You could have tried racing games in the arcade and maybe even at home with your own wheel and probably think that you're a pretty good virtual racer. Well, its time to think again, because after racing on what I think is the most sophisticated simulation machine I've ever seen, sim racing will never be the same again.

I was first introduced into sim racing, which is just an abbreviation of 'simulation racing', about 2 years ago while I was still struggling with the A levels. Not a very good time to be spending hours on end trying to learn a track, say the Nurburgring or Sepang. But that was 2 years ago. After my A levels, I managed to get a Logitech G25 wheel which works great, with a 6 speed H-Shifter and stainless steel paddle shifters and a leather clad wheel with 900 degrees lock to lock. And I managed to drive decently on the wheel after about a year trying to figure out how to get past driving without traction control on a keyboard..

So you'd think that with a wheel with one of the best force feedback, you'd get a realistic feel of what its like to drive round a track at breakneck speed. That's what I thought. And even though shopping centres have those so called F1 simulators during the Singapore GP, they never really throw you around like say a Nissan Latio would in real life. They just rumble your butt. Which isn't much. So in my quest to search for the best sim racing experience here, I finally found this tiny little space in the East where my racing thirst was quenched.

Its called the Motion Racing Sim and it started up not too long ago, only in April this year. One of my friends who had been there before asked me to have a go and I did! And boy did it blow my mind away. With the bucket racing seats and the whole setup with a full range of motion including being thrown from side to side, it was quite a tiring experience driving round Sepang in an M3. And, not only did I realize my driving style was totally not fit for the track, the movement of the chair itself was entirely realistic as well. The owner, Shaun, told me that he had set up the rig a tad more violent than what it really feels like in the car on a track because that way, when he went down to Sepang, his laptimes actually improved because he was used to the G-forces. That explains why some track day enthusiasts head down to his place to have a practice session before driving up to do the real thing.

You don't just get cars like the M3 or the crowd favourite WRX, you get to drive in F1 cars as well and that makes this better than all the others I've tried in shopping centres around Singapore. I won't say its true to life because I've never driven an F1 car, but its difficulty makes it believable.

As a car enthusiast, I think that there's always that urge to want to push a car to its limit, to see how fast you really can be on a track. Its rather addictive because you get something like 'speed fever' and you just want to keep going and going to better your lap timings. In this, you can feel the car, and adjust to the way it responds to your input so whatever you see on the screen is whatever you're doing or not doing to the car. For me, this is the most realistic thing you can get other than racing in a real car on the track.

Here's a link to their website if you're interested in taking a shot round Sepang or Singapore's GP track. Just be prepared to crash a lot if you're a newbie! But otherwise, its great fun.

http://www.creativetoolbox.com.sg/motionracingsim/