<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  The year is 2030. A 100-year-old Bernie Ecclestone, more powerful than King Charles III and President Beiber combined, crowns a new World Driving Champion, the youngest in Formula 1 history at 12 years old. The record-setting prodigy got his start not in go karts, but with driving games, winning the Forza Cup when he was 4, then taking the Gran Turismo Championships at 6. He drove his first F1 machine at 8 and won his first &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; race when he was 10.   Sound far-fetched? Don&amp;#039;t be so sure because based on the sophistication of the latest video games, it may not be long before we see professional racers going straight from their game consoles to the racetrack. Take for instance Gran Turismo 5, the latest version in the Gran Turismo series (60 million units sold worldwide) released a couple of months ago. Just when we thought the overall virtual driving experience couldn&amp;#039;t get any more real, GT5 blew us away with even better simulations that truly deliver the sensations found in a real car.   &amp;quot;We have incorporated more technology into GT5 than in any of our previous games. Also, we have something called the GT Academy where our gamers can win a chance to compete in a real race in a real race car\u2014last year, one of the [European GT Academy] drivers [Lucas Ordonez] placed 3rd in a race at Silverstone\u2014so the era of racers starting out on simulators has already begun,&amp;quot; Taku Imasaki, producer of GT5, said.   The other big player in this arena is Forza Motorsport produced by Microsoft (more than three million sales in its 6-year history). Hard-core gamers will tell you that Forza&amp;#039;s approach is different from that of GT; while GT5 is for the serious enthusiast, Forza caters to a broad range of skill levels, from beginners to seasoned professionals.   &amp;quot;Our goal was to make it the best simulator out there, but we didn&amp;#039;t want to make it for just hardcore gamers. So we provided layers to our physics engine so a child playing his or her first driving game can have fun. These layers, such as stability management, traction control and ABS, can be pulled away gradually as the driver&amp;#039;s skill level improves. There&amp;#039;s even a rewind function where you can turn back time,&amp;quot; said Dan Greenawalt, creative director at Turn 10, producer of Forza.   The most popular driving game in the world is Need for Speed, produced by EA Sports, whose 16 games have sold more than 100 million units. Unlike GT and Forza, Need for Speed is about fun, with more action and role-playing mixed into the formula. That said, its latest release, Shift 2, goes toe-to-toe with GT and Forza where the player progresses through the ranks from amateur driver to professional racer.   With all three games, you can challenge other gamers via the internet. A company called iRacing specializes in wheel-to-wheel competition in the virtual world (see Road &amp;amp;amp; Track, December 2008). For about a $100 per year, you compete against other members in a number of different series. Once you get fast enough, you might even share the grid with real pros like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Alex Gurney, both iRacing fans. And the best part of iRacing is that it requires only a computer and internet connection to participate, which brings us to another big reason these virtual games have become so popular: money. It still costs a lot of money to go &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; racing (an acquaintance spent $50,000 to bankroll his son&amp;#039;s go kart season last year), while, comparatively, it costs next to nothing to race virtually.   It seems only a matter of time before these driving games become the training ground for future racers\u2014simulators are already used extensively by professional drivers in every racing series from NASCAR to F1\u2014so if you&amp;#039;re thinking of scolding your kid for playing too many video games, you may want to reconsider. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a16904/a-breeding-ground-for-future-champions/>