transportation. Where it takes an hour to go 5 miles across town. Where there's nothing but traffic, traffic, and more traffic everywhere.

I really really hate driving IRL.

So no. Nothing in sim racing has affected my real life driving. I don't really ever get to "drive" in RL. It's just traffic.

 

It has made me more aware of what to do and how to do it in more critical situations... I came up the top of a hill and right after that hill there was a red light and a line of cars... I was in a 2CV and no ABS... I was hard on the brakes, they locked, I felt it, I let go and went back on a few times and got it slowed down just in time before I had hit a Suzuki Wagon R+ I even turned into the turning-lane on the right just to be sure I didn't hit that Suzuki...

I also had a taily moment once... in a Smart Fortwo... It was a clear winter evening... It had been snowing but the roads were cleared. Nice visibility and such, I went across the country... I wanted to overtake a car on a country road, straight country road. Two lanes became one and I wanted to overtake before it became single lane... The roads had been clear... Little did I know I had entered a region where drifting had occured. All of a sudden some some was on the road in spots... I was overtaking this car and hit a spot of drifted snow went through with like 100kph... It upset the car while I had to get back in the lane after overtaking the car... I had to throw in a few dashes of opposite lock in either directions but I regained control and went on - almost like nothing had happened No the heartbeat rose a bit