Another box had arrived at the front door today. Being a streamer and a hermit, Michael was often getting stuff mailed to him. He had so much streaming equipment backed up that there was a closet dedicated to it. I would call it wasteful, but at the same time there’s nothing stopping me from going in there and ‘borrowing’ his unused streaming equipment, so I see nothing wrong with it. He probably wouldn’t notice in the first place.

The box in hand was quite huge. It was quite possibly the biggest thing I’ve ever seen delivered to Michael. It had some weight as well. Not too much, but enough to know that it warranted the huge box. Once inside, I placed it on the counter in the kitchen and left it there for him to get. I had no idea what it was, so I would feel bad if I opened it myself. Tearing up and throwing away the junk mail, I returned to my room, where I had been playing Gran Turismo 7.

Truth be told, I’ve had a PlayStation 4 the whole time but only got around to hooking it up a month and a half ago. Playing CS:GO reminded me that other, more enjoyable games exist, and that some of them are on consoles. Violet didn’t want to play all the time, and I’d rather eat dog shit than play CS:GO solo. We still played, but not almost everyday like two months ago.

After blowing off all of the dust on the PlayStation, updating whatever software it needed to update, and updating Gran Turismo 7, I was in business.

I have been playing Gran Turismo 7 almost every day for the last few weeks–most of the time spent either looking at custom liveries or doing daily races. They didn’t have any liveries of ‘Francis’ (both of them), and there were only a few of Violet. There were an abundance of VTuber-themed liveries, but the lion’s share of them were of Japanese VTubers. VTubers from NijiLive were heavily represented, AnyClover was a distant second.

I was playing on a controller, which wasn’t ideal, but wasn’t all that unusual for a Gran Turismo game. Real racing game heads typically use racing wheel setups for their racing, not only for the ‘realism’, but also because racing using a wheel and pedal was more precise and ‘faster’.

With racing games like Gran Turismo 7, there was no one other to blame for your failures than yourself. While there were ‘idiot drivers’, there were no ‘idiot teammates’. You are in control of your own destiny. As long as you don’t get punted off, you have no one to blame other than yourself.

Gran Turismo 7, while being touted as “THE REAL DRIVING SIMULATOR”, was in reality nowhere near the most ‘realistic’ racing sim. Games like iRacing and Assetto Corsa were considered the creme de la creme of racing simulators. Gran Turismo occupies the sweet spot where it still requires skill to be able to race, but you don’t need to have a ten-thousand-dollar wheel setup to rise to the top. Using a controller is viable in Gran Turismo, but not ideal.

Using a controller, my main bad habit while driving was being too quick on the gas exiting a corner. I had traction control off, which made the probability of spinning out go up at the benefit of going faster through corners. Having traction control at 0 and accidentally pressing on the gas too hard, which was very easy to do on a controller, would mean certain death if you lacked grip. To make sure this never happens, I instead learned to be more careful on the gas. On some corners, you can high-tail it out as soon as you see daylight, but on other corners, like the Mercedes-Arena section of the Nurburgring Grand Prix Circuit, require you to feather it on the gas. Pretend that there’s an egg under the pedal, as an experienced driver would tell you. You had to do the same for braking. Slamming the brakes indiscriminately would most often cause you to lock up and understeer off track. This part was more confusing to inexperienced drivers such as I, because conventional wisdom tells you that you need to brake in order to make the turn. On a controller, it was very easy to overbrake since you had the same problem with instinctively pressing down all the way. It took countless laps to learn how to brake appropriately. You had to compare it to driving in real life in order to get a grasp on how to drive. Think about it, when do you ever press all the way down on your gas or brake pedal while driving in real life? The only time you would slam the brakes in real life is if you had to stop all in a sudden–usually something you only do in a panic. If you’re racing, then that’s one thing, but slamming your gas pedal when the red light turns green would most certainly cause insane wheelspin, and pressing fully down on your brakes while approaching a stop sign would cause you to lock up and slide past it. If you had a racing wheel setup, you were less likely to instantly slam on either pedals indiscriminately, since you have more of a feel of what’s going to happen if you do. In this way, the Gran Turismo series was really the “Real Driving Simulator”. If you were just playing to vibe and drive around, you could always have assists on so you didn’t have to deal with all of this–you would drive a lot slower, however.

That was only a few of the myriad of factors that mattered while driving. There are countless others I could go over, but the point is this: Driving with a controller is completely doable, but a wheel is more precise. It’s a bit like playing a fighting game with a controller versus playing with an arcade stick. Playing fighting games with controllers was competitively viable, but sticks were the way to go if you took the game seriously. It was more fun as well. In the end, both ways are competitive, albeit requiring different driving styles. Any lack of pace in a standard online race usually revolves around the inherent issue of the driver lacking pace. Back when I started playing a few weeks ago, I made tons of mistakes–but now, I got the hang of it back.

I did have a wheel at one point, but it broke a long time ago. I dropped it while taking the clamps off the desk in my dorm room—it had no chance against the tile flooring. As upset as I was at the time, the setup was basic, with the wheel not even having force feedback. I was more mad about the fact that the wheel only lasted three months and that I was dumb enough to throw the receipt and box away after setting it up the first time. A hundred dollars wasted. I should’ve listened to my mother when it came to keeping receipts.

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After doing a few more races around the Nurburgring GP Circuit, I went back to the kitchen to get an afternoon beer. The box that I carried in earlier was still on the counter, not even moved. What the hell was Michael up to? I knew he wasn’t streaming because he wasn’t supposed to until tonight, according to his schedule. He was either sleeping or purposely ignoring the box.

Going back to my desk, I shot Michael a message on Discord telling him that a box came for him. Not even thirty seconds later, I got a reply back from him:

[“what??”]

[“A huge box came for you. Has your name on it and everything”]

[“i didnt have anything coming today…”]

[“Well, it’s for you, so come and get it. It’s taking up space”]

[“are you sure its for me?”]

I left him on read after that since there wasn’t a point in trying to force him to grab his box. I wasn’t interested in having a back-and-forth over something that stupid. Instead, I decided to let it be and watch some TV in the living room.

There was a basketball game on at the moment. It was in the middle of the NBA playoffs. Philadelphia was playing Boston. I knew next to nothing when it came to basketball, so all I did was lounge on the couch and drink my PBR. I didn’t have a favorite pro basketball team. The team in Charlotte was not good, with its owner Michael Jordan seemingly rather wanting to run his NASCAR team. The team in Atlanta was better from what I knew, but not elite. Not good enough to become a bandwagon fan…not that I would ever do that in the first place. Anyway, I wasn’t a partisan in this situation for once. Watching sports can be so much more fun when you have no dog in the fight. There’s no heartbreak involved. Cowardly, but less tense.

The couch here could recline, which meant I didn’t have to lay on my side or put my feet on the coffee table to kick back. Thank you Landlord for the furnishment.

It was a pretty exciting game so far, as with most basketball games during the playoff time. Now that the 82-game regular season was over, it was time for all the teams that advanced to the playoffs to give it their all. More than half the league made the playoffs each year, which made for prime entertainment. They went on for almost two months. Would I watch every game? Hell no, that’s too much commitment for a sport I don’t know or care about that much, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to tune in.

Even though the playoffs were exciting, it wasn’t enough to overcome the sudden drowsiness that had afflicted me. I had no reason not to give in. I reclined further until I was almost laying down. I couldn’t even see the television anymore. Not that it mattered, since I got all the information I needed from the commentary. I closed my eyes as to rest them. What happened next could be anyone’s guess.

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The sound of cardboard being ripped open shook me awake. Being half-asleep still, I looked around until I saw Michael looking inside the box he received today.

“When am I ever going to use this…” Michael was staring inside the box as if he had opened a Christmas present he didn’t want. He continued to tear the box open with his bare hands, and pulled out another box that was almost the same size.

The box had the words “FRANATREC” and “F1” on it. It took me a few seconds to put two and two together: Michael, or rather, ‘Francis’, was sent a racing wheel setup. And not just any racing wheel setup–a real deal setup. A far cry from the ‘cheap’ racing wheel setup I had back in the day.

I couldn’t stop myself from saying “Holy shit…” looking at the box. The setup he got went for well over $500 in my estimation. There was a racing YouTuber I watched that used a Franatrec wheel–while he wasn’t the flashiest driver or the fastest over one lap, he always had consistent lap times and rarely binned it (or was ‘sent to the shadow realm’ as he would say), which was just as important in online races as being fast was. His wheel definitely helped him out on that, giving him accurate feedback.

Forgetting about the basketball game (Philly was definitely going to lose), I went up to the counter and started to admire it. I was going to get a crick in my neck if I admired it from the couch much longer.

“Is this a good racing wheel?” Michael asked, unaware of anything I was thinking of.

“It’s one of the best out there.” I responded, a bit perplexed that he didn’t know that this was coming. “Did they tell you that you were getting this?” All he did to me was shrug and let out a deep sigh.

“I’ll have to ask my mane-san about this.” He seemed annoyed by the fact that he got sent this. I mean, it clearly had his name on the packaging, so it was meant to be sent to him, but how the fuck did they not tell him about this beforehand? It’s one thing if it’s some dinky MadCatz-tier controller that he’s being sent to ‘try out’, but to be sent something like this without any heads-up was straight-up negligent. $500 was probably a drop in the bucket to AnyClover, but it was still a lot of money. I didn’t pin Michael as the type of guy to play any racing game other than maybe Mario Kart. Whenever I had Formula 1 on in the living room, he almost always called it IndyCar instead whenever he stopped by the kitchen. Needless to say he wasn’t a motorsport fan by any means. What the fuck was AnyClover thinking? It was times like this when I thought I could be a better manager than whoever he had. Living with the talent would probably be a nightmare for both of us however.

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Michael’s manager got back to him ASAP, telling him that it was in fact not a mistake that the racing wheel setup was sent to him, and that it was heavily suggested that he do a ‘sponsorship stream’ for Franatrec. He was originally understandably pissed–that is, until his manager pointed out that he did in fact get an email sent about a week ago about it. He must have overlooked it. Still, only one email. Not even a reminder, or a second email. A failure on every front. No wonder NijiLive is bigger.

Either way, he didn’t even play racing games, and now they wanted him to stream himself playing with a setup that really only sim racers used. The only saving grace was that this stream didn’t have a set schedule or plan. I knew Franatrec would want him to do it sooner rather than later, but other than that he had full reign to do anything he wanted. I haven’t read the email he ignored, so I don’t know what stipulations he has to follow, if any. At least he didn’t have to play an off-brand gacha game like his coworkers.

“I bet you know way more about this, watching IndyCar on TV every time it's on.” Casually ignoring him getting IndyCar and Formula 1 mixed up for the umpteenth time, he was right. I did know a bit more about racing games than him.

“Yeah, setting it up isn’t as hard as it looks. As long as you have the space for it, you can plug it into your computer or your PS5.” It would probably be more complex than the beginner wheel I had, but it wasn’t exactly rocket science.

“What’s that racing game you’ve been playing recently?” he inquired. I told him it was Gran Turismo 7. Honestly, it was a pretty solid choice for him if he was to do the sponsorship stream. I doubt he had it, but I know he could spare whatever it cost on the PlayStation Store at the moment. A few seconds after telling him, he gave me a look like the one he did when the Paqui chip came–I knew what he was going to ask me.

“Do you want to drive instead of me? It would be beneficial for the stream, and I know you would actually have a use for this.” Again, he was right. I would have a use for this–I knew that this would be going into his closet he has for all of the junk he uses for streams and would stay there until the end of time if I didn’t take it off of his hands. Unlike the One Chip Challenge, I would have a monetary incentive this time around. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to.

“Why yes, I would love to drive instead of you.” Of course, I agreed to be on his future Franatrec sponsorship stream. I would be making as much as I do in a few hours as I do in a work week. The only detail that would have to be ironed out is what day to have it. Being a sponsored stream, it wasn’t something that Michael could just ‘guerilla’. I could always call out if I wanted to, but that was a lot of work for something that would probably only last three hours at most. Decisions, decisions.

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Michael’s PS5 was set up in a room adjacent to where he streamed–he rented three bedrooms out of four in this house. Those three were all on one end, while I had the master bedroom on the other side of the house. He had one where he actually slept and streamed at, another one for ‘guests’–which I assumed would be his coworkers if they came around. I don’t know why they would come out here and not vice versa, but it’s their decision, not mine. That room was where most of his extra electronics and all the other random shit he bought went into. The closet was filled with stuff, but amazingly the rest of the room was kept up nicely. The third room was where he had his consoles set up. All of them except his Switch, which was the only console that he actually played often. That was the room where the broken gutter was outside of. His PS5 was collecting dust in the room, being rarely touched. Almost any game that he wanted to play was already on another system. The old ‘PS3 has no games’ joke applied as much, if not even more, to the PS5, if you added ‘exclusive’ to it. Gran Turismo 7 wasn’t an exception to this, but his PS5 would be way more suitable to stream than on my PS4. It wouldn’t make sense anyway because I would only be doxxing myself if he streamed it from my PSN account.

All this meant that I was free to test out controls on the wheel while playing on his PS5. The game, as with most games these days, was a huge download, but was done in less than an hour thanks to our high-speed internet. One of the many benefits of having a streamer roommate. Once that was done, all I had to do was get through the ‘cafe menus’ so I could go online. That was where the real fun was.

In the build-up to the stream, Michael decided on the format that would incorporate his talents–he would be a live commentator on the races I did. Joining him was Violet, who also wanted to be in the booth for whatever reason. Not that I didn’t mind, but she probably knew less about driving than Michael did. I doubt that she even knew how to drive…sorry, that was sexist of me. I highly doubt she has a driver’s license though.

We decided on Thursday of the upcoming week as the stream date. I didn’t have to work that day, and there were no pertinent scheduling conflicts with Michael.

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It was the day of the sponsorship stream. I would say that it was ‘dreaded’, but to be honest, I was pretty ambivalent about it. Nervous, sure, but it wasn’t like I was going to be stream sniped. It was true that I would be on stream for the purpose of shilling a product. On the flipside, I was actually getting something out of it. And it wasn’t like I was going to play a shitty gacha game. Gran Turismo is a well-established racing game series, and more importantly, Franatrec is a well-established racing sim gear company.

Most of the time building up was spent with me further ‘testing out’ the wheel. To be honest, the wheel drove like a dream. There weren’t any major faults with it, as you would expect for a wheel setup that went for five hundred US dollars. I still found it bizarre that Franatrec wanted to do a sponsorship stream with a VTuber. And one that didn’t talk about racing games whatsoever. It wasn’t like Michael could do anything other than show off the vacant setup. That proves nothing other than it’s actually there. Pretty much every racing sim YouTuber with a wheel setup had it on display in the video if they used a webcam. We didn’t have the privilege of that, unless we wanted to destroy our veil of anonymity. It made no sense. Did Franatrec even know what a Virtual YouTuber was? Did they grasp that the ‘Virtual’ part meant ‘not in real life’? And why did AnyClover go along with this? What’s next? Are they going to get Michael to do Manscaped ads? Violet to gamble fake money on one of the billion CS:GO gambling sites? The entire AnyClover EN roster being forced to shill for an off-brand cryptocurrency?

That was a huge slippery slope I was describing–one that was mostly tongue-in-cheek. Whether or not it made sense, Michael was going to do a Franatrec sponsorship stream, and I was going to be on the wheel. Violet was going to be there too, giving play-by-play commentary while Michael did the same thing. The lack of color commentary would be concerning if this was a more official event. Since this was a demonstration with the most ‘serious’ races being twenty-minute-long daily races, it wouldn’t be missed. No one tuning in would give a shit about the lack of ‘expert analysis’.

Thankfully, I wasn’t going to speak this time–I told Michael that I didn’t want to be mic’d up. I didn’t really talk while racing in-game in the first place, and having my voice pitched up or down would only take away from the stream.

On my side, preparing for this stream was simple. The hardest part was when I originally set up the wheel. There were so many buttons on it that it confused me. Before I got on the wheel and tested it out, I did the first cafe menu with the PS5 controller–I was perplexed by the fact that it had force feedback. Trying to brake my Honda Fit felt like trying to brake a bulldozer going downhill. It took me by surprise, causing me to crash head-on into digital hay bales that stopped me instantly. The gas also had force feedback, which was less startling since it wasn’t like a Honda Fit would accelerate out of control. After that race (I won easily after that hiccup on the first try), I switched to the wheel.

I’ve practiced daily since then. There was a learning curve, but it wasn’t anything like learning how to drive on a controller. I already had the fundamentals down when it came to driving–transferring that from a controller to a wheel wasn’t a hard process. Was I suddenly a pro with this wheel? No, but it only took a day of driving for me to get to the same pace I was on a controller. It wasn’t like I was entering a competition or anything, but I wanted to be on my A game if I was going to be on stream. Also, I honestly really enjoyed playing with the wheel. It was a whole new experience. The wheel came with a ‘wheel base’, which attached to the wheel and was what provided the force feedback to it. That force feedback was wanted, by me at least. It wasn’t like I hated it, it was more that I hated it when it took me by surprise. I didn’t want it on a controller whatsoever. The rumbling it did was distracting enough. My other ‘cheap’ wheel didn’t have any force feedback at all, which really highlighted how basic it was. Well, it wasn’t that bad, but it was nothing compared to this. This was the gold standard as far as I knew. To get an even better setup would involve spending 4-figures or even more. Needless to say, I had a blast ‘practicing’ for today’s stream.

It was about time to start. All Michael had to do was post the link to it on Twitter and do his intro. I didn’t know how he was going to get Violet to also see the gameplay in real-time, but he somehow managed. He even also got it so Violet’s model was right next to his. Also had a png of microphones that hovered below the two. It was a proper collab stream. Probably the best thing Franatrec could hope for, all things considered. He was in the corner of the room, sitting his laptop and his huge ass microphone on a TV dinner tray. He ran a cord from the laptop to the PS5, which I guess was how he got the footage. I was within spitting distance, but I would be a silent operator today. I had headphones plugged in so I wouldn’t be distracted by the man talking to the side. No speaking, just driving. With the nature of the stream, the intros would be very brief, which was beneficial to me since I would rather not sit in a chair and be delayed by thirty minutes due to his meandering.

We would be going to go on several different races this stream–the first one was going to be a custom track that didn’t exist in real life. You’ll understand why soon.

Our first race was the ‘Daily Race A’ of the week. Gran Turismo 7 had three races that they hosted throughout the week. The Daily Race A race was usually the most casual of the three. This week was no exception. It was a one-lap race held around ‘Special Stage Route X’–a 30 kilometer (18.6 mile) long oval circuit that had two 11 kilometer (6.8 mile) long straights and two 4 kilometer (2.5 mile) long corners, with banking ranging from zero to sixty degrees. It was by far the longest track in the game. The fastest overall too, considering that you didn’t have to brake any while racing on it. The track was shaped like a paperclip–no need to post a track map.

In order for this race to not be a snoozefest, the cars specified for this race were tuned to be rocket ships in a straight line. There were ten cars that were available for this race–only one was the ‘meta car’ however. The Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. In reality, there weren’t that many differences between each car. The BoP (Balance of Performance) equalized all of the cars to a certain extent, and due to the nature of the race, all you had to do was stay in the draft of the lead pack in order to have a chance of winning. Indeed, the name of the game for any race on Special Stage Route X was to stay in the tow of another car. If you lost it, you had to either use the nitrous allocated to you earlier than others to or pray that the lead pack got their elbows out and slowed themselves down to within three-fourths of a second ahead of you. The racing resembled NASCAR racing at superspeedways such as Daytona or Talladega, only turned up to 11. For those who aren’t familiar with NASCAR–think of bicycle racing. If you weren’t familiar with that, well, then you’re shit out of luck. Even if all of the cars were equal in theory, the Mercedes was still the best car of them all. Subtle changes mattered a lot in racing games. I had no idea what made the Mercedes the meta car, but if I had to guess, it had the highest top speed out of all of the cars.

“Holy cow, that’s a long track!” said Violet once she first saw it. I was able to listen to her and Michael’s commentary by tuning into the call they were in. Earbuds under the headphones. With only two minutes to go before the race started, I went out on the track just for kicks. I didn’t have time to qualify. A full lap around the track still took over four minutes even in a car that went over 270 miles per hour. It was completely okay however since qualifying meant little to nothing in this race. Again, all you have to do is stay in the tow.

In the lobby with me were nine other people driving the Mercedes. Three others picked the Bugatti Chiron, which seemed to be the second-best car for this event. Prior experience would’ve left me to believe that the Bugatti was the fastest car available, but for whatever reason it was only second-fastest. Since I had no qualifying time, I started plum last in twelfth. This race had a rolling start, which meant we had to be pressing down on the pedal as soon as the lights went out. There was no need to worry about wheel spin in this sort of race. It took zero skill to compete in this race. Winning was another matter. It was a horrible way to show off the Franatrec wheel, truth be told. The race itself relied on strategy and knowing when to use the nitrous that was provided. The meta strategy would be to save the nitrous until halfway through the last corner, where you would start using it, and not stop until it ran out close to the finish line. All you had to do until then was keep it clean, not lose the draft, and not get any silly penalties. Easier said than done.

Before the commentators and chat knew it, we were off. Starting in last, I used a tiny bit of nitrous just to make sure I could stay in the draft of the car in front of me. Before Michael and Violet knew it, we were going 100, then 150, then 200 miles per hour. Thankfully the car in front of me was cooperating and let me bump draft them. Bump drafting was a tactic where a car gets to the rear of another car and gently bumps them forward. This causes the car in front to go faster, and in return lets the car behind go faster, granted it stays in the draft of the car in front. In real life this tactic was seldom used outside of NASCAR races at superspeedways. In games such as Gran Turismo 7, where bodywear damage wasn’t anywhere near being realistic, one could deploy this tactic to gain time down a straight. Granted, this always didn’t go well. The car in front could not know what you’re doing, and think you’re trying to run them off the road. I’ve had this happen to me more than once. They could also weave across the road, as to break the tow–which would make sense in almost every other race, but was the opposite of what you want to do in this one. Since Gran Turismo 7 didn’t have voice chat, it was impossible to tell the guy in front of you what you were doing. You had to either tough it out or somehow find a way past them–something that wasn’t easy if you were driving a track like Special Stage Route X. You also could only bump draft while driving on a straight. On a track with large banking in the long corners like Daytona or this track, you could get away with bump drafting, but it wasn’t always the smartest thing to do. It was easy to unsettle the car in front of you, which in turn would most likely end up with you either getting slowed down or being involved in an incident. In real life, you would be black flagged and likely punched deservingly for doing such a dangerous maneuver.

Going uphill (Special Stage Route X had a section of straight that went what seemed like a mile up in the sky), we were approaching max speed. Going past 250 miles per hour, all I could hear was Michael saying “Keep your foot on the pedal!” and Violet wondering why “we were all bumping into each other”. At this point in the race, we were all in a single file. I gained two places–I was still far back in the pack, being in 10th place, but I was only seven-tenths of a second behind the leader. It didn’t matter if I was first or last at this point. All that mattered was that I was in the lead pack.

After we started declining from the mile high ascent, a car ahead of me suddenly pulled out to the left, pulling out of the tow. Normally this would be a suicidal move in terms of chances of winning, but luckily for them another car pulled out with them, effectively creating a second lane for those who also wanted to join. As for myself, I was staying in my lane–no need to make things more complicated for no reason. We still had a lot of the race to go. I would’ve probably gone with them if we were approaching the final turns, but position still wasn’t important at this point. The left side was close to the wall as well, which left little room for error. Room that you needed often in online races.

At the end of the decline, the two packs suddenly turned into three, then became a jumbled mess. Whether you wanted to or not, you were fighting for position. It wasn’t what I wanted, but at least it made for some exciting racing. Seeing cars drift left and right allowed for the pack to further bunch up, resembling the last lap of a NASCAR superspeedway race. Michael and Violet were encouraging me to pass those who formed other lanes. Thankfully, I was able to gain a further five positions due to the scattering of the field. I didn’t care what happened to the right of me, but I wanted to clear the cars to the left of me. If not, my race could be over soon.

To show my reason for staying in the middle lane, I changed the POV to one that showed a wider view of the entire pack. I switched the camera to show what was behind me–we were nearing the end of the first straight. The rear-view camera, showing a wider FOV than the front bumper view I usually used, showed how vast and open the track was. There was not a cloud in the sky. Was it a beautiful day? I would describe it more as dystopian, but I didn’t have time to further elaborate. Eyes on the road, especially for this next part. With that came a sudden narrowing of the left lane. One that seemed obvious due to the surface being a lighter shade of grey than the dark grey tarmac the rest of the road was. The guardrail narrowing up would most likely catch someone off guard. That was the reason why it was imperative that I either clear the cars to the left of me, or veer right in avoidance of the inevitable.

As if they saw they were on stream, the cars in the left lane merged back with the middle lane–all except the last car, which didn’t turn in time and in term bounced off the guardrail. Going 270 miles per hour, the inertia of the car bounced back on the track and speared into a car further down the grid. The carnage would’ve been even worse if both cars didn’t ghost out immediately after starting the world’s fastest crash.

image [https://i.imgur.com/8LnLiJN.png]

Artist rendition of what I dubbed ‘The World’s Fastest Crash’--sorry for the lack of quality. Drawing cars isn’t in my wheelhouse, so you’ll have to settle with a recreation of the radar screen. Also, I take no responsibility if I lied about this being ‘The World’s Fastest Crash’. If you can find any faster crashes, please DM them to Michael.

I only had time to show the crash for a second, as the turn coming up would claim me if I wasn’t paying attention. It was enough time to show the two crashing cars disappearing into the background, their race over. “Holy cow!” yelled Violet, with Michael saying “Holy shit!” in unison. As someone who's done this race several times in the past, and has done thousands of races total, this wasn’t out of the ordinary for an online race. In any online racing game, not just Gran Turismo 7. I was just glad that I was ahead of them. I could feel the direct drive while turning the Mercedes right, but it wasn’t anything too strong. I’ve seen videos of sim racers almost breaking their wrists due to the steering wheel suddenly snapping in one direction due to a sudden change in motion, usually from being speared by another car, or just losing it by themselves and smacking a wall. It was the price you paid for realism. In real life, racers moved their hands away from the wheel if they were spinning out of control with no hope of saving it. In game though, there was little price to pay if you crashed–other than your race being ruined, and your wrists being shattered if direct drive gave a little too much feedback.

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After the antics at the end of the first straight, the race went to a lull for the next minute. We were still going 270 miles per hour trading places, but there were no drivers going wild on the track. All ten cars left with a chance to win were within a second of each other. We remained two-file for most of the second straight, until the tunnel section started.

The tunnel section was over a kilometer long, but at the rate of speed we were all going, we were only in there for about ten seconds. We were covering a football field a second, with no plan to stop unless external forces made us.

As we all neared the end of the straight, the guardrail narrowed again like the straight before. Thankfully everyone kept their wits about them and didn’t try to brute force a left lane.

As the third turn started, I started hovering my thumb over the de facto nitrous button on the wheel. Thankfully I only used a little of it at the start, which left me in prime position to win…that is, if everything went the way I wanted it to. Most races require a little bit of luck to win–this one required about as much luck as skill. I’d slipped back to sixth place during the duration of the second straight, thanks to the second lane forming to my right. There wasn’t much I could do about it except try to take people out, which was a no-go since it would suck the fun out of the race, plus would also slow me down. I would also get a time penalty.

Those in the lower lane started to dive lower, as to reduce the amount of track they had to drive. The lower lanes had less banking. In normal circumstances, this would almost result in them either having massive understeer or losing speed, but as you might already expect, this race was different. We had ‘Comfort Soft’ tires on–not the best tires, but good enough for this race. The level of speed we were going also created an amount of downforce that allowed cars to be able to maintain traction even at the bottom lane. At least that’s what I think was allowing us to do this. There was still some loss of speed, but it would pay off if you were able to maintain a good line. Having nitrous also helped.

As turn three turned into turn four, I also started using my nitrous. I decided to stay in the lane above them–I did gradually inch my car lower, but I was avoiding the risk of me going too low and either sideswiping another car or oversteering too low. I was following the two cars in the lane ahead of me, taking the most of the slipstream that I could get. I was guessing that they were also using their nitrous, which would hopefully give me a ‘Double DRS’-like effect. I was also hoping that they had less nitrous than me–otherwise I would have to hope that they either have horrible exits out of turn four or get collected in an accident. For a race that lasted less than five minutes, it was a real war of attrition. The fact that ten of us had a chance to win was odd. Usually there’s only three to six cars that are still in the lead pack by this time. An accident or three was about to happen.

“Get lower! Get lower!!” Violet screamed for some reason, abandoning her role as a commentator and becoming my spotter/race engineer. I would get low, but there was a car inching higher and higher. I didn’t know if they were experiencing understeer or if they were trying to get higher. It wasn’t the optimal line, but there wasn’t anything I could do to get them to dive lower that didn’t involve trading paint with them. Stepping off the gas even for a microsecond was not an option. Not this late into the race. If I had the ability to radio back to Violet, I would’ve told her “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing!”.

Exiting turn four, all of my attention was paid towards the guy nudging up below me–at this rate, he was going to compromise any chance of me winning. I was so worried about what to do with him that I didn’t notice that a car behind me had slingshotted to my left, which effectively gave me no room to move–what happened next was inevitable.

The car below tried to rub doors with me in order to shove me higher, but it only caused me to run into the side of the car above me. The car above and I were perfectly alongside each other, but the car below me was ahead by about half a car-width. It was too late to back out, and even if I had the chance, I wouldn’t have. The car below got turned by me, or rather, turned itself, into the guardrail up top, seemingly turning left on the end of a right-hand turn. The force feedback might have been turned down too low, as I was able to turn the wheel sharply to the right in reaction to the crash I was sandwiched in.

I shook off the car that was below me, but also shot down below to the bottom line. We were back on the first straight, less than a kilometer away from the end. I had separated myself from the others, but I had overcorrected. I was now fishtailing. I was fighting for my life to correct it, but in my attempt I hit another car which caused me to ricochet back low. Where the hell did they come from! I fought for my life to get back up higher, but it was all for naught, as I had accidentally driven into the pitlane.

image [https://i.imgur.com/vlrazIQ.png]

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

My rendition of the two separate incidents I was in. Look up ‘2017 Singapore GP start’ on YouTube if you want to see what a crash like this would look like in real life.

With the force of inertia pushing me into the pitlane, I dropped from what could’ve been a podium finish to eighth place. The pit lane automatically slows your car down to pit lane speed–ignoring the fact that slowing down from 250 miles per hour to 70 in one frame would’ve killed me in real life, I had to suffer crawling at a snail’s pace while everyone other than those who crashed two minutes ago sped past me. This was a fate worse than death.

Both Michael and Violet were beside themselves at what just happened. My wrists were okay since I had the force feedback turned down, but my ego was heavily fractured. To add insult to injury, I was given a four second penalty by the stewards for ‘causing an incident’. I mean, I technically did, but it wasn’t my fault by any means. Too bad ‘losing control’ isn’t a good enough reason to be given a break. If this was a real race, what I would’ve said about the stewards about that penalty would get the stream instantly demonetized.

As the saying goes, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. The silver lining to this was that it provided great entertainment for those who were watching. I couldn’t see what they were saying, but they seemed to be roasting Violet for being a ‘bad spotter’ by the fact that she was saying things such as “What the heck! You guys are being so mean!”. They were right to grill her, since her advice would’ve made me the reason why that wreck happened. She sucked at spotting–she didn’t tell me shit I didn’t already know and didn’t spot the car above me either. I couldn’t tell her that though since it would be mean to. She was trying her best, even if it was probably better for her to say nothing.

After the race, I got pinged twice by someone named “LOWGEARGOD”, who had some choice words to say:

[LOWGEARGOD: @francisf YOU SHOULD OUTBRAKE YOURSELF]

[LOWGEARGOD: @francisf NOW]

Whoever ‘LOWGEARGOD’ was, they clearly weren’t happy with the way I drove–I get it, but what else do you expect from a race as chaotic as this? It wasn’t like anyone’s sportsmanship rating (SR) or driver rating (DR) was affected. Daily Race A typically didn’t have any effect on those, so it didn’t matter if you finished first or last. If it did, then everyone’s SR rating would go down the toilet. I don’t even remember seeing this guy during the race.

To be honest, it was a mistake to do this race for the reason that it really didn’t show the benefits of using a Franatrec wheel setup. On races like these, there was very little wheel input needed–it was the opposite of a ‘technical’ race. You could use an Atari joystick to drive this.

With that in mind, I exited out of daily races for now and decided to do a time trial instead.

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The track I was driving on was the pinnacle of the Gran Turismo series. The Nurburgring was the track that set Gran Turismo apart from other racing games. Being in the game ever since Gran Turismo 4, it was a staple of the series. The Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit was frequently used in Daily Races, and had been used in real life in Formula 1 in the past and–it being an infrequent guest. It had also been used in the WEC (World Endurance Championship), and was currently used by DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters). The Grand Prix circuit had challenges of its own, but it wasn’t what made the Nurburgring special. To show that, we went to the Nordschleife.

As you can already guess, the Nordschleife was a circuit that exists in real life somewhere in Germany. As a kid, I often made the mistake of calling it the ‘Nurembergring’. A mistake I didn’t fix until I was probably 19. While they share similar names and are in the same country, they’re known for very different reasons. The only rallies going on in Nurburg were of the rallycross kind.

The Nordschleife also hosted its fair share of races–with Formula 1 racing there until 1976, when Niki Lauda had a near-fatal accident that blatantly showed that the track was too dangerous for formula racing, even with ‘new’ safety changes that were introduced earlier that decade. You can watch the movie Rush if you want to know more about the events behind Lauda’s crash–it’s a good movie.

Despite Formula 1’s absence, ‘The Green Hell’, as Sir Jackie Stewart once nicknamed it, is still regularly raced to this day, with its crown jewel event being the Nurburgring 24 Hours. The cars racing there aren’t anywhere as fast or had as much downforce as Formula 1, but it's every bit as exciting, if not more. Grand tourer cars can actually go door-to-door without the threat of the tires flying off. They were road legal as well–or at least had road legal versions. The latest iteration of the race was streamed live on YouTube as well, which made viewing it as easy as having internet access. If you’re interested in watching, search ‘ADAC TotalEnergies 24h Nurburgring’ on YouTube.

The track itself was settled in the Eifel Mountains. Elevation changed more than a thousand feet during each lap, which along with the over hundred and fifty turns made it one of the most challenging tracks in the world. If Special Stage Route X was dystopian, then the Nurburgring Nordschlife was utopian. The scenery reminded me of driving down winding roads in the Appalachian Mountians. You could really be one with nature here.

I was driving on the 24 Hour Circuit that they used, driving the Group 3 Ferrari 458 Italia–I was able to download a Ferrari F1-themed livery. There were only NijiLive VTuber-themed liveries, so going that route would’ve been troublesome. Would it give me a few tenths in pace? Doubtful, but it looked nice.

image [https://i.imgur.com/iqA7L8O.png]

The Nurburgring 24 Hour Track (Nordschleife+GP Circuit without the Mercedes-Arena part). This track was one of eight circuit variations currently in use. The ‘GP Circuit’ is the bottom left section. Everything else is the Nordschleife. In total it is 25.4 kilometers (15.8 miles) long. Sorry for the corner names being in German, it was the best version of the track map available. Thanks to ‘Pitlane02’ for making this. Any mention of a corner below will use the German version so as to not confuse those reading.

Starting my time trial, I had no real goal in mind other than to survive. This track was what I called a ‘PvE’ track, meaning that you were already winning if you didn’t go off the road. There were not many places to go two-wide–most of the overtaking would have to happen on the Grand Prix section, or going into Aremberg, Bergwerk, or down the Dottinger Hohe. Passing for position anywhere else would be very gutsy–you’d more than likely either go off track or push another car off if you tried in game (or in real life). It didn’t prevent some people from divebombing from a mile away in random corners. Some racers took that Senna quote too literally. Luckily for me, this was a time trial. I could go at any pace as I pleased.

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For the next hour and some change, I plugged away many laps–at first I was having the car step out in the back due to being too eager on the gas, still used to driving that Mercedes. Fortunately, it took only a few corners for me to stop doing that. Good thing the lap started in the Grand Prix section, where the track was wider and more forgiving.

The Ferrari was quite easy to drive, all things considered. The Franatrec wheel played a huge part in this, allowing me to be more precise. The direct drive gave me subliminal information that otherwise couldn’t be accessed if I was using a controller or the dinky wheel I had back in the day. The feel of a car under you is the one detail that sim racing still has to work on, but it’s getting there. I didn’t try to go all out here, since that would result in me going off more often than completing a lap. The wipeouts would be entertaining, but we were trying to promote this wheel–crashing every lap wouldn’t be smart. We weren’t qualifying–all I had to do is keep it clean.

As for Michael and Violet, they mostly talked about other things, like the new Zelda game and MOBAs. They weren’t talking about the time trial at all! I wasn’t paying attention to their conversation, but from what I heard, Violet stopped being into them a few years ago. I don’t blame her, I never liked them anyways.

The few moments where either of them actually did some commentary were funny. The first time I drove around the Karussell, Violet said ‘Weee~!’ like she was actually on a carousel. I can’t deny, it was a very fun corner when you got it right–otherwise it was a real bitch. If you went too slow, you risked going too low, having the kerb grab your tires, and spinning you into the grass. If you went too fast, then you would oversteer to the top line, which is less than optimal if you’re going for a hot lap. Of the over 70 corners that were on the Nordschleife, the Karussell was the most famous of them all.

Another highlight, or rather lowlight for me, happened when I was on my third hot lap. I was nearing the end of the lap when I got myself involved in a freakshow accident.

I was flying around the Pflanzgarten section when my phone started to ring. I didn’t know who it was, nor really cared, but nonetheless it got my attention enough to not put enough steering input into the wheel. Instead of avoiding the kerb, like one should do, my front left tire clattered it. Normally this would be fine, but unbeknownst to me, the kerb was also a launch pad if you hit it just right. Hitting the kerb going at around 130 miles per hour, my Ferrari launched into the air. At first, I had hope of potentially saving it. That hope immediately ended once all four wheels landed in the middle of the track. I was sliding towards the guardrail on the right–no amount of steering input or mashing on the brakes could save my little red Ferrari from the inevitable.

As if I was actually driving in real life, I let go of the steering wheel and put them close to my chest. Keeping my hands on the wheel was one way to injure them easily, as I detailed earlier in this chapter. The Ferrari hit the guardrail going around 70 miles per hour, and immediately stopped. I have no idea how much g-force the crash would’ve been in real life, but I know it would’ve given me a severe case of whiplash at best.

image [https://i.imgur.com/4nRc4ze.png]

My recreation of the crash I had on the ‘Pflanzgarten’ section of the Nordscheife. The white dotted line is where I went, and the yellow is where the ‘optimal’ line was. Red indicates where the kerbs were. I’m sure you’re smart enough to know what the red and green represent. Thanks to ‘Nordschleife-btg’ for giving me a reference to show you guys.

Michael and Violet were both caught off guard at my error, both gasping when I speared the guardrail. They were still on their Zelda talk not paying attention at all to my ‘fast’ lap–which was still some 30 seconds off of top time. Violet shouted ‘holy frick!’ while Michael looked at me to see if I was okay. Other than the force feedback surprising me, I was okay. I gave him a thumbs up and then got my Ferrari out of the grass. Damage in this game ‘disappears’ after like thirty seconds, so all I had to do was keep it clean until the damage went away and my tires were clean.

While Violet was defending my suboptimal driving and Michael was laughing and telling chat that I was ‘going on brb’, I checked to see who called–it was a wrong number call…this was the sixth time that this same number had called me this year. I know because each time, an older wispy sounding man left a voicemail. This time was no different.

[“Hey Louis, this is Rudoph, just calling to see whatcha up to…ehhh, are you working hard? Haven’t heard from you lately…ehhh…I’ll talk to you later, bye…call on the house phone, ehh…talk to you later, bye.”]

I didn’t have the heart to tell Rudolph that he had been calling the wrong number after all of this time. You would think that he would get a clue after the third time I didn’t answer, but then again I didn’t know if this was an everytime occurrence when he tried to call ‘Louis’, or if this only happened when he dialed my number instead of Louis’s. Also made me wonder if he did this to other people. This happened like twice a month, so it wasn’t that annoying. Just horrible timing Rudolph. Come on man, I’m driving The Green Hell. I need to concentrate.

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After nine laps, I decided to finish off the stream with another daily race. I’d be doing Daily Race C, which was a longer set race than race A and B. Daily Race B was a 5 lap race around Interlagos in Group 4 cars. It would be a fun race, but not what I wanted to end the stream on…I wanted to end on a more exciting note.

Daily Race C was a five lap race around the Circuit de la Sarthe, otherwise known as the Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans, or ‘the track they use for the 24 Hours of Le Mans’ for those who don’t watch endurance races. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the most prestigious races in the world. Even if you have never watched a race in your life, you probably know of it. It rivaled the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Circuit de Monaco, the Nurburgring Nordschleife we were just on, and the Daytona International Speedway when it came to the fame it had.

image [https://i.imgur.com/pq5P0PH.png]

The Circuit de la Sarthe, the track used for The 24 Hours of Le Mans. This isn’t the most accurate track map available, but it is the cleanest I can find, with the most accurate map also containing all of the public roads in and around the circuit. While it would be interesting to include that track map, it would only serve to confuse those not familiar with Le Mans. The circuit in all is 13.6 kilometers (8.5 miles) long. The area in grey is the ‘Bugatti Circuit’, most known in the Motorcycle racing world. Fun fact: Before they added the two chicanes on the Mulsanne Staight, it was considered the longest straight in the racing world, being 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) long. Longer than the Dottinger Hohe on the Nordschlife. This track map is Public Domain, but I would like to thank Alexander Jones anyway.

We would be racing Group 1 cars, which contained the top class of cars they drove during Le Mans. There were three types of Group 1 cars: The first were ‘Group C’ cars. Despite being the oldest cars in Group 1, they were the fastest of them all. That speed came with two caveats. The first was handling–Group C cars, from my experience, were real bitches to drive. To those who haven’t put the proper time into learning them, they turned like a boat. If you tried to brake at the same point a Hypercar brakes today, you would either suffer from severe understeer or miss the turn completely. You would wreck yours and probably others races. The time you would gain down straights would make up for the time you lost in the corners, but the second caveat was something you couldn’t avoid–it drank gas like a madman. With this race having 7x fuel use, you would be forced to pit for fuel if you drove a Group C car. Either that, or you would have to fuelsave a lot more than if you drove a car that had a hybrid, which would eliminate the straight-line speed advantage that Group C cars had. At that point, you might as well drive the other car. No amount of straight-line speed could erase the 25-second loss pitting would have. Especially since we were racing on the version of Le Mans that had the two chicanes on the Mulsanne Straight–if we were racing on the pre-1990 version of the Circuit de la Sarthe, then Group C cars would be the only logical option. With that being said, a dark horse for this race was the Mazda 787B. I didn’t do enough research to know why some chose this beast, but if I had to guess, it was because it was the best Group C car when it came to downforce. It was the ‘newest’ of the Group C cars in-game, with the in-game model being from 1991–it was the only Group C car in the game that was raced after the Mulsanne Straight chicanes were introduced. Some people liked their rotary engines as well. I did–they were the loudest thing other than a crying baby. Plus the car looked sexy with the famous Renown livery. The strategy for Group C cars would probably be to go flat out for the first two-three laps, pit for fuel, and then continue going flat out. Could work if your opponents were slow or inexperienced, but against drivers that knew what they were doing, it would be hard to win this race in a Group C car.

The second type of Group 1 cars were more contemporary. They comprised of ‘Le Mans Prototype 1’ (LMP1) cars and the ‘new’ Toyota GR010 Hybrid, which was a ‘Le Mans Hypercar’ (LMH). You would expect that the Toyota Hypercar would be the best car out of this bunch, since it was the newest of all of the Group 1 cars (that existed in real life, I’ll get to that soon), but it wasn’t. In real life it was slower than its LMP1 predecessor as well. Motorsport regulations and all of that. Anyway–these cars had hybrids, which made it easier to save fuel. They weren’t the monsters on the straights that the Group C cars were, but they had way more downforce, which let them carry more speed through corners. They were ‘easier’ to drive as well, since you didn’t have to brake as early or be as careful on the gas. The car of choice in this class, and the meta car for this race, was the Porsche 919 Hybrid. It would be the car I was using, and probably the car that more than three-fourths of other people racing would use. It was all-around the best car to use. Fuel saving was still a priority, but it wasn’t that drastic. Upshifting half-way in each gear should do the trick.

The third, and final, type of Group 1 cars were the ‘Version Gran Tursimo’ (VGT) cars. These were concept cars that, to my knowledge, only existed in the game. I’m still waiting for the Nike ONE 2022 from Gran Turismo 4 to pop-up in real life…. The only VGT car that I saw as usable was the Mazda LM55 VGT. At least one driver per race would use it or another VGT car. I didn’t know why, but variety is the spice of life I guess. It did look cool. Not as cool as the 787B though. Just my opinion.

With all of that out of the way, I hopped onto a race. Unlike Daily Race A and B, Daily Race C only happened twice an hour. It made sense due to it being longer. It was a twenty-five minute long race while the other two races were approximately fifteen minutes long. The Special Stage Route X race was only five minutes long, but that race was a huge outlier. I had around ten minutes until the race started, which gave me enough time to acclimate myself to the 919 Hybrid I was driving. It was very easy to put too much throttle into it and spin yourself out. Better to do that while practicing than in the race. There was also a possibility of rain–a small chance, but something to keep in mind.

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Just like that, ten minutes went by.…I was able to get two full laps in. I could’ve gotten one more, but that would’ve required me to not spin out any. I didn’t improve my best lap time, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. The 787B was the qualifying car anyways, so I couldn’t even beat my top time if I wanted to. The qualifying times you put in counted for the whole week that specific race was running–if you had a blazing fast time, you wouldn’t have to worry about starting from the back ever. If you had a slow time, you would almost always be starting from the rear.

Loading into the lobby, the first messages I saw were:

[FormulaJosh: @LOWGEARGOD dirty driver alert]

[LOWGEARGOD: @FormulaJosh ST*FU]

It turned out that our friend LOWGEARGOD had made a name for himself in the hour or so we were away from daily races. I never expected him to pop up here as well. He was starting in seventh. I was starting fifth. That meant that we would most definitely come across each other. He was driving the 787B, so if he was able to keep it on the track, he would most likely blaze past me on the first part of the Mulsanne. Seeing as FormulaJosh was on pole, I can only guess that LOWGEARGOD probably rear-ended him into a corner. FormulaJosh was also driving a 919 Hybrid, as with everyone else, sans LOWGEARGOD and a couple of drivers near the back of the grid.

With Michael and Violet fighting chat over what the pronunciation of Porsche was (it’s ‘Por-shuh’, although I do find myself saying it without the ‘-uh’ at times. I understand why Michael would think it’s ‘Porsh’, but I don’t understand how Violet would think it’s ‘Poor-shee’. I bet the car guys in chat were roasting them both right now. I would have to check back once the stream is over.), the race finally started.

Thankfully, the first section went cleanly. Usually, there was a pileup imminent going into the Dunlop Chicane, but we managed to avoid one this time…there was probably one further back though. No time to look back to check since we needed to nail the Esses and Tertre Rouge. In the winding parts of the track the Porsche would be faster, but once we got on the Mulsanne, it was inevitable that LOWGEARGOD would pass us all, granted that he didn’t bin it, which he didn’t. There was no way of stopping him from passing us down the straight that wouldn’t be black-flaggable, so all I could do was watch him go by half-way down the first section of the Mulsanne. We would gain time in the chicane, but it wasn’t enough to overtake him back. I didn’t want to overtake him anyway, since that would only lose me time if I fought him too hard. He didn’t look like he was doing any fuel-saving as well, so he would have to pit for fuel eventually.

Nearing the end of the Mulsanne, I saw that LOWGEARGOD and FormulaJosh were fighting tooth and nail. FormulaJosh nudged LOWGEARGOD wide on the Mulsanne Corner, to which LOWGEARGOD responded with rubbing against FormulaJosh’s Porsche going down the straight towards Indianapolis. LOWGEARGOD was a very emotional driver, but also a fast one as well. The top speed of his 787B could not be stopped. He eventually was able to pass FormulaJosh well before the upcoming turn. Michael was cheering them on to ‘continue fighting’ while Violet was wondering how ‘the meanie’ was so much faster than anyone else. If only she read my explanation above…

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Around ten minutes into the race, we were nearing the end of lap 3. LOWGEARGOD had gapped the rest of the field by 15 seconds. It was impressive the lap times he was putting down, but that would all go away when he would have to pit, which most likely would be at the end of this lap. I had no idea how much time he would lose in total, but he would drop many positions nonetheless.

I was still in sixth, soon to be fifth again once our friend LOWGEARGOD pitted. Somehow we were all able to keep it clean and not punt anyone else off track. The race looked like a modern F1 race where ‘DRS trains’ formed. From second to seventh, we were all in a straight line, all committing to fuel-saving so we ended the race without stopping. We were acting out the world’s fastest parade right now with no one able to break away from the pack, sans LOWGEARGOD, who was doing his alternative strategy.

When I crossed the line to start lap 4, I noticed that the clouds were starting to get darker. That wasn’t uncommon at all when racing at Le Mans–it often rained in the real-life race, and it had rained in this race in prior editions. Usually, it was a sprinkle that led to ‘variable conditions’, which meant that the dry Medium tires that were on everyone’s car would be as fast as if they had Intermediate rain tires on. Rain tires resembled the tires you used if you drove on the road. They weren’t able to go as fast as racing tires, but they would provide you the necessary grip you needed to not go off the road if conditions were bad enough to warrant them. The flipside was that they were very easy to overheat if the road was drying up. In real life, that would cause the rubber to melt and ruin the tire. In game, it would eat up the life of the tire along with exponentially losing grip. Realistic enough. One could slow this process down by purposely driving in the wet, cooling the tires–one of the many quirks of wet weather racing. Racing tires, or slick tires as many called them, had smooth tread and no grooves. Perfect for dry conditions, but once it got wet enough for them to hydroplane, it was pretty much game over if you got onto the wet stuff. The difficult part about all of this was that even if the Intermediate tires were faster, you would lose more time pitting for them at the end of lap 4 than just toughing it out on the slicks. With the 25 second time loss pitting, it would be nigh impossible to gain that time back in one lap. That is if the conditions even got bad enough to warrant the idea of pitting. A lot of times, the sky got darker even if there was no chance of rain showing on the weather radar…speaking of that, I haven’t checked it this whole race…

Flipping to the weather radar, I saw this:

image [https://i.imgur.com/i0bHKuE.png]

Recreation of the Weather Radar at the end of lap 3. Sorry for the crude drawing of the circuit.

It seemed that it was already raining at the end of the Mulsanne Straight and in the straight going towards Indianapolis. Other than that, the entire track was covered in a light-blue color–which meant that it was merely sprinkling, if that. Honestly, I couldn’t tell that it was raining if it wasn’t for the sky turning dark. At the rate it showed it was raining at the moment, it wouldn’t be enough to justify going in for Intermediates, but I was more concerned about the rain that could come after it. As you can probably already tell, the darker blue, green, and other colors symbolized harder rain. With weather happening in this race at like 30x speed, an entire rain shower could happen in a lap–if anything in the green touched the circuit, it could turn into a downpour. At that rate, it would be worth putting on Wet tires, which were more extreme than Intermediates. They were only used in real life when there was standing water on the road. We would have to wait and see which way the wind blew.

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Fast forward half a lap–I was starting to fight for my life to keep it on the track. The downpour that I feared would come in fact did. We were nearing the end of the Mulsanne Straight, and it was obvious that dry tires were losing their potency. In this situation, I would rather brake way earlier than needed rather than bin it in the gravel trap in the Mulsanne Corner, I began to touch the brakes all the way back at the Total board that was like 400 meters away from the turn. To put it in perspective, I would normally start braking 300 meters later, around where the kerb before the turn was. I lifted off and coasted until my normal braking point, where then I carefully feathered the brake pedal so as to not induce a slide. It was very easy to stomp the brakes and hydroplane off-track. If you’ve ever driven while there was ice on the road–it was kinda like that, except way faster.

Two cars in front of me either broke too late, or applied too much braking power, and spun off into the gravel trap–unlike in real life, they were able to get their cars out of there easily. They would have to deal with dirty tires and losing valuable time, but it was better than being beached and having to wait for marshalls to put them back on track. As for me? Turns out that I braked way too early–I could’ve drove at least another 100 meters before braking. My cautious approach ended up benefiting me in the end however.

Up to third, the name of the game for the next half-lap was to survive. It was raining hard enough that inters, if not full wet tires, were necessary. It was raining that bad. I was thankful for Violet being considerate enough to start singing the ‘Rain Rain Go Away Song’. It didn’t change anything, but the thought was nice.

Through Indianapolis, Arnage, and the Porsche Curves, which were especially difficult due to the rain accumulating, I and everyone who wanted to finish the race in one piece went through at a snail’s pace.

With the rain meter showing that it was beyond even Intermediates, we all dove into the pits to put on wets. Funnily enough, our friend LOWGEARGOD had gotten himself back up to fourth place. I would’ve taken him for someone who would easily lose it by overdriving in these conditions. Sad to say that my expectations were wrong. He had to be between 10 to 15 seconds behind us by the time he got out of the pits–he somehow gained half of that back by the time we hit the pit lane.

Forty seconds and a pit stop later, I was out with a new set of Wet tires. Everyone else that pitted also put on full Wets. Everybody except for you know who, who decided to stay out on his slicks. He had built up a 15-second advantage while we were pitting, but in these conditions, that advantage could disappear in a few seconds.

Going through the Dunlop Chicane, a car in front went in too hot and spun out. Getting the car back going again would be a real challenge, since how easy it was to lose traction and spin out again when it was this wet. That left the top three of LOWGEARGOD, FormulaJosh, and I.

As both of us went through the two Mulsanne Chicanes, we caught up with LOWGEARGOD. Seeing that he had to serve a 2-second penalty, he must have made a mess of one or multiple of the turns.

We were only a second behind him by the time we hit the Mulsanne Kink (not shown in the track map above, but it’s a slight right-wards bend towards the beginning of the third stretch of the Mulsanne Straight). Uncharacteristically, LOWGEARGOD took the Kink cautiously, which allowed us to roll right past him.

Our 919 Hybrids had the advantage when it came to initial acceleration, but LOWGEARGOD had about 30 miles per hour on us once he hit top speed, which was very easy to do even during a downpour. This allowed him to catch back up with us. However, with our tire advantage was going second by second, and no amount of top end speed would save LOWGEARGOD from losing time to us. I was going to try to overtake FormulaJosh through the Mulsanne Corner–I was on the outside, which would give me a disadvantage if he was able to park it on the curve correctly. I would be able to take a wider line however and hopefully be able to have a better exit.

As FormulaJosh and I started braking for the corner, seeing who would win the battle of wits…that is, until I heard a smash to the right of me that rivaled the Vine Boom.

The next thing I know, I was sliding uncontrollably toward the barrier, hitting it and going around 50 miles per hour. I would’ve hit the wall going at over 100 if it wasn’t for the gravel trap. Thank goodness for modern safety measures…

Reversing my car, I saw both FormulaJosh and LOWGEARGOD carry on ahead–it seems that I was the one that carried the inertia and was the worst off of the bunch.

image [https://i.imgur.com/JBtD7zK.png]

Visual recreation of the last lap Mulsanne Corner incident. LOWGEARGOD (red dots) went off track (on purpose or not, I don’t know), came back on, and speared into FormulaJosh (yellow dots). Since I (white dot) was in front of FormulaJosh at the time, the inertia from that collision caused him to slide into me, which in turn caused me to be the one that was punted off track. It appears that LOWGEARGOD was able to keep on going on the fact that he was riding the side of FormulaJosh, so as to not lose control of the vehicle. A smarter driver would’ve recognized that a win was improvable at this junction, and given up first place until the next overtaking opportunity, but LOWGEARGOD wasn’t about to give up that easily. Special thanks to ‘Le-Mans-Guide’ for providing an aerial shot that was easy to trace over.

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With my chance of winning effectively over, I coasted on to the finish line. Normally, I would’ve rage-quitted right then and there, but that was a no-go during a sponsorship stream. Honestly, I was so into the race at the time that I forgot that this was supposed to show off the Franatrec wheel setup. I didn’t know what position I finished in. I didn’t care–seeing cars pass by me was infuriating, knowing that I had a decent shot of winning. Michael and Violet were again beside themselves at what happened. While I already had a good idea of what happened, they were stunned. It was even a bigger shunt than the one at the Nordschleife, and a crash with more implications than the one on Special Stage Route X. I admit that my wrists were a little bit sore after that hit, but that’s more from me instinctively trying to keep it going right sharply when it was being pushed towards the other way.

A driver named ‘PillBoy99’ won the race, which meant that FormulaJosh and LOWGEARGOD got into further incidents before the end of the race.

[FormulaJosh: @francisf I’m sorry.]

[FormulaJosh: @LOWGEARGOD fck you]

[LOWGEARGOD: @FormulaJosh GET THAT ASS PUNTED]

This often happened in online races. Two drivers get sick of each other and decide to turn the race into a shoving match. I don’t know what FormulaJosh did to LOWGEARGOD to warrant that mega punt, but needless to say FormulaJosh probably got his payback, and then some. I didn’t know exactly–I would have to save the replay and watch it after.

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Save the replay and watch it is what I did–the stream should end on a light note, so I decided to replay the last lap to show what happened. LOWGEARGOD didn’t even attempt to slow down, which only made my shunt even worse–following that was non-stop bumping and rubbing from both FormulaJosh and LOWGEARGOD. Even with the tire advantage, it was hard for FormulaJosh to get ahead of LOWGEARGOD because he had it setup where he would immediately respawn on track if he touched a wall. Their shenanigans prompted laughs from both Michael and Violet. “What the heck? What is this? Racing? Or bumper cars?” Violet said. “This is more like ping pong…” Michael retorted, unknowingly referencing the famous Vettel radio message. While I was angry at the moment it happened, I admit that it was quite humorous to see two drivers give up all reason and try to wreck each other. This wasn’t my account, so I didn’t care that much if I lost DR or SR.

Shortly after that, I exited out of the game and shut the PlayStation off. There was plenty more that I could’ve done. I could’ve driven around the Super Formula car that I had been given by the game. It was the closest thing I had to driving an F1 car ingame–and to be honest, it seemed like the Super Formula car had more downforce. In game at least. There was also the possibility of switching sides and driving the 787B, but I didn’t think it was worth it. The time loss pitting and all. Above all, there seemed to be an unwritten time limit on these sponsorship streams. We had been going for over two hours now–it wasn’t like Michael was physically trying to get me to stop, but he was saying things like “Well, that’s certainly not the way we wanted to end the stream!” after I crossed the finish line for the last time. “Yeah, maybe next time!” Violet at least was cheering me on, which I appreciated. She was implying that time was up as well. I got the message.

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I’m guessing the stream was an overall success, since I didn’t hear about management bitching to Michael. After all of that, I still had no idea why Franatrec would want to do a sponsorship stream with a VTuber–I mean, he didn’t even set up a pedal camera or one for the wheel. Thinking back, wouldn’t it make more sense to have that set up? Oh well, it’s too late to ponder that now.

Violet also shot me a message saying [“good job on the stream! wish u wouldve won!!”]...what a nice lady. A shame that my gifted subscription to her had expired. I shot her back with a simple [“Thanks!”].

As for the sim racing setup…it’s complicated.

Michael did give it to me–for that one night. More on that later. I was excited about it until I had the sudden realization that I wouldn’t have enough room for it. Having my PS4 set up along with my computer, it was useful when I wanted to console game but not leave my computer. But at the same time, I didn’t have the room to have a permanent setup, which is what I would want. Having to put on and take off a racing wheel each time I wanted to drive was too much trouble for me to do. I could always move my PS4 to my bedroom, which is absolutely massive, but that would mean that I would have to walk ten steps back and forth from my computer to my PS4. What is this, 2009? I’m being hyperbolic, but I liked the convenience. The second option was to get a PS5–that was more realistic, and something I was considering more now. It was all for naught though…

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The next day–it was noon. I was sitting down at my desk and stewing. I had work in an hour and I was mentally prepping myself for it. It would be like any other day. Thinking about it now, I worked for two-hundred dollars an hour yesterday. More than ten times I would be working for today. I did say that I would never be a VTuber due to how high maintenance it is, along with not gelling with the whole ‘idol’ lifestyle, but at that pay rate, I would change my mind at the first opportunty. The reality of the matter is that I’m not entertaining enough organically to attract that type of crowd. It takes a certain moxie to be a VTuber. Something that I couldn’t quite grasp. I’m sure if I asked Michael and the others, they would say I would make a good one, but they’re just being nice. If it did happen, all of my popularity would be solely due to being acquaintances with them. I wouldn’t be successful. Also, I’m way too political.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK*

I was surprised–I knew who it was, but he’d never done this before. Usually he messaged me if he wanted to talk.

“It’s unlocked.” I wasn’t going to get up–whatever he was going to say had to be important if he was coming face to face.

“Hey…”

“Yeah?”

“About that racing wheel…” Michael was looking down, as if he was a bit ashamed of what he was about to say.

“What about it?”

“I uhh…I need to send it back.” I’ve never seen him say something with less confidence. Even when the chip was attacking him he was confidently in pain. I could see why, because this was preposterous.

“...What?” I didn’t know what to think. What do you mean send it back? As I said, preposterous.

“Yeah…my mane-san said that corporate wants it sent to them.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know…”

I was speechless. Why would corporate want a racing wheel? Did they want to return it? Did they breach some agreement? Did Franatrec finally realize a VTuber is the last person they would want to promote their physical product? Whatever it was, all it did was make me shake my head.

“It’s in the bedroom.” It wasn’t like I had a use for it at the moment. “Do you still have the box for it?”

“I tore up the box that it came in…”

“Well yeah. I know that. I’m talking about the other box.” No shit. I was the one that got the fucking thing in the door.

“Man, you don’t need to be such a smartass…no, I tore up that one as well.”

I started chuckling, “We have nothing to send it back in,” I admit, I was being a huge asshole right now, but this was a ridiculous situation. Could they have told Michael earlier? This was pissing me off so bad that all I could do is laugh. “Tell corporate to send someone over so I can shove it up their ass.”

“Calm down man.”

“I am.” I was still shaking my head. “Look, it wasn’t going to work for my PlayStation 4 anyway. Just take it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Is it going to make a difference if I change my mind?” What was the point of asking that now?

“...I guess not.”

“There you have it.” I threw up my hand in frustration while maintaining a sarcastic grin. Why even ask me that? He must have realized how stupid that question was since he didn’t tell me to tone it down again and instead walked past me and into my room.

Michael came back with the wheel in one hand and the pedals in another.

“Are they at least going to pay for shipping?” I had to make sure they were at least doing that.

“Ehhh…I don’t know. I didn’t ask mane-san.”

“Well, you better ask.” If they wanted their shit back, they better at least pay for the shipping.

“Alright, alright, I will…” I knew I was annoying him with my insistence, but this was just negligence on their part. Is AnyClover run by morons? Well, that’s a very broad generalization on my part, but this also was part of a worrying trend. They weren’t my employer, so ultimately I didn’t have to worry about their incompetence. Thank god.

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It was evening–I was busy slaving away at work. After the whole wheel situation earlier I was on edge. I hated feeling like this because I knew that it was a situation that I had no control over. I could’ve tried to press Michael more for his manager’s socials, but I don’t think that would’ve led to anything productive. Don’t need Michael to tell me to not suicide-bait his manager over shipping arrangements.

Taking my mind off it was difficult—the store was busier in the day, but now had slowed down to a lull. The pick-up orders had ceased, and I was taking my time wrapping and boxing items that were to ship out tomorrow. Right now, I was wrapping a ceramic bowl up in bubble wrap so it wouldn’t shatter while in transit.

*BUZZ*

My phone was vibrating—I had been not looking at my phone for most of the work day since every time I did it reminded me of earlier. I was dreading any attempt to reconcile on Michael’s part. Firstly because I didn’t want to hear it, and secondly because he wasn’t the one at fault. If anything, AnyClover should be invoicing me for making the stream possible. Damn, I hate not being in control.

My impulse control finally ran out and I looked at my phone.

[“hey ! are you going to play the sf6 beta??”]

It was Violet. A nice change of pace.

[“Probably not”] I’m not that much into fighting games.

[“its free…”]

[“Yeah, but I don’t play fighting games. I don’t even have an arcade stick.”]

[“that doesn’t matter!! u should at least give it a try!”] She was being pushy…

[“ill think about it”]

[“yay! more people to beat!”] I see where she was going with this, [“Ill teach u! fighting games aren’t hard”]

Well, if she’s willing to go that far, then it couldn’t hurt to try it out. It is free.

[“You got me. I’ll see if Michael has a stick I can use. I’ll be downloading it asap.”]

[”oke !”] [“wait..whos michael?”]

My phone was already back in my pocket. She’ll find out eventually.