I STARED at the wall and made a list of excuses in my head. Reminders, so I could look at the new piece of shiny on my desk and remember why I paid hundreds of dollars for a factory-fresh steering wheel that was never going on a car.

The order form asked for a credit-card number. I punched one in without a second look. Mr. Big Stuff, I felt like! Wins are all that matter! Climb any mountain! Only the best equipment! The Roger Penske of my basement!

I have met the madness of online sim racing. Help.

Simulated cars and competition against real people. Software like iRacing and Assetto Corsa, but mostly iRacing, because it’s the best: around for years, thousands of people in the draw, hyperaccurate tire and suspension models. Five minutes after I decided to start this new life, a piece of software on the other side of the world emailed to confirm that I had just spent entirely too much money on several pieces of fake car: a high-end force-feedback steering-wheel base; a separate shift lever; USB pedals with a load-cell brake. All from a German firm that had, in typically German fashion, built a nearly perfect solution to a problem I didn’t know I had. Finally, from Amazon, the icing on the cake: a $300 Momo wheel, 350 millimeters. It’s called the Prototipo Heritage, and it whispered sweet nothings in my ear. Creamy black leather and a 1970s logo. Because who puts an ugly steering wheel on anything?

I will be gone for 30 minutes, I told my wife, that first night. Just enough time to set things up in my home office—update drivers, plug in cables. Four hours later, her head poked into the room. “I thought you were dead,” she said.

I didn’t hear her, because my ears were stuck underneath a disturbingly expensive Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset. (Had to buy it for immersion. Basement Penske abhors half measures.) She lifted one of the Rift’s headphone speakers and slowly repeated herself into my ear. I jumped a little in the chair.

“I died at Daytona 20 minutes ago,” I said. “Tried to make an Indy car go around the place flat. It was lovely! Then I reset and tried again.”

I pulled the Rift from my head. She was making that face she makes when I ask if I can cook dinner.

“On our first date, you said you weren’t a video-game person.”

“Right,” I said. “Stopped in high school. When I beat Nintendo’s Ocarina of Time and discovered club racing and guitar amps.”

“So that was a lie?”

“I’d rather be outside. But look how cool my new wheel is!” And then I flipped the Oculus back on and dreamed of dawn light at Laguna Seca. Mostly because I was looking at iRacing’s version of Laguna Seca, weather dialed for a sunny morning. “This is so pretty. Come look!”

She was already gone. Probably out of worry that she wouldn’t be able to properly tune a highly accurate digital simulation of a three-way damper. So I tried to convert my dad. Sixty-five years old, nice guy, once held an SCCA comp license. I plugged him into the rig a few weeks ago, let him meet the Prototipo. He protested, then giggled. He did not ask why, because he is my father.

iRacing

There are good reasons to go sim racing: It helps keep your eyes sharp. You can’t always get to a track in real life. Tires and consumables for a single club-racing weekend can easily exceed the cost of an Oculus and a wheel-and-pedal setup. And when real cars break or go off, fixing them costs actual money.

But the greater reason is giggles. And really, who can be in a real race car at midnight on a Wednesday, when you have to get up for work in six hours? Or maybe it’s five hours. Four? You could get by on three, you know. There are tenths to be found at Lime Rock! Stock-car drafting and crashing at Pocono and Talladega and and and did you know that Le Mans only feels right with your right foot unleashing more motor than Texas?

They say that too much screen time can kill your attention span. This is possibly true, and I didn’t have much to begin with. (We get letters. Put a leash on Smith, one said. I wonder if the author of those words knows the stress of being punted out of the draft at Pocono while Pocono is also your basement. What that does to a man.) But the madness creeps. I haven’t been this obsessed with pixels since Bill Clinton was in office. My mind wanders during work, to slinging through digital corners, warming tires that don’t exist. Sitting in that fake church and worshiping the real.

Good metaphor, really. Have to spread the gospel. More believers means more people to race with. Have you heard the good news about iRacing? Have I told you about the period-correct and emotionally resonant feel of the Prototipo Heritage leather? Wait, come back, it’s like Mel Gibson said in Braveheart, you know, every man dies, not every man truly rips a Lotus 79 around a digital Nürburgring at three in the morning with the wings cranked up?

Haven’t seen the movie in years. If that isn’t the quote, tell me later. I’ll be in the basement. Which seems to be a topic of discussion lately. The last live human I saw said that if I don’t soon come upstairs, she’s going to find a sexy helicopter pilot, marry him instead.

Convenient answer. Marriage is overrated. Live Human said so! She seems nice. Concerned about my welfare. She said that, too. Was real serious when she did. But it turned out okay. The wheel and I, she says, are going to be very happy.

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