Gran Turismo Gamer Becomes Pro Race Driver

An anonymous reader writes "Back in 2008, Lucas Ordonez lived what seemed like an ordinary existence. The 22-year-old Spanish student was an avid motorsports fan, but he lacked the suitable investment necessary to become a professional race driver and had virtually given up on racing. Besides, he was already knee-deep in trying to complete a Master of Business Administration (MBA). But it was Ordonez' passion for virtual racing, particularly his love of Gran Turismo, that made him stand out from his peers — both off the track and eventually on it. In just a few months, Ordonez' life was transformed from console dreamer to racing the real thing at a real race track in Europe. And Ordonez managed to do the unthinkable: go from the couch car to the race car, and win."

Comments

Re:It's different

[MikeBabcock]

You haven't actually done your research obviously. Several drivers have in fact used the Gran Turismo for car control. There's an interesting interview with one driver who said he's used Gran Turismo to practice certain tricky corners before getting to a track because wrecking the car in the game is a lot more forgiving than doing it in real life.

Gran Turismo has the graphics mapped down to the location of the markings on the asphalt and the positions of the trees from the real tracks. The tracks aren't flat either, they have bumps and unevenness from the mapping of the real asphalt. While the game doesn't map a few interesting bits like tire wear over time or vehicle weight changes from fuel usage, it is in fact very very accurate.

In fact, most people I know who enjoy Gran Turismo, including myself, have a hard time explaining why to our gamer friends who insist "its not fun" because its too realistic.

Re:this means nothing

[Chris Mattern]

In more than one case, the US forces playing the "enemy" side, if they defeated the "friendly" side, had their capabilities reduced and the game re-run until the friendly side won.

Absolutely false. Read up on the "Red Flag" exercises. The "enemy" is an elite unit whose *only* duty is to perform as the enemy in these exercises. They almost always win, since this is all they do. This is expected, and desired, as it's expected that the training unit will learn much more from having the crap beat out of it.