Track Time In Sim

If you ask someone who races on the track or in a sim what they wish they had more of, you will get answers like horsepower, practice, and money. How this makes them faster is a simple equation: Horsepower + Track Time = Speed, and Speed ÷ Practice Laps = Track Time. It always comes back to track time and we cannot get enough of it.

When a driver is no longer able to perform at peak performance—or if they never quite make it to the top tier of their sport—someone will inevitably ask, "Why do you keep competing?" The answer is the same every time: "I love to be behind the wheel. I just want to keep driving." It’s the sound of the car firing up, the smell of fuel and burning rubber, the satisfaction of hitting your braking point and the apex at the exact same location, lap after lap. It is knowing that your last lap was a few tenths of a second slower without even needing a stopwatch. It becomes a sixth sense. Just like losing the sense of touch, sight, smell, taste, or sound, losing the ability to drive on a track is like losing a part of yourself.

Before we get to Daytona, I want to talk about why I am a sim racer. The answer is simple: track time. I grew up watching racing with my dad. I collected diecast cars and racing cards, and I even wrote letters to drivers. I’d tell them how much of a fan I was and ask for autographs. They would willingly send multiple pictures from their fan clubs, always signing at least one and paying the postage to send full-sized manila envelopes back to me. We’re talking about the biggest stars in NASCAR: Rusty Wallace, Darrell Waltrip, and even "The King," Richard Petty.

Like so many of us, I never got a chance at my dream job as a race car driver. It was too expensive, and life took me in a different direction. I’m a family man, and my wife and I are truly blessed to have three children. I followed NASCAR through my 20s and 30s, but I knew I would never race, which was a hard pill to swallow. Then, in my 40s, I learned about "online racing." Through iRacing, drivers compete against thousands of others from around the world in the comfort of their own homes. More importantly to me, they do it on their own time line. Because of this, I can be a dad, a husband, and a race car driver all at once.

It takes a lot of practice and patience. Unlike video games, you have to feather the throttle, learn when to brake, and understand oversteer and understeer. It’s truly like learning how to drive all over again. No one goes out and becomes good at it right away; it takes practice and perseverance. Eventually, you become good enough to race around other people without ruining their race. It’s then that you start to work on racecraft.

At 44 years old, the reality is that my reaction times are not those of the younger generation who grew up with this style of sim gaming. I typically don’t have nearly as much time to devote to being on the track as many of my competitors, so I am not as fast as they are. I might never be as good as many of them, but I do have career highlights that I am proud to have achieved in my short sim racing career.

I have one win in a NASCAR Cup car at Daytona. I earned a 9th-place finish in a full Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with one of my sons as my crew chief. That was 600 miles (400 laps ) and more than three hours straight with no pause button. I also took 9th place with my endurance racing teammates at, ESM Racing, in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Additionally, my son Parker and I finished the 24 Hours of Nürburgring with two teammates from another continent. That track is like no other in the world; it’s over 17 miles long and boasts 170 turns per eight-minute lap.

I’ve gravitated toward endurance racing because I have found that the most important aspect of racing is track time. My top priority isn’t being the best anymore; as long as my driving is respectful to those who are faster than me, my priority is simply being out there. Whether you are a new driver learning racecraft, a pro at the top of your game, a "so-so" sim driver, or a driver past your prime, we all share one thing we can never get enough of:

TRACK TIME!