I was browsing through the shoe shelves of the local racewear store when I noticed a young lad doing the same.
I tend to opt for a boot with a decent amount of tread, one that can handle a mixture of mud and cow dung as you push your rally car back on the road.
He was perusing the more elegant examples, so it was clear he was a circuit racer.
“What do you drive?” I asked politely.
“I’ve got an ex-TRS Tatuus F40, but I guess my last car was a Porsche 992 GT3 R.”
I took a harder look at him to see if I’d stumbled over another Giltrap scion but I couldn’t place the face.
“How does a young bloke afford a car like that?”
“It was a sim,” he explained. “I’m an Esport-racer.”
This didn’t impress me too much. I have a nephew who is a hardened gamer, who spends every evening slaying hordes of goblins or decapitating zombies.
I’ve tried bonding with him over his favourite games but there’s a limit to how many times you can expire with an axe through your head in the first ten seconds.
He seemed to sense my disappointment so quickly pointed out, “The Tatuus is real.”
The youngster’s name was James Corban and he’d just finished representing New Zealand in the Tri-Nations Esport Cup.
The team had finished second behind winners Australia in two 30-minute races around Mount Panorama and Silverstone, without ever leaving their lounges.
And they weren’t squirting around in Mario karts.
“We had to qualify a Porsche 911 GT3 around Laguna Seca to make the team. I’d only raced Formula cars so had to get my head around the nuances of traction control and ABS.”
I thought he was taking the piss. My experience with the original ‘Colin McRae Rally’ had involved nothing more testing than keeping the biscuit crumbs out of my PlayStation controller. Yet he was talking about braking points and understeer.
Apparently the iRacing platform laser scans actual tracks so every bump, curb and gradient change is faithfully replicated. Players can dial in tyre choices, rain and presumably whether your pit chief has been watching too many Days of Thunder.
Even the set-up to sim-race went way past the old office chair I used to favour. James uses a Sparco seat in an aluminium rig to provide a sturdy frame, with minimal flex, and competition pedals and steering wheel.
“It all sounds horrendously expensive for what is a glorified toy.”
“Not so,” he assured. “It’s cheaper than attending a couple of test days at a real track and I can race anyone anywhere in the world.”
Indeed, he used the knowledge gained from sim racing when attending a real Formula 4 test in the States with Gary Orton’s Kiwi Motorsport. “It meant I could bowl up to a brand new track and already be familiar with the flow and braking markers.”
Because climbing to the top of the Esport racing world is not his final target.
He’s taken the familiar route of karting and BMW racing but he hungers for success in single seaters. The TRS car is the next big step and will probably determine whether he really does have the right stuff.
But in the meantime the sim racing keeps his reactions keen and gets his name out there amongst the international community.
“And if it all turns to cactus I guess you can just reset your aspirations with ctrl+alt+delete?”
He gave a chuckle and we departed on good terms, despite the fact I’d used most of our conversation to make disparaging remarks about his favoured recreation.
It was just as I got to the doorway that I had a brainwave.
“You never see your online competition face-to-face, do you?”
He shook his head.
“What are you like with a flamethrower or bazooka?”
This article first appeared in the September 2024 issue of NZ Autocar Magazine.
