INDIANAPOLIS, IN – There’s no feeling quite like the first time you get behind the wheel of a race car, and for Davin Foster, a rising young karting star on the verge of making his transition to cars, several days earlier this week at the RaceCraft1 facility in Indianapolis was a special one.
After much anticipation, and after a special fine-tuning session by IndyCar’s newest winner, James Hinchcliffe and Dragon Racing driver Sebastian Saavedra, Foster finally took the controls of a sophisticated, high-tech machine that provides the best training and most realistic driving experience available, a SimXperience Stage 5 Pro Racing Simulator equipped with an Ultraforce GS-4 G-seat. After the initial training, the simulator will be transported and installed in the family’s home.
“What an incredible experience, especially knowing that two top IndyCar drivers helped make sure it was the closest thing possible to actually being in a race car,” said the 15 year-old son of a software engineer. “When I finally get to drive a real car on a real racetrack, I’ll already know so much more than everyone I’m competing against. Once you get in the seat and into the rhythm of driving, the rest of the world sort of disappears and you start really learning how the car behaves, the tricks of the track and how to change the setup to make the car do what you want it to. I wish school had a machine that taught history like this! If my parents ever wonder where I am at midnight, they just need to follow the sound of a race car upshifting and hard on the gas.”
RaceCraft 1, a top racer development and training program headquartered in Indianapolis, is an official dealer and customer training center for the SimXperience line of racing simulators and Ultraforce Simulations G-seats.
The top-of-the-line unit that now belongs to Davin Foster, priced at $22,500, is a SimXperience Stage 5 Pro features three 47-inch HDTVs, a 22-inch touchscreen, and is pre-reconfigured with both iRacing and rFactor2. The unit features motorized pedals and monitor adjustment, advanced Force Feedback Steering with quick-release GT and Formula wheels, sequential and H-pattern gearshift, Tilton pedals with Wilwood hydraulics, and a full Sim Vibe complement.
The other major component that makes the whole experience as accurate as possible is the Ultraforce GS-4 G-seat provides realistic motion feedback to the driver. Unlike other motion systems such as motion platforms, the GS-4 can produce strong sustained motion feedback through use of movable panels that apply pressure directly to the body of the driver. Also, unlike most other motion simulators, the GS-4 responds to all up/down, side-to-side, and forward/backward G-forces that occur in the simulation. Almost any motion cue a driver feels in a real car can be conveyed by a GS-4. The Ultraforce GS-4 can be easily added to existing simulators as a replacement to a static racing seat.
“We have been using our own custom-built simulators in our racer training program for years, but even with as much as we know about how real it seems, we were very impressed with the combination of SimXperience simulator and Ultraforce seat,” says RaceCraft1 principal Kelly Jones. “Once James Hinchcliffe, Sebastian Saavedra and James Davison helped us get the fine-tuning just right, even they were eager to get behind the wheel. Davin hasn’t driven a real race car yet, but I’ve driven plenty, and if I’d had a tool like this available when I was starting out, I’d still be racing today.”
From RaceCraft 1
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