Can you learn to race just playing video games? I find out.

[Dr JonboyG]

Can you go from just playing GT5 and Forza 3 to actually racing a car? Will it help you be quick? Are the tracks accurate? In the interests of science, journalism, and having a damn good time I went to find out: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2011/04/ars-...

The answer for me was yes, they were quite helpful for some aspects, and probably helped me not be slow, but the real thing was so much more fun. The most fun I've had with my clothes on, in fact.

Anyone else made the same transition (straight to the track from gaming, no trackdays or tuition)?

[Dr JonboyG]

croyde said:

Wasn't there some young bloke who won a season's real racing by beating everyone in some on-line racing game simulation.

I seem to remember that he was pretty good at the real thing even though he had never done it before.

There's a guy competing in the ILMC in a challenge car I think. iRacing also gave the top ranked player a test in a single seater at Road Atlanta last year, he was quick but so unfit he threw up in his helmet and had to stop.

[Dr JonboyG]

RobM77 said:

I think the OP's results and findings would be more in favour of video games if he'd used sims, rather than games designed for kids and blokes to play whilst beering it up before a night out. There is a huge gulf between something like NetKar, iRacing or RFactor and Forza, Gran Turismo etc (as good as the latter are at being fun games).

I don't doubt that the PC sims are more realistic, but the point of the exercise was to see how good the console games are.

[Dr JonboyG]

RobM77 said:

Fair enough

I'm very surprised at the results in that case. I find console games rather confusing to be honest; the handling innacuracies get in the way quite a bit. Just a personal opinion though.

Yes, but you can play them from the couch!