VR Versus Triple Monitor Setups

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No, that won't work. A wheel on a boat, maybe. But we think that as motorsport fans, we should be doing some kind of motorsport. At Missed Apex, we we do think that sim racing, when done properly, is motorsport as well. But when you do do that and you're you're out dicing with a group of people on a stag do , or you're on a sim race with a bunch of crazy people from the other side of the world, you start to understand those split-second decisions that you have to make in F1. And sure, if you want to delude yourself that that basically makes you an F1 driver, then that's absolutely fine. Now I'm joined by somebody who I've beaten quite a lot in caring, although I know is a a much more skillful driver than me. It's Alex Jean's Evan Jean. Hello, Alex. Hello. Do I have to talk about weight again? No. I swear you I swear, I swear you talking about you beating me at carting is just a different way of fat shaming me. The the cheap And the o and the only reason you beat me over the past few years is because I've been vastly overwhelmed The checkered flag doesn't know about the scales. The checkered flag just knows The race starts in the kitchen. The race does indeed start in the kitchen. And look, Alex, I think you and me are huge proponents of of of amateur racing and just going and having a go. It it's soccer fans, they all know how to kick a ball about in the field. It's very, very accessible. Carting is uh and sim racing is less accessible, uh but it's not as un accessible as people think. Depends where you are. Um unfortunately carting has got to a point where it's quite expensive. When I started kart ing twenty years ago at Daytona , we used to do a D60, and what a D60 was was a 10-minute qualifying practice with a 60-minute race for 60 quid, and that kind of value just doesn't exist in karting anymore. But for 50 quid you can go to a team sport track, which is which is the which is the most accessible um indoor karting in the country in the UK at least I can't speak for other countries. I think America's got K1 which is quite cool. Um I've got one here actually, uh, and you can go there for 50 quid, do a 25-30-minute race, um, and just jump on track. And that's kind of the preface of what we've always said, which is if you want to have any feeling or any understanding of jumping in a car and understanding what you're driver what your favourite dry singers are doing, carting is an element of that, which is why often I I get fed up when people say to me that oh carting's not the same as as F one. Of course, as far as G forces are concerned and technic ality isn't concerned. But when it comes to racecraft, it doesn't matter what you're racing. If you're racing a go-kart, if you're racing a lawnmower, if you're racing a single seat or a chin top or a C a Citroen C one or an F one car. Racecraft is racecraft and those things are the same. Yeah, so when you have either a faster driver behind you or you're stuck behind a pedestrian in front of view, the the same challenge applies at nearly every level of motorsport. Like everyone is trying to unlock that same puzzle. How do I get past this person without taking us both out? Yeah. And it's why and and this whole thing is like often if you put an F1 driver in a random rental cart race, they aren't guaranteed to win if they are in an event with seasoned carters because they're not used to the carts, for example. They're not used to the tracks and they have to learn and they have to develop things. I remember years ago I was on a um I was on a Palmer Sport event at Daytona Milton Keynes and I was on the front of the grid and next to me was Karun Chandok. And Kar un hadn't done any practice, and he was being put in the race for the start, and he was asking for my advice of where the track went because he'd never been there before. that's that That's no shade on Chand uk, by the way. That that's the same for everyone. Like uh Brad is the fastest driver we know personally, and like obviously much faster than me, but there was a time when we were drilling this one track to death because it was a a Missed Apex event. It oh it was Watkins Glen with the boot. Well and I jumped in Brad Sim and because Brad Sim is much more sensitive than mine, I was posting that's the only time I was faster than him, but it's just because we had dialed that in over the course of the whole week. So like even if you're amazing, you can't then just jump into another series or another track and just it suddenly get it. In all the karting events we go to, or like say with D Max or something like that, you'll get the local hero who joins only that event in the year because he knows that track inside out. Yep. I I recently got back into a series at Data Owner in the D-Max. I'd never raced D-Maxes before. Oh I watched that. On your YouTube channel. On my YouTube channel. Annoyingly, because and it's it's a Daytona issue, they put the price really high and people didn't turn up. price is high, people didn't turn up and the series kind of series died, they've cancelled it, which is a real shame. But the point is, is one of my guys, one of my mates, a guy called Ashley Mayston King, who's just won the 24-hour day ton er, um, he turned up for an event and just disappeared off into the distance. He knows the cars, he knows the track out the back of his head, he knows the track at the back of his hand, he knows the secrets, and all those kind of things, and there was nothing I could do about it because I still haven't figured out those cars. Because when you try and drive something different, it's different and you have to learn. So we've had top drivers at Mist Apex events before and it is very much like uh the Mighty Ducks for them because they they they they come in and they're kind of doing streetcarting and they're getting bullied by Van Jeans and and and Kyle I did not bully Alex Brondel. That did not happen. The same way that not in a b i in a Miss Car a Miss Apex or is a BRKC event years and years and years ago, I definitely didn't bully Tom Ingram to beat him either. I felt so bad. I'm like, Alex, come down, it'll be such a good time. Van Gene spunt gets Van Gened nearly immediately. I bullied him, I didn't Reason he was facing the wrong way. Okay. Well I have footage and I'm I'm gonna go and review it. But I think to me that emphasizes that karting and sim racing they are they're disciplines in their in their own right, but you have the same basic inputs. So when I jumped in an F4 car in Miami, I don't know if I remember. Do you have footage of this? Uh yeah, there is some footage of it. Um it's very much not testing that they won't be. Dude, I want to judge I want to judge no one was testing me to see if I could be an F4 driver. It was an experience day. Yeah, yeah. And so so they you know when I'm speaking to the the guy in there, he's like, Well, this is a real F four car that won in Sonoma like three weeks ago, so you know, no excuses for going slow. And I was like, Oh, okay. And I said he was giving me all the instructions and he was saying what to do. And I went, Oh, wait, is this just like a big go-kart pretty much? He was like, Yeah, pretty much. If you're comfy in a cart, go for it. I treated it like that, and it f honestly , honestly, it felt exactly in that F4 car like it does in my sim with my VR goggles with my my direct drive. And since I did that, I've been going back and doing more F4 on iRacing, and it's amazing how much of those skills transfer across. Which is really why I think if you go-karting go-karting, if you have a simrig , you will definitely have way more insight into watching any form of racing with the pros, then you could possibly choose to ha have uh if you choose to not do any of those things. Like you if you go karting, you'll under steer into a wall at some point. Like you'll get on the power way too early and just drive into a wall. Or you'll hit the brakes as hard as you can and find that there's loads of corner left. And so when you see these mistakes from the professionals, you go, Oh, I I've kind of done that. I get why that happens. I have a real world sim to race track thing that worked for me. So when I was starting with GXUK, which is the owner series I did for the last two years. And that's where you buy your own car and mechanic it and everything. Correct. Um we had net we were going to a track in Manchester called Hooton Park, tiny little rubbishy track in the middle of nowhere. And um I get hung by Manky Unions for calling it rubbish, but it's rubbish. They they're they're up north and far away. They'll never get us down here. No, exactly. They'd melt in this heat. And I found a SIM on Steam called Cart Racing Pro. Not the SIM, not the SIM that's like a thousand pounds to buy this is just like a a game and it had VR and it ha and you could download lots of um sort of user made tracks for it and they had Hooton Park. When I got to Hooton Park okay listen, it's not a laser scan circuit by any means, but it had the basic layout with the basic camber and everything else like that that was needed for the track. Yeah. I got on the track and knew where I was going. So I got up to speed instantly because I just knew where I was going. I spent two or three hours going round it on the sim and then I knew the circuit. But so when I got there, I drove straight out of the pit lane, flat out to the first two corners, and I knew it was fine. And that's because I practiced in the sim in a rudimentary sim , not some of the pro level stuff that you get that is on iRacing. And listen. Yeah, your janky sim that you've got, that's what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, my janky sim. Um Yeah I I I I did have Brad on it recently and he went there's no there's no false feedback. I'm like shut up. But but even even as a viewer , if you're out even playing like the F1 game, this is one of my big things is it helps you practice watching. So that helps you practice get around a track. But if you do spa and then you watch spa, you'll be like, Oh man, that's poo-on. Yeah, that is a hard corner to you know, risk reward. And you go, oh, he's going right to the limit there. I know that feeling. Over the years, I know all my Grand Prix racetra racetracks because of FM s. That's how I learn to to you're absolutely right. Learn to watch sports. Learn to watch sports. It still baffles Lauren, my wife, when I when we're watching any form of racing, and I go and I see a corner and I go, oh, that's uh this track. I got on perfect example. I went on to I've been doing L M P two um on IMSA on IRAC lately, right? And this week they're at Belle Isle uh which is a Detroit street circuit. Yeah, yeah. Awful, horrible thing. Definitely horrible. And I didn't recognise the circuit until I left the pits and I got onto the straight that's straight out of the pits, and I realized there's a video of a safety car crashing at that corner. And I just knew 'cause it looked like it. I'm like, Oh, I know where I am now and my brain kind of adjusted and I was like, Oh, okay, actually I do roughly know my way around this circuit. It's bumpy and horrible and don't do it in the L M P two. So that's why there's no one doing IMSA this week. But I promise you you'll enjoy F1 races more if you've at the very least like watched onboards and sit and watch the onboards. Um and during FP1, FP2, like follow the track map and and familiarise yourself with that. I think a lot of people, and no shade, I'm not gatekeeping how to watch, but a lot of people will just be watching the screen and they'll listen to the commentators and then oh a thing happened. Oh, they're overtaking. Whereas if you've immersed yourself in it, you can be looking at, say, you know, Canada and you go, Well, they're going through these chicanes now, there's not going to be an overtake, but oh, he's closer than he's been before. Oh, can he keep that close down to their hairpin? You know, because you're monitoring that rather than just waiting for a situation where the car's uh are side by side. I would like to just uh talk about um okay, practically how we're gonna go karting. You did mention team sport, and so just so that nobody thinks we're advertising them. they They if they want to pay to advertise on my channel, please do. I will go I I will do a video for Teams talk around every single one of their circuits if they want to pay for it. There's there's good there's some good team sport tracks. I've had some good experiences at Team Sort I've had some not so good experience. Don't go watch the IKC finals. Oh mm okay. So uh no we've had a couple of good events. Now we're getting sponsored. So but it is like the what can I say? It's like the McDonald's of and that's not an insult, I think McDonald's is a great film. Um it's like the McDonald's of karting. Like you can turn up, everything will be provided for you. It's probably the safest level you can do. You know that it's like a franchise model , so you know, broadly speaking, if you go to Dunstable or Braintree, you're gonna have a ramp up to the second floor. You're gonna get track of Dunstable. Oh yeah, no, is yeah. And then you're gonna And Braintree to be fair. Don't know why. Braintreee,? do Do I I mean me Banraintre , I want to go and try the new one. There's a new one. There's a new one underneath Brent Cross. Oh. Which I want to go and try. Do you know what Brancross is? I don't know. London something. A London massive London shopping centre. Which famously still has free parking. Considering it's a London car park. Things London people get excited about. Oh, I can park my car there. Yes, that's normal in the rest of the country. Yes, in the rest of the country, you can generally just park nearly. There was a literal outrage when they thought they were gonna start putting parking, put paying for parking there. In that experience, you turn up, you get a safety video, you get given all the costumes that you need, you get your full race driver costume, don't you? You get your helmet and everything. And and and and like these are good carts, the uh solid, and you can go around and and you can turn up on there on your own and there'll be a bunch of other people there and groups and you can just go and experience what it like is like to turn a wheel. Now here's the thing. What Alex has done in the past has gone and bought his own go-kart and we'll talk a little bit about that and done the setups around that. That's when it becomes your proper hobby. So karting, I think think it seems expensive, especially when you hear what Alex was talking about, but that's because that's one of his main hobbies. If you if you just want to have a go, sure, go down to the team sport and go and put the the coveralls on, the overalls, sorry, and then go and and go and blat around. If you decide you've got more interest in it, it may replace what you already spend on, say, golf. So I think if you are a golf addict, you're and you've got a golf membership, for example. Golf's way more expensive if you've got a golf membership, you're probably spending seven to a thousand pounds to for a standard one. Plus you know, your clubs are gonna s uh set you back infinite because you can literally spend whatever you want. And then you go on holidays to go golf in other places. It costs you your marriage because you spend more time on the golf course than you do with your wife, so you've got to think about the splitting of houses. Is that all it would have taken? Is that all it would have taken? Oh I would have taken up more golf. So yeah. So look, yeah, there's a it's it's accessible from that level. So from the carting side of things, just go to your local indoor cart track and just do it. Turn up on your own. Like no one cares. Turn up on your own, watch the safety brief, put a helmet on, go have fun, record it on a GoPro if they've got it available, look at your lap times, try and beat it the next time. Obviously, if you want to get into it, it you say it's expensive, but it's it's not if it replaces one of your other interests that maybe you're uh bored with or ready and rubbish at. So uh yes, hello by the way, uh Tea is saying when's since when is the live chat on? So the live chat is on because Alex had publicized it on his page. So we have got a couple of questions here saying uh about Gucci. Well we're talking about um we're talking about carting and uh Sims at the moment. Gene Racing says I feel you, Alex, I'm forever at the back because I eat too many pies. So Gene has an amazing TikTok. Gene has a TikTok where he's singing in the carts and makes lots of parody and things while he's driving around badly at the back of the track. And it's one of my favourite TikTok accounts. Would would I like him in person or would I find him annoying? I've not met Gene in person .'ve only seen him through I've only but he he was very nice. He said that I've got I've got a whole bunch of videos on my channel where um I'm building my cart and him and to be fair lots of the people have said to me thank you so much I never would have built my car if it wasn't for those videos which is incredible considering three years ago, oh, if you'd have told me to build a cart, I'd have gone uh so it just shows how accessible it can be. So that's step three. I'm gonna go to step two first, which is then going on to outdoor carts, a bit more serious, something more like Daytona, Milton Keynes, Rye House, Bucknell Park, they're like the A triple A, you know, this is like buying a a copy of Last of Us or whatever, the triple A experiences where you're outside. Now, this is where it starts to just bleed money because you could easily payy eight, ninety pounds for the twenty five minute session. The D Max event I was doing, the Masters League was a ten minute practice, twenty minute race, and it was a hundred and ten . Yeah, yeah. So we're getting into the far too much money. Yeah. But I had just sold my cart and I needed to do some racing. But if you if you go and do those things, they do have the equivalent to the open session. So you can just book an open practice session. You can just turn up on your own, exactly the same, get a costume, uh, and so it's now we're talking about price points. So it is almost exponentially more expensive, but it is also the same amount better because you do have that extra s a feeling of speed now. On the indoor tracks, speed is never really an issue. It's just controlling the cars around the corner. But but even for me, Alex, on a buckmore, I know you're braver than I am, but on a buckmore or uh uh Milton Keynes kind of track where these carts are probably you know they're topping out maybe sixty miles an hour when you hit the f fastest corners and then you're suddenly and it's the relative speed because you're going at that speed and then you have to do an action and then walls and barriers start cominging fly at you very quickly. And so you go, but that is a very different experience. And I get that feeling already with those where I go, ooh, if I crash here, something bad will happened. The the sc ary part of Butmore that I know you're talking about is the downhill section. Yes. Which which is a strap 'em up and just just hope it sticks. Yeah, so you're you're at full speed, but you have to take like full speed right, left, and then after that left you have to break for a tight right hander. Yes. Yes. What's up? What's up, Alex? What's up? Just started pouring with rain. Has it? Oh good. Oh good Not good. My wife's got a whole lot of stuff on the on the washing line and my barbecue's uncovered. Sorry . I don't know if you can hear it. I can hear it through the wrong yes, I can hear it through your open window. I'm not shutting the window, you can get lost . So yeah, that that is I find that genuinely scary that that section through through Buckmore and I've for example there, like it's gone wrong, I've been facing the wrong way and I've seen like a herd of carts coming towards me. And and when I was facing the wrong way, that I saw the guy uh coming towards me down the hill, full speed, he knew he couldn't move left or right. He knew that if he steered the wheel either way, he was just gonna go sideways and hit me. And like we were looking into each other's eyes and it took thirty-five minutes this interaction but he was he was cadence braking and pumping his brakes and then he only hit me relatively hard and we both did like the movie thing of nodding at each other like let's carry on. But then we did . So for me with that corner, you come over the brow of the hill and you've got to cut a kit tight. But for me, I'm like, right, I need to get as close to that wall as possible. But this is where the practice on breaking kind of comes from. And I'll go into where the practice comes from. But to give you an idea of how dangerous that corner can be, that's where we nearly killed Antonia. I still have nightmares. Um I have the video in a file called uh Rag doll Antonia, where Antonia Rankin was flown out uh she she was sent flying out of a cart, right? Hit the deck, and she hit another cart, flew out of the cart, hit the deck, was unconscious. So she was unconscious for maybe nine or something. She didn't. We were watching it. She definitely didn't watch it. Oh, I just I did that. I've got flown out. I just got up and went. I went, No, you were unconscious for like a lot of time. She went, Shut up, showed her the video and she went, Oh. She had no idea. And this is when Thunderbeast saved her. No, it was Dan Drury. Dan Drury gave up his race to 'cause loads of carts were just flying down there. And uh yeah, he just he parked his cart to make sure that that no one hit her. Uh but yeah, so that is kind of a level of like, no, there is now we're now talking about a a non-zero chance of of severe injury and death. Because if a cart had hit her in the head there, she was dead. And uh I and she hasn't carted since , to be fair. So it is scary. Like motorsport is is scary. We've all had those events. You feigned a puncture to not come to the last carting event. Uh but also, you know, um, so then the slight next level up. So that's the Missed Apex kind of events that we put on. Like you can you can you can go and book an individual session or you can come to one of our events and you're in another league of racing where uh the the skill difference is bigger, the speed is an issue, the the z the danger is non-zero, but broadly speaking, like everyone has a nice night out, and apart from nearly killing a young TikToker, we were fine. Uh but you know, when we went up to the next level, which is the the Rotex cart that you got thrown out of uh on your birthday , I had a chance to be the one to be driving those as well. And at that speed, I whimped out. Didn't wimp out, Alex. I've got I have I am at the most responsibilities time of my life. Like I am supporting my family and I literally so I literally had to kind of go, right, what's the risk reward here? Uh what position is my family and I do have insurance for motorsport events. So for example when the F4 opportunity came up, I was like, yeah, of course. Like there was no question that that met the bar for risking my family's futures. Yeah. But for the carting, it was like, no, the risk reward, it doesn't pay off. And then I'm filming you and a wheel falls off. Now, if a wheel falls off in a rental car indoor doesn't matter. I've had wheels fall off a Ry uh R Rye not Rye House, Red Red Lodge in in in Cambridgeshire. Yeah. Wheel fell off, flew across the track. Uh I was hammering the curbs. Uh but anyway, uh when when things go wrong at the speed you were doing, things go wrong quickly. And you got launched out of that cart, and then two carts come round the corner, to the point like I nearly didn't catch the whole thing, because I just put the phone down going, oh, oh, Van Gene's dead. He's just funny. Keep filming. Don't stop filming. And that's Chris said to me afterwards, I don't care what goes wrong out there. You keep filming. If I die in flight, if I'm on fire, you keep filming me. You're too far away to help. It's fine. I know, but my instinct was like oh no, real life. By the way, uh Luke Barton in the chat says, How did Antonio get thrown from her car if she's wearing a harness? Oh my god, America America In the UK, we don't wear harnesses in carts because in a cart, if a cart flips, you want to be thrown. You don't want to crush the cart. Yeah. I've been in the air in a cart before and somehow I landed on all four wheels. I had um Paul Hamley, which is Brad's brother behind me, and a couple other guys behind me, and they all slammed on the brakes seeing what was about to happen because they thought they were watching me die um as I went flying up. in the air But instead I landed on the grass, cut across the first corner and only lost one place. So how are we doing encouraging people to go and that's owner stuff with open wheels and when you get to open wheels, it gets very different. So that's the next level of carting before you get to own a carting is when you start to do a series in rental cards. So be it be it D Max, be it Club 100, be it uh there's a oh I can't remember the name of it, but there's a Northern series that does what BRKC used to do, which is they travel the northern circuits and to cut them. And then in that you are with people who race every single month, who know what they're doing, they're all suited, they're all booted, and that's where you go if you want to increase your level. Yeah, quick bridge to that is that level wise, the Miss Apex event is people then you know where there's a big mix of hobbies. Hobbyists hobbyists and also people who just like having a go. Um so Antonia was probably a little bit out of her depth. That was her first ever carting experience. And so into that she she she hit it's a freak occurrence. Uh she she hit a cart that was static and just plowed plowed through it. That's like a young people thing as well. She did really well vote. No, no, no. She was getting it, she was getting it really quickly, but yeah, it was probably yeah, a step up just far uh too quickly and then overconfident going into that. So you have to consider that at the level you're at. And when I've gone and done a club championship because I wanted to have cheating practice before a Missed Apex event, I joined the local club championship. And it was really interesting because at a Missed Apex event, I'm a fairly good driver. If I turn up in a random session, I tend to be one of the faster drivers. If I want to stagdo, I look like a hero. You go to the club session, you're like, oh, everyone is is like that and more. And so I I was pretty happy. I think it was Club 100, um and I was I was really happy. It was all locals and I was mid pack and I was fighting people mid pack. Yeah, I cheated before um a Miss Apex event. I joined like a one off event. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I know. I got an example that was a friend of mine, guy guy who lives down the road from me, also called Kyle, but not Kyle Power. Um and he knows I do karting and he reckons himself he's a he's a stagdo hero. He's like, oh whenever I go do stack do's I always win. And so I know you do karting, so take me to one of your events. And I took him to the original rogue karting in Aylesbury, the original indoor circuit there. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. Got uh bliterated. Oh , I mean I I uh lapped and things like that. And he wasn't bad. It's just everyone else there has loads of practice, knows how it works, and is just on it from the start. There's no there's no time to get up to speed in these events, which is why you build yourself up to them. But that's where I started. Yeah. Um but but actually no, it's not where I started where I started. I started doing just arrive and drive events at Daytona until I was too fast for the rive and drive practices where it just wasn't fun anymore. And then I'm like, right, I want to get a race. And that's how I ended up in the Daytona Championship. That's how I ended up in the road championship. So you once you've done some practice sessions, you can jump into it. But it's like with any sport, you've got to practice it to be good at it, and when you do the comparisons between actually turning a wheel in real life and doing something like sim racing, the best example we have now that we didn't have five , six years ago is look at Max Verstappen. Max has been a saviour. He has bit for all of the rhetoric against sim racing and amateur racing. Thank goodness. Because Verstappen just is like, no, of course sim racing's Achieved at the Nurberg ring, I don't think he could have achieved without the sim . Because he he'd only done three races, he'd only done three events. So he didn't know the so if he had didn't have a sim to do it from, he wouldn't have known the circuit. You know, and it's like I I'm sad that I've now been to the Nurberg Ring post now knowing how the Nurburg Ring works. When I went there, I didn't know where I was, so I didn't up or anything like that. And it is a crazy it's like being on an A road at a B road at night in the UK. You just have no idea where you're going. But once you've done lots and lots of practice on the sim, I have no doubt in my mind I could go to the Nurbergering tomorrow if someone wants to pay for me to go . And at least know where it was going. And I'd be confident in where I'm going. Would I be the fastest? Absolutely not, because I'm not that brave. But I would definitely know where I'm going and what's coming up next, which is crucially important. To the point where sorry, I'll stop. No, you're right. No, no, go for it. We're talking, it's a talking. So so there's a there's a corner um on the Noburg on the Norch life called called the Louder Lynx, because that's where Nicky Louder had his crash. And it's a very small kink before heading into a downhill, right into a downhill, steep, off-camber right hander that's a very important corner because it ends up going to a long straight. When we were doing the twenty-four hour on the sim a couple of weeks a few weeks ago, every time I went through the louder links, especially at night, I had to say audibly louder links because it wouldn't because I meant I knew what corner was coming next, otherwise everything looks the same and the amount of times in practice I'd smashed into the wall on the fast right hander because I didn't . Yeah, that would be way more expensive if you were practicing that in in real life. Do you know that if you hit the barriers at the Nordschleifer, they charge you the the company that re pairs the barrier sends you a bill. It's so much more than that. So every single m uh meter or part section of barrier is three barriers. So if you hit one barrier, you have to pay for three barriers. And if they have to shut the circuit, you have to pay an extra amount based on time on how long So when you see all these crashes on YouTube of people nearly killing it. Very expensive crashes. Die. So when you see someone in like a bit of a crap car crash, you go, Oh, you cannot afford that crash. What what were you doing? All right. So to recap, in the in our carting space here, uh you you can just go and go karting. There, they're you can try it for the experience, but then if you want to take it up as a hobby, so there's the line is where is it a hobby? So I would say going to your local indoor track or your team sport, that's just having a go at a thing, and that's fine. Do that. When you want it to be a hobby, then maybe go and try the outdoor tracks in the same way. And then when you really are like, Yes, I'm gonna throw all my autism at this hobby, then you go you then go and join the do too close to the bone? Too close to the bone, Alex. And then you then go and buy all your suit and your hat and everything, your special hat and spend ages picking a design. And then that's when you join like the club series and things and and or or come and join Mr. Apex events and do things like that. Then it's like more into hobbyist territory. Yes, you are gonna be spending all your hobby money on that . Psst wake up. I'm that thing you just remembered. Huh? The invoice payments I need to chase, but it's 2AN. You didn't catch up on cash flow, so cash flow is catching up with you. Zero helps you transform financial uncertainty into cash flow clarity . 81% of customers agree zero online invoice payments help them get paid on time. Hmm, that's quite a lot. So search zero with an X and supercharge your business with a free trial. Conditions apply . Now back to sleep. This Friday's Euromillions jackpot will have you dancing like nobody's watching . Yeah baby. Just make sure nobody is watching. Get in this Friday's Euro Millions draw . Euromillions. It could be you. Multiply 18 plus . Some days it feels like your to-do list just won't quit. When life gets hectic, let Halfords take something off your plate. We're here when you need us, with trusted experts ready to help you take off MOTs, servicing, tire fitting, and more. See our cars ready for whatever's ahead. So why put it off? Get in touch or drop in today. Book online at half.com or give your local Halfers Garage a call and we'll sort it. So you can keep moving with confidence. Garage services not available in Northern Ireland. you know, have a new engine every race. Is what you did. I'm really interested uh in what you and Brad did. I went down to one event and took part in a practice session. It was GX UK and basically they had rules where you could buy a cart chassis. It had to be older than I think twenty eighteen spec to keep the costs down. You could only use one engine for the season. Um the tires lasted all season, something like that anyway. So yeah. So um the rules when I started was no chassis. Basically that what we did was it was a Rotax chassis using a GX two hundred engine, which is the engine that you would have driven in any rental car that you would got into. They all use GX GX engines. It would be either a 160, a 200, or a 390. And some of the some of the faster outdoor tracks have 390s, but the carts weigh 17 tons, so they're not as fast. So you have the chassis, you bolt the you bolt the engine to the chassis, and then you have three engine seals for a year, right? So when you have your engines they have to be checked and sealed by a particular um uh particular manu a particular engine builder to check for legality. You have three of these seals a year and you can either stick those on three engines and you've got three engines for the year or one engine and you can get your engine serviced three times throughout the year and you get three and you get three three three three seals. The bit that is the bit that always costs money in a lot of this motorsport is tir es. You have when you go to the proper big big boy events with um road taxis and all this kind of stuff where all the where all the top teams play, they are throwing tires at the cars. Yeah. And they're a hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy quid a pop for a for a for a set of tires. I cannot afford that. With GXUK, you have one set of practice tires, which for the first two seasons could have been a used set. So you could pick those up for fifty I used to pick sets up for a tenner, um and used to sell them to people on the grid. And or and then you have one set of new tires that the series gave you for the whole season because they're endurance, that they are fast tires, but because we're not putting too much load through them, they last for the whole season. And that is what helped keep the costs down. And there was very much an ethos across everybody, which is no one's gonna go and spend rubbish loads of money because there's no prizes to be worth it. I'm sure no one would just buy multiple engines, pick the fastest one of those, and then sell on the engines that they didn't like. I'm sure no one would do that. No one's got the money to do that. No one's got the money to p listen, some people had a race engine and a spare engine, but nobody bought po there's difference of what you're saying. So nobody bought pools of engines 'cause they do this in B PEC. No one bought pools of engines tested like 'cause no one no 'cause the people who do GX don't have that money. So um it doesn't make sense because people who've got that money go do something else. But we were stealing lots of drivers from the likes of BPE C because we were saving the drivers a fortune. And it was all sprint racing and it was just it was brilliant. I love GMs and unfortunately grown up things got in the way, which is why I'm not doing that. No, uh but I have to say that is a whole nother level as well. Won't get into this now, but because you have to do your own setup, so you're literally like changing the width of the rear axle, uh what gears you're what you're on, and I was watching you and Brad do that thinking like oh this is not why I'm here this is not what I'm here for. So interestingly, when we got into it and Brad was like, Oh, we've got a series of can run a cart for you and I'm like I'm like I can't afford to run a cart, I'm not doing it. And somehow Brad Fluence got in the way. And um, but I said to him, Fine, you're storing the cart, you're prepping the cart, I'm just driving it. And I actually fell in love with the building side of it. I really enjoyed it. I was sad that my cart lived at Brad's house and that I couldn't just I couldn't just tinker with it whenever I wanted to. So for the whole of last season it lived with me and I got to tinker and fiddle and then my chassis snapped and the rest of my season went to crap and my engine died. But uh and then it all got very expensive. But I say very expensive. Once you've got the cart, you can get a cart built for 1500 quid tops, right? And that includes an engine. Um you can then including hotels, including food, everything else included, you can do a season for four grand. Now again, that's still an expensive hobby. But to give you an idea, an entire weekend in road tax is two to three grand. Sure, but you can go and do a great outdoor course for for if with a hundred quid in your pocket, you can probably go and you know have an afternoon out doing some outdoor karting. So that what you're talking about is the the far end of our hobby experience. And actually uh I I want to briefly before we talk about sim racing, because I really do want to talk about sim racing, is the um and uh no, William, I'm not gonna be in Gucci merch. Not yet. Not until the checks clear. Then I will be So take that Head to toe. I will be head to toe and I'll be I'll be pushing Briatori budgy smugglers from from here to Kingdom Come. Oh yeah, and I'll be modelling them and no one wants to see that. But I took the money and I will do it. So before we go to sim racing, uh experience days uh is is is another topic. I don't know how many of those have you done. I've only done I would say two where uh and uh Oh actually look there's a whole another class where Sam Watley put me in his Peugeot, uh Matt has gone around in Pit Pammons um Nova as well. I know and everyone said, Oh, Spanners, I didn't be faster than Van Gene in the pouring rain. No, I was honestly, if it was who could go in a circle fastest, I was spinning and the guy next to me didn't was like, Yeah, go again, try again. And the more I spin. Was it not Sam with you? No, no, no. I had this crazy guy. He was f mad, yeah. Uh which was good. Sam had sense. And because I was like, Wow, you're really like you don't mind like risking your car. He went, This is not my car. And I was like, Oh, okay. You were you were in Sam's car and I was in the car of a guy who was six foot four and can't move the seat. No I was like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same. Yeah. F flying down from Clubvale and then going, Oh, I know Abby's here somewhere. Oh, it was behind me. I'm in the runoff area. It's very wet, so this is terrible. I get n't asked for a worse day. Again, d non zero death risk, right? So experienced days are a bit more sc neutered than than that. Obviously again, non zero risk. Uh the reason I wouldn't actually recommend those over say just going out and going karting is. If you go in a go-kart , you can drive that go-kart to its maximum. No one is gonna have a go at you. You can overtake people, you can go and race people. In these experience days, as far as you know, my experience is, they are very, very cautious about what they want you to do. So I know all about this. So a friend of mine, Ryan Lindsay, does this. He's he he has two cars that he takes the tracks and lets people drive. They are his cars. That he has mortgages on, right? So no, he's not gonna let any more on just turn up and push his car to the limit. I've done it, I did one at Brands Hatch and I got to drive a Lambegino Diablo. Awful. Worst car I've ever driven in my entire life. And then that was horrible. Well actually it wasn't that it was it was Wait, a Lamborghini Diablo was the worst car you've driven. Awful. Why? Clutch was set in concrete, brakes had no feel, it was raining and I had no tractured control. Um that was quite scary. But again, but again with these you can't take them out of third gear. Yeah. As well with tars like I I drove a dodge viper. I didn't Dodge Viper out of third gear. That was still a mazing, and I still did 160 miles an hour. But I got to drive a Dodge Viper. So I've done a couple of these. Without question, the best track day you can do is at Bedford at the Bedford Autodrome. At Palmer School. Kyle does that every year, doesn't he? Kyle does it every year. They they have they have two versions now. So the full fat version, which is all day, which is a thousand pounds plus VAT, and you get to drive all of their cars from a um from a go-kart to an off-roader to uh a cater and pursue all the way up to a single seater. And they also do a half day, which is downly 600 quid, which is like ooh, that's like tempting. Um, but the difference with that place, all the drivers, all the all the um instructors that sit with you in the car have kill switches. They also have brake pedals. So they have control of you in the. cart Actually, it's not a brake pedal, it's a brake off pedal. Break release. Funny enough. To bring you off the brakes because people brake too much. And they want you to push. Again, there's a couple of videos on might be on my channel, might be on Brad's channel with me in um various cars and they push. And then by the time you've got to have a go in the single seater, you spent so long pushing, you get to push in the single seater. There's no you go to some of these events and you're in a single seater but there's a there's a there's a jag driving in front of you explosive yes and you can't overtake it. There's none of that here. You go out on track and you push as hard as you can. And I have the track pul toled myself when I did it. And it was a lot of count ries. That is nice. Yeah, and yes, I've had that experience twice where you have like a pace car in front of you or you can't overtake. And if you and this is why I wouldn't recommend this, like the the Silverstone track experience I've got an inner circuit called the Stowe Circuit and I went in there, my my wife bought it for me and it hey it's great to sit in a single seat. Had an H pattern gearbox and basically first, second, and then you're just third and fourth. The problem is, most people will will get to the end of the a straight, won't accelerate from the turn all the way down the straight. They don't. They kind of do what they do on the motorway, which is get up to kind of a pretty fast speed and go, oh, I'm pretty happy here. And then they break in a straight line and then they turn the wheel almost trying to like, you know, 10 to 2, like the driving test, and they never carry any speed through the corners. So even when I left a full gap of like half a lap to other people, I would catch them within a corner, within a corner or two. And so it was a very, very, very frustrating experience. Uh when I did that F4 experience, yes, there is footage, but I aga in I was leaving a hot the whole of a NAS. Imagine a hole of a NASCAR straight for like a not a super speedway, but you know, a speedway. And I left a whole of a straight and then and then was nearly standing still, banged up all the way up the gears, like you know, like full pelt, like you would in the sim, exactly like I would in an F four in the sim . And uh long before the end of the straight, I was catching the guy ahead of me and uh the the Mustang ahead was uh he he he was he was looking in the mirrors to go, if they look comfortable I'll go a bit faster. But because the guy in front of me was just a pedestrian, oh man, and he looked he looked like a professional like soccer player. So when it was me and him getting in the car, I was Oh yeah, this guy's gonna be fast. No. Just driving it like a granny. But at least I got to like bang up the gears and feel the acceleration. Hilariously the only experience I've ever had of that where there's a crowd and I can't do exactly what I want to do. was It funny if I was in Australia and I was doing quad biking and we were doing quad biking through this trail and me and my mate were at the back. Funny the guy I used to go karting with when I first started karting. And we were so much more confident and so much faster than everybody else that was in this thing. So we kept waiting all the way back, giving a really big gap and then catching up. We got tolled off for it because we're not supposed to leave a kind of a gap. To the point where we went to this at the end of the at the end of the session, we went to this big open bit and there was some jumps and the leader of the group pointed to me and my mate and said you two go go yeah yeah you two you two come with me and he took us for a blast through the mountains and it was g uh I was okay 'cause I was in the middle so I got less of the dust, but my Andy got all the dust. So he still couldn't go that fast because he couldn't see where he was going. Oh, did they go oi, no professionals? Yeah. So yeah, the instructors at this place are pretty good at identifying people who uh who do who don't mind going and do a bit doing a bit of racing. So be this because this is America, before we got in the car to go, right, we've got to give everybody a lesson in how to drive a manual car. So they wanted to check you could drive a manual. So so the F four is flappy paddles, but you've got to get a clutch off the line. So when we say manual, we're thinking clutch through every gear, right? So I'm like uh w me and this other guy put our hands up and we were like, uh we're British, can we And they went, No, no, no, no, no. So you went off in groups of three into this this Mustang and you know, one guy was and it wasn't like a manual, it was a it was an automatic but with flappy paddles. So it was like a big th Oh my god. So they were literally being taught how to, when it gets a bit faster, pull up to the next gear. Okay, fine. So the first one. Was it a was it a hand clutch or a full case in the Mustang there was no clutch. In the F four it was in the foot. Foot clutch, yeah. It is a foot clutch. Yeah, it is foot cut, yeah. So we were g we the fl the guy with the he's the first guy, he goes around and he's kind of tiptoeing around the course going, Oh yeah, this is good. The instructor's happy, he goes, Okay. So we swap, I go in the driver's seat, and I just do the same inputs that I do in the sim . And the instructor did not fucking sorry, did not mind at all. Sorry. The instructor did not mind at all. In fact Yes it wasn't me again. So the instructor was actually Juan Pablo Montoya's brother. And as soon as I just started like g banging up the gears, he was just like, Yeah, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. And uh break now, break now. And he was pretty decent with letting me so I actually I I ragged that Mustang way more than I did the F4 and I wish there was footage of that because that was so much footage. Sorry, chat do I need to call him on this? What? He keeps saying Mustang. Mustang. Mustang. Dude, it's Mustang. Mustang. Come on. It's not Mustang. H it's not a cow, it's a horse. Come on, think of it. Think of the song. Moostang Sally So yeah, uh honestly, and that was probably more fun than the F four 'cause I was booting it, absolutely booting it. And he got it fully 'cause he didn't do the gears or whatever. He got in the quickly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he got to try and like push and like if I didn't get on the f accelerator quickly enough,. He's like, no now . And then he went, right, one more lap, one more lap. And so I ended up doing three laps of what was just meant to be checking the gears. We got out and we stopped. The people forgetting there's people in the back, and they were they were ashen because it's okay if it's a professional, but oh my god, like just some guy who turned up there. Uh yeah, but yeah, that that was that was fantastic. And then later on, um there there was a guy who was like off-road and they they had a chat, they went, Oh yeah, this guy does the F1 prod or whatever. And they and he let me absolutely unleash on the off road stuff. So it can be good, but I would say the bog standard experience days, you need to go in there forewarn that, you know, s they're not all equal and my goodness, if there's other if there's civilians on track, it could be very, very slow. We're forty five minutes in. We never got to we haven't got to Sims yet. You got time? I've got time. You got time, okay. By the way, I I told you this wasn't going to be fifty minutes. But it's a lovely chat with my friend Alex. We're always going to have a chat, just everyone else can listen. It's no. And by the way, Stuart By Collar says thank you, Alex, which I'm assuming is picking you up on Mustang. Mustang which one do I say? Must mustang. You say Mustang. Okay. I think you can say it both ways. I think it's all right. Sorry. No pardon. It's not like espresso and expresso. It's not the same thing. But yeah, like we're really into sim racing um only because of you. So I before I ever COVID, it's all COVID's fault. Before I ever met you guys, I I do love playing racing games, you know. And f in in full on just amateur mode, which is uh uh racing line on, assists on with a joypad, play the game, uh Gotham City Racing. Project Gotham. Project Gotham Is that the one where you collected QDOS points? Yes. I loved Project. And I had a joypad. My first online racing experience was my first wheel, I had a joypad, but it was shaped to like a steering wheel. So that turning the steering wheel didn't do anything, but you could but you could you could pretend it did. So yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, stuff like that, you know, good racing action, things like um that there was a Porsche challenge game that was weighted very heavily. So if you' inre the lead, you lost horsepower and stuff like that, and then of course had one as well. Mario Kart and all the things. Yeah, and that's before you get into all the grand turismos and all that kind of stuff. I I think e e although they're very arcadey, that to me, that's below what we're talking about. But you can get us, I think, if you just have your Joypad and your Xbox or your PlayStation or whatever, and just buy a 10-year-old F1 game. And just sit there with your JoyPad with all the assists on and drive around, I think that massively would increase your watching F1 experience. I used to so my sim racing and I'll start and I'll do a I'll do um I'll do these. My s my sim racing start was with the F one games. I i i as far as as far as taking it to that next level. If you want to go back, it was Toka Race Car and all other things like that. But it was when I was like Oh my god, Toker was like, Oh, it's not toca, it's toca. Would you mind? Uh oh, if you're gonna pick me up, toca racing. Yeah. What did I say? It's you said toca. Yeah. It is toca. Toka racing. Anyway, that was like um if you're if you're actually into actual racing, you'll play toka, but I go enjoy Gran Turismo, I guess. Yeah, that's the But the th but the all around the same time. But um it really started for me doing funnily enough, again, this is where the correlation works. During original BRKC, when BRKC used to be a multi-round series that we used to do outdoors. British rental cart championship. Yep. A whole bunch of us used to do on a Wednesday night F 1 races. And we'd all get together on the F on the F1 game, racing each other online, because we can't race each other every single week. We can only race each other once a month when we meet at the races. So we did it online. And that's when I got a Xbox 360 steering wheel and clamped it to my and clamped it to my ironing board. Such a good steering wheel for the time. The e the original Xbox steering wheel, I also had that. Also clamped it to an iron board. Uh yes. Sat in a sat in a sat in a kitchen chair. Yes. Really upright kitchen chair. It's like like that. So it breaks your back. And you can't attach the pedals to anything. So the pedals move when you press them. And that I I remember my one broke and my brother in law also had a broken one and he gave me his broken one and I took them both apart and made a working one from two broken weapons. I was so proud of myself. That was a good wheel. That was a good wheel, man. Uh I tell you what. The the weight was just it was just uh some resistance to you turning. It wasn't really feedback as mm-hmm If you ever had um one of those build-it-yourself remote control cars, it was basically the motor from one of those. No, I didn't private school post kid, no. Yeah, no, that was a great wheel. I I took one of those. Um so I was a radar specialist, so I was allowed an extra baggage allowance to the Falklands and I filled all of that extra baggage allowance with with that Xbox kit, a monitor, because the bunks that we got there didn't have TVs. So like you know, I made sure I was decked out and I was a I was a proper Heath Robinson. I had like cushions and all the cupboards built out because the problem is when you hit the brake, you go backwards or tilt. So I needed to like brace my back against something. So yeah, so I went and and that's where my sim rig started. You know, I went from that and then I upgraded to whatever the next one was that they did, and then I ended up with a with a G25 or whatever it was, the Xbox version of it. And I went through all these different things slowly upgrading bits and pieces. So when people tell me how much is my beautiful aluminium rig with direct drive steering wheel and carbon fiber seat, they ask me how much it is. It's like I don't I don't I can't tell you how much I've spent because I've spent so much over the years it's been a journey bought and I've bought and sold things. So I remember when we moved to PC when COVID hit, I sold my PS four. Yeah, my PS 4 to buy the pedals that I still have that I really need to change. My pedals are you know my carbon fiber seat, which you can just about see there, nope is from funnily enough, from a JPLM from Palmer's that had been sitting in one of my mates r lofts for ten years and he gave it to me. So if you can see my seat here, this is one that you this is like the cheapest seat that you could just bolt into uh whatever. Like you know, if you can tell by the blue. Yeah, yeah. If you s if you strip out your whatever, your Corvette or your Ford Escort, you you could bolt this in as a racing seat if you want. Um but yeah, so we all got it Well it's it's sorry, it's it's a totally l legitimate tactic to go to a breaker's yard and buy a seat from a clapped out car that they've got in there and stick it to a simric. That's what I was going to do until my mate phoned me and goes, I've got this seat, do you want it? Oh yeah, I nearly bought bolted a cart seat into the frame. But we we're getting ahead of ourselves here, really. During COVID, we all follow we all got Bradfluenced into iRacing, and it made a lot of sense at the time. It's it's a subscription service . So again, if we say that the the team sport indoor karting thing is is the McDonald's of of carting and and you know why not go get yourself a McDonald's you know what you're gonna get uh the the experience of playing an F1 game is probably just a little bit below that, I would say. So if you're doing the F1 game, that's your access level to just improve your viewing experience and just understand a tiny bit about racing. Really, with sim racing, the minimum, the absolute minimum you need to do to be racing is to have a wheel. So I I I would I don't want to gatekeep. I don't say I don't want to say don't play with a joypad. By all means go and play an old F1 game, you know, have fun with the joypad. However, having a wheel to hold, that's then when we're starting to say, Okay, that's not gaming anymore. We're now drifting into sim racing. Yeah. And and yeah that',s the whole thing. And it's and that's what uh because and it's it's sim because it's a simulation. You are you are simulating real life with what you're doing. And to simulate things you need to make things like they're real. So you have you know, I've got an F1 style steering wheel because I mostly do prototypes or single seaters. So that's the correct steering wheel for the type of things I do. You know, you have a brake pedal that's super duper stiff because that's what you would have in a real car you got a load pedal right you got a load cell pedal of course and and that's the whole thing it's like if if you stripped if you said I was only allowed to keep one super fancy thing from my rig, despite the fact that what I just said about them, I'd keep my pedals same because the braking same is the important bit. Yeah, and this is what what you won't realise perhaps if you if you don't end up turning a wheel, don't do any sim, don't do any carting, is is how much when you master or when you learn the correct braking and it isn't just uh slowing down for the corner like all the people on the experience days and most of the people you'll see on a cart track when you understand that braking is what is is kind of what gives you speed, position, weight, everything through a corner. And you go, ah, the relationship between steering wheel and brake is probably the most important part of of racing. Braking is the thing that makes you fastest. Yeah. Without a shadow of a doubt. I I'm not very good in the GT three cars on iRacing. Um because there's all there's a whole lot of um braking and and weight balance that I just haven't done. It's a long doesn't it's a much longer brake Doesn't suit my driving style. And I found that if I break way earlier than I want to, but I'm on the brake lighter for less amount of time and I'm trail breaking and we can talk about trailbreaking unit. Exactly. And I'm trailbreaking into a corner, I find myself faster. But I'm so in tune to not drive like that. I have to compl so for the for the twenty four hour that we did at um at at the Noburg Ring, I had to completely transform my driving. It's why I was the slowest in the team. I didn't have a crash until after one guy had a big crash and then it didn't matter anymore and I was pushing. But um, you know, I and I was just focusing on on safety. But they're very difficult cars to drive when you have to think about it, 'cause in a go-kart, you want to stamp on the brakes, get as much braking done as quickly as possible, a bit like in a single seater, and then you just bleed off and get it turned into the corner. The adage of do all your braking in a straight line is safety. That's an insurance thing at go-kart tracks. Exactly. To be the fastest, you need to start braking hard and then slowly release the brake. And as you release the brakes, you can then put on more lock. Because if you've got too much braking for too and too much steering, you're just going to under steer off. In a go-kart, you'll lock the rear wheels and spin because it's solid rear axle. Yeah. And in a in a car, you'll just under steer off the circuit. And and this is what I think if you don't do racing, you're missing out specifically on how important that braking skill is. And it if you even do it a little bit, it's like magic. So when you first start karting, you'll either hit the brakes too much and you'll lock the tires up and that'll make you go forward. Or what you'll do is you'll brake really hard, start turning, and then actually you give up on the brakes. You just brake hard and then you give up on the brakes, and then what happens is all the weight then goes forward to the front wheels and it's just pushing you forward. So you think, oh, this is this this car, it' reallys it just doesn''t steer, its really under steery, it's really difficult. Once you figure out the relationship with the brakes and the weight, so you're like you brake really hard and then you lift off as you start to steer and you staying on that locking point, keeping the weight on the outside front tire, suddenly it feels like you're on rails. And honestly, that's one of the most magical things in in any form of racing where you go, I've tamed it, I've done it. I just want to then you can't do it again for the next corner. Yeah, yeah, and then and then you mess it up. Yeah, because because any not the here's the thing, is it's like it feels like one thing when you're watching it. When you're racing it, it's not. It's about seven or eight different phases of breaking, all combined with the steering. And if you get one of those wrong, you suddenly have to come up with another plan of like, Well what do I do now? Now the weight's gone completely, what do I do? It it's come up in the chat a couple of times, so the the cost of iRacing. Yes. So obviously when you go and buy a triple A game these days it's sixty, seventy quid. I'm terrified of what GTA six is going to cost. I think it's going to be a little bit it's never coming up. Don't worry about it. Um but you go and spend sixty, seventy quid on a uh uh on an F one game and you've got it forever and you've got all the tracks and everything else like that. That's not what happens with i ce i racing is more comparable to golf. But the caveat with gol the caveat with iRacing is your first year will be the most expensive year you ever have with iRacing, and then it peters off. I haven't really bought anything in iRacing other than my subscription in a really long time. No, and the subscription is comparable to a a TV service, you know Yeah. Which which and that's if you buy it per month and you but you can buy it and get massive discounts. And also, once you've bought lots of cars, you get more and more discount. So I'm at a point now where I get a 40% discount on everything I buy because I bought so much from my racing. Um, but again, I haven't bought anything in ages, so when all of a sudden a new track comes out, it's like the Miami Circuits come out, but I don't like the Miami Circuits, I haven't bought it yet. I haven't needed to do it. I love the Miami Circuit. I think the Dolphins do a great job putting that event on every year. Join me in twenty twenty six. Well where I'll be on stage. You just have to be there, Spanish. Um so yeah, so iRacing is expensive when you start and then it's slow and the thing is is you you don't have to go and buy everything all in once. So when you start in the rookie stuff, everything's there for you. It's only once you get out of the rookie stuff and you decide you want to pick something to do. Yeah and the way to do it is you pick something you want to do for a long period of time, you buy the tracks in that season, and there's always a mixture of free tracks and non-free tracks within a season, and then it then it escalates, and then eventually you have pretty much every single circuit that you're gonna do. I I don't know I don't own any ovals, I don't care about ovals, I'm never gonna do ovals. Um and that's where my cost is. So you just gotta balance it. Also like the thing is it does gatekeep as well a little bit because everyone else in that series has also invested in that series. So while you do get some lunatics and you will get wiped out randomly, it's not the same as a random lobby of a g of Xbox game. So And you get to race against future potential F one champions. Yeah, I mean we've we've all raced against um Antonelli. Um oh sorry who's who's the people you've come up against? Uh Antonelli, Gros jon, Alonso, uh Jake Jake Dennis. Have you raced with Max? I've I've been in I've been in sessions with Max. I haven't raced Max, I've been in sessions with Max. I was in a party. I've raced I've raced Jake Dennis. I've raced um oh F2 driver, he was a Mercedes test driver. Um well you've done he's in one of my videos that I made when I was when we were doing the OF1. Uh uh with Lando Norris even last year, he was in a practice session, higher spot. Rubens Rubens Barrakello Rubens Barrichello, loads of times, yeah But hilariously, Alonso likes the MX fives and the one one and the um the the Formula Fords, the one one sixteens. Yeah. Which is which is quite a bit. So there was a period where there was so much. So he used to the power of engines from the m from the Aston. Yeah, so many of the the single seater guys were were doing F threes and stuff like that. So uh yeah, look, it it's definitely that's a premium sim service. I would recommend it because you have to kind of respect the career ladder in a way. So you will get lunatics there. There is a protest system. It's much more like a club and a sport than just buying a game and and and going online. So let's just finish off by talking about the equipment though, because after that my Xbox controller career, I I didn't have a steering wheel for ages and then I went out and I bought a secondhand off eBay Logitech twentyven-se or G twenty seven. And um and I would have said to you that that's a piece of crap and you can't race fast on that. But during COVID, Leclerc bought one and was just bossing everyone on if you're good at sim racing, you're good at sim racing, doesn't matter. People have won championships on on on stuff with no proper force feedback. Uh so so but I will say because I'm not good at racing, the more I've upgraded my kit, the more it's given me the upgrades and the things I need to to be able to to replicate the skills I'm trying to learn. The clerk doesn't need to do that because he already knows all the big boy skills. So there is that, but it's to me, it's not about what makes you fast. It's about what is the best experience. So I went through that phase then when I was getting influenced by all you guys and getting into i racing. I started off I was at my desk, I'd move the keyboard, I would clamp a steering wheel onto that, and then I would I had a roller desk, a de uh sorry, a chair with wheels, a wheelie chair, and then and then uh pedal pedals with a bit of grip. No, I d with pedals with a bit of grip on the floor. And now these aren't load cell pedals, you break depending on how far your foot travels, which you can't do it. You can't do it. But to start with, yes, we did do that. If you hit the brake even slightly hard, or when I put springs in it to make it harder, your chair just flies back. And you're like, okay, we have identified our first problem. And that is one way I would say the very minimum, if you're gonna go, right, I'm gonna get into sim racing, the very minimum would be a play seat. Who makes that? What company makes that? Playce seat challenge. Playce seat challenge. The company is Placey. Okay. So the company is placed. So uh there is definitely some uh some some limitations to those, but it's basically a fold out deck chair with a frame at the front that you th and I I used one for years that you can then attach your steering wheel base to that seat and then uh and and then you can attach your pedals to a thing on the floor, and that gives you the basics. Now there's a lot of leeway uh with that, like you'll turn the wheel and it will give a little bit and it will remove a little bit of the whole thing does this. So so the force feedback that you've paid for in your wheel kind of gets absorbed by the wheel moving around a little bit. I I had I bought industrial like straps that you get on a lorry to like strap it all down. That's just when we were in Spain. If you troll through my um old live streams, you'll see pictures of live streams of me in my play seat challenge with my VR headset on in my lounge, um incredibly anti-social to my dear wife. Um uh in that on my old live streams that I used to do from that and I loved that it folds away a little bit doesn't it yeah. And and folded away like really easyy. The got very complicated with the fold out sim rigs where it's not a case of you know, that I could put away, oh we've got guests coming over, okay, bang, bang, bang, up in the corner, it's gone. And it's away. And then you get awkward questions about why's what the hell's that. Uh okay, so before I say what I'm about to say next, I'm about to say because people always ask, what is the minimum I should do to get into, say, joining us for an iRacing session. Before I say that, all this gear is highly resella ble. Mm-hmm. So you say to your partner, Practice after me, these are assets. This is an investment. It may even appreciate over time. But you can sell all of these things. Like we can buy them secondhand as well. Buy them secondhand. You and me have bought and sold billion like that this steering wheel here, that this new McLaren thing So given that it's not a risk because if you buy all these and you don't like it, you can just sell it as long as you know how to use some kind of marketplace. Alex, I'm gonna pause it to you the absolute minimum to go, right, I want a good iRacing experience to join the Missed Apex guys. Play seat, folds out, right? Wheel. My my the the CLSD . CLSDD . You want you want the eighteen newton meter no one, not the five newton meter one. And then you must have also load cell pedals. And that is so key because instead of the amount of travel your foot does, it senses the pressure that you put on it, which is far more useful and I would say realistic about how 'cause how much pressure you put on the brake pedal it through the corners is so much of the game, is so much of how you go fast through the corners. Now, am I being too harsh? Because I think that total setup is probably second brand new 800 ? Maybe. I I gotta be honest, it's been so long since I've looked at Simgear, I don't know. To be fair though, but Thanatech got recently bought by Oh, I know got bought by Corsair and they've recently brought out a load of new stuff , um, which is well worth looking at. The Thanatech ecosystem is a really good starter base to be in. Um it's a yeah it I think different but the same. It's like buying Apple products in the sense of in the sense of everything just works together. Sure. You buy I've got I've got an Apple phone, I've got an Apple Watch, I've got Apple AirPods, I've got an Apple iPad, and everything just wor ks. I haven't got to do anything. I haven't got to set things up. Everything just works and there's no faff with it. And that's what's really, really useful about Fanatech. So to answer a question, because I've been answered this like I want to answer it definitively. Direct drive wheel, not belt driven wheel. So a direct drive really think you can get many belt driven wheels. They don't do them anymore. Yeah. Because because they've figured out direct small direct drives now. So small diet drives the change. But that's the thing that gives you the feeling through your hands. So there's that there, that's the thing. Like you will end up being able to feel oversteer and understeer. And to me, from my very amateur experience, the oversteer and understeer on my sim rig feels the same as when I'm in a cart. And I'm able to go, oh, the steering's gone light. I'm under steering. I didn't break enough. I didn't slow the cart down enough for the steering lock that I was asking for. If I had done that, it would feel nice and heavy on my wheel and I'd be you know, and then it's the oh it's really heavy until it's suddenly not. Oh well done. Well welcome to oversteer. You know, it's the but those feelings do come through your hands very well and will apply to karting. And also with um so for example, with the wheel that Spanners has got behind him. No no no no I don't want to talk about my wheel that I've got. I don't want to talk I did I did I bought too much I spent too much money. I spent too much on that wheel. But I I bet there's something on that wheel that you don't know about. Do you know that that has vibration function in the wheel itself? Explain. So you can go into the Fanatech software. I d I dcause you've got yours attached because you've got yours attached If you get understeer, it does a particular amount of vibration and all the different types of things, and you can do the lights and stuff, which is cool. Um, so yeah, there's loads of stuff you can do with regards to those different types of things. Whilst my steering steering wheel is Fanatec, the base itself that provides the power is not. Going on to the rest of the equipment. So screens or VR? Now I am a I am a big proponent for VR. Because is it is VR the absolute fastest way. No. No, absolutely not. No. I think triples is the fastest. VR isn't the fastest purely because the amount of power you need to run a VR at uh at ninety frames a second in the G G two that I've got is massive compared to running at two hundred and forty five Hertz on triple on triple screens. So all the best drivers in the world, they're all on triple monitors. I don't like triple monitors. I've I've sat in various um sim rigs with triple monitors and I don't like it because for me it's not realistic. I'm not in it. I'm not there. I remember one of my best first experiences was when we were in the Renault 2.5 with Renault 2.0. Yes. And we were sat on the grid at Spa . And I'm like, there's a building. I'm there. I'm here. I'm on the grid. There's a car next to me. And it's just that experience you cannot beat. At the Nurberger ring in the middle of the night, where all you've got is your headlights and nothing else, you can't beat that if you've got if you're exposed to the elements. So So um we're going a little away from the minimum requirement. So I think the minimum requirement is that this play seat with your uh direct drive, with your load cell pedals, is moved nice and close to your home TV. So if you've got like a fifty inch TV at home, which is fairly standard right now, move your place as close as you can to that and then line up the graphics so that your hands are near where the computer game hands are. So turn this and turn the steering wheel off. Yes, because you the steering wheel is not the steering wheel on screen. The steering wheel is the steering wheel in your hands. And there might be delay. Yeah, it's true. It does look weird. I this one YouTuber, I really liked him, but he insisted on having uh the steering wheel graphic on and it didn't turn. So watching him race and the steering wheel's not turning up. What are you doing? Crazy. Anyway, very minor bugbear. So that's that's what so away from that minimum. If you then want to upgrade from one screen, what do you do? And the classic argument there is triples versus VR. Actually the cost is fairly similar. I would just say that VR is uh sorry, um triples is probably easier to run from a PC and uh VR has a f uh a little bit of a higher uh r hardware requirement. But you need the space for three screens. Exactly. And I don't have that space. Well you can see where my sim rig is, it's right in the corner. So there I literally I don't know how you've got it where you don't have anything in front of you. Okay, so this is bad. So yeah, so my sim rig is facing the opposite way behind me. I ha I move the chair that I'm sitting on, that becomes my mouse pad next to the VR screen. And obviously, when you're controlling the mouse and everything in this thing, you see it in your VR. Uh when I'm in between races, I have to jump out and I've got a stool then by my desk where I have to set up all the races, then I jump back in. So I'm jumping in and out quite a lot. It's just the limitations of my of my office. But yeah, so uh if you've got a decent PC, right, and you've got a graphics card, uh actually the requirements now are lower. So I've got the Quest three. The Quest three requirements are actually much lower than they used to be with the old Reverb uh G two that w that a bunch of people used to have. So i if if it's a straight choice in cost, which is it it's fairly similar . Uh I would always go for the immersion of VR because the VR racing experience where you move your head every single thing . There's a car alongside you, move your head over to the left and you can see the wing mirror suddenly and all those things the like you know, you you're driving around the Austrian Grand Prix circuit and you see the hills. I get distracted. I get distracted by the mountains. Oh my goodness. Look up on the hill, high on the hill with a lonely goat. And if you race with us for the first time in VR, you get to have your virginity taken by me of flipping you upside down. I got yours, I got Kyle's. So when you're yeah, when you get like fully flipped over and roll in VR, you're like, Oh, I feel sick. This is bad. This is bad. Um no, I wouldn't VR experience for everything anything, but um when we were doing MX5s, a lot, you know, I I'd finish the race and I'd I'd try and open the door of the M X5, and that's how kind of immersed I was. Oh, no, I'm not really in it. And as as good as like we've got people with we know people with great uh uh huge screen triples, if you look up , you see a light fitting. If you look to the side, you see your mate sitting there laughing at you. It's just there's nothing for me can replicate that VR experience. And if you told me that it's definitely costing me three tenths, I go, yeah, fine, I'll take it. Four tenths, five tenths? Yeah, yeah, I'll take it. It's a real competition and it's costing you a second, maybe. But honestly, the experience of a VR headset. And by the way, if you're a parent, buy you will So I have the Quest 3 connected with a K a powered cable to my PC. But if you're a parent, you're like, I bought a Quest 3 for the family. And then you only have to sneak it away at night to go and do your your My kids are still too little for it to fit on their little heads. Oh no, no they're not. Your oldest is eleven. I had mine in VR from way younger. Oh she got a little pea head. Bless her little thing. I I'm pretty sure with my V we used we had a towel at one point folded up behind her head so that it would fit her head. Ah you go for it. Anyway. So uh d just to give you an idea as far as PC specs are concerned, right? Oh yeah, PC specs is important if we're doing thirty-two gigaram minimum these days, unfortunately, whether you like them or not. And I know cute. Oh minim um. I only have to get still minimum. This is our hobby, okay? So we're not I'm don't have a golf membership. And again, I've had I uh this PC I bought during COVID and I've just slowly upgrade triggers broom, I've like slowly upgraded it. And I have a thirty eighty, which is two generations old as far as GPUs can be concerned. Runs runs fine. That's the graphics card, by the way. And a and a and a modern chip. So I'm on a I'm on an I five thirteen something. Everything in my PC is at least two and a half years old and it's all fine. But but it was yeah, big spec. But yes, you do need enough spec, but I think that kind of equation as technology goes forward is is starting to come down a bit. I think most standard machines in the future will run what we're talking about. As long as you're not planning on streaming a 4K and all this kind of stuff If if you just want to bare minimum get on and you just wanna drive yourself, you'll be fine. And there's plenty out there. There's plenty of pre builds you can buy. I bought mine from a company called Cyberpower and they just have loads of pre be pre built specs. Just click 'em, they'll all work. It's fine. So uh buy a present for your family, Quest three. Buy a powered cable, because it's got to be a long cable and it has to have then you have to plug a USB into like a little box in the middle of it to power it. Uh upgrade your PC to a a now we could talk about minimum PC levels, but go and research that because you know you can pick up secondhand PCs that have been gaming PCs. The important thing is you do need a dedicated graphics card. So then you know you can just look at what's on eBay and and then plug that into chat GPT or something and say, will this run iRacing with my my VR headset ? Get yourself a flow out. Uh so then the next step up though is we do not not have fold out play seats. Both of us have got big aluminium rigs. Now I have a big aluminium rig. This seat is the cheapest part of it. So I think this seat was actually about 120 quid, which bolted onto the aluminium frame, which by the way I cut myself to shreds building. It was the awful worst thing I've ever built. I think I paid six hundred pounds for the frame. So I get my I got my frame from a guy called C y Turnbull on Facebook. He basically makes the al cuts the aluminium to size in his shed and sells it. Mine was mine mine's a full rig with a full stand for a thing, and it's the the ultimate version. The so I'm looking down at it. One, two, three, so the the profile on the floor is four profiles of aluminium and it was two hundred and twenty five quid. Oh wow. Okay, yeah. He does he does crazy deals. If you don't w if you do not care about a brand name and you don't want it to be black and you're just happy with it being standard silver aluminium, cy turnboard on Facebook. Okay, yeah. It's a bit janky and a bit weird , but he's been selling them for years who is it, John. Which John is it in our in our Patreon chat in our iRacing community? Just built one out of wood. Yeah, he just built one out of wood. He's like, Yeah, I've got some wood lying around, I'll just build a rig out of wood. So you can you can spend uh with a minimum or you can slowly upgrade things. But what I will say is the sibling rig I've got now, I bought I that was finished like three years ago, I would probably say. That I've had the same one for like three years. And so I mean s once you've got the right kit, it's it's sitting there, you know, it's like a good set of golf clubs. You know I'm sitting there hammering away. I'll never but this this will be my forever rick. I'm I I have unless I win the lottery I have absolutely no need to ever change this unless I want a divorce, I have no need to ever change this sim rig. But once the lottery divorce solid once you get that solid frame, it really does feel like you're in a race car. And this is why I'm I I don't think I'm lying. When I jumped in that F4 car, I know I wasn't pushing the corners at racing speeds, it just felt the same. It felt like I was absolutely fine. Whatever they would have let me done have done in that F4 car, I would have done it because it just it felt like my little rig. And and you know people they make a lot of oh the sensation of speed, the G-force. At F4 level, I mean I did crank it a couple of times and and and boot the loud pedal. It's all right. I think you just get used to that fairly quickly. If you're someone who's generally fine with doing fast adrenaline-y things, then I I I think most people would be broadly fine. Uh I'm not saying I could drive an F1 car, but if you're listening to this and you think I'm full of hubris and stupid. I believe I can drive an F four car at racing speed in a competitive grid. And if you hate me and you want to see me kill myself doing that, why not throw loads of money at me to go and do it. Like we can document it all and at the end you can go, yep, he's dead, but I mean we told him. We told him, but he's got to be. Yeah, I think that's about three grand is what I heard. Um what's his face from Driver61 gives it away occasionally? Uh Scott Mansell. Scott Mansell that's, the one. I often um uh apply for that one. I'd love to have a go at that. Yeah, and a lot of people have done that experience claiming that they were being guested by Renault. It's so funny. I don't want to call out the I don't w cannaall out the podcaster 'cause it sounds like I'm just doing sal grapes at the end. Wasn't spoken from rich energy. There was a podcaster as well. A top top, top top, top top, top top podcaster did the same thing. Oh, I'm finally doing my dream. I've been invited by Renault. No, you paid like three years ago. Oh, we had an interview with himself. Talking about it. I think I've seen that one. Yeah. Uh and definitely Rich Story from uh Rich Energy did did the same thing as well. Um yeah, you go, Oh, I can't believe thank you so much to the guys at Renault who took my three thousand pounds. So yeah, uh yeah. Anyway, guys, I think um look, we we could have each of these topics we just explored, we could have expounded on and and and and and pulled out of uh and pulled more information out of so many people ask us to relaunch the iRacing pod. Plain and simple uh answer to that is just ran out of material. Yeah not enough content. Just run out of material. I really enjoyed doing yeah thoroughly enjoyed that podcast No, with F I'd rather do this once every now and then eight, nine months than just to new people. Well we could do like a sim corner or a carting corner every now and then and go, hey, let's have a little sim catch up and talk about all our sim racing experiences. Uh however, I do have the bug back for sim racing. It's back. Uh I I want to start doing more uh missed apex iRacing. So this is my announcement. We are going to do an F4 British F4 championship. Ooh. British tracks. Open setups. No, Alex, no, no one wants to do open setups . No one wants to do open setups. Standard high racing setups. But British tracks, so like for example, what you're Silwaston, obviously, uh Brands Hatch, Donington, Alton Park, what's the one with Bombhole? There's one that's called Bomb there's a track that's got that on it. Um Oh no we don't do it there. Um the one with Oh um Cadwell. Cadwell, yeah, you don't do Cadwell? No, okay. Cad Cadwell's Death. Okay. It's a single track road. In real life it's an awesome racetrack, but in the sim it would just be death. But yeah, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do British F4 uh series and uh we're gonna go we're gonna go i racing again. And and the F four to me, it's the right level for people to pick up who aren't massively into sim