LeMans: So Easy, A Video Game Racer Can Do It

This past weekend, a young man named Lucas Ordonez finished in second place in the reasonably-well-contested LMP2 class at LeMans. The video-gaming world has taken notice, because Mr. Ordonez entered racing as the winner of the PlayStation GT Academy a few years ago.

This proves the truth of what every basement-dwelling, sunlight-allergic gamer geek has been saying for years: being fast in a racing video game makes you fast in real racing. After all, if a kid from nowhere can step from his couch into a racing program and fulfill the lifetime dream of nearly every sports-car racer in the world, surely “Gran Turismo” is a genuine, realistic training tool, right?

Naturally, the truth of the matter is not so simple.

Three years ago, Lucas Ordonez won the “Playstation GT Academy” final shootout, which took place using real cars on a real racetrack. Following that win, according to the Daily Mail:

The last three months of 2008 saw Lucas on an intensive driver training program so he could qualify for an international racing license. He got the license faster than anyone had before, then joined former Le Mans and Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert in a Nissan/Playstation Academy Nissan 350Z in the Dubai 24 hour race.

It’s a belief of mine that racers are trained, not born. Courage and hand-eye coordination may be the gifts of nature and nurture, but everything else is the simple result of effort and application. A three-month course with professional coaches could turn almost anyone into a racer. To put this into perspective, the average SCCA racing license school is two days long.

But what about the claim made by many modern racing coaches — that without proper training in one’s youth, it is impossible to drive at the top levels? Some coaches say that unless a driver has significant karting experience by the age of ten, it’s literallly too late.

Ordonez, who comes from a racing family and was a keen go-karter in his early years before being forced to give up through lack of finances to focus on his studies

Oops. Turns out the couch-potato kid video-gaming his way to victory has a bit of a pedigree.

A spectacular first-up effort prompted Nissan to sign Ordoñez to a full program in the 2009 GT4 European Cup which saw him finish the series in second place with two wins and six podiums – by this stage he was racing at the forefront of an international series less than 12 months after full time studies.

Note for those of you who are unfamiliar with racing: “sign” usually means “accept a check from”. In this case, Mr. Ordonez has run the Sony livery for a few years now. It’s also not uncommon for “funded” drivers to go from sideline to major series very quickly; I know a fellow who went from trackdays to Grand-Am podiums in under a year thanks to a seven-figure source of personal income and plenty of disposable time to train. Still, having funding only puts you on track. When the green flag flies, it’s up to the driver, and Lucas has delivered every time.

At LeMans, he was also lucky enough to have a co-driver who was a full second faster than any other driver/car combination during his stints. Good codrivers and a solid team make it possible to overcome diffiiculties. The final result: second place, worldwide glory, and a starring role in Sony’s Cinderella story. One headline, “Sofa So Good For Gamer Turned Racer,” pretty much sums up the way the media is reporting it, perhaps because “Karting Champion Succeeds at Auto Racing With Substantial Cash Backing” was already used to describe Michael Schumacher’s career.

TTACers who want to try their own hand at replacing Mr. Ordonez should get in line for the next GT Academy. I’d try it myself, and I am going to save up for a new PS3 at some point, but I’ll be too busy working on “Guitar Hero”, hoping that John Mayall is watching the results and thinking about plucking me from obscurity to follow in the footsteps of Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Walter Trout and others as a “Bluesbreaker”.