WADING IN THE SIM POOL
Want to race on all the best racetracks? It’s possible to do it all, from Manukau.
Letting loose on a racetrack is one of motoring’s great gifts. Being able to get away from the daily grind and put your foot down without one eye on the speedo is a car lover’s delight.
Following the closure of Pukekohe Park Raceway, NZ is left with just seven racetracks (not including the private Rodin Cars test track): three in the north island, four in the south, on which to prep and transport a car, book a day and drive.
But spanning as north as Hampton Downs all the way to Invercargill’s Teretonga Park, it’s the time, budget and practicality factors that can kill aspirations. So, simulators have really come alive in recent years, and the likes of Gran Turismo, Forza and Assetto Corsa being able to replicate some of the world’s best tracks like Spa, Suzuka, Nurburgring and Bathurst. But no Kiwi tracks . . . ?
Nope, at least on gaming consoles, there are no Kiwi tracks, which we discovered recently while preparing to race our DRIVEN MX-5 in the Heritage Cup MX-5 series in the South Island: Levels in Timaru, Teretonga, Invercargill, and Ruapuna in Christchurch.
After months of research, we finally found a nirvana of online tracks and hardware at Kiwi Simulators. Nestled in Manukau, not far from Auckland airport, we discovered a goldmine of Kiwi tracks; in particular for our needs, both Teretonga and Ruapuna, that had been mapped for the PC game rFactor 2 — just one of the many brands handled by Kiwi Simulators.
After a chat with Nathan, we visited his display warehouse, with a full suite packed with simulators of all kinds, from racing, to rally, multi-screens, to even a truck driving simulator. With sims available to hire, rent for events and locations, private or corporate, or to purchase, the number of sim cockpits is vast, including the popular Hyper Stimulator. Most are designed to accept PC setups, though it would be possible to use gaming consoles. Some of the setups, however, are VERY professional, simulating, for example, the cabin of a V8 Supercar, with adjustable brake bias and roll bars.
That’s probably overkill for what we were trying to achieve: some familiarisation laps around Teretonga and Ruapuna, for our upcoming MX-5 rounds, at places we’d never visited.
Nathan set up his Supercar cockpit, with three screens, and chose a suitable Mazda MX-5 1.6 litre, albeit lefthand drive. And within minutes, we were exiting the Teretonga Park pitlane and on to the track, grabbing fourth gear down its main straight, and learning the track thanks to its coloured racing-line guide: this was super handy while learning, showing not just the racing line, but the braking, coasting and power-on points. Being able to remove the line stepped it up, then using actual track markers like poles or signs or barriers really helped — after 30 laps around Invercargill, we relocated to Christchurch, for 20 laps around Ruapuna, which proved rather important, given it’s considered NZ’s most technical track. Having the same car as we were racing gave us a good step-up into shift points and which gears work best in which corner. So, did it pay off? Absolutely! At Teretonga, we were fastest in all practice sessions, missed pole by 0.04 seconds, and won two of the three races to take out first overall for the weekend! At Ruapuna, technical gremlins hampered our efforts, but the ability to know exactly where the track went from the first live lap was invaluable. Lap times were indicative, but a few seconds faster than we achieved on the simulator — with more time to set up, we would have chosen/fitted sticker tyres on the sim car for a better match of our real-life race rubber.
For our very specific request, Kiwi Simulators came through, and for that we give them thanks and a thumbs up, but our few hours there only scratched the surface of the simulators on offer.
From an NZ perspective, arguably best of all, it’s also possible to race on Pukekohe Park Raceway. That alone is sensational, not just for the fun factor, but for preserving a bit of Kiwi motorsport history.