My experience at Vortex Racing
Racing simulators vs real life!
Vortex Racing for those wondering, is a simulator racing experience with the same simulators used by F1 teams. Thats right F1!
Lets start with how I found out about this place and why it took so long to finally get around to going. I found out about Vortex Racing on Facebook, some five years ago at least. Even though I knew about it for so long and it only being about a half hour away (located in Lachine, Montreal) I just never took the opportunity to go. That was until about two weeks ago when my girlfriend's brother offered me a gift card with enough on it for the introduction course (which is mandatory).
When we showed up it didn't look like there were too many people inside, and little to our surprise, there was no one inside... Except for the one person working that day. Once we were all signed up and ready to go, we had to go into the "changing room" and were told to put on racing shoes and gloves. Both of which are mandatory, they also had racing suits and helmets, for those looking for the realest of real experiences. I though, was ok with just the gloves and shoes.
All geared up, we were instructed to head up the stairs and look down at the sims for a quick safety lesson. When you're working with $250,000 simulators, you better believe there is a safety lesson. After about two minutes or so we were ready to hop in and start driving.
Before we get into how the driving went, I want to get into the simulators a little bit to give you a better idea of what we were working with. These were Cruden simulators and from what I was told, costed roughly $250,000. They were also 7 years old and we're installed at the same time Vortex Racing opened. But, even for 7 year old sims they worked really, really well. My only, I guess you could call it "complaint" was the actual program they are using for the F1/training course. Though it was updated over the last few years it still felt kinda... well old. The sims were basically set-up on a platform connected to four massive hydraulic pistons, which is what gave you the movement. I would say they had a good 10 inches of travel in either direction.
Back to how the driving went. We started with a qualifying, driving a formula 3 car which lasted 6 minutes. We then drove a six minute race with the same cars. It was in the last race we got to drive the big boy cars, F1! Now, the first two cars were pretty forgiving, in the sense that if you got on power a little early or braked a bit to far into the corner, it was pretty easy to recover. But, if you made the same mistake in the F1 car, you either spun or found yourself far from the track real quick. It was pretty crazy to also be able to feel the difference in the steering between the two cars. Obviously the F1 car had substantially more down force so when I was going around a long uphill sweeper (like the Eau Rouge from SPA), the steering wheel from the F1 car was WAY heavier then the formula 3 car.
Getting used to the F1 car took some time, the only problem was, we only had three minutes to get the hang of it. So, by the time I was getting used to it and not spinning the car around, the race was already over. Which is where one of my other "complaints" comes in. We got a total of 15 minutes driving time with the introduction course. Given, they do have lots of other driving experiences you can choose, but again the introduction course (mandatory) is $85 and you only get 15 minutes of driving time.
Overall I would say it is a definite must try for anyone who enjoys driving but realizes they will never actually drive an F1 car. I think price wise it can be a bit expensive if in the case you compare driving time to something like Go Karting where you can get 30 minutes of driving time for less. But, you don't get to drive F1 cars or any of the other driving modes that Vortex Racing offers.
All in all, I really did enjoy the time I spent at Vortex Racing, the customer service was great (from the one person) and they do offer quite the facility to consumers to go and enjoy. You can even grab a drink when your done to relieve some of the motion sickness. Go check them out and give it a try, who knows maybe you'll post a new fastest time.
Vortex Racing for those wondering, is a simulator racing experience with the same simulators used by F1 teams. Thats right F1!
Lets start with how I found out about this place and why it took so long to finally get around to going. I found out about Vortex Racing on Facebook, some five years ago at least. Even though I knew about it for so long and it only being about a half hour away (located in Lachine, Montreal) I just never took the opportunity to go. That was until about two weeks ago when my girlfriend's brother offered me a gift card with enough on it for the introduction course (which is mandatory).
When we showed up it didn't look like there were too many people inside, and little to our surprise, there was no one inside... Except for the one person working that day. Once we were all signed up and ready to go, we had to go into the "changing room" and were told to put on racing shoes and gloves. Both of which are mandatory, they also had racing suits and helmets, for those looking for the realest of real experiences. I though, was ok with just the gloves and shoes.
All geared up, we were instructed to head up the stairs and look down at the sims for a quick safety lesson. When you're working with $250,000 simulators, you better believe there is a safety lesson. After about two minutes or so we were ready to hop in and start driving.
Before we get into how the driving went, I want to get into the simulators a little bit to give you a better idea of what we were working with. These were Cruden simulators and from what I was told, costed roughly $250,000. They were also 7 years old and we're installed at the same time Vortex Racing opened. But, even for 7 year old sims they worked really, really well. My only, I guess you could call it "complaint" was the actual program they are using for the F1/training course. Though it was updated over the last few years it still felt kinda... well old. The sims were basically set-up on a platform connected to four massive hydraulic pistons, which is what gave you the movement. I would say they had a good 10 inches of travel in either direction.
Back to how the driving went. We started with a qualifying, driving a formula 3 car which lasted 6 minutes. We then drove a six minute race with the same cars. It was in the last race we got to drive the big boy cars, F1! Now, the first two cars were pretty forgiving, in the sense that if you got on power a little early or braked a bit to far into the corner, it was pretty easy to recover. But, if you made the same mistake in the F1 car, you either spun or found yourself far from the track real quick. It was pretty crazy to also be able to feel the difference in the steering between the two cars. Obviously the F1 car had substantially more down force so when I was going around a long uphill sweeper (like the Eau Rouge from SPA), the steering wheel from the F1 car was WAY heavier then the formula 3 car.
Getting used to the F1 car took some time, the only problem was, we only had three minutes to get the hang of it. So, by the time I was getting used to it and not spinning the car around, the race was already over. Which is where one of my other "complaints" comes in. We got a total of 15 minutes driving time with the introduction course. Given, they do have lots of other driving experiences you can choose, but again the introduction course (mandatory) is $85 and you only get 15 minutes of driving time.
Overall I would say it is a definite must try for anyone who enjoys driving but realizes they will never actually drive an F1 car. I think price wise it can be a bit expensive if in the case you compare driving time to something like Go Karting where you can get 30 minutes of driving time for less. But, you don't get to drive F1 cars or any of the other driving modes that Vortex Racing offers.
All in all, I really did enjoy the time I spent at Vortex Racing, the customer service was great (from the one person) and they do offer quite the facility to consumers to go and enjoy. You can even grab a drink when your done to relieve some of the motion sickness. Go check them out and give it a try, who knows maybe you'll post a new fastest time.
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