I don't know where else to post this, but forgive me as it's slightly off topic.
How cool is this. In what I believe is the only twin victory by a single driver in a single make series, Brian Heitcotter took home two separate wins last weekend in the Utah Pirelli World Challenge GT3 event. What's so remarkable? Well, Heitcotter was diddling away on the PS4 just five year ago at the ripe old age of 30. After that he had the good sense to yank himself into the Sony Driver Academy, meant to turn console gamers into professionals. Yes, console gamers are talented. Here is how it went:
"Heitkotter, 35, led every lap in the two GT features this weekend in the PWC Grand Prix presented by Energy Solutions. Heitkotter won his first PWC GT main event on Saturday. Heitkotter, who gained notoriety when he won the Nissan GT Academy scholarship in 2011 on the Gran Turismo 5 video game, vaulted to the lead Sunday from his No. 2 starting spot and never looked back as second place Adderly Fong and third place Patrick Long attempted to apply pressure on the Nissan driver in the middle of the 28-lap, 50-minute GT main event with temperatures reaching near triple digits in the Tooele Valley southwest of Salt Lake City."
http://world-challenge.com/latest/series-news/heitkotter-doubles-gt-sunday-utah-motorsports-campus/
Yea, that's THE Patrick Long in third there. America has a long history of GT racing and, to this day, has tracks that best showcase the grunt and speed of those type of cars. It's all about momentum. In looking over the history of the GT Academy, there has been a winner at LeMans, but it was a group win, in a factory car. Not the same, I'd argue.
It's not like Heitcotter came out of nowhere. Well...um...scratch that...maybe he did. He does not even have a
Wiki page, as he races along side
Johnny O'Connell (perhaps the best GT racer on earth) and and
Patrick Long (who could write a book on LeMans and then write two sequels and still have 100 more stories than anyone else).
And it's not like the Utah track is on the PS4 (or any SIM that I know of). Okay, so that's irrelevant...but my point being...this Heitcotter dude is both "old" and not "been racing since he could pee w/o assistance." There is no *there* there in calling him out. There is no "it's just destiny and we all feel good...like with Senna" there. It's simply...video gamers...can drive. Perhaps you know this. Perhaps some of you are drivers (as was I...sorta). But for many of us who can only dream (at 49)...this is way cool, and confirmation of what we knew all along.
P.S. - You can trot out Lucas Ordonez all you want, but winning a GT300 race in Japan (not even the marquee event) with the driver lineup looking more like a sumo wrestling match than a race, I can't buy it. Lucas' competition (in 2nd and 3rd) in the support series included such juggernauts as
Katsuyuki Hiranaka and
Björn Wirdheim.
Highlights of Heitcotter's dual wins at Utah:
