Racing games a boon to professional drivers

On Saturday (February 2, 2008), the Arizona Republic published an article about professional race car drivers who are using videogames to practice for actual races.

The article begins with Denny Hamlin, a rookie NASCAR driver who played videogames featuring Ponoco Raceway to get himself acquainted with the Pennsylvania race track. Hamlin won first place for the actual race.

J.D. Gibbs, the owner of Hamlin’s car, told the Republic

To some extent, I was surprised he won … I think there is some value to these games. It helps you get acclimated to some of the tracks. And some of those racing simulators are pretty real. But it’s still a far cry from actually racing on a track.

However, Gibbs’ confidence seems to put him into a minority as many of Hamlin’s peers disagree, including as Kyle Petty:

I have to be honest, I’ve never used one [video game] … I think it has shown that it can be a supplemental tool to keep you sharp, but let’s be clear about something. You have to be talented in the first place. … Racing simulators will not turn an average racecar driver into the next Sprint Cup champion. Yes, it can help you get your marks and braking points down for a specific track. But I don’t believe that simulators alone will help get someone to NASCAR.

As far as we know, however, they have yet to cause any accidents during races. That can at least slightly upset the conclusions German psychologists made in the Journal of Experimental Psychology last March. It stated (according to BodyHack) that racing games causes their players to be over aggressive and more accident-prone on real roads.

Read [Arizona Republic] Also Read [BodyHack]