On sim racing again

I haven’t written a post in a while and that’s because I’ve been busy filling up most of my free time watching the World Cup, playing chess, and mainly getting back into sim racing, which was once a favorite hobby of mine.

Indeed, almost immediately after making a post about recording and uploading my runs of Slay the Spire 2, I busted out my old Logitech G27 steering wheel and forgot all about card games. I don’t doubt that I’ll get back into StS2, but for now, I feel like I’ve fallen in love with an old flame.

My very first contact with computers and with steering wheels was one and the same, so I’m not surprised to have developed a love for racing video games. I was maybe seven years old. My dad was into racing and had a copy of Rally Championship for MS-DOS.

For whatever reason, he was only ever interested in competing on that game’s shortest stage. One evening, he was particularly proud of a new time he had set and invited me to beat it. I did. He then spent all night working at beating my time, and the next morning I got back on top. This went on for some time.

He was an adult man who drove real cars, competed in karts, and had a fantasy of being a Formula 1 driver. Naturally, he tried to drive the in-game car like a real one, even though all he had in front of him was a plastic steering wheel with no feedback, and probably fewer pixels than you could find on a square inch of your smartphone. I was a child playing a game in whatever way rewarded me the most without any pre-existing habits or expectations. He never stood a chance.

If we had been competing in a modern simulator, it likely would have been a different story. Like other 1996 games, Rally Championship wasn’t very realistic, but it did set me on the path to what would become the niche though increasingly popular gaming genre of sim racing.

In those early days, I also played Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 2 and then Grand Prix 3, the top F1 simulators of their time. Grand Prix 4, released in 2002, was the first video game I purchased with my own money ($20). I was very excited to get my hands on it, with its enhanced graphics and promise of even more realistic handling.

I was immediately dismayed to discover the graphics were perhaps a little too advanced; our shabby home computer could barely run it. I didn’t know much about PC specs at the time and my disappointment was such that I’d have jumped at the occasion if you had told me I could download more RAM.

This, along with our gaming wheel finally breaking — and our dad having long given up on any and all video games and thus having no interest in replacing it — led to an extended break from the hobby. The break lasted until 2013, when I built my first PC. In the excitement of wanting to try new titles to check out the graphics, I picked up Grid 2 by Codemasters.

The game was only fine, but I felt an old love being rekindled and decided to purchase a Logitech Driving Force GT. It was a cheap force-feedback wheel, but compared to the Xbox 360 controller I had been using, the upgrade in immersiveness was intense. There was a short adjustment period during which I was constantly crashing into walls — but even before getting over that, I knew this would forever be the way I wanted to play racing games.

Soon after, a renewed interest in Formula 1 led me to F1 2012 and then F1 2013, as well as to organized competitions. I joined a league and before long was racing near the front of the grid.

At the end of 2013, I had my first taste of a proper modern simulator with Assetto Corsa. I still remember my first time driving around Imola in a Pagani Zonda R. I had never had so much fun in a racing game. The liveliness of the handling, dancing on the edge of grip, the sound of the car, the laser-scanned detail of the track. I was totally, utterly hooked.

Over the following two years, I upgraded to a triple-monitor setup and Logitech G27 steering wheel. I competed in the Assetto Corsa Racing League and did very well, winning three championships. In 2016, I tried virtual reality for the first time and never looked back. In my mind, its level of immersiveness is worth any downside. It is the way to play racing simulators.

But starting in 2018, my interest began to dwindle. It was just too inconvenient to constantly get set up. My desk was simultaneously my work place, gaming zone, and sim rig. If the G27 was in place, it got in the way of everything. If I set it aside, it took time to set it back up. Eventually, the friction added up.

I dreamed of a separate, dedicated sim rig with a better set of wheel and pedals, but the price was incredibly prohibitive. I modded my brake pedal for a minor cost, which helped with consistency; further expenses I couldn’t justify. Then, after getting divorced and moving to a new state, the G27 essentially never left its box, and my interests expanded in other directions.

Until last month. I had an itch. It had been building for some time, and finally became strong enough to get set up again. And wow, it has been so fun. I had really missed racing. I joined several Discord groups to find Assetto Corsa races and found that if I wanted, I could participate in organized, high-quality races several times per week. And unlike my former self, I am not so obsessed with winning (or rather, not losing) to the extent of feeling compelled to practice endlessly, which definitely helps to keep things fun.

But there was still the issue of setting up. The G27 still got in the way of other PC activities, and getting it in and out of place was the same old hassle. Also, after being wrangled for over 1, 000 hours, one of the clamps was damaged, so the wheel was liable to slip off the desk if I pulled on it a little too hard. The whole setup was just flimsy. My chair could roll back when I pressed on the brake pedal. I was constantly having to mind these things when racing.

So finally, I decided I was done waiting for that once-forgotten and long-postponed dream of a dedicated sim rig. I found some good deals, decided I would be OK with the headache of setting everything up and having even more work to do when I move in a year or two, and spent a lot of money. Still less than on a compact Eurorack system, mind you. Synthesizers sure have a way of making other hobbies look affordable.

Setting up actually took less time than I expected. And I’m having so much fun. The level of immersion is on another level and the whole thing is now properly rigid, so I can finally turn off that part of my brain that used to worry about rolling back or pulling the H-shifter off the desk.

So anyway, I wanted to share. This has been at least 12 years in the making. I could even say 28 years!

Another perk of VR … you can tuck the sim rig anywhere and not have to worry about screens! I’ll have to add some decoration to those walls, though. They’re looking pretty bare.