With the boost in motorsport simulation technologies, virtual racing has become a pretty affordable hobby for enthusiasts. The technology behind these ‘sim racing’ titles is mushrooming year after year. The slim line between reality and simulation has also started to fade. But has it really? Truck Series driver, Natalie Decker recently gave a pretty holistic top-down view of sim-racing versus reality as she compared the popular NASCAR simulation title ‘iRacing’.
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Before we delve into what Decker had to say, let’s give her credibility a worthy due. The 27-year-old, who is six months pregnant, is a pretty handy racing driver with many accolades attached to her name. She is the highest-finishing female driver (5th) in the NASCAR Truck Series and is related to seasoned motorsport professionals.
What’s more, her extensive time spent both, in the sim and a real-world car makes her the perfect person to contrast and compare the pros and cons of both these racing domains. Speaking on her Instagram account, Decker is pretty sure that nothing will ever come close to sitting in a race car at a race track.
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“I have not always been the biggest fan of iRacing,” she began. Decker, who also races in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, then went on to explain the tangible differences between the sim racing title and the real world.
“What it [iRacing] doesn’t do is give you that feeling in your butt that you need. In iRacing the car could handle completely differently than what your race car in real life is going to feel like,” she added.
That said, Decker did credit the simulation title for giving some really useful practice for racers like getting used to a new track, the lines, and braking points. In the past, drivers like three-time Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen have also given sim-racing a huge credit for helping with their race-craft.
The Red Bull Racing driver has come on record multiple times to say that he really values his time on the sim-rig and has seen his real-world driving get better as he puts in the hours on titles such as iRacing and Assetto Corsa Competizione.
Thus, one could say that sim-racing, especially in recent years, provides a transferable skillset, albeit unable to reciprocate the same feelings of a real-world race car, it is still pretty close to the real deal.
