I fancy a new job - and I can train at home

[dieseltaylor]

I think I am going to be busy for a while:

Everyone who has ever played a video game knows that the skills required for success are essentially the same as a racing driver. Anyone who has raced knows different. So setting up the Nissan/Playstation GT Academy was bound to yield some interesting results. Essentially, they run a national contest and the best guys get tested in real cars and given an intensive program and then given a chance at the real thing, at a very high level. This is the inevitable fairy story – a fellow who played Playstation for fun until May 2008 has since established a successful international racing career entirely due to the series.

Every time Lucas Ordoñez has been given the opportunity, he has performed, and his international racing career is living proof that you can turn virtual racing into the real deal. Twenty five year old Lucas Ordoñez began racing karts at an early age, but gave it up at 16 to concentrate on academia. He was studying for his MBA in May 2008 when he took part in a preliminary round of the GT Academy using the Playstation3 Gran Turismo 5 Prologue multiplayer game. He won.

Indeed, he kept winning at each subsequent round until he was chosen to represent Spain, then he subsequently won himself a place in the final selection race-off in real cars held at Britain's Silverstone circuit where he was pitted against the fastest of the 25,000 people that entered the competition.

The last three months of 2008 saw Lucas on an intensive driver training program so he could qualify for an international racing license. He got the license faster than anyone had before, then joined former Le Mans and Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert in a Nissan/Playstation Academy Nissan 350Z in the Dubai 24 hour race. A spectacular first-up effort prompted Nissan to sign Ordoñez to a full program in the 2009 GT4 European Cup which saw him finish the series in second place with two wins and six podiums – by this stage he was racing at the forefront of an international series less than 12 months after full time studies.

............

Now we warned you this was a real live fairy story, and from a marketing viewpoint, the Nissan-PlayStation GT Academy competition has proven to be a stroke of marketing genius, establishing a clear link between the skills of a racing driver and a video gaming platform, not to mention an automotive brand.

In 2010, the competition was entered by 1.2 million gamers from across Europe, a new GT Academy North America is now running and the third European competition will start tomorrow (March 4), with a six-week virtual time trial on the new Gran Turismo 5 game.

http://www.gizmag.com/ordonez-2011-nissan-playstation-gt-academy/18045

[Other Means]

My Bro in law will freak at this article.

Cheers d/t.

[abneo3sierra]

This has to be one of the coolest marketing ideas in history.

[dieseltaylor]

OM

Tell him my Mazda time [9th Time Trial Challenge] is 1.39.374 and I am currently the 11133 best player! : )

The detail to get really good times involves understanding [if you wish] suspension variables, deciding whether to alter gear ratios, toe out toe in, camber, brake force distribution, and using your LSD. Educationlly its probably quite useful!

Unfortunately currently 97% is above me.

[Stalins Organ]

Wow- 1 dude who plays PS has actual driving talent...having raced carts from "from an early age until he was 16....and somehow this is down to a video game??

[Michael Emrys]

...and using your LSD.

Reasonable. I found that after I started taking LSD my driving skills increased dramatically.

Michael

[abneo3sierra]

Wow- 1 dude who plays PS has actual driving talent...having raced carts from "from an early age until he was 16....and somehow this is down to a video game??

Still.... as a Marketing tool, it has a touch of the genius.....imagine some great footballer, who, before knowing he was a great footballer, played a video game where he was...and the video game being able to use the whole story as a selling point...just awesome...

[dieseltaylor]

SO - I think you are deliberatley , I hope it is deliberate, looking at this arse about face. PS3 GT5 may have made him better but it without a doubt did find many better than average drivers.

Compared to having parents rich enough to support you through karting and up through the ranks here is a cheap method of finding who has the savvy, reflexes, and desire to race. Not perfect but what a talent pool.

Wiki on gearing [part]:

There is no choice of ratios that gives the "best" performance at all speeds, nor is there a choice of final drive (axle) ratio that gives the "best" performance at all speeds. It simply does not exist, all ratios are compromises, and not necessarily better than the original ratios for most use.

The advantage of a close ratio gear-set lies in the fact that the RPM loss at very high speed is reduced, allowing extra power to accelerate above 100 mph. However, of necessity, the torque multiplier in the lower gears is reduced by the same proportion, and performance at low speeds is much worse. Even for road racing, the closest possible ratio is not always the best choice since many races begin with a grid start (favoring slightly wider ratios with high progression, where 1st gear acceleration is very important) and some with a flying start (favoring close ratios, where 1st gear acceleration is less important).

In general, engines with smaller displacement, very long duration cams, ported heads, large carburetors and so on don’t pull well from low rpm, and when the 3-4 shift will benefit more from close ratios in the upper gears, and even more so as the maximum speed at a specific course increases. If the shift takes place at a speed where air resistance is high (70+ mph), closer ratios are better. If your engine has been specifically designed for a tuned RPM torque peak (or if that is how the engine behaves), the transmission ratios must be chosen to ensure that after each shift during a lap the engine speed recovers to a point above this peak at that specific track. From the negative viewpoint, the ratios must be arranged to avoid dropping the engine into a "hole" on an up shift, where power falls off disproportionately.

If the widest ratio change gives a 25% loss, the shift RPM is 7,000 RPM, and there is a torque increase at 5,000 RPM you’re safe: 7,000 - 25% = 5,250, the engine will be in this desirable range on acceleration.

If the widest ratio change is 30%, shift at 7,000, and torque at 5,500: 7,000 - 30% = 4,900, far below the power range and the acceleration (and perhaps the jetting) will be weak until you reach 5,500. You will definitely benefit from a closer gear set, or at least re-arranging the progression to reduce the 30% drop to a better number. Depending on the bike and the track, adding to the drop in the previous gear pair (i.e., problem with the 2-3 shift: add some drop to the 1-2 not the 3-4) is the 1st choice but results will vary.

Individual race tracks with combination of maximum speed and corner speed will require different intermediate (2nd & 3rd) gears to allow downshifting for a specific gear to enter a turn, or to use only one gear during a turn to avoid traction loss. The key to analysis here is whether your favorite track has a spot where the engine is "flat" after shifting at an awkward moment in a turn, but better as it speeds up.

[Stalins Organ]

SO - I think you are deliberatley , I hope it is deliberate, looking at this arse about face. PS3 GT5 may have made him better but it without a doubt did find many better than average drivers.

Who are the others? This story is about 1, and is a self-described fairy tale - I see nothing in at all about it making him better in the first place either.

Compared to having parents rich enough to support you through karting and up through the ranks here is a cheap method of finding who has the savvy, reflexes, and desire to race. Not perfect but what a talent pool.

Certainly it is cheaper - but does it actually do this? I see nothing there that reflects your certainty.

[John Kettler]

dieseltaylor,

When General Don Starry, then head of Armor for the U.S. Army, saw soldiers spending their own money at the PX to play the now exceedingly primitive Battle Zone, he realized he'd found a whole new way to train soldiers for war. Out of this came various realistic tank sims and finally the super duper netted force on force wargames with units around the world sitting in their UCOFT and other training devices fighting a very dynamic and virtually dangerous fully integrated battle. The thread's story makes many of the same points regarding the transferability of sim experience to the real world, just as the U.S. Air Force found it could provide the critical ten mission experience hump, after which survival expectancy in combat jumped substantially, artificially through the rigors of Red Flag, with far fewer losses of planes and crews.

Regards,

John Kettler