Racing in the Digital Fast Lane: How Esports Is Reshaping Motorsports

• Console vs PC? – Is this ever going to end?
• Talk about some of the racing games out there; FM, GT, PC, NFS, etc. 
• Compromises in gaming: “Those games are so fake!”
• Ethics/Etiquette in eSports: “Games are for kids” – “Nothing but a bunch of nasty 12 years olds out there!”
• The Yas Marina Line” – (Where it’s paved, you’re saved) exploring the idea of cheating? (in Racing) – why developers have spent a lot of time/energy in developing “penalty systems” 
• Using gaming as a “teaching tool” – Best games for training hand/eye coordination?
• Should esports replace “dangerous traditional sports?” 
• eSports safety
• CHECK OUT: GTM’s Virtual Racing League
• FOLLOW TUCKER aka “JERICHO” on TWITCH – https://www.twitch.tv/jericho

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder, how did they get that job? Or become that person.

The road to success is paved by all of us, because everyone has a story.

Now, you might be asking yourself, what does a motorsports group have to do with gaming? A lot, actually. This year, because of COVID, we saw a huge uptick in virtual racing and esports as an alternative to being at the track. Everyone from IndyCar, IMSA, and even Formula 1 were competing online using iRacing and other platforms.

And even pro am groups like SCCA have moved into this realm, while GTM on a smaller scale has been hosting virtual racing leagues since 2016.

Crew Chief Eric: Gaming in many ways is a gateway into a sport, much like racing, but it can also be [00:01:00] used as a training and conditioning tool. We’re going to be talking a lot about how hand eye coordination, developing speed and reflexes, and esports safety plays into the world of motorsports.

And joining us for this episode of Break Fix is a gaming expert known on Twitch to many as Jericho, and now the host of Amazon Prime’s Chasing the Crown. Join us in welcoming Tucker Boner to the show.

Crew Chief Brad: And as always, I’m your host Brad. And I’m Eric. So let’s roll.

Crew Chief Eric: Welcome Tucker.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Thank you for having me.

It’s I’m glad that I also get to hear you say my full name. A lot of hosts kind of off for the Tucker or Jericho, and then they just stopped there. But yeah, boner last name. Really good one.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s French. It’s Bonet, right?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Yeah. Bonet. Oh man. Did Jessica tell you about that? Yeah. I used to. For those listening, I, uh, Eric’s wife was not my college guidance counselor, but somebody that I spent a lot of time hanging out with back in high school.

And I used to joke that my last name was French or German. And, um, [00:02:00] I got detention for that one time. So, you know, I know it’s been a fun ride, but thanks for having me on. I’m excited to talk cars. I rarely get to do this.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And so we’ve talked on several episodes about, you know, the advent of electric vehicles, EVs, the sun setting of two door coupes, and more importantly, that internal combustion engines are going away.

The cost of supercars and hypercars is climbing and access to the track is becoming harder and harder and harder as we look forward. And as I mentioned in the intro, thanks to COVID, Motorsports took a break for a very long time in 2020. And so to combat that a lot of us turned to the virtual world, but it also started to pose the question, could e sports, and in this case, virtual racing, replace.

Some real sports in the next 20 years. So what do you think about that?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I guess a bit of background about me. I’ve been playing video games and making content around that for about 11 years now, coming up on 12. And, um, as [00:03:00] somebody who’s looked at gaming as a way to connect with people, as well as spend my free time, just enjoying stuff outside of the real world.

I’ve been pretty bullish on the idea that e sports as a competitive outlet would be something that we would see. Grow and grow and grow to the point where eventually it’s inevitable that e sports as a platform will be equal or greater than any other major sport that we have. It’s simply the only guess I should say, broad term game, football, baseball, cricket, e sports that is global and crosses literally every single line of gender or race or whatever, everybody knows video games and eventually does play them.

So I think that. Specifically for racing, you talked about iRacing and how COVID has kind of pushed everybody into the digital world. You’ve got people like Lando Norris who are sitting here playing games on Twitch, not just [00:04:00] iRacing though, but using Twitch as a platform to connect with viewers and connect with people that ordinarily wouldn’t get to have that one on one conversation.

So jumping into iRacing as a simulation game, as a game that it was built specifically to be as close to real life as possible. It’s pretty apparent that if Lando can do this, and I believe there was somebody who was a, um, amateur, somebody who raced in a, like tier three league, sorry, if I don’t know the correct terminology, but that person was not a professional racer.

They were just an eye racing e sports player. They moved over and they did pretty well for that tier that they’re racing. And so I think the proof is there and it’s only 2020. We’ve only been doing real simulation racing for about 10 years now. Okay. Everybody remembers the arcade games, right? Where you jump in and it’s like NASCAR and you put your quarters in and that was a whole thing.

I mean, we’ve gotten really good at making things as close to real life as possible. And, um, if this is how far we’ve come [00:05:00] in five years, You can’t be telling me that in 10, 15, 20, 40 years, digital racing will not be as competitive as realistic and as widespread given the adaptation of technology as possible.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, and to your, your point, you were saying earlier about the, the people that started in, in the east, in the e sports and moved over to the real life. I believe a couple of years ago, Gran Turismo as part of their. I guess launch or marketing for the new game. They did a whole tournament and got a couple of drivers.

And I think they actually competed in professional touring car series.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): One of the biggest sponsorship deals I did with was with Audi. And I did this back in 2015. Um, it was centered specifically around the 24 hours of Lamont. And I went to San Francisco and they had a 24 hour live stream where we did six hour shifts and we sat inside of a, and I’ll send you this photo if I can find it, [00:06:00] um, maybe you want to throw that in there.

I sat inside a model F1 race car in full racing gear, a helmet, everything. We sat in there and we. I said F1 and I probably was, is it F1? It’s probably

Crew Chief Eric: LMP if it’s Audi, but yeah. Yeah.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Yeah. Sorry. So I sat inside a one to one scale model alongside six other people and we all raced for 24 hours. Yeah. And, and I mean, it was, let me tell you the sweatiest, most disgusting I have ever been playing video games.

I am, I love racing games. I do. But on my team, somebody didn’t have their driver’s license. They were from overseas in China. And the sweetest person I know, but damn, she could not drive. She went backwards on the course. It was not a good show. We did come in last, but it was for all good fun. And we just racing alongside Lamont and showcasing that to people on Twitch.

It was a really special experience for me, but it just goes to show you that. This was already in process five years ago. I had to check what year [00:07:00] it was five years ago. And so I can only assume that this is going to continue and grow and grow and grow.

Crew Chief Eric: So it’s interesting you bring that up because I think there’s two ways to look at this as we unpack it.

So there’s the spectator view that a lot of us got during COVID, which Carriers like NBC and ESPN and even IMSA TV, for that matter, were showing the races as if we were watching them on regular broadcast television. To simulate the real world, they brought in the actual announcers that we’re used to hearing.

And then they were overlaid and all that. And, and the photo realism of the games and the quality of, of the graphics now is to the point where it is hard to discern at least from 10 or 12 feet. And, If you’re watching a real race or watching a virtual one now, when you keep bringing up Twitch and probably a lot of our audience is older and they don’t understand what that is.

I want to kind of set the stage there. You’re seeing the racing happening from behind the scenes. You’re looking at the driver, you’re talking to the players, you know, all that. They’re talking to you as they’re doing their [00:08:00] multitasking or they’re multi threaded. I like to call it. So. Why is that appealing?

I just kind of want to go down that path for a minute versus the standard of just, I’m going to watch the race.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I, and again, excuse me, cause I do most of the podcasts I do come on are generally right down my alley and people do know what Twitch is. So if you’re unfamiliar, just like YouTube is the platform you go to, to watch videos that people make and anyone can do it.

Twitch is the number one platform to go watch people doing it live. And once again, anyone can do it. So you can just sign up and go live from your phone or from your computer. And it’s, it’s that easy. So the reason that I believe Twitch is a incredible platform specifically for sports and anything involving video games and e sports and for this conversation racing is because you get a one to one reaction and interaction with the person that is live.

So think about it like when you are having a conversation with people or [00:09:00] you’ve got your friends on the couch and you are all doing or watching somebody play a game or watching a movie. There is a, an ability for the person broadcasting, whether they’re broadcasting to five people or a thousand people to interact with people who are commenting live on the content as it happens, and that one to one interaction is a very special one.

Because imagine if you could go see David Bowie life. And you were like, Hey, David, that was a wonderful song. And he looked at you, said your name and said, yeah, thank you. I appreciate you, uh, enjoying that. Yeah. David Bowie could do that every single day, eight hours a day. And you could get that special interaction that you could never, ever get anywhere else.

And because it’s just so accessible and easy.

Crew Chief Eric: So in my generation, and I’m not going to date myself, but I did,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): you’re old. We know,

Crew Chief Eric: but I’m not a boomer, but you know, Brad and I, as an example, we grew up in the last analog generation, right? But we were the first early adopters of the [00:10:00] digital generation, which means.

The first video game consoles we had in our hands were Ataris, right? And then Nintendos, and we grew up, and so it’s, it’s a part of our lives. You know, looking back, one of the things that was always said is, there’s nothing more boring than watching your buddy play the game. Right. And so that’s where I find the disconnect with twitch as an older gamer, where it’s like, ah, do I really want to watch Tucker playing battle?

Right.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Right. No. And that is a fair point. And trust me when I say I’ve had this exact conversation in infinite amount of times, I went on NPR and had this conversation. Specifically because I love it. It is such a good and very basic idea to have. Are you bored watching somebody else do something you could just go into yourself.

And the easiest thing, especially for this podcast to say is, what do you say about every professional sport ever? Why not go play football yourself? That is the most basic argument to have. And truthfully, it makes a lot of sense. If you could watch Lando [00:11:00] race once every single month, that’s cool. But what if you could watch Lando race every single track in the planet every single day?

What if you could get more of your favorite races? Why would anyone say, I just don’t know if I really want to spend time watching the thing I already love. And to another extent, because I am not an e sports professional gamer, I do play games for living. I’m not professional. I’m awful at video games.

Why do people watch me? Why do people watch Conan do anything? Why do people watch Jimmy Fallon do anything? I am not great at video games, but I like to think that I’m good at presenting. The game in an entertaining way that even if you are going to go play it yourself, even if you are going to just watch me play and never buy it, you’re still entertained in some capacity.

Crew Chief Brad: And you just touched on something that I actually like to do. I jumped into the video game hobby of late. You know, I didn’t start playing video games really heavily until the Xbox 360. So I missed all of those excellent [00:12:00] titles. On the Nintendo and the Atari and the TurboGrafx 16 and all the old stuff, even PC gaming.

So I enjoy going back and watching people play all these old games that I was told, Oh, you should totally play this one because I can’t even find them. I mean, you can’t find unless you’ve got an emulator or something. You can’t find these games. Also, do I want to spend a hundred hours playing through final fantasy one when 15 just came out?

You know, I’m, I’m not going to waste my time doing that. I’d rather just watch somebody else go through the motions, you know, and, and, and give their commentary about why they like it. And Eric is not a boomer, but he has boomers

Tucker Boner (Jericho): by definition, anybody over like 30 is a boomer. I’m 27 really close. And by the youth internet standard, I’ve been called a boomer a couple of times.

It hurts. I know.

Crew Chief Eric: Dang. I’m like, I’m like your grandfather. But no, so to going back to that, I just think mentally, it’s like, it’s a hurdle that you have to come over because I don’t think [00:13:00] you’d want to watch me and Brad playing forza because let me, let me paint the picture for you. Okay. First of all, yeah, there’s the glens today, but we’ll get into that later.

Brad doesn’t talk, right? But what he does is he sits in the squatty potty position and he just like he’s dead focus, right? He’s leaning forward, right? Yeah, and meanwhile i’m not saying anything either because i’m literally making what I call a kermit face You know where he scrunches up his mouth and whatever and i’m grinding my teeth and i’m not saying anything either So it’s really not that exciting,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): right?

I, and that’s funny. You mentioned it cause everybody has a gamer face, right? It’s a conscious, it’s a concentration face. And for me, my mouth is a little bit open and I’m just staring at the screen. I don’t lean forward too much, gotten used to that, but just like anyone can make a video, anyone can live stream.

It doesn’t mean that everyone should, right? It like, just because anyone can play a sport, it doesn’t mean that everyone is going to want to watch your rec basketball at like LA fitness. It’s probably ugly and not too engaging to your point [00:14:00] of why would anyone want to watch the general idea of e sports or I guess Twitch in general, it makes a lot of sense when you look at how much access you get.

So, it’s a learned process where when I first started out playing games live 10 years ago, I would be playing games and then when there was a break in the action, I’d look over and I’d read chat and I’d say, hey, you know, let me respond to this. It was hard to divert your attention to one or the other.

Now, I can play Forza no problem and talk to chat like during the middle of the race, right? It just takes a cursory glance over to the right side, see chat, then you’re back into it. Am I going to do it during a hairpin turn? No, probably. I mean, yeah, I will. And I’ll crash and that’s why I’m not a good gamer.

But I mean, Lando is, and I keep bringing him up because he is literally the only professional race car driver I know that streams on Switch. But he does a really good job of showcasing how It is a learned process to juggle both the people that are actively chatting with you, your entertainment, the [00:15:00] game itself, and how you’re presenting all the material in a complete package for somebody sitting at home to get some enjoyment out of, even if they’re not engaging with chat, even if they’re just sitting there eating.

Crew Chief Eric: You’ve touched on something earlier and I want to pull that thread a little bit in that e sports levels, the playing field. Unfortunately, it’s a double edged sword. On one end, it’s open to anyone. Whether they be race, creed, color, age, etc. But I also see a darker side to it. Because if I want to go compete with Lando, I can’t.

I can, but I can’t. Because when you look at those IMSA races, or the sanction races, the replacement races, I could have been ranked number one in the world. But I wasn’t allowed to run with those guys. Right. I think the downside that we’ll see is the access will start to be delineated in such that you need to qualify for these bigger, large scale races.

So I know that’s, I know that’s a lot there, but let’s talk

Tucker Boner (Jericho): about

Crew Chief Eric: both.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): No, this is, I got to split this one [00:16:00] up. So one, Lando right now, even if you want it to, there’s nothing you could do outside of paying him money specifically to come race you. And even then he might just tell you to F off. And, and so to your argument of access, that’s kind of a moot point because in real life, currently, there’s no way that anyone can access anybody they want to race against or play any game with, or play basketball with outside of doing some incredible charity thing.

So that in its own as a, uh, kind of like a red Herring to your point, or I guess your question of how do we see this progressing where you’re going to have to start qualifying? There’s two main factors with e sports. One. There will be the game, whoever is publishing the game, whether it’s iRacing, or for Forza, it would be Microsoft, and for um, Need for Speed, it’s Criterion, distributed by EA, and all these games will be It’s up to the publisher to determine who gets the gold seal of this is the premier event.

Due to the nature of eSports and [00:17:00] gaming in general, for the most part, anyone can throw their own event. Now, it gets a little hairy once a lot of money gets involved, licensing agreements and such, but in practice, anyone can make an event. So when you say, ah, I can’t believe that I have to qualify in order to play in this main event, That doesn’t mean you can’t also compete in one of the arguably thousands of existing community run tournaments against people that are equally as good as you, if not as good as the people that are professionals at it.

And that in its own right, it depends on like what you want from e sports. Do you, are you doing it because you want to play with famous people? Are you doing it because you want to compete? Are you doing it because you want to be the best at the game? Or I guess the best at the sport when we’re talking about it at large.

And I think that it’s a tough sell for me, for anyone to argue, man, a sport as expensive and dangerous as racing will not benefit from the aggressively less expensive [00:18:00] simulation racing platform and the safer version of that. Where’s the downside to that? Because when you look at a tournament. And you say you have to qualify.

Well, yeah, if you don’t qualify, you’re just not as good as the people who did. It’s just like real life. I mean, for the, for the sake of my argument, simulation racing is exactly the same as real life racing without any of the downsides. I mean, that is, but that’s the hill I’ll die on,

Crew Chief Eric: but with all the politics associated with it,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): right?

I mean, you will also, until we get to the point where you have full haptic feedback suits and you, or if you build one of those, like, incredible full dive, you know, machines where it’s actually, you’re getting car body roll and you can physically feel how the car is responding to you. I will concede that point.

There is nothing that will simulate that. For a human at this point in time, outside of very expensive machines. And at that point, drive the car, right? Like just go get a car.

Crew Chief Eric: And I meant politics being, there’s always sponsors and money involved in, you know, professional race car drivers. There’s a lot [00:19:00] behind that particular job.

But if I take the top 10 ranked iRacing drivers in the world that aren’t professional drivers and try to pit them against each other, the two worlds shall never meet. So what I see happening though, as, as we embrace eSports more and more, That there will be this, you know, separation of, well, you’re just an amateur and we’re paying this guy to spot, you know, be sponsored for, you know, whoever, and, you know, Jeff Gordon is driving today.

You will, you thou shalt never drive with Jeff Gordon. Let’s use that as an example. Right. So. So anyway, I, I don’t know that we wanna go too much further on that. I wanna belabor the point, but I just see this, I see this, this schism happening where the real world and the, the world that invites us into video games, all of a sudden a glass ceiling appears and we won’t be able to cross and go compete with, because we don’t wanna make those guys look bad.

I mean, there’s gamers out there that are better than the pros. In a simulation, let’s face it.

Crew Chief Brad: And I think it, I think that’s just it. I mean, you don’t want if you’re Mercedes, for [00:20:00] example, and you’ve got millions of dollars tied up in Lewis Hamilton and you put him up against the number one e sports driver, iRacing driver or whatever, he beats the crap out of Lewis Hamilton.

I mean, there’s no upside. To Mercedes or Lewis Hamilton to do that. There’s, there’s no money to be made off of that. I mean, it’ll hurt Lewis’s, uh, reputation and everything. I think that I just don’t think from a PR standpoint, it could be good for Lewis Hamilton because basketball players, I think sometimes they go back and, and play in the old and one tournaments and stuff like that and do a little bit of street ball, but when they get beat, it is terrible publicity for them

Tucker Boner (Jericho): guys.

I gotta, I gotta be honest. You’re just super far off the mark on this one. Simulation racing, while identical in physics and everything is a completely different skill set to real life racing specific at this current point in time, specifically because there is a disconnect between you using any sort of not [00:21:00] real system and a real one.

And Lando is a wonderful example of this because he gets his ass beat all the time in public matches and yet not a single sponsor is like, man, I can’t believe we’re sponsoring this loser. Every single professional sport has people come in. Trevor Mays, a twins baseball pitcher, or I guess he was formerly with the twins.

He’s a super nice guy. Streams, video games, all the time streaming video games. And the idea that you guys have is a head to head, like who’s better. We’ll never be a, let’s just do it in digital and see what happens thing. Until we get to a perfect, realistic example of physical racing in digital. And we are decades out of there.

And so we can have this argument again. In decades, and I know that we are talking about a long time from now, but in that case, if we are in a perfect one to one, then, and your number one driver gets beaten, then it goes, like, just switch it and then put the digital guy in the physical car and he should still win, right?

If you do these head to [00:22:00] heads and they are truly equal, then the best person will win. And at that point, we’re not having the argument of like, is digital real racing? It’s the same, because that is a truly equal one to one. Everything’s the same. There’s no argument to be had, but we’re not there. And so, if you bring a professional in the digital world and they lose Mercedes doesn’t give a shit.

They don’t care. And I, you know, and this is ghost, like I’m doing a sponsored thing with Cadillac car companies, and especially just want young people to see cool stuff in their vehicle. So if their number one guy loses. Fine. It’ll be fine. I promise. We call this

Crew Chief Brad: boomers.

Crew Chief Eric: We got that boomer

Crew Chief Brad: mentality.

Crew Chief Eric: But I do think there’s there’s two pieces there.

Well, three really. One of them is we’ve been at this game for a long time. Like real life or the game game? Well, the game game, the pun, the pun intended there. We’ve been at this game, especially in motorsports to digitize it for a [00:23:00] very long time. And I will say, I would make the argument that motorsport is probably one of the more difficult things to get right.

No, because the computational power necessary to make the physics engine works, there’s huge amounts of compromise, all this kind of stuff, right? The PC guys. Because you were talking about some of the early games, it goes way back. I mean, granted, we’re not going to talk about pole position on the Atari, but you know, when the PCs, when you started hitting the 486s and the early Pentiums and stuff like that, you were starting to see the first Need for Speed come out, right?

Which is nothing like the Need for Speed of today. It was supposed to be a simulator, you know, it was, it was, Road Track sponsored it, you know, all that kind of stuff. It was supposed to emulate real life. And then you saw the original Formula One games come out, you know, and you saw the early Codemasters stuff come out, which they’ve, they’ve propelled themselves as a leader in the space, but we still haven’t been able to get there.

And I think it begs the question, uh, begs a lot of questions, you know, PC versus console, you know, where do we go from here? Why are we making [00:24:00] all these compromises? You know, we’ve got more power on a wristwatch now than we did in those computers back then. Why can’t we get this right? So maybe not a question for us to answer, but it’s definitely an interesting topic.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): All right. So, I mean, first off Need for Speed, the original one on the PlayStation one was the game that got me into. Racing in general and you’re right need for speed did start off as a simulation game And then by underground you’re like drag racing an escalade with speakers in the back and glow neon light Which you just shook your head, but I loved it That was what got myself and many people of my age truly invested in cars fast and furious like these Iconic, not realistic in any way, shape or form games really propelled my love for vehicles, my love for shitty econo, but like the fact that I still idolize a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution six, seven and eight is the weirdest thing to me.

Because, you know, like I was driving a C 63 and I was still like, man, but if only I had that untuned [00:25:00] Mitsubishi, like what a weird thing to have to say, and you guys are going to experience it, not just from a racing fan standpoint, but we have to deal with that in every game is this mentality of elitism where the thing that I enjoy about this or music is a great example.

Like this is. actually better made music, and that is why I enjoy it, and I can’t believe you like music that is objectively worse than my music. That kind of gatekeeping and limiting, like, where people can find their fandoms from, and where people can find their enjoyment from, doesn’t really help the progression of anything.

Anything in general and gaming is paramount, like the number one in gatekeeping. It is a huge topic and it always has been and always will be mentioned PC and console. What’s the deal with that? PC elitism is, is all, look, I’m a PC elitist too, but it’s, it’s objectively better, but who am I to say? Like, ah, I [00:26:00] can’t believe you’re making compromises on console, which has less power, all that stuff.

That’s, that’s not for me to decide because if it gets you into gaming in general, what’s the big deal. So you mentioned a little bit about why are we making these compromises? Why are we not getting this true one to one? We have more computing processing in our cell phones than we did 10 years ago in our desktops.

I mean, like it’s, it’s wild. There’s a phrase for it. I can’t remember what law it is where computational power kind of exponentially grows to a certain point. Why are we making these compromises? I mean, you said it best when you started the question. It’s really, really hard to simulate anything realistic, but to simulate something as nuanced as racing.

What if your right tire in your back is one PSI less than all the other tires? How does that affect you going around a corner while breaking, you know, and throttling at half power when the road is wet and there’s three pieces of gravel there, like how in the world are you [00:27:00] supposed to expect that superpower computer level?

And so what we have right now is great. It really is great. It simulates best of the worst environment. So if you’re racing on a wet tarmac, no, it’s not going to have like oil slicks from somebody dropping three drops of oil around turn four, like it just can’t do that. So

Crew Chief Eric: it brings up the question though.

They say a lot of times there are certain games that have pushed the envelope for gaming, right? Like final fantasy was always one of the high watermarks. Like if your system could render it at full specs, you’re not talking about crisis. Well, whatever. I mean, I’m in school, right? But using that as an example, I often think though, what you just described, right?

I’m going to a turn X number of mile an hour, uh, you know, my tires are off, you know, it’s raining. I got three pieces of gravel. My brain is making all those computations when I’m behind the wheel on the racetrack. Because in all honesty, there are different ways to drive and both Brad and I instruct drivers and things like that.

We talked about a lot on the show, but there are [00:28:00] yes, visual cues and this and that. We try to look for those things in gaming. And I’ve heard a lot of people say, hey, I can’t drive with my eyes. Right? So I have to mentally like, simulate. What the physical conditions would be when I’m behind the console or behind the PC.

But what’s funny is my brain is taking in all of that input when I’m behind the wheel. And not to say that the steering wheel is a very fine and sensitive device, but there’s so much feedback coming from everywhere. Like you said, talking about haptic feedback and all that kind that. The computational power to, to simulate even the brain.

I think we’re talking next level computing. I get kind of offended when people poo poo racing games and they’re like, Oh, well, you’re just doing laps and whatever. And it’s like, do you really understand what it takes to even make this work versus a first person shooter where they’ve been using the same.

Same engine for the last 20 years and making it look prettier.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I’m going to fight you, man. You can’t be coming at my number one like that. I mean, yes. All right. So we’ll just ignore that last [00:29:00] statement, but you’re, but I think to anyone who’s listening and they’re just like, man, I can’t believe this. The youth is coming in here and talking about talking bad about my real life racing, everybody thinks about video games as a thing on a screen, right?

Whether it’s CRT or what we have going on right now. But the true conversation myself and you both are having is not about where racing is currently, I mean, well we are having this conversation, but in the future, if you’ve ever, actually I have to ask this question, have either of you used VR in the last five years?

Not recently,

Crew Chief Eric: no.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Okay.

Crew Chief Brad: You mean, uh, Virtual Boy?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Oh my god. Alright, I gotta go, guys. Uh, no. Uh, virtual reality, when it first came out, it took consumers about five and a half years ago. I got one of the first press copies of the HTC Vive, put on the headset, plug it into your aggressively expensive and very powerful computer, and you played in, [00:30:00] like, what looked to be somewhere between, like, 900p.

It was, it was, it was incredible. Even though it was clearly not where it should be. In five years, currently right now, virtual reality is so absurdly good that you even playing a game that looks like Legos will forget that things aren’t real and you will try and lean your hand on a platform just because you’ve been in there for 20 minutes and you’ll fall over.

It happens to everyone. It happened to my dad when I showed him it. It happened to me when I was doing it. It is immersive to the point where it doesn’t really matter To your brain that you know, it’s not real. It’s it’s fucking real virtual reality will pretty much Offset everything that you were mentioning about wow, my brain has to do all these Conversions, right?

It has to think oh i’m actually driving the car instead of staring at the screen Oh, I can’t really see what’s to my left without moving my controller and just That’s not a [00:31:00] natural movement to do, right? You’re used to looking to your left and your right, not using your hands to do it. Putting yourself in a full dive, uh, virtual reality system will inherently make it so it is arguably the same, but you’re still correct in the point that you’re not going to be able to see four pebbles on the road at our current tech.

It’s just not a thing that you could do, but you might be able to feel it in a real car if you start to lose traction.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, I just wanted to say we’re both of the console master race, not the PC master race, speaking to us, and we clearly haven’t had the experience with VR, talking about what are some avenues we can go through, especially with the new consoles that are coming out this, this, uh, season, where could we go, you know, what could we purchase to experience that on the consoles?

New Xbox.

Oh,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): dude! Do you want this guys? I don’t know. I just, yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): yeah. I got my PlayStation downstairs too. Uh, so you’re right. With any technology you saw with the first cell phones, you know, those giant ones cost like 2, 000 back in 19 [00:32:00] something, I don’t know, 80

Crew Chief Eric: and 19 Zach Morris. Yeah,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): exactly. And the technology that starts off, something will always be prohibitively expensive, whether it’s computational or otherwise TVs, original TVs.

Color TVs, you can go back and look like adjusted for inflation. It’s like a 2, 000, right? 2, 000 to just get some color on your screen instead of black and white. Tech is expensive at the start because it’s expensive to build the machines, to make it, to fine tune how you’re going to produce these products and put it all together.

Like, how are you going to streamline this? So with virtual reality, five years ago, when I, when I first got it, the vibe, I think was like 1, 200. You had to put physical base stations up in the corners of your 10 foot room. So it could track your motion. Your PC had to be probably about 2, 500 worth of components just to run it.

And even then the experience was not great. Now you can get an Oculus Rift. I’m not a fan of Facebook, [00:33:00] but you have to have a Facebook account to use this because Facebook bought Oculus. You can get one. I’m pretty sure it’s wireless. You don’t need any base stations. I think it’s like 400 bucks and it can run on a pretty mid level computer.

I’m talking like 1500 or a thousand dollars. That is, and it is pretty damn good. I’m not going to lie. I worked with them for a sponsor thing and I was like, Jesus, I didn’t have a lot of space in my old place, so I couldn’t do VR. I was like, I didn’t know you could just do it sitting down. And the PlayStation 4 also had a console version of VR, which was also pretty good.

It was a little gimmicky, but it was pretty good. So there are avenues and there were avenues for console players who wanted to experience virtual reality, but didn’t have the funds to just go all out and Block off a room in their house to do this in order for them to enjoy it. And you’ll see, just like every other piece of technology, the more that people get invested in it, the more that the enthusiasts buy it and help.

Fund the future progression of that platform, the [00:34:00] cheaper it’ll be. And just like everything else in tech, where we had cell phones with tiny screens or no screen at all. Now we all have a full computer in our pocket and just 10 years, just like that virtual reality will become openly, um, and very accessible to the mass market.

And I I’m very bullish on the fact that it will replace quite a bit of our learning and teaching environments. It is that useful and good for everyone involved.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’m going to walk back my statement about VR because I think VR in the motorsports world has been presented in a different way. And I think you alluded to it about talking about the event you did with Audi being in a full cockpit car and all this kind of kind of simulated real life.

The issue I’ve taken every time I’ve sat in one of the simulators and I understand the value. And I think we’re going to talk about that as a training tool. The problem I have with is though they are supposed to give you the Feel of being behind the wheel of a car. And I’m okay with force feedback and force feedback has gotten a lot better over the years, you know, [00:35:00] adjustable pedals, all that kind of stuff.

That stuff feels very natural. Even the shift boxes that they use feel very natural. The problem I have is when you’re on a giant gyroscope that is shuffling you around in a million different directions to try to simulate G and you have these really odd sensations because there’s somebody who races and somebody who teaches high performance driving.

That is not how a car feels. That is not how a car articulates. That is not how a car moves, period. Flat out, hands down. And the, the motions of a vehicle, especially if you use braking as an example, are much more subtle than what those, those systems provide. And I’ll give you a prime example, and I’m not, not boasting, but we went to Salem’s in 2019.

We sat down with Mazda Motorsports and they had their big simulation. They were running all weekend. And oddly enough, it was at Watkins Glen where we were, and you’re behind the wheel of a Miata cup car or whatever. So there’s people getting up there and then they’re spitting out. You’re watching the machine move all over the place, doing all this crazy stuff, and they just can’t get the hang of it.

Now, coming from a gaming background and especially a [00:36:00] heavy motor sports gaming background, like I have, and like Brad has, we sit down in the machine. And you kind of just disconnect reality. Like you’re saying, you’re not wearing goggles. You have multiple screens and all that. But the key was the trick was to be as smooth as possible.

And that came from driving on the track and knowing the track, knowing Watkins gun, like the back of my hand, I knew where the breaking zones were, where the turning points were, where I need the apex, where I could get on the throttle. And you’ve noticed that the machine barely moved at all. And it wasn’t these, these extreme herky jerky situations.

Again, not boasting. I did have the lead time for most of the weekend and the guys were like flabbergasted. And I’m like, All you got to do is just drive. That’s all I kept saying is just drive, you know, and, and, and get rid of those erratic movements and these big swings and whatnot. So I, I, unfortunately I feel like VR is awesome in the sense that yeah, first person shooter, I’m throwing a football, I’m playing tennis, you know, that kind of thing.

But when it comes to motorsport, I don’t think it’s there yet. I think it’s 20 years behind.

Crew Chief Brad: I would say [00:37:00] what you just described though wasn’t VR. That was just, it was an advanced sim, but that’s not, that wasn’t VR.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I mean, we’ve had this exact conversation for the last like 20 minutes here. What you’re arguing is just a, an argument of we’re not there yet.

And it’s not a question of. If, but when it is impossible for you to convince me the tech will not eventually reach a point where it is indescribable how close it is between what is virtual and what is physical. But you’re right, these sims and I’ve also raced in ones just like you said. are not like driving a car.

It is close and it feels cool. But if you’re a professional racer, close but feels cool is not the same as actually racing. And so while this current tech you’re right is not there. And I also agree that racing simulation is probably the hardest to do in virtual because you need the physical feedback, not just the visual feedback or audio feedback.

[00:38:00] It will take a long time, 20 years. Decades is what I think I also said it’ll take decades in order for it to catch up to how Realistic things are but I mean you mentioned first person shooters. Like when I do play that I don’t have recoil All right, like i’m i’m using controllers. I’m not getting the kick of shooting an m16 That’s not I would suck at all video games if I had my scrawny arms trying to shoot an ak It just wouldn’t work.

Right? So It tends to bring everything back to the same question of, are we, are we talking about if you think it’s plausible for it to be indistinguishable between virtual and realistic? Or are you just saying it’s just, we’re taking, we’ve got a long time till we get there?

Crew Chief Eric: I think, I think what I’m trying to do, Tucker, is really dispel the notion that a lot of people come to the table with and they’re like, well those games are so fake!

They just, they just hold their ground. They die on that Hill and they don’t really respect where the technology is going or where it’s come [00:39:00] from either. Right. So I have a, I have a deep respect for virtual motor sports. And I just want to, you know, again, highlight the fact that there’s a lot of compromises going on there.

There’s a lot of things under the hood that people just aren’t familiar with. And so you have to respect it. And I don’t want to get on this either, but there was a recent shift in the market where I don’t know if you’re, if you kept up, but when project cars It also has to do with Codemasters taking over, uh, Slightly Mad Studios and all that kind of stuff.

And they soften the game, right? And one of the things that people complained about the most was how difficult PC2 was. And then PC3, they tried to make it more like Grid and all this kind of thing. And I kind of called that as I saw the merger happening. And I’m like, guys, you can’t have it all. First, you’re complaining it’s too much one way.

Then they try to fix it and you say it’s too much the other way. So again, you gotta take the good with the bad as these systems evolve and probably end up merging into one big Forza, Seto Corsa, Project Cars, iRacing monolith. Because at the end [00:40:00] of the day, if they, if they make them all the same, they’re just the same game.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): There is always going to be a financial incentive to make things one way or the other because of Project Cars was like, ah shit, our game was too hard. And people are just generally not as interested in sweating that much when they’re just trying to race. They’re going to change it in every single type of video game.

There will always be a passionate enthusiast that wants to make the most realistic one to one example of real life. And let me give you an example of what a lot of the early VR games were. I remember jumping in to one that I, there was a gun range. And let me tell you, I’ve been to a gun range once. I shot a bunch of pistols, tons of fun, but no, I’ve never shot, reloaded, held a, an assault rifle or an AR 15 or anything like that because I play video games, I have watched quite a few people reload these and use them.

So I got into there and I saw the weapons and I was like, I know what to do. This is [00:41:00] just like a game. It’s just like real life almost. Right? Had no problem transitioning into that. The person that made that was a gun instructor and a part-time coder, who specifically wanted to make something in a safe environment for people to learn how to shoot weapons without risk of injury, because accidents do happen and.

Nobody wants to get hurt. And so he was like, if I make this as perfectly realistic as I can, then I can mitigate a lot of that risk and we can have people jump in there and learn. And so with project cars three, they decided to take the financial route, but there are people out there. I racing is a great example that see the value in making something as close to realistic as possible.

And if they’re the only ones doing it. Then they’re the ones profiting. So it kind of feeds back into itself and, and it, there’s still a reason for them to spend time making that true to life, realistic, gritty and hardcore game, just like you’d want.

Crew Chief Eric: So I think that segues right into our next topic, which is using [00:42:00] these games.

As training tools, right? There are some, this has been going on for a long time. I think the military really kicked off a lot of it where they were building simulations for soldiers to learn, you know, combat tactics and things like that. If you really go back into the early days of PC gaming and stuff like that, and that has evolved.

And I think there’s. An aspect of that in all of e sports. So how do you see that working and that changing? And, and you talked, touched a little bit on the transition. How do you find yourself going from the virtual world back into the analog world? Does it translate?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Wow. So good segue. I do think that there was an article written on a website called Kotaku that was criticizing this game as a violent, trust me, it’s not even a game.

It’s a shooting range, right? Criticizing this game is too realistic, confusing, violent, not intuitive. And then somebody on Reddit went and put my video side by side. And it’s the guys like, this is just like, I don’t understand why anybody would want this. And I’m like, I see this as a great learning tool.[00:43:00]

This is a way to mitigate risk, whether it’s virtual driving school, teaching people the rules of the road without any risk to themselves in a real environment where there’s actual consequences for not checking, you know, before you merge into the left lane and you get into an accident, your driver instructor is not dead and is like, Hey, that was not something you should do.

It’s hard for me to, to look at that and say, where’s the negative? I’m, you touched on the military. You know, they use PlayStation and Xbox controllers for drone pilots, right? These controls are the most intuitive and everyone, not everyone, a lot of the people who are in the military did grow up playing with these and using these.

So not to gamify war or, or anything, but that very much is. Something that they do. Pilots use Flight sim, which the newest one just came out. It’s fantastic. It is incredible. I took off of LAX, by the way, not a trained pilot. I know, hard to believe. But I took off of LAX in a, uh, 7 47, or [00:44:00] no, it was a Dreamliner double decker, huge big plane out of, um, one of the side gates.

’cause I was just like, whatever. There’s checklists and things you need to do. You got to talk to a control tower. They have very real comms. You can actually be one of the people in control tower and navigate all the planes in multiplayer that are trying to very realistically simulate the actual flights that are going on.

Is there not a better way to teach somebody how to fly into an airport or fly out of a busy airport or what the protocol is for talking through and walking through this than something like that where there are zero chances for any negative things to happen. There’s no danger at all.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m going to put up the, uh, blowed mind emoji here in a second.

But, uh, so we have a couple of guys in, in GTM that are avid flight simulator folks. And one of them just got the latest one and he had this harebrained idea and we posted some videos of this. He goes, I want to learn tracks. I’ve never been to. So we took flight simulator and he flew out to see the tracks and see the elevation and these things that you can’t get [00:45:00] from a video because we do a lot of video instruction where it’s like watch a lap of the track and then everything looks flat and then you get there and it’s like, well, I’m driving off the side of a building.

You know, that incline is huge. So by using flights in, he was able to go out and look at the terrain, see what it looked like, learn the track. It’s a little from a different perspective. So again, video games coming into the real world and helping facilitate learning in, in, in different ways. Or it’s something I never thought of.

And we posted on social media, people were like, Why didn’t I think of that? And I’m like, well, now you, now you did. So have at it, right?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Right. Yeah. The topographical maps and data that flight sim uses are scarily close to realistic, and you can go in and do your own research on how they got flight sim to be so realistic.

It’s, it’s incredible. Um, so that is a pretty big brain play. I, I’m surprised that other people hadn’t thought of it.

Crew Chief Eric: Now my favorite is when he was trying to do touch and goes off the front straightaway at pit race. I thought that was, that was pretty cool. But I think one of the things though, that the training tools are giving you, we’re [00:46:00] seeing this more.

We talked about it in one of our episodes, other episodes, we talked about the gentleman driver where he, uh, one of the drivers there, he was using iRacing for his simulation. So when he would go to tracks overseas, he could learn the track, at least know where the corners go, breaking zones, things like that.

We’ve seen people like, um,

Crew Chief Brad: Scott Dixon.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. So we’ve seen guys like Scott Dixon. Using those reflex machines to speed up, you know, his reaction time, also using the simulator to do the same thing, to get in there, you know, and, and, and practice the tracks and all that kind of thing. But the problem is in a lot of those cases, you don’t want to do that by yourself.

Sometimes you want that real challenge. You want to be out there with other people, kind of test your limits and simulate being out there with other cars and the AI bots as good and as smart as they are, they’re not as. Unpredictable as a human. Yeah, exactly. Right. So that kind of gets into another conversation outside of the teaching aspect and the training aspect, which is, I don’t want to go online and pay with a bunch of 12 year olds and get my ass [00:47:00] handed to me.

I think we grew up. With the idea of online etiquette and things like that. So how has that changed? How has that evolved? How do we deal with the nuanced part of that and the nuisance part of esports?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Fair point that you don’t want to go onto a public match like, uh, uh, and, and play against some 12 year olds that are actually going to ram your car off of a turn, right?

Like there’s no repercussions. So there’s the bad side of things is like, if you do jump into an multiplayer game. Who cares if your car gets wrecked, just load it back up and play a different race.

Crew Chief Brad: And Eric gets enough of that playing with me anyway.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): But let me tell you that just like everything in life, whether it’s your love for food or your love.

for books or whatever. There are unlimited amounts of groups and communities that you can find that will do their best to be as true to your beliefs or as your interest is possible. So if you want people that are going to apologize for [00:48:00] tapping your tire one lap and that’s it and it didn’t even affect the outcome.

There are absolutely Facebook or Reddit groups or discord groups that will give you that community. And that’s also kind of the joy of gaming and everything. It’s just easily accessible. You just find the people that are going to behave the way that you want. But yes, you have to go and look for them. No, it’s not going to just show up when you choose multiplayer, right?

If you go play Forza, it’s like going into your rec basketball gym. You might get LeBron there today. But you’re also going to have four geriatric men who don’t play basketball. Like it’s a grab bag because you’re truly going in random. Some games have a rating system, competitive or otherwise. And if you are truly good at that game, read game, not real life.

If you’re truly good at that game, then you will eventually face people that take it as seriously as you. But you got to go through it and you got to be good at the game.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And I mean, we’ve been very fortunate on our end. Like Brad said, in the intro, we’ve been running a virtual [00:49:00] racing lead since 2016, primarily focused on Forza just because it was the least common denominator, right?

It was the system everybody had. It’s the, it’s the one that they accepted. It’s the, it’s the platform or the game that they accepted, et cetera. Now the running joke is that our rule book for the VRL is larger than most club racing rule books. And that probably isn’t far off from the truth, but you’re racing with other real life drivers.

People that know how to drive. And so I will say the caliber of driving is very different. And you’ve seen that embraced by groups like SCCA and NASA and others that put on, you know, the pro am races, uh, virtual races, et cetera. But I find it interesting though, that even in our world, as polite as we are, and we’re calling out passes and we’re trying to simulate all this kind of stuff, there’s still an exorbitant amount of modding and cheating and downloading of tunes and all this kind of stuff still going on.

And it’s like, yeah. You know, I’ve looked at it over the last couple of years and the developers and the publishers have put a lot of time and effort in developing these like [00:50:00] penalty systems. Like you kind of alluded to it. There’s a ranking system, but there’s also now these licensing systems and penalty systems to try to like mitigate these issues that are out there in the, in the wide open, let’s call it the wild west of multiplayer.

And it’s just like, right.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Can’t we just. You know, play by the rules. And I wish that I could sit here and tell you that I was confident that the cheating aspect of any video game would go away, but just like in every single professional sport, there’s only so much you can do to mitigate the risk of somebody not playing by the rules, whether it’s taping somebody’s practices or getting laps in because I’m not well versed in racing, you can go and check the physical components of the car, but like.

What if the driver took a bunch of Adderall before and now he’s, like, very much tuned in more so than somebody else? How much can you do to completely remove external factors? And for gaming, there’s software, there’s penalties for cheating, but in any multiplayer game, There are people that will pay for [00:51:00] cheats, or there are people that just want to see if they can make cheats.

You will always have somebody who is externally assisted at some level, and it may be more prevalent in games like Counter Strike, trust me, I play a lot. A lot of cheaters in there just goes to show you that there will be a problem in even the highest tiers of competitive gaming, just like Pete Rose got banned for throwing games and baseball and betting on stuff, right?

Like there’s only so much you can do. And at the very least, you’re just happy to see developers trying, and that’s all I can ask for.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and some of those systems, they are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. All of them are

Tucker Boner (Jericho): not perfect.

Crew Chief Eric: So, I’ll give you a prime example. We had, we have a rule, it’s a clause in our rule book.

It’s known as the Yas Marina Clause. And it has to do with the Formula 1 track overseas in Saudi Arabia, I believe it is, known as Yas Marina. At any rate, you know, they basically leveled a sand parking lot and put a track on it. There is really no curbing. There’s no grass areas. There’s really no, there’s a lot of runoff.[00:52:00]

But basically the joke is where it’s paved, you’re saved. So you can pretty much drive anywhere and completely out of the bounds of the, of the course. Now, Forza, as an example, they took some steps in a later patch of Forza seven to institute a penalty system that if you drove so far out of bounds, that it would like, you know, add, slow you down, whatever.

A PC three slows you down, Forza adds time. But the problem is. Now we’ve crossed the line where you’ve defined the edges of the track and it’s like I need to apex on this curving because that is the race line and now it gets in the way. So there’s like all these give and take and compromise there too.

But we found that it still doesn’t solve the problem. Right? And the best part was it was the human reaction because you’ve got 12, 15, 20 guys. Racing every week. And then they come in and go, Oh, so it’s those cheating again, cut the core, you should see how he takes turn one at the Glen. All right, let’s turn on the penalty system.

And then it’s like, Oh my God, this is horrible. Now I can’t turn to the car. We’ll go where it’s supposed to. And it’s like, well, [00:53:00] again, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, guys. Right. So, I mean, we tried our hardest. I hope that they finally figured this stuff out, but I wish though that the developers, and I’m not saying they need to reach out to us, but they would reach out to the racing community and say, what is acceptable margins?

What is an acceptable penalty? How do you deal with this and make it again, more realistic? Cause there’s so many levels to this at the end of the day. So we’re probably not going to solve the world’s problems. We’re going to start cheating, but it does bring up another question, which is, do you feel that e sports is a replacement for more dangerous traditional sports.

Do you see certain sports just going away and becoming digital altogether?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): That is a good question because I think you would find people in my community who are pretty bullish on the idea that eventually all things will be digital. All things will be virtual. I also feel In a sense that that will be the case that the main focus because it is just at some point due to this, God, I wish I remembered the name of the [00:54:00] law at some point technology is just so accessible that everyone, whether you’re in rural Africa or in the middle of New York will have the same level, or I guess similar comparable levels of access to a digital sport.

Yeah, it would be cool for that to happen in my eyes, but no, it will never replace physical stuff because you will always have purists. I think both of you are purists, right? Where you will always say, sorry, I got off on a tangent here, but like, there are purists for gas engines, right? EVs are coming in and people are like, well, that’s not a car, like, I need to burn diesel.

And it’s like, it’s like, yeah, okay, that’s fine. There are purists in baseball where people are pissed off that people want to replace umpires with a machine that gets it right a hundred percent of the time. Like the human aspect is the part of the reason that I watch sports. Fine. I don’t care. Right. But you will have people replace that.

You will, you will have people replace the umpire with a machine at some point. Maybe the MLB doesn’t do it, but [00:55:00] does Japan’s league do it? Do people ultimately enjoy that better? At the end of the day, it all comes down to who’s making that choice. Are you looking to NASCAR to digitize things? If they do, it’s because that’s where the money is.

It doesn’t matter what you care about. It’s that’s where the money is. All major sports will just follow the revenue source. I do not believe you will have an extinction of any race or any sport because ultimately there will always be people like you or me that like the human element of sports and will always strive to find the truest thing to what we grew up with.

In your case, it’s physical racing on a track.

Crew Chief Brad: And not even just that, but also the danger aspects. I mean, people are interested, uh, like talking about NASCAR, a lot of people watch the races just for the wrecks and the crashes and the, they’re seeing these drivers go through the risk and the, and the danger and everything that makes it more entertaining.

I know. I tried watching some of these e sports by racing matches that happened during, you know, the beginning of [00:56:00] COVID. And I got about three or four laps in and I was like, okay, I’m done. Let’s go do something else.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Right. That goes to your desire to watch a sport that has stakes, I guess we’ll call it one that there are repercussions for doing something wrong.

And a lot of people that look to this are, are looking at the risk of injury. And I think that that’s something to look at internally and think maybe you are enjoying this because there’s an inherent risk of injury, not that that’s bad or any way, shape or form, but it will Kind of shape your opinion on these replacements for the physical risk of injury.

If I’m racing digitally, I have no financial loss for running into somebody. I have no physical loss. There is ultimately less stress. I believe in doing it digitally, not to say there isn’t stress and competing at the top level or even forza in your underwear. You’re not at risk of potentially maiming yourself for the rest of your life and That will, whether you like it or not, affect how you play.

You may [00:57:00] aggressively take a turn that you’re like, It’s a 50 50, I don’t know. You’re not taking a 50 50 unless you’re insane. You know, like, maybe I crash and die, or maybe I make this turn and I’m incredible. Like, that’s not the same level of mentality that you’re gonna get in a digital fort.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely, and you know, I’d rather wear the moniker of purist over boomer, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna take that.

But since we’re having this conversation, the one thing I do see, at least from the motor sports perspective, where virtual could take over certain events. And I’m going to give you a prime example and Tucker, you’re probably not familiar with it, but I know Brad is. So the Goodwood festival of speed. I am

Tucker Boner (Jericho): familiar with it.

Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: So Goodwood is famous for bringing out. Very expensive cars, right? And so they’re cars that aren’t just cars anymore. They’re national treasures. They’re historic pieces. They’re museum pieces. They’re private collection pieces. And there’s always the off chance that that half a million dollar, million dollar, 20 million Ferrari gets wrecked.

And I could see, you know what? It’s cool to see it run. It’s the auditory sensation of it and all that. [00:58:00] But. I would love to go drive that, you know, 57 Ferrari, two 50 GTO at Goodwood digitally, because then to your point, I don’t have to worry about track insurance. I don’t have to worry about the physical part of it, breaking it.

Something as rare as that, having some, some harm brought to it. And I can see that in a lot of other aspects where. Vintage racing. I’m going to categorize it at, be it formula cars, older cars, et cetera, where the parts are so scarce that if something does happen, irreparable damage right at that point. So I could see virtual stepping in and saying, let’s fill the gap here and put on these really cool races.

And I would enjoy seeing that, to be honest with you. Yeah. To Brad’s point, I mean, watching, you know, the, the NTT IndyCar series, Do laughs at Talladega or wherever oval track that they’re going to go to next. It was like, okay, sure. The IMSA races on the other hand, they’re still the most exciting thing on TV, digital or otherwise.

But I think there’s a time and a place for all of it, but we have to be selective in what it is.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): [00:59:00] I’ll sit here to the end of time and say, why do people go to football games and pay hundreds of dollars when you can just watch it for free air quotes on your TV? Like why? Well, because it’s the experience.

Yeah. I mean, why would you go to Goodwood festival? of speed digitally when if you had the exact same opportunity to go in person like you’re not going to sit in your car and watch it on your phone right because you’re there you can go experience you can feel the vibrate like it is a completely different experience but you have to look again internally and think am I Asking right now, is this something that I think we should just switch over new digitally, or am I hoping that digital can fill all the holes that aren’t currently filled in my life?

Because I hate to tell it to you, man, you’re never going to, you’re never going to get to race a Pagani unless something crazy happens. It’s just not going to happen. I’m not going to either, but if you get to a point where it is pretty damn good and it feels good and you get that same sensation, where’s the negative in racing a Pagani, where is it digitally?

And again. It’s not if [01:00:00] it is when it might not happen in your lifetime or it will happen in mine. But, um, I’m sorry. It was so easy there. Can we kick him off now? Can we just, but, but I mean, it will happen where I will, and you, you also probably will experience this crossover where it is indistinguishable and then.

That’s a win for everyone. I too want to race a Shelby or hell, even like a 1928 Ford. What happens if you LZ swap that? Or like, you know, what happens? And it opens up these crazy ideas where you’re not just confined. You’re not just limited by reality at this point. Or your bank account or your insurance.

What do you want? You’re not limited by anything. Fuck it. Just do it. It’s it’s incredible. Yeah. Just send it.

Crew Chief Brad: And I will say that I use Forza horizon as a car shopping tool. Every time I get in my head, Oh my God, I’m interested in buying this car. I will go to horizon, buy it and drive it around. I was [01:01:00] like.

I’m tired of looking at it now. Let’s see what else is out there.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Uh, yeah. And I did, and you did mention Eric about the idea of Forza in putting penalties and making these choices for you guys and why don’t they talk to the racers, but you took the most commercially successful average video game. Look, I do not go in and change my tire pressure.

I just don’t. I download somebody else’s schematic. And I’m like, I trust this high rated drift schematic, and then I go fucking drift, right? Like, that is the extent of my enjoyment. I like it. But there are the tools for both of you to go in there and make those adjustments. But we can’t look at fours as the bastion of, of real realism, right?

They’re going to make as much money as they can.

Crew Chief Eric: I do have to add though, at six foot four, Brad lives out his fantasy and fitting in many cars through Verizon. So,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): yeah, I mean, Hey, that’s true too. And I’m glad that you get to do that because I’d be lying if I said I also didn’t, you know, live out my fantasies of driving expensive cars or even doing my own vehicle [01:02:00] shopping.

I’m not going to buy a Maserati Gran Turismo. A car sucks, but it sounds really good and I love driving it in Forza, even though it’s not a race car, you know, it’s whatever, like that is my enjoyment and that’s where it will stay. In the recesses of my mind and in a shop somewhere,

Crew Chief Eric: we talked about the safety of the digital world.

You know, there is no physical aspect to it. You know, the harm, you know, crashing cars, not a big deal, but there’s actually a side to e sports that we need to take into consideration, which is actually a health and safety concern. So I wanted to touch on some of those topics there as people, you know, maybe investing more time in e sports because of COVID or maybe starting to get into it, some things that they should be aware of.

As they embark on this journey, you know, we talk a lot about safety in the real motorsports world. And so this is obviously a carryover into digital where again, we’re seeing the blurring of lines. We’re seeing the blending. So I think there’s additional concerns we need to take into consideration when we’re racing.

digital world.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): So [01:03:00] we’ve g and wrist injuries due to So I have, um, God, ther like something gardener t My right hand, which I us tendon for my thumb is ro Let me be clear in saying is a real thing and it wi anyone that is doing this of time. But I have for t years of my life. And this Live. But I mean, for virtually my whole life, I’ve been using and gaming on a computer or on a controller for upwards of a full time job.

I mean, it is my full time job for the last 11 years. I’ve been doing this. For 160 hours a month. And that is as much time as you guys are doing whatever else you’re doing, but I’m doing it keyboard mouse. There are things you can do to mitigate this, right? I think that there’s a million videos on YouTube where you can get gamer specific stretches that help mitigate the risk of carpal tunnel or eventually you know, hindering your range [01:04:00] of motion.

This is an important thing, not just for casual people, but it’s important, especially for professionals. I mean, whether you’re playing counter strike at a professional level or, or racing, if your job is to play video games, then you’re cognizant of the dangers that it may pose to you. So whether you’re looking at the potential long lasting injuries, in basketball with your knees or Tommy John surgery for baseball players.

That is something that is on the forefront of most professional gamers is how do I make sure that I am not going to hinder my ability to do my job and do it at the level that is required. And collapsed lung due to poor posture. That is terrifying. I’ve never heard that. You just put a new fear in my life.

And, you know, I have a lot of ideas on what the best posture is for gaming, but it is typical that most people sit forward, lean forward. And, um, yeah, I mean, when you’re playing on console, whether you like it or not, you have a worse posture. Most people who play console games are sitting on their couch.

The couch is not good for you, right? It is a comfortable place, but it is not a [01:05:00] supportive place. Most of the time you might be leaning forward. You get into that engaged motion. It’s not good for your back. PC elitism here. I’m in a Herman Miller chair, ergonomically made for, you know, the best of office workers, and I sit with as good posture as I possibly can.

It is better in every way, shape, and form on the computer because that’s what it’s made for. And so you can do that in gaming. You can still sit in a nice ergonomic chair, but most people aren’t going to do that when they’re sitting on their couch in their comfy place, playing video games. So collapse lung never heard of anybody who’s had that, but poor posture, back problems, spinal problems, all very real, very dangerous in the longterm.

And even like with your neck too, there’s something we call gamer neck where, you know, you’ve been sitting like this and then eventually over time or office worker neck, eventually over time, your head’s tilted down and it becomes that way. So that more so than anything, your posture, your spine. That’s more important and also very much a real problem.

And um, that’s just, [01:06:00] that’s, I think that’s just nature. Everybody’s office workers have been dealing with that for decades

Crew Chief Eric: and you alluded to earlier jokingly about performance enhancing drugs. And that’s a real thing in e sports.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I think it’s a real thing in anything. One, you get tested in one of these things in the olympics for alcohol because when you’re shooting, Alcohol is a performance enhancing drug to slow your breathing, slow your heart rate, slow your nerves, less shaking.

Like there will always be some sort of performance enhancing drug in real sports, in digital sports. I mean, office work, there’s performance enhancing drugs. What is coffee if not a performance enhancing drug? So Adderall is obviously the one that everybody brings up. It is. I have never tried Adderall, but the way people explain it sounds like a limitless pill.

Maybe I’ll get on that someday and become better at gaming, but um, not, not at the forefront. There is very limited amounts of regulation for this. Nobody’s getting drug tested for Adderall before they play competitive video games because yes, it is mentally something that [01:07:00] is very much a stimulant and can help you focus.

But I believe that we’re not at a point where Adderall can be equated to taking growth hormones and being truly and measurably physically more potent than your opponents could ever be. And I think that that’s an argument everybody could weigh in on whether it’s um, you believe that mental stimulants are equal to physical stimulants or if stimulants at all are something that are going to change the trajectory enough where it is something worth regulating.

But I don’t think at its current state, e sports has enough. money in it or enough regulations in it to stop people from air quotes abusing Adderall, which is to my knowledge, the only thing anybody could ever take to make them better at video games. But even then, that’s just a focus enhancement and not necessarily one that’s going to help you physically.

So that’s just an argument on whether you think that mental stimulants and performance enhancing drugs are equal to physical ones.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, you bring up a good point [01:08:00] because, you know, we’re talking about the mental state, right? And that’s as important as the reflexes are. But once you’ve pushed yourself past a limit there, you start to get into mental fatigue and burnout.

So how do you compensate for that?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Everybody’s going to go through burnout in my industry. It is a, I don’t want to sit here and tell anyone that, you know, I’m sure a lot of people are like, man, you play video games for eight hours, six hours a day, seven days a week. I mean, I, today I have to take today off specifically because I’m finishing a move in.

This is the first day that I’ve taken off willingly since March. I have streamed, played video games. I’ve been live and entertaining every day for six hours, minimum a day. Since March. I mean, I don’t get weekends off. I like burnout is a thing that will happen in my industry as much as it is a thing that will happen in literally any industry that you spend a normal amount.

I mean, 60 hours a week doing the same thing. It just will happen. And so with gaming, I just need to make it clear that if [01:09:00] you are doing it as a fun enjoyment, as a way to escape from whatever you’re doing, and you’re not doing it as a full time job, I don’t think that burnout’s a real thing for you. I think that you may get tired.

I think that if you’re expending yourself past the normal limit, just like playing basketball, like, after the seventh game, you’re just tired. Doesn’t mean you’re not enjoying it, but you’re not peak performance. So you have to look at why you’re playing then. Are you playing For the seventh hour. Are you racing for the seventh hour because you’re trying to compete in something or are you doing it just because you want to, and if you’re trying to compete, then of course you’ve burnt out of your prime that is burnout.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, there’s always the, the attempt to do the 24 hours Lamont’s in real time, right? So, you know, but that being said, you know, I think there’s two more pieces that go with that. One of them is, do you recommend. the gaming glasses to help protect your eyes because that’s also part of this equation

Tucker Boner (Jericho): blue light filter glasses so i actually it’s hilarious because when i was uh in high school i was wearing those as a regular thing and i think i i mean i never [01:10:00] wore them to school but jessica was uh very much saw some photos of me and i was like what are you wearing Blue light filter glasses for, and I’m like, well, I stare at the screen a lot.

I don’t wear blue light filter glasses anymore. That’s not to say that they don’t help. I think that there are scientific evidence that shows that blue light that you are getting from your screens is a damaging and in a factor in how well you sleep at night or how well you’re able to transition from at the computer to in the bed mentally.

I don’t think there’s a downside to wearing them, but you also can get them for like 19. And they really aren’t a. essential thing like maybe like a football helmet is, right? Like not wearing them will not kill you. I don’t know. I, we don’t know about that yet. Maybe blue light does kill you, but it’s, it’s not a, an essential thing.

Does it help? Yes. Is it a requirement? Absolutely not. I would put literally everything above it, like getting up and walking, you know, a little bit every hour. It’s way more important.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think that’s a great segue [01:11:00] because nutrition, poor nutrition, lack of exercise is probably the last, but yet the most important part of all of this.

So what is your regimen? Cause you are doing this all the time. How do you break up your day? What advice would you give somebody?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): This is great because I think there is a lot of mental images that come forth. When you talk to somebody about like being a professional gamer, a lot of older people will think of the, overweight, unclean, unshaven dude who’s just South Park.

Yeah, South Park. Exactly right. That guy. And let’s not to say that that doesn’t exist. Every stereotype comes a little bit from a place of truth in some way. It is definitely not the majority here as we see gaming become More mainstream. I think that if you went to Twitch or to YouTube and you look for somebody who was a professional gamer, the vast majority take working out in personal health as equally, if not more important as anything else, because if you’re trying to perform at a competitive level.

All of that plays into [01:12:00] how well you’re able to do it. Your mental strength, your physical ability to be in the moment and perform at the highest level. All of that gets hindered. If you’re not in shape, if you’re eating poorly, if you’re not exercising. So for me, I get up at seven 30 every morning, which I think is pretty early, but for most, I make my own schedule.

if I wanted, but I get up at seven 30 every morning and I, uh, I, I do my work. I have a hour long break for lunch at 11. I stream from one till seven, and then I go for a two and a half mile run. Uh, at seven, I do some, the gym is no longer a thing here in Los Angeles, unfortunately, so I have free weights at home.

I get a nice hour long workout in and I try and eat as healthy as possible.

Crew Chief Eric: That diet is a Fig Newton’s monster and gummy bears, right?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I am sponsored by monster. So I do, I do drink some monster. I’ve been very cognizant of my health, given how much of my life is spent at a desk and playing games. For a long time, I have a standing desk, so [01:13:00] I’ll answer emails standing.

I eat as healthy as possible. I’ve never been overweight and I am very much in the best shape of my life right now. The only thing I will say is that I drink so much, especially in the last week. It’s been quite a stressful week in the election. So, I mean, I mean, I consumed quite a bit of alcohol and that is the one thing it is.

Difficult to cut out when you’re sitting in caffeine, too. When you’re sitting here playing games with your friends. I mean, it’s a communal experience for all of us. And you guys talk to it because you have this racing link. You look forward to it. Just like somebody would look forward to book club or the rec basketball league.

It’s a communal thing. And man, if there’s one thing gamers do, it’s it’s drink. You love to drink with your friends. You love to hang out with your friends. And and so I think that most gamers, though, are very much involved with their personal health and it is seen as a cool facet of being a nerd here to be also one that defies the traditional stereotype.

It’s almost like a counterculture, a rare counterculture that is beneficial to everyone, you know, who doesn’t want [01:14:00] healthy people out there.

Crew Chief Eric: So as we kind of transition into closing here, I have a couple extra questions. Do you have any tips for becoming a better gamer? Things you could just tell some guys that, you know, kind of really up their, up their game?

I,

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I think that just like everything in life, practice makes perfect and the only way you’re going to improve on anything is practice. I could sit here and tell you like you should go online and do, uh, reaction training, right? They have that on, on your browser where you’re sitting there waiting for it to go green and you click as fast as you can.

And you’re like, ah, I got 0. 2 milliseconds or 0. 2 seconds. I got to get that better. That’s training. That’s fine. That’s so unnecessary. Unless you are actually trying to compete at the highest level, just like. You were a casual football fan. How do you get better at throwing passes? We’ll go out into the yard and throw some passes, right?

You don’t have to be going into a training studio and doing like ball drills, just go throw the ball. So it’s as much as you want to put in, you’re going to get out. If you want to be a better gamer, then you have to put in more time, [01:15:00] uh, and more effort to become more familiar with controls and become more familiar with the track you’re in.

There’s no secret. It. answer to this that you already don’t know.

Crew Chief Eric: And there’s no schools out there either, so you just got to do it, right?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): There are avenues to hire people to train you, and those do exist and are very lucrative businesses for a lot of professionals in games like League of Legends or Counter Strike, because a lot of that knowledge is knowledge that you have to learn.

Like, how do I do this? And where do I learn how to do this? You could go on YouTube and learn too. But Um, I think for racing specifically, yeah, you can take driving instructions all you want, but like, you also just need to get in there and do it yourself. That’s the best way to learn anything.

Crew Chief Eric: All right.

Let’s settle the debate. Gran Turismo or

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Forza. Forza. I like Forza so much more. All right. Listen. It is, it is a, Gran Turismo has always to me been the more realistic and simulator version, but Forza Horizon is right where I love, I mean Need for Speed is where I love my shit, and this is where [01:16:00] video games excel.

I want to feel like the most badass racer on the road. Even if I’m racing against better people, I still want to, I still want to drift and then, and, and feel good about it. And so Forza, allows all walks of life to kind of get in there, whether you’re driving on full assist and breaking and you can see, you know, lines on the road that are optimal.

All of that is fine and you can turn all those assists off and still get a relatively good experience. So I think that it is a little more beginner friendly. and overall a more enjoyable experience at Gran Turismo.

Crew Chief Eric: And it doesn’t take 10 years for a new version to come out.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): That is also true. We get one like every two years.

It’s great.

Crew Chief Eric: So, and on top of that, so we have this thing called the three car garage, but I’m going to modify it for this particular episode and say

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Is it street parking? Because that’s what I have.

Crew Chief Eric: No, we’re, the idea of the three car garage is any three cars in your garage that you have the rest of your life.

So I’m going to change this for this particular episode and say, it’s the bookshelf [01:17:00] and what three video game titles would be on your bookshelf. This is past, present, or future.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Okay. Let me, I’m going to answer both of these. Cause I do want to tell you my three cars I could have my garage. I think for the game side need for speed underground two was a game that really did a lot for me.

So cartoony. I mean, you literally spent time to mod out and escalate and then you could go in and drift it. Loved it. Need for Speed, Most Wanted was the game that I played the most of and really fell in love with the BMW M3, fell in love with the Mitsubishi Lancer, and ended up, that kind of spurred my love for cars into a new world.

And then Forza, I guess the general series, but I don’t have a specific favorite Forza, they’re all just good in their own. Right. I think I would put whatever the next Forza game up there, just because it does allow me to test drive these cars and get as realistic as, as experienced as I personally want, I don’t care about iRacing.

I just. Make me feel good about myself. Pat me on the back. Give me the [01:18:00] award for like you did good buddy. I don’t care about realism. And then for, for physical cars, I do idolize the original untuned Supra. I think that the, the Supra holds a special place in my heart from fast and furious and a lot of others in the same vein.

I also would love a Mercedes SLS. I think that that car is so gorgeous and I. Asked Mercedes one time on Twitter to send me one and they sent me a model of it. I have it somewhere in my boxes and I was so like, we got you. And I was like, well, surely you don’t send it. And then, um, I guess in the, I guess, man, well, I, I guess I would really enjoy some form of Koenigsegg.

I think that their cars kind of really mold. The, the, the, or kind of cross the line between performance and beauty, beauty and luxury. And I love what they’re doing over there. And also their founders, I would have a beer with him out of all the founders. Like he seems like a cool guy. So those, one of those three.

Crew Chief Eric: So if you had to pick one [01:19:00] video game out of all the ones you’ve known, you’ve experienced. Right. And it doesn’t have to be racing. This could be in any genre. If it was only one and you’re like, man, I’m going to play this game. This is it forever. What is it?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I’d have to say it would be Counter Strike or RuneScape.

RuneScape is a very dated game, but still exists, and I’ll let anybody who knows about that chime in, because it’s kind of niche, but Counter Strike is arguably the oldest. Um, and most prolific first person shooter, people were playing it on like old Pentiums back in the day, and um, and for me, that’s where I spend most of my time, and most of my content comes from it, so, I just love playing Counter Strike and just getting on, talking to some random person in somewhere, Trying to compete and also it is, it gets pretty crazy.

It’s, it’s funny because communication is key in that game. So everyone has a microphone and they all have something to say. And sometimes it’s good. A lot of times it’s bad, but it’s always entertaining.

Crew Chief Brad: I went into the three non racing. Oh, the

Tucker Boner (Jericho): three non [01:20:00] racing games. Yeah. I’d put call of duty four on there.

It got my career started even though call of duty was the first game I bought on a console. Because my mom, I guess I was like 13 at the time, my mom, very anti violence, was like, no, you can’t go and buy Grand Theft Auto. And I was like, mom, this is a World War II video game. It’s historic. And it said on the back, like, go through the battles of Normandy and all that stuff.

I remember she walked up to the counter at Blockbuster, and she was like, she asked that clerk. She was like, hey, is this a historic game? And that man looked at me and I looked at him and he said, yeah, it’s a historic game. And you know, you go, you fight on Normandy and my mom’s like, all right, historic violence is good.

You’re good to go. Oh, it was so good. So yeah, call of duty, the franchise, but call of duty four, I would put on there, I would put runescape on there because I actually wrote my college paper about it. And I think your wife probably read that paper and gave me some criticism or feedback on it.

Crew Chief Eric: You wouldn’t have gotten away with no criticism on anything.

I know.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Yes. Even, even, I mean, I just moved to my new place and she was criticizing all of the things. I [01:21:00] was like, I haven’t even stepped foot in here yet, but okay. I mean, that’s

Crew Chief Eric: why she’s our master editor over here at GTN. It’s got to pass muster.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Yeah. If it passes Jessica, you’re good to go. And then I think my third game would be need for speed.

Most wanted because it did shape. I mean, not just cars in general, but I spent so much time playing and replaying that And it’s a shame how bad that franchise is now. Shame on you, Criterion. You ruined it. I’m so mad.

Crew Chief Eric: Is there anything you want to plug or mention or thank sponsors or anything like that?

Tucker Boner (Jericho): I highly doubt that many of your audience are itching to watch me play whatever I am playing.

I play quite a few games. But I do implore you guys to check out the world of Twitch. I promise you that just like on YouTube, you can find niche channels that you love, whether it’s the, you know, smoking tire or like regular car reviews or whomever. There is an equal amount of interesting content on Twitch.

Go on there and search for whatever game you care about, or just scroll through and I promise you’ll find someone. [01:22:00] Because eventually your kids or whomever will absolutely be on there spending time and it will definitely help transition you from what the hell is this to being a little bit more caught up.

Also it’s free. So like that’s kind of nice too. It’s not, there’s no barrier for entry. Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate it. And, uh, at some point in time when I’m back in Maryland, I’ll have to go to the track once it’s open again.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. My, my, my, my seats are always open left or right.

There’s

Crew Chief Brad: a crossover I’d like to see. Yeah. No kidding.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. So, but Tucker, I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. This has been super educational. Hopefully our Purist fans. I’m not going to call them.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Oh, I was going to say, I mean, look, there’s not a single argument that I have not already heard through my decade of playing video games and talking to people.

So I hope that it sparks a lively conversation on both sides and that people. At the very least are more engaged and knowledgeable about my world and ultimately where their world will be going. It is inevitable.

Crew Chief Eric: [01:23:00] Absolutely. All your bases are belong to us, but that being said, I cannot thank you enough for coming on the show.

I think it’s been enlightening. I think it gives a whole different perspective on the world of motor sports and probably a corner of motor sports that a lot of people don’t think about and virtual racing guys. Is not just for kids, right? So something to consider, especially here in the winter months. So if you want to learn more about that, uh, you can reach out to Tucker on Twitch, or you can reach out to us at gtmotorsports.

org and inquire about our latest series in our virtual racing league. So again, Tucker, thank you so much.

Tucker Boner (Jericho): Thank you for having me guys. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram at grandtorymotorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at [01:24:00] gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey listeners, Crew Chief Eric here. Do you like what you’ve seen, heard, and read from GTM? Great, so do we, and we have a lot of fun doing it. But please remember, we’re fueled by volunteers and remain a no annual fee organization, but we still need help to keep the momentum going.

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Taken from our new effort NMSA – You might be wondering why eSports is listed on the NMSA website alongside more traditional forms of Motorsports. This is mostly because many of us in the Motorsports community also participate in eSports competitions during the off-season, you might recognize titles like: iRacing, Forza, Gran Tourismo, and more. These events usually take place online with fellow enthusiasts. And with the growing popularity of eSports, it’s important to consider some safety precautions and potential health risks before engaging in these sorts of activities.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and wrist injuries due to repetitive motion

This is the most common injury threatening most, if not all eSports athletes, possibly ending their careers. eSports athletes spend countless hours playing and the intense repetitive movement of the fingers and hand causes swelling. Because of this, pressure is applied on the median nerve found in the carpal tunnel, whose primary function is to carry information from the hand to the brain and vice versa. Early symptoms include numbness and tingling but, as time passes use of the hand becomes more and more difficult.

Collapsed lung due to poor posture, inactive lifestyle

Several eSports athletes have suffered from a spontaneous pneumothorax, otherwise known as a collapsed lung, over the last few years. Those suffering from this often feel pain in the chest, shoulders, or back and difficulty breathing. The correlation between eSports and the ailment isn’t 100% clear yet but the incidents could have been caused by poor body posture, an unhealthy diet, an inactive lifestyle, and bad breathing techniques, often observed in these athletes.

Performance-enhancing drugs

There have been some unfortunate reports of eSports players taking drugs like Adderall, a drug used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; when used by a normal person, it was said that the drug boosts concentration and focus especially when in the game. Abuse of these drugs could lead to increased heart rate and blood pressure. Over use of the drug can become addictive and regular dosage might be necessary for the user to keep feeling the effects.

Mental fatigue and early burnout

Important as reflexes are, the key to most victories in eSports is credited to sound strategy and a focused mind. Yet most of these athletes, similar to those from other sports, can be burdened by immense pressure and anxiety.

Poor nutrition and lack of exercise

As mentioned previously, the amount of time these athletes commit to practice may not give them much room for other matters – even much-needed physical exercise. Be sure to take breaks, be careful of what you eat and avoid sugary drinks!