My First (Simracing) Car

[Mark Ratzenbacher]

Mini Cooper - GT Legends

I would spin out every other car, RWD was another level for me. Took me a few years to master the Mini and then it was driving Muscle Cars to figure RWD finally out. The hype never stopped and the learning curve is still up.

 

[RichardHessels]

1984 - Revs+ @ Commodore 64

 

[N'Gear]

Blame all my spendings on the 599xx evo in Assetto now way back in November 2014. Way back I have absolutely loved that car. Bought Asseto just because of it, it was the only sim that had it. Drove it at Monza for two hours. Many euros later, here I am today still hooked into sim racing

 

[Thales_98]

Even though it is not a full sim, Gran Turismo 4 is where all started for me, with the Lotus Esprit. Probably not the very first car I played with, but was my favourite at the time.
Nascar Racing 2003 season was also one of the first sims that I played. To this day I still suck in oval racing

 

[birle1]

For me has to be gpl, really sim racing. With gpl realised that this games have to be played with a wheel. When i can i am still racing online and if i can, always with mods. And i learned all i know about setups with gpl.

 

[Marc Collins]

Night Driver in arcade and then for Atari 2600 (1978).

I had just about every PC-based title ever released, but GPL is what really transformed me into a dedicated sim racer.

I was also involved in testing Network Q RAC Rally Championship in the mid-90s (followed by successors International Rally Championship and Mobil 1 Rally Championship). The best part of those for me was the stages based on real-life Ordnance Survey maps. The only rally title that has surpassed it for hard core realism to date is RBR, and even its stages were nowhere near as realistic.

 

[Nestoche]

The "Master" of Programming PC Racing Games and Legend.....Geoff Crammond's GP1 on the Amiga PC was the game that got my itch into simracing. The man was a PC racing programming artist! Just imagine what the man can do with today's technology and his brilliant mind and creative ideas!

Before GP1 was a racing game in what turned me into a Formula 1 addict to this day, a game called Ferrari F1 released by EA in 1986/87 for the Amiga.....Ah, the good old days!..lol

 

[Ben O'Bro]

Has to be 4D stunt driver...

and that famous track editor
in my big brother's room
probably listening to Kurt Cobain.

Yep, right in the feels!

 

[Marc Collins]

DELETE THIS DUPLICATE PLEASE

 

[michelforest]

I will show my age with this one but... my first ever game was "Grand Prix Circuit" for the Macintosh Plus. That was in 1989. The game fit on a 3.5'' floppy. You could drive 8 tracks from the 1988 season and 3 cars: Ferrari, Williams and McLaren. It was in black and white and, needless to say, you steered the car with the keyboard.

Here's the cover for the Commodore 64 version:

And a screenshot of the Mac version:

Grand Prix by Geoff Crammond seemed like a huge leap forward when it was released. I still think that Crammond's GP3 was one of the most enjoyable games I ever played.

 

[Rory Wetherington]

Pole position in the arcade 1982-ish
Richard Petty's Talladega for the c64 in 1985 (first home racing game; not counting the slot cars from the 70's)
Microprose GP1 1992 (game that made me buy my first joystick, think it was a Gravis analog joystick)
Nascar Racing 1995 (bought my first wheel, a TSW non force feedback for like $200 that pluged into the printer port, added a second phone line and was paying like $150-250/month for long distance just to race multiplayer on the HAWAII server.......and people say iRacing is expensive )

 

[motoliser]

Poleposition atari 82 or 83 not sure what car!!

 

[NDG]

Where it all started is not the question... I've been playing racing titles since 1990. When did the "SIM" branding started is the question. I played all of the games I played using "THE" controller of all the consoles I used. The very first time I used a wheel was in xpand rally. Not even sure if anybody here knows that title. And it was between 2006 to 2008 when I first heard the term "SIM racing"...

 

[Durge Driven]

Indy 500 made me buy a wheel and 8bit sound blaster

 

[delpinsky]

My very first was REVS on a C64 if I recall. But the one that got me loving it the most was IndyCar 2 on my first PC. 486DX I think.

Then the Geoff Crammond series. GP4 being the ultimate for me.
Here, once again for those new to it. A small video I made taken on an old phone years ago.

I started with my C64 as well, but with Ferrari Formula One, created by Rick Koenig

Then REVS. With my Amiga 500: Grand Prix by Geoff Crammond
With my very first PC: 486DX 66MHz Grand Prix again... and so on.

 

[Glen Orpheus]

REVS on a BBC Model B which came out well before the C64 version and ran so much faster and smoother.

 

[LeSunTzu]

Honda NSX in Racing Days R, but that was hardly a sim. In a proper simracing game it was the mighty Viper GTS-R of GTR2.

 

[R1Joel]

Tough one. The first I can remember is F12000 from EA Sports. Our family had a computer that could barely run it. I remember at every braking zone the smoke from the AI would cause me to have probably 5fps. But I played countless hours on it, mostly with Ferrari and Schumacer, my hero growing up. I don't think it is considered a sim, but it's where it all started really. I had NFS Hot Pursuit 3 before F1, but I didn't sink the hours into it as I did with F1. All on a keyboard. I do very vaguely remember player a couple of racing games on the old Sega MegaDrive/Genesis. A Nascar game and something else.

We then got an original Xbox, so I played Project Gotham Racing and Forza Motorsport. The game I really remember from the Xbox though is Richard Burns Rally. I had so much fun and still remember how great the driving was on it, even with a gamepad.

In 2010 (I think) I discovered rFactor. I only had a laptop, no wheel but I downloaded the demo and played it quiet a lot but gave up because I didn't have the computing power or a wheel. So I don't know where my first "sim" would come in. But racing games have always been apart of my life.
It took about 8 years longer, but now I have the setup I always dreamed of as a kid 18 years ago.

 

[Dark Cyphwe]

Yes my friend. GPL, where my true passion for racing simulators began. Thanks to the GPL Preservation Society, I play to this day, just to feel a little of that old, incomparable sensation. It was 1989...

I think that was 1998?

 

[vruum]

1982 Flight Simulation on the Sinclair ZX81 got me hooked on "simulation" and "realism".
1984 Pole Position on the Sinclair Spectrum got me started on racing.

Indy 500 from Papyrus showed me that "simulation" = "PC".
Me and my friends sneaked in the computer room to play it on the university computers and drove the sysadmin mad Those were the days !