Can a gamer become a real race car driver?

Jeremiah Cuyas

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Can a gamer become a real race car driver?
Gran Turismo’s creator Kazunori Yamauchi and Nissan Motors make virtual racers’ dreams come true.

MANILA, Philippines – “Can a gamer become a real race car driver?”

That was the question that Gran Turismo’s creator Kazunori Yamauchi posed to both his target market – players of his widely acclaimed classic video game – and to his partnered company Nissan Motors.

The program originally stemmed from a promotional deal back in 2006 between Nissan and Sony Entertainment UK – giving fans of PlayStation driving games a day of driving in actual Nissan cars like the popular Fairlady Z. 

After the event, some of the driving instructors took note the skills of some gamers, which sparked the idea, made quite an impression to them. The idea was given such thorough thought by Nissan Europe and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, as they chose a candidate game company to set the bar for their idea to come to life: Polyphony Digital Inc. and their Gran Turismo franchise. Series creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, took charge and supported this idea from its inception to present day. 

The idea was supposed to last only for one year; but it soon became a yearly thing after its successful launch in 2008. The support was phenomenal: 25,000 PlayStation 3 gamers and 12 participating countries – and their 2008 winner, Lucas Ordoñez from Spain, having his debut in the Dubai 24Hours followed by a full program in the 2009 GT4 Euro cup. The program was a huge success that Nissan and SCE Europe rebooted the contest in 2010.  

Despite the huge success of their season one winner, the program was met with mixed criticism during its earlier months, mostly negatives as traditional motorsport bloggers do not see the connection between the two worlds merging into one. 

Autoblog.com described it as an utterly stupid idea by two big companies from both worlds; but this didn’t stop this partnership competition in their tracks as the program expanded to areas outside of the UK – they now targeted the Atlantic region by 2010: New Zealand and Australia. Meanwhile, Lucas Ordoñez, evolved further making his debut in the well acclaimed & legendary racing league: the LeMans 24 Hours at Sarthe, France.

As the years progress, GT Academy continues to expand their target NISMO Athletes – now for 2015, they set their eyes on the Global Market beyond Europe subcategorizing the competition into 3 classifications – Europe, Asia, and International : from Indonesia, USA, Egypt, Turkey, Japan, India, and for the first time ever: in the Philippines. Emphasis on ‘the first time ever’ as in the PlayStation Network, the Philippines was not highly noticed enough, especially on the Sony PlayStation Network (the lack of Philippines as an option when you create an account with PSN) and it is a privilege of Nissan Motors to actually take notice of Philippine racers for a huge global competition such as this.

The qualifiers of this even had already begun last April in Makati’s Commercial Business district: at Ayala Malls’ Glorietta 5 and Main Activity Center outsourcing the top 20 gamers of all malls promoting the GT Academy program. Their latest “recruitment” was set at World Trade Center’s 24th Trans Sport Show with the record time to beat was 1”02 around the Silverstone International Circuit in a Nissan R35 GT-R Black Edition. The objective to qualify was for players to set the fastest lap around the said trim of Silverstone Circuit to secure their place – the top 20 players at the end of the so-called First Gear or First Leg of the Competition. They are only given either 5 laps, or 5 minutes at a time to set their personal best and aim for the fastest lap around the track. A time of 1”02 would seem to be like an impossible feat as most decent drivers who took a shot at it average a 1”08 to a 1”10 mostly. 

Have you been racing the Nissan GT-R LM NISMO on Gran Turismo 6? Check out this awesome game footage

Posted by GT Academy on Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Spinouts would slow them down, and so would unnecessary drifting. Hitting cones and going off course invalidates their time but some players utilize the game’s physics [and glitches] to their advantage to maximize their overall lap-time over other players who tried it – these involve riding the nylon – a sidewalk like-strip on the inside and outside of the track around corners, and even involve going around the cones when they go too wide, or the technical term: understeer.

I even gave it a try myself and my fastest was a 1:06 as far as official times are concerned. It took me 3 sets of 5 minute runs to get to this as there were some questionable parts of the game that got me worried: the movements of the GT-R, the braking, and not to mention; what I call, the all-seeing-eye of the proctor who can make or break your run if you feel quite affected by the ones looking at your run. Out of all live or on-site simulators that feature racing games such as Gran Turismo, what made GT Academy stand out was the layout of their racing gear setup. 

The setup, or the simulator pod as it is called, is shaped like the thick outline of a tire in white lined with red neon bars and the GT Academy logo. Tailored racing bucket seats keep the player comfortable but the size though is left to be considered; it does kind of feel stiff around the shoulders and it is a different feeling from your usual car seat. 

The steering wheel and pedal system is the Logitec G27 – a Gran Turismo exclusive, which can also be used to other compatible racing games. What makes this steering wheel system so great is giving the player the option between the traditional shift box on the side or paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, like that in Rally cars or F1 cars.

The clutch is not used in the contest; nor is the shift box. If they want to go manual, they were to use the paddle shifters; like how the GT-R is in real life. To those who owned a G27 it made them feel at home, but to those new to it, or who have played racing games with a controller, it would feel quite small compared to your traditional steering wheel in your regular car. 

Hey, we’re looking at this from a commoner’s perspective after all. 

The experience was thrilling; it made me look at Gran Turismo from a whole different perspective. After the event, I tried it once more and I was able to bring my time down to a 1”04 in my friend’s G27 and my GT6. We copied the same settings as that of the contest and the results were par to my expectations… after over 25 retries and 3 hours worth of reattempts. The run was not easy one bit though the ghost line system of the game does quite help – either for chasing after your last personal record or trying to run away from it. 

At the end of the month, the top 20 will be declared by Nissan Philippines. If you want to know who they are, follow Nissan Philippines’ Facebook page for updates of the GT Academy program for the Philippines.  

Who knows? The next winner of GT Academy for 2015-2016 could be a Filipino. It’ll be great to see one of ours to represent us in the most prestigious racing leagues in the world; but more importantly, we hope this program could breach the huge rift between virtual motorsports and real motorsports. We see huge potential among our country’s unknown racing protégés. 

Considering this highly growing niche market as of 2015’s racing-related events and promotions, we see a brighter light and future for the likes of real and virtual racers.

Rappler.com

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