Monday morning quarterbacks are everywhere. They’re particularly prevalent in motorsport, where the act of ‘just driving a car’ is seen as achievable by many. Now Forza Motorsport is giving people a chance to prove their worth by putting them up against some big names from the world of motorsport.
Mobil 1 and Xbox have joined forces for the ‘Legends vs. Leaderboard Rival Events’, which will see real world drivers set times in Forza Motorsport for players of the popular racing game to try and beat. The online event begins this week, and will feature names such as IndyCar and three-time NASCAR Cup champion Tony Stewart and recent Indy NXT winner Jamie Chadwick.
“It’s really cool,” Chadwick tells RACER of the competition. “I think that’s one of the great things about this sport, it’s that there are certain transferable skills with Esports and I think having the opportunity to actually go head-to-head with real racing drivers is really special.
“I think we tried to take out too much predictability with it, we’ve got some quite cool cars – the car I was driving was an old Chevy on an awesome track that they have on the game, so it should be good fun.”
The leaderboard event will utilize the fictional Maple Valley Raceway, which has long been a staple of the Forza franchise. Stewart kicks-off the contest driving a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302 from July 25 to August 7, with Chadwick following with a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette from August 29 to September 11.
Chadwick may be a pro, but gamers are in with a real shot, with the Williams F1 development driver saying that “my time is definitely beatable for sure”. She’s not sampled the ‘67 Vette in the real world, either.
“But I think that’s part of it,” she says. “If I had picked a car that I’d driven in real life it might be a little bit unfair so we took out that side of it and tried to pick something fun and something that I would never have the chance to drive normally. To get the chance to drive it in the game was pretty cool.
But does that mean there’s extra pressure for the ultra-competitive Chadwick?
“I tried not to think too much about it until you mentioned it, so it’s a good thing I’ve already done my lap,” she jokes. “No, it’s cool. It’s nice to have that competitive nature, and it gives an opportunity for people who otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to drive against me on track, or even drive on a track at all. I think it’s great to give them a chance to do it from home and in an environment like this.”
Gaming and sim racing have become much more widespread in recent years, something Chadwick believes offers more people a legitimate gateway into real-world motorsport.
“How far it’s come is huge, but really now they are starting to really develop in a way that they are pretty close to reality which is quite incredible but also quite scary,” she says. “I think the fact that we have the ability to often put sim racers and Esports players in real cars and be successful is incredible and I think it’s great for our sport. It offers another avenue into it and it makes it more accessible.
“I think that’s great, and I think what we’re seeing now is just even the immersion and the feeling of what you’re doing on the game is so close to reality now it gives you a little bit more likeness to what it is like in reality.
“Of course you’re still going to have to branch into the cars at some point and still go through a similar ladder throughout your junior career, but for sure there’s got to be a way, an access point into the sport. Okay, it’s not identical, but a lot of the skills are transferable and I think just the amount of repetition and the amount of laps you can do – there’s the 10,000 hour rule that they say is what you need to be elite in anything and I don’t think you get anywhere near that in a racing car.
“So to get closer to that in sim racing, it gives you an opportunity to develop those skills. Of course you don’t have the fear factor, you have the reset button when you have a crash but still the actual feeling and the certain skillset you require for gaming can be transferred across as well.”
With motorsport costs constantly increasing, gaming also lowers the access point for many as well.
“I think that’s one thing that will always be a challenge: how do you go from that to ultimately getting into car racing? That jump is going to be significant, but still if you can identify talent – and the talent pool is so great – if you can find people with those skills, then of course it’s a great way in.
“And if nothing else, what we’ve seen is a lot of simulator drivers, even in Formula 1 teams, have come from sim racing, so they can still stay in their kind of world of Esports in a way but have professional roles within our sport.”
The virtual world is very much reaching a crossover point with the physical one, and even though there might be some Forza gamers thinking they can go after Chadwick’s job, she has some words of wisdom
“Good luck,” she says. “It’s a big, heavy, old car so being smooth is probably the trick. It wants to slide, it wants to move, so just try and bring it back a little bit, be smooth with it. You can’t brake too late unfortunately, you’re going to have to manage that, but yeah, just enjoy it more than anything else.”
