January 28, 2010
By Doug Demmons
An announcement was made last week at the NASCAR R&D Center that has the potential to change the future of racing.
And it has nothing to do with yellow lines, restrictor plates, spoilers or bump drafting.
The announcement -- the launch of a new NASCAR iRacing Series -- got a collective yawn from the media that was there to get the official word that the sanctioning body was about to sanction whatever the drivers wanted to do at Talladega and Daytona.
For those who still yearn for the old days -- when NASCAR wasn’t even on TV -- this is going to be quite a shock. IRacing -- which has been around a while and counts Dale Earnhardt Jr. among its most famous participants -- isn’t contested on asphalt. It’s done on your computer against other drivers who could be halfway around the world.
And here’s the really shocking part -- one day drivers who cut their teeth on iRacing will be the cream of the NASCAR crop.
How is that possible? How can someone who races at his desk possibly become a top driver?
The answer is simple -- practice, practice, practice.
It’s the same reason that Magnus Carlsen has become the youngest person ever to be ranked No. 1 in the world in chess and a grand master at the age of 13.
Carlsen learned the game playing computer chess against advanced algorithms. Playing against algorithms won’t teach you much about opponents’ styles and quirks, but it does afford the opportunity to play a whole lot of chess. Carlsen, in fact, was able to play multiple games simultaneously.
And that fits in with the theory that what separates experts in just about every field from everyone else is 10,000 hours of practice.
Natural talent is important, but plenty of people have that. To truly rise above the crowd and achieve at the top levels of your field you must practice relentlessly. And numerous studies have concluded that 10,000 hours seems to be the tipping point.
It’s spelled out in the book “Outliers,” by Malcolm Gladwell, who quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin:
“In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”
Nobody just climbs into a stock car with minimal experience and wins on raw talent alone. It takes lots and lots of seat time before a driver can reach the top levels of the sport.
Unfortunately, seat time is a precious commodity. Without a wealthy family you have to somehow catch the eye of a team owner willing to take a chance on you and bring you along for years.
That’s where iRacing can change the equation. Learning on a computer simulator can fill in the gaps -- hours and hours and hours of them.
And iRacing’s program is amazingly realistic. Tracks have been laser-scanned to reproduce all the bumps and dips and quirks. And competitors can adjust virtually everything on the car that the real teams can adjust.
That doesn’t mean iRacing can substitute for the feel of the real thing. When you spin out and smack the wall in iRacing you can just hit the reset button.
Magnus Carlsen wouldn’t have achieved the No. 1 chess ranking if the only opponent he ever psyched out was an algorithm. But the ability to work out countless scenarios over and over until it all becomes second nature makes a huge difference.
It makes a difference whether it’s chess or music or basketball or auto racing.
One day a kid is going to set the racing world on fire and iRacing will be the match that lights it.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes daily and weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow
Follow Doug on Twitter: @dougdemmons
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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