Davide Nativo
Premium
Where it all started for me... and where for you?
I can still remember that moment very clearly. It was late summer, 2002, and my copy of Grand Prix Legends had just arrived at my local store. I waited two full weeks for it, something unconceivable today where everything is shipped even across the world in a matter of days, if not hours depending on the product. Those were probably some of the longest weeks of my life, daydreaming all the time about all the things I wanted to do in what I later discovered had to be my first simracing game.
Mind you, I was just a boy, twelve years old then, whose spark about cars was ignited thanks to the classic “Grand Prix” movie. My father had a VHS of it, which I literally wiped out for how many times I watched it. How old I was when it happened, it is still a matter of discussion to this very day, but we agree that I was not older than five when I first saw that film.
Thus, I was waiting and waiting for my GPL disc to arrive, browsing in the meantime through pictures of the game and reading through the manual written for it, “Four Wheel Drift”. Can you imagine?
I went to collect my copy. My father was kind enough to let me install it and play it on his PC, because mine, an old Pentium 166 MHz, could not run it at all. I created my profile, chose my helmet colour, and picked up my drive.
The BRM P115.
Why, you ask? Why not the Ferrari 312? I do not really know. I guess that “Grand Prix” played a role in this too. I always liked the character of Scott Stoddard in the movie, and that maybe was the reason why I decided to drive that first. It was heavy, it was understeering everywhere, it had a noisy engine, more fit for truck driving and delivering F1 cars, rather than powering one, but I loved every single moment of it.
I kept driving the BRM for months on end, and it was where my simracing story really started. It was difficult, to learn for the first time how to drive to the limit, how to cope with other drivers competing, in a vehicle like that. However, I did, and as I was saying, I just loved every moment. In the end, I switched to the Ferrari, and stayed with it in the game to this very day, but I owe so much to that iconic British bulldog. I have so many fond memories with that lovely car, and I am so happy that it was with it that all this began.
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Which was the first car you drove in a sim, any sim? Why did you chose that in particular? Was it fun, was it hard, do you have any unforgettable memories of it? How everything simracing related started for you?
I would really love to hear about it, in the comments below!
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