My teammate Christian Krognes is a RL karter in the Intercontinental A class.

Here's his website: http://www.chriskart.net/

He hasn't had time to update the 2006 results though.

i know a few ppl who drift in LFS who drift in comps IRL..

Quote from shim :

i know a few ppl who drift in LFS who drift in comps IRL..

Drifting is a whole lot easier to get into compared to professional/formal racing, so there's no surprises there. I myself also have a few friends that drift IRL, in competition or grassroot events.

Anyways, there's this australian called TNDA who was once a regular LFS player as well, he is now racing regularly in his Impreza in one of those racing clubs, don't know if that counts.

Yeah anything counts so to speak.
I was also interested in RL racer's views on LFS. What's realistic and what's not.
My bet is that most aspects of LFS are in fact close to the real thing with the biggest differences being G-forces and other loads on your body when racing. My (limited) karting experience will attest to that.

Quote from deggis :

Tristan wrote in the Vienna Show thread that some Lotus Caterham driver tested LFS. IIRC he complained about the lack of grip

Couldn't blame him for being wrong

BTW, I never knew all that stuff about Norbi. Dang Norbi, lucky guy!! Keep up the good work!

Quote from farcar :

Yeah anything counts so to speak.
I was also interested in RL racer's views on LFS. What's realistic and what's not.
My bet is that most aspects of LFS are in fact close to the real thing with the biggest differences being G-forces and other loads on your body when racing. My (limited) karting experience will attest to that.

I'll second the impact of not feeling the g-forces. While I'm not a RL racer, I have autocrossed extensively and done some track time. Recently I've had the opportunity to spend some seat time in a Force Dynamics 301 w/ LFS and while there are still low speed grip issues, they are much less severe when you can feel the g-forces.

The XR GT Turbo was very well behaved although still a bit more tail happy at low speeds than my car (which is similar in power/weight ratio).

The FO8, which I could barely drive at all with my normal wheel and pedals, became controllable. The biggest difference was that you felt the loss of traction before you could see it on screen and that meant I could correct in time. Without the forces, by the time i realized it on screen, i usually couldn't catch it.

MagicTurttle :: Busta is racing Rally Cross

his father is Jean Luc Paillet who won french and european rally cross champ several time

I was racing last night on the CoRe server with a couple of guys who do Canadian touring cars and the Speed World GT Challenge. Nice dudes.

Max Ernst form our team once competed at the Deutsche Kart Meisterschaft (german cart championship) and at the Formel König (junior formel championship). After private and financial issues he had to stop reallife racing.

It really sucks that racing is that expensive... hope to compete someday at a little cup or racing event.

Is current F1 driver enough "professional"?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v7HJ14Vt2nQ

Quote from XCNuse :

it cant be damon hill, remember.. when they had damon on the show he and also nigel mansell had a weird line compared to the stigs

yeh all formula 1 drivers who have been on the show took a totally different line than the stig.
so obviously he isnt a formula one driver

A guy in spdoRacing called Valtteri Bottas, 18 y/o from Finland, races a Formula Renault 2.0 in the Northern European Cup. He's 3rd in the championship in his first season with a pole position and a few podiums, including a wet race where he was 2 seconds per lap faster than the rest of the field. Last weekend he was racing at Spa, and the last race of the season will be at Hockenheim next weekend.

Before this year he raced karts, and won some national championships in Finland. If you want to read anything else about his driving career and achievements check out his page on the driver database.

One of the events he took part in last year is quite interesting for LFSers; he raced in the FIA Northern European ICA championship with a couple of LFS drivers, Chriskart and Kenneth of F1rst racing.

His LFS username is Vale, but he doesn't play LFS too much as he's quite busy with his real racing career.

Quote from NSX_FReeDoM :

yeh all formula 1 drivers who have been on the show took a totally different line than the stig.
so obviously he isnt a formula one driver

Stigs done a LOT of laps of that track though - he can tell the "racing line" as good as anyone (hack most LFS'ers can!), but he also knows which bits are slippery in the wet etc

The Stig has been an F1 driver, Heikki Kovalainen was the stig when they took the Renault around the TG test track in under a minute.

Quote from Jianju :

I want to build a system that will allow me to push myself beyond the limit without breaking my neck and/or trashing a $60K+ sportscar.

no matter what you build: you will not be able to feel anything more than 1 G.

... and even average roadcars brake harder than 1 G. (i think it's 4.5 in F1... yummy!!!)

Quote from m o b y :

the two best car in my opinion that is closest to reality is FXO and FOX.

FOX ftw

Sean Edwards played LFS

There is a current BTCC driver that race's on LFS. He's a M8 of Niki's ( come on Niki, what's his name )

Our own [SR] Kristjan (Einar) is in Formula 3 with Carlin Motorpsport

"Jeep" has himself a beemer.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8hz2eO_nGJU

Just one of his videos, check his username for more, really classy car he has.

Maybe polish F1 driver Robert Kubica will try LFS (they have LFS-ForceDynamics sim at F1 team, but I don't know if he know that it is LFS). He is known as a sim fan, playing a lot of RBR. He was even polish champion in Colin MacRae Rally.
We had Intel Racing Tour in Poland this year, and top drivers from each city went to race with Robert on indoor kart track. Most of the finalyst were from polish LFS forum, and they talk with Robert about joining polish LFS community. So who knows...

Quote from Fordman :

There is a current BTCC driver that race's on LFS. He's a M8 of Niki's ( come on Niki, what's his name )

Eoin Murray I think

Nascar mexican driver Carlos Contreras plays LFS

Quote from Jianju :

This is the issue I've been searching for. Just how close to the real thing is LFS on an FD-301? Is it useful training for the real thing, or will it give you bad habits? I'll readily admit, I'm not here for playing games. I want to build a system that will allow me to push myself beyond the limit without breaking my neck and/or trashing a $60K+ sportscar.

But not to derail this thread... I'll start a new one, I suppose...

You can get all kinds of fancy gizmos for your computer and it still won't be the "real" thing. Are simulators useful for honing your skills? Definitely. They "simulate" the "real" thing, that's why they're called simulators. I'm all out for real and simulated racing, don't take me wrong. It's pretty common for real racers to use simulators to get ready for their next event also. I play every chance I get. LFS recreates alot of realism, but it is lacking in some areas (downforce, damage, etc). There's bunch of games that get close to the real thing (GT, Forza, Enthusia, etc..), but they're always missing some kind of a detail that'd put them on top. And the actual "realism" of having your butt strapped to the car
If you don't wanna spend much and still wanna try racing, check out SCCA's or NASA's programs. Autocross, for example, is a very cheap way to test your limits and not break your neck. Time trials aren't too expensive either.

I race karts but that doesn't really count


However good LFS is, it will never simulate the effects of actual driving, and i don't see a game ever doing that, but it's still bloody good fun!