There is no question that car driving games are fun! Getting to drive cars of your choice on several of the leading tracks throughout the globe, pitted against other sim racers couldn't be anything but fun.

What is not as well recognized, is if car driving games actually make for a good training aid.

As stated by Dale Earnhardt, Jr, the actual answer is without a doubt a resounding YES!

During a recent interview, Dale was quoted as declaring that when he goes out to a fresh track, its takes him over an hour to get himself up to full speed, and its not until that hour has passed that his feedback actually becomes useful to the team's engineers. Now, in lieu of "wasting" that hour, Dale heads out onto the new track on his computer, well before he ever arrives at the actual physical facility.

So, how is it that a video game can genuinely make you a far better racing driver? Lets take a peek...

First off, the tracks in modern PC racing games are exact replicas of the real thing. Advanced technology, including precise GPS computer data is used extensively by developers when generating a modern track. This creates a exceptionally realistic virtual racing experience and furnished with this, racers will get to discover not only the total layout of the track, but also their braking and turn in points for every single corner.

As an example, should you head into turn one inside the track of your selection on your pc, you'll find the fact that the trackside objects in the video game, are precisly the same as the trackside objects in real life. Moreover, their placement on the side of the track, relative to the corner, is precisely the same as their placement in the real-world.

Likely the next most helpful part of the online racing experience is the car setup. The engineers that design today's games put immense effort towards the game's physic model and this makes for a considerably more "realistic" feeling race car. Ad to that the plethora of adjustments that one can make in the garage, and the outcome is that the virtual racer has the possibility to do extensive testing of varied race setups; all from his computer. While the exact settings tend not to transfer to his race car, the principles behind the adjustments to transfer over, and that is going to make the driver substantially more valuable to his team with regards to giving feedback to the race engineers.

And finally, we have the actual head-to-head racing that today's online racing experience provides.

Inside the real world, many a race has been forfeited because of an accident that occurred when the driver made an gaffe in judgement. To phrase it differently, many races are lost in the first turn because of a collision.

With online racing, the mental component of the competition is precisely the same as it is in the real world. The significance of being able to get all this bonus competitive seat time is tremendous, and without having the PC racing experience, the only way to get all this seat time was to head to the track. Now, without spending any cash, today's budding racer can log literally thousands and thousands of hours of practice against other racers; all from the convenience of his PC. Of all the positive factors we've just covered, this one is possibly the biggest.

Believe me, I understand from experience.