1. 11/17/2009 NASCAR.COM - In NASCAR, simulators…
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Learn More | Sign Up Kyle Busch must be a sim-master: he won 21 races in 2008. Sim Factory
In NASCAR, simulators POPULAR ALERTS
aren't just toys anymore
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By David C aravie llo, NASCAR.CO M
De ce m be r 30, 2008
12:24 PM EST
type size: + -
They communicate just as they would on the race track, depressing a button on
the steering wheel as they barrel into a corner at 160 mph. Except they're not at
the race track. They're at home, in jeans or T-shirts or pajamas, connected via the
Internet, looking not out of windshields but into computer screens.
Some have spent thousands of dollars to build
cockpits accurate to the tiniest detail, with pedals
and gearshifts and seats that perform just like the
real thing. On any given W ednesday night, Michael
McDowell or Brad Coleman or A.J. Allmendinger
might be there. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin
Truex Jr. have made appearances. It's all part of Columnists
an invitation-only simulation league featuring
NASCAR drivers who battle just like they're at Duane Cross
Michigan or Kansas. No, it's not real. Asphalt and Running second should not
tire dust are replaced by pixels and code. But it be overlooked in NASC AR
performs very much like the genuine article, a fact
that's drawing more in the NASCAR community to Joe Menzer
simulators, once dismissed as just toys for kids. Superman will fly into
Homestead a champion
They're not toys anymore. The cars, programmed
with data supplied by crewmen from actual David Caraviello
Finally, some signs of life at
NASCAR teams, perform like real cars. The tracks,
“
old North Wilkesboro
built off satellite imagery and input from actual
drivers, perform like real tracks. These aren't video Mark Aumann
games, but serious performance tools that more PIR played big role in title
and more drivers are using to try and gain an battles involving Earnhardt
edge on the competition.
"What I like about it is, just being familiar with the
With some of these
race track when you get there," said Mike Dillon, tracks on the game Photo Galleries
director of competition for Richard Childress Racing
and whose sons Austin and Ty use simulators to -- and I really Checker
help further their racing careers. "Looking out the O'Reilly Auto
windshield, seeing the bumps on the track, most
shouldn't call it a Parts 500
of them are pretty accurate. Heck, it's tough
enough to get out of the garage and get on and
game -- you start in View
Archive
off the track for a rookie at a track you're not the garage and you
familiar with. W ith some of these tracks on the
game -- and I really shouldn't call it a game -- you even learn what
start in the garage and you even learn what gates gates to go through.
to go through. You get to learn the race track
before you get there, and it's pretty accurate." You get to learn the Most Popular
Headlines Videos
The industry has benefited from a generation of race track before
drivers that grew up around video games, and in
you get there. News
”
general are more computer-savvy than their
predecessors. People took notice when Denny NASC AR watching, but not policing,
Hamlin-BK feud
Hamlin credited simulation training with helping
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2. 11/17/2009 NASCAR.COM - In NASCAR, simulators…
him win at Pocono his rookie season on the Cup Hendrick: No deal for Danica; nothing
Series tour. Michael McDowell, who trains in a full- MIKE DILLO N, R CR dire ctor imminent
scale cockpit with a 52-inch plasma monitor meant
Earnhardt's crew uninjured in traffic crash
to mimic a windshield, opened eyes when simulation work helped him win four near PIR
races in ARCA in 2007. Before Clint Bowyer started this past season's Nationwide
event at Montreal -- an event he began without a single lap of practice, because of
the concurrent Sprint Cup weekend in Pocono -- Dillon asked Sim Factory, a Features
company that makes a title popular in the NASCAR industry and hosts the North Wilkesboro alive and well, even
invitation-only Wednesday night series, to put together a simulated Circuit Gilles without racing
Villeneuve. Bowyer finished ninth, despite never seeing the track before the day of Point System
the race.
Johnson, Martin should lead the way at
Phoenix
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Superman will fly into Homestead a
Page 2 champion
Running second should not be overlooked
Kyle Busch spoke on behalf of Sim Factory at a conference earlier this year in San in NASC AR
Jose, Calif. Drivers like Allmendinger, Coleman, Colin Braun, Brandon Whitt and Finally, some signs of life at old North
Willie Allen train in simulators regularly. Before open-wheel driver Tony Kanaan Wilkesboro
tested a Formula One car in Juarez, Mexico, he had Sim Factory put together a
custom simulation of the road course. Austin Dillon prepped on a simulator before More News
a test at Iowa Speedway, and had developed such a base of knowledge before
getting to the race track that his team was able to trim a full day off the schedule.
Ryan Newman estimates that drivers can achieve on a simulator 60 percent of Cup Series News
what they'd get out of a live practice session on the race track. Homestead season finale just the first of
Accounts like that are helping simulators become many lasts
more established within the NASCAR industry, Montoya eighth at Phoenix, makes move on
where even people who aren't professed "game top five
guys" are seeing the results. Robert Coulter, one
Burton, RC R improve as season nears the
of the founders of Mishawka, Ind., based Sim
end
Factory, sees a parallel to engineering, which a
decade ago was still struggling for acceptance in a Martin, Gustafson come up short in Phoenix,
sport full of drivers and crew chiefs who drove and 2009(?)
set up cars solely by feel. Now, engineering is Johnson rolls at Phoenix, ups C hase lead to
standard practice. 108
"We have tons of people who come in here. Scott Speed prepares for his first full Earnhardt's crew uninjured in traffic crash
Allmendinger, that kid is in here every day, and he season of Cup racing. near PIR
“
does it to get his skill set up. You're around 40
View All
other people, real people, and you learn to get to
the front," said Coulter, who has a background in
military flight simulation. "I think it will get to the
point where it is in the military and in general Nationwide News
aviation, where you don't fly until you have hours
and hours in the simulator. If you're going off on a
I don't think you Hendrick: No deal for Danica; nothing
imminent
sortie, you'll go over the entire mission in a
simulator, right down to the bomb run. That's
can make a race car Keselowski meets with France after latest
driver in a sim. But incident
where we're going."
NASC AR watching, but not policing, Hamlin-
Racing simulators are nothing new; there was I think you can BK feud
even a NASCAR-licensed racing sim on the market
from 1999 through 2003, and the developers of make one better. Edwards wins at Phoenix to delay title
that title recently formed a new company, iRacing, celebration
that launched a broad-based simulator last
By far, you can Sorenson confident at PIR as he looks to the
make one better.
”
August. Sim Factory has been around since 2006, future
but its first attempts to get NASCAR teams to
Busch docked 25 points, Ratcliff fined for
share data about how the race cars handle were
violations
met with closed doors. That kind of information
was considered secret, and organizations weren't View All
R O BERT C O ULTER , Sim Factory
giving it out. That began to change once NASCAR
introduced its new Cup car. Suddenly there was a
treasure trove of information on the old car that teams didn't need anymore, and Truck Series News
Coulter was successful in getting some organizations to part with it. The result
Hornaday clinches fourth title; Harvick claims
was the vehicle in Sim Factory's popular ARCA title, a car that experts say performs
the win
very much like the real thing.
Harvick has a lot on the line when the green
"The timing was ideal. All the spoiler stuff became outdated just as the game came falls at PIR
out," said Mike Logan, a veteran in specialty fabrication who's worked for top Cup
teams for a decade, and provides Sim Factory with much of the technical C armichael signs to drive for Turner
information it uses to build its race cars. "Teams are opening up to them. We Motorsports
converted the suspension, chassis, everything. They did a full body scan so they Bliss replaces C ook in the No. 25 for HT
can run the 'twisted sister.' It's a real car, an actual car that raced in 2006. All Motorsports
setups actually matched. It behaves the way it should behave. All that stuff
Busch wins in Texas, holds off C rafton and
translates perfectly."
Hornaday
The result is a simulated car that's set up very much like the real thing, down to Busch has Truck owners' title in mind for
the smallest detail -- from shocks and suspension, to engine telemetry, to tire Ballew
integration data. Programmers have even been able to mimic the car's
aerodynamic handling characteristics "within 90 percent of real life," Coulter said. View All
Very little of that would have been possible without input from teams. Time was,
programmers had to build sims off driver recollections -- which are notoriously
unreliable, as it turned out -- and their own assumptions. The degree of reality Remember To Check Out
suffered greatly as a result. Not anymore.
"Teams bring everything to the table," Coulter said. "It's almost like sim racing has The Fan Starts Here!
Check-out the new Com m unity
been locked in a cage, been a seed that hasn't been given water to grow. As
NASCAR moves away from testing, and as more kids come up who are more used
to games, it's only going to improve." NASCAR Hologram
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3. 11/17/2009 NASCAR.COM - In NASCAR, simulators…
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Listen to Every Driver
Simulating a race track is painstaking work that takes three or four months to
complete. While some companies use laser-scanning methods, Sim Factory's
preferred practice at the moment is to schedule flyovers of high-resolution Shop by Driver
satellites, and augment that information with blueprints, interviews with Official NASCAR Merchandise
contractors who built the facility, and monitoring cars on the track for real-life data.
They interview drivers, who might remember a certain dip or bump, or whether
they drop down into a corner or swoop in. The goal as always is to make the
finished product as realistic as possible, so drivers can prepare for the real thing
without actually having to be there.
That certainly helped Bowyer this year at Montreal.
Mike Dillon, aware that his RCR driver was going to
hit the road course with no practice, and seeing
the progress his sons were making on a simulator,
approached Coulter at Gateway International
Raceway and asked for help. Sim Factory found a
version of the Montreal track, and fine-tuned it.
Bowyer went to Dillon's house and drilled on the
simulator, making lap after lap on Circuit Gilles
Montreal. During a caution in the actual race,
Bowyer radioed in that he felt like he already knew
the race track.
"This driving thing, for somebody who has already
raced some, a lot of it's about confidence, of
having a lot of confidence once you get to the
place," Dillon said. "Everybody has certain tracks
they're really good at, and a lot of that is due to
“
confidence. If you've never been to a race track,
you're not going to have it until after you've made
your first laps around the track, and you've
wasted some practice time trying to get there."
If there's a knock against simulators, it's that they Now that we're not
might produce drivers who are a touch too
aggressive, and carry that mind-set onto the race going to be testing
track. It's easy to see why; Coulter said the Sim
Factory cars have a tremendous amount of grip, anymore, it's going
almost inviting a three-wide pass in the corner.
They're driven "down to speed," which means as
to be an ever bigger
fast as a driver can take them until he hits tool.
”
something, and the exact opposite of how cars are
driven on a real race track. And many of the
drivers who prefer sims are young, relatively
fearless, and more willing to take chances on an
actual or virtual track. MIKE DILLO N
"Drivers drive in a sim pretty much how they do in real life," Coulter said. "The lack
of patience is definitely there in every young driver. I think that's a product of their
generation. Whenever they can get experience, it leads to their heads growing.
Drivers are very cocky people, and they need to be. If they go into a sim and they
find that comfort level to where they can push it this way or that, then when they
get onto the race track, they may take more chances. You've got to transfer that
to the real thing, where you face fear and the possibility of injury."
The simulation industry may have received a boost from the recent NASCAR ban on
testing. "I think more next year than any time, they're going to be used," Hamlin
said. "The more realistic they can make these games, the better it's going to be for
these race teams and drivers."
Dillon agreed. "Now that we're not going to be testing anymore," he said, "it's
going to be an ever bigger tool."
Sim Factory has seen a small increase in sales since the testing ban was
announced, and more top drivers like Carl Edwards have inquired about custom
setups. It's another step forward for an industry that for years has tried to make
inroads in NASCAR, and appears finally on the verge of becoming mainstream.
"I don't think you can make a race car driver in a sim," Coulter said. "But I think
you can make one better. By far, you can make one better. I come from military
sims, and you don't put a pilot in a sim and make him an F-18 pilot. But you can
make an F-18 pilot better. You can help him learn to make better decisions,
decisions that help pilots get home, and keep race cars from getting wrecked."
Also
Homestead season finale just the first of many lasts
Running second should not be overlooked in NASC AR
Montoya eighth at Phoenix, makes move on top five
Superman will fly into Homestead a champion
Burton, RC R improve as season nears the end
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