Long In the Tooth

[jimortality]

Firstly, I pinched this from a guy called BoothJoe over at ISI forums but it got me thinking.

In a sim, is it possible/probable that the driver's age has a large effect on performance on the track just as it has in real life racing? I don't believe there are many senior citizens running at the top levels. The loss of reaction time and vision and endurance take their toll in the real world, so it would make sense that they do also in a sim like RF2.

At 63, I struggle with RF2 and it occurred to me last night I may never reach the levels I did running the F1 Crammond games years ago. What do you think? Can age present challenges in the sim world that are potentially insurmountable or does the fact that the sim removes the physical punishment mean an "old timer's" glory can last longer than in the past?

I'm not 63 (Only 52) but I kind of feel pretty much how this guy feels. Maybe we could have an OAP club night lol

 

[JeffL]

 

[jimortality]

Paul Newman drove his last race at age 80. The year he died. I bet he enjoyed it too.
In masters skiing I raced a bloke who was still skiing beautifully at 90 years of age.

Did his age affect him, sure it did, did he make excuses about his age-never.
There are guys in masters skiing who at 60 are still smokin!

Lets just race.

Paul Newman dead? when did this happen?

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

Paul Newman dead? when did this happen?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman

 

[jimortality]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Newman

Yes I knew Gijs, I was just being a bit silly.

 

[Matej Lakota]

Paul Newman drove his last race at age 80. The year he died. I bet he enjoyed it too.
In masters skiing I raced a bloke who was still skiing beautifully at 90 years of age.

Did his age affect him, sure it did, did he make excuses about his age-never.
There are guys in masters skiing who at 60 are still smokin!

Lets just race.

My father https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lakota (happy birthday daddy ) is 78 today and even I raced slalom and GS for Yu national team in 20th century, I need to do my best to stay with him all day long when we go to ski together .

Years do not matter, I am also an old fart but still can make troubles to young guns on the track ... sometimes

 

[Patrick Moore]

Firstly, I pinched this from a guy called BoothJoe over at ISI forums but it got me thinking.

In a sim, is it possible/probable that the driver's age has a large effect on performance on the track just as it has in real life racing? I don't believe there are many senior citizens running at the top levels. The loss of reaction time and vision and endurance take their toll in the real world, so it would make sense that they do also in a sim like RF2.

At 63, I struggle with RF2 and it occurred to me last night I may never reach the levels I did running the F1 Crammond games years ago. What do you think? Can age present challenges in the sim world that are potentially insurmountable or does the fact that the sim removes the physical punishment mean an "old timer's" glory can last longer than in the past?

I'm not 63 (Only 52) but I kind of feel pretty much how this guy feels. Maybe we could have an OAP club night lol

Yes, age is definitely a factor since our reaction times decrease with age. This is normal, this is "one of the insults flesh is heir to." (to badly paraphrase Shakespeare). Perhaps this decline in ability could be less pronounced in simracing than in realracing since many factors are missing from the computer compared to real-life?
much lower physical demands
ability to practice in same conditions over and over and over and over
ability to practice at time of choosing (in real-life and in games)
probably many other advantages that I cannot think of at the moment!