Again, SCCA is a 50,000 member organization. NASA is another large racing org.
You should imagine that most NASCAR racers are not racing for the first time when they first enter a stock car, things like Spec Miata and even competitive go-karting are not any less “real” racing, to say otherwise is gatekeeping.
It’s not about how real the sports are, or even the level of competition. It’s about what abilities transfer. A world class marathon runner needs serious endurance like a world class biathlon athlete, but they don’t need very good vision.
Physical abilities can be improved within a range, but once the competition gets good enough you need a baseline genetic competence to be competitive. As in you don’t need to be 6’10” to play in the NBA but you can’t be 3’2”. Further, being extremely tall reduces the difficulty in competing in the NBA.
On example not mentioned, is professional F1/Indycar/NASCAR drivers benefit from being able to rapidly change visual focus in ways that video game players looking at flat screens don’t need to. On it’s own not a big deal, but that’s just one difference among many.
Instead of having a circular argument where you continuously make the obvious point “simulators are simulations”, I’ll leave it at how is this any different from a flight sim, which are widely accepted as letting you get transferable skills.
Realistic racing sims will give you skills that transfer to racing. Period.
They will not give you _all_ the skills you need, they will not train your neck muscles to withstand 6gs, but they will let you understand the concept of a racing line, they will help you understand how shifting mid turn can unsettle a car even if they can’t replicate realistic shifting and a host of other useful lessons.
What this thread seems hellbent on doing is pointing out the sim won’t give you all the skills needed to race.
Well duh?
Especially if you set the bar at skills needed to race at a level .000001% of people who even race will ever be exposed to.
The average driver in any sort of competitive driving event (read: race) is probably doing something closer to a HPDE than an Indycar race...
Ahh, ok I don’t think the skill portion is that relevant. I am saying that something like 20% of people are capable of competing at that level based on the genetic lottery and general health after training. That’s mostly true of both racing sims and F1/etc but while there is overlap it’s still a significantly different 20%.
Aka 30% of the population could do either, but only 10% could do both. (Percentages picked from thin air.)
Flying is extremely skilled focused, but you also need to pass an eye exam. The bar for airline pilots is low enough most people could do either, but with fighter pilots it’s less useful. With them people fail out of high g training before setting foot in a fighter, or have hay fever, or are to short or to tall, or etc etc.
To put into perspective how insane that is, at High Performance Driving events (non competitive events where you get to drive around a track), you might expect someone to move to the advanced group where you’re still not allowed to pass in turns, and have to be pointed by after multiple years!
Some places would actually require you to take a year's worth of events just to get into a group where passing is allowed at all without an instructor in the car
This guy went straight into full on Spec Miata with purpose built cars and full on passing for his first event!
That would be like someone playing baseball for the first time in Minor League Baseball, it takes some extremely real and difficult to develop skill to do so even if it isn’t MLB...
My vary first post had, given 3 years to prepare as a benchmark for people to make the jump. Anyone can get training. I don’t question how long it takes to reach the top, but if people can get there at all. The games are selecting for reflexes and spatial awareness so I don’t even question if their more likely to make it than the general population.
My only question is what percentage could make the jump if given time and training. And if we’re already giving people time and training as a basic assumption then the skills they already had are irrelevant for that question.
The jump to F1 and even NASCAR is ridiculous...
Again, SCCA is a 50,000 member organization. NASA is another large racing org.
You should imagine that most NASCAR racers are not racing for the first time when they first enter a stock car, things like Spec Miata and even competitive go-karting are not any less “real” racing, to say otherwise is gatekeeping.