Feature: Sim Racing - In Iraq!

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With the help of a buddy, I made a computer workstation out of scraps of plywood and 2x4s. That little woodworking project not only gave me a place to put my Dell gaming laptop, it also gave me something to clamp a racing wheel onto. I quickly e-mailed the family with a rather odd request: “hey, could you box up my Logitech MOMO wheel and mail it to Iraq? Thanks!”

By the end of April, I had my MOMO wheel with me in Iraq, and I was racing, albeit on a somewhat limited basis. With no Internet connectivity for personally owned computers and the Army blocking access to all gaming-related web sites on their network, I was restricted to single-player racing. I had rFactor and GTR2, but quickly found that GTR2 was my preferred method of escapism from the harsh realities of life in the combat zone. With "guod" graciously mailing me DVDs containing the cream of the new mods and tracks, I was able to organize the mods into my own American Le Mans Series (ALMS) that took advantage of GTR2s superb environmental transitions, sounds and visuals. I created my own multi-class endurance races, and when racing time ran out and real world commitments beckoned, I could simply create a Save Point during a pit stop, and re-join my same enduro battle the next time the opportunity to race presented itself. It was almost like putting down a good book, knowing you’ll pick up the story later on. It’s a feature I hope all racing sims take advantage of in the future.

Many might think mailing the MOMO over was hardly worth the bother (okay, who am I kidding — if you’re reading this, you’re a sim addict just like me). But as I explained to my family in a letter, the beauty of sim-racing is its intense demand on your concentration. When you’re striving to carve that perfect line through a corner, your mind is working so hard that you briefly lose touch with the reality around you (just ask my wife…). So here and there, for a few hours each week, I could take a break from the realities of Iraq. Although my body was still in the war zone, my mind was off in a virtual world: I was at the track, listening to the rich snarls and screams of my GTR2-animated Audi R8, Corvette C6R or Ferrari 550, marveling at the play of other cars’ headlights as they passed over the track’s surrounding infrastructure while the sky darkened, the shadows grew longer and I settled into another racing stint on fresh tires. As I would tell my family in e-mails, “well, today I spent the morning in lovely Brands Hatch, England, participating in a Porsche Carrera Challenge race”. Over the months, I was able to “travel” to Kyalami, South Africa, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, Braselton, Georgia and Silverstone, England. We often take them for granted, but even with their individual flaws and limitations today’s crop of PC racing sims and their freeware mods are truly marvelous works of art. Sometimes you have to be taken away from life’s other luxuries to see the superb beauty and value of modern PC simulations.

So, for about four months I was spending a few precious hours a week basking in the glow of my high-definition Dell laptop display, drinking in the enjoyment of single-player racing action in GTR2 and rFactor. In August, I got an e-mail from 20mm alerting me that yet another SimHQ member was headed to Iraq for duty in the war zone.

"Weasel_Keeper" was the latest staffer tapped by the military to deploy, and he expected to spend the late summer and early fall in Iraq on an “arduous” 45 day Air Force deployment (sorry Weasel — is my envy showing?), keeping his squadron’s jets flying.

"About the time "Chunx" shipped out I found out that my Air National Guard unit would be heading to Iraq for a 45 day deployment at the end of the summer. “One weekend a month my azz!”

Now to be fair, I’m in the Air National Guard. We’re not an active duty Air Force unit. Our job is to primarily protect assets in our great state. My unit volunteers every year and a half to activate and go overseas to relieve the burden of active duty USAF units so they don’t have to stay as long. We normally split the time up with other ANG units and take a large chunk out of the time that active duty units would have to stay. Over half of my unit (all volunteers) are traditional Guardsmen who only do the one weekend a month thing and have normal civilian jobs during the week. Although it was only 50 days in country, our F-16s did some things that made a difference, and the side of the base where I worked was mortared at least once a day.

As the time drew near for me to head over I mentioned to "guod" and "20mm" what I was doing since I wouldn’t be here to perform my job as Assistant Forums Manager for a couple months. "20mm" sent me a PM and told me to hold tight while he checked something out. What he did was e-mail "Chunx" and then he got back with me and told me that I should try to look him up because he was over there somewhere.

“Yeah, okay Tom. Iraq is pretty big and I’m not leaving the base... but I’ll see what I can do (yeah, right).”

I decided to e-mail Chunx directly for information as to where he was and if it would even be possible to meet up. Chunx replied that he was at the base I was heading to! Holy cow! We passed contact information to each other and I told him I’d see him in a couple weeks."

I dropped Weasel an e-mail, eager to see what details he could share about his upcoming deployment. Imagine my surprise when Weasel described the base he would be assigned to — and it was the same base I was at! Talk about coincidences! Of all the dusty, remote bases in this war-torn land, the only two SimHQ staff members deployed half-way around the world to Iraq wind up co-located. Go figure.

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