VR Motion is primarily a software company, which first markets their wares to military and law enforcement, fleet drivers, and teenage drivers in order to train in a safe and secure environment. As we’re not interested in taxis, turn signals, or truck transport, you might be able to imagine the reason we find them relevant: they also do motorsports training.

Based in Hillsboro, Oregon, VR Motion caters to aspiring racing drivers looking to get their hands on sophisticated training software to learn new courses or new machinery for a fraction of what the real thing costs, without the risk of mechanical failure or hospital visits. What’s more— they provide a completely immersive experience with the aid of Oculus Rift-style headsets.

Complete immersion in the environment has been shown to “create muscle memory and improve memory retention—up to 30% over conventional simulation training systems,” notes former Indycar driver and Co-founder/COO Dominic Dobson. This means a pupil will ingest 30% more information or learn the same amount of information 30% faster.

Additionally, it’s one of the more cost-effective forms of simulated training; the headsets are far cheaper than big, wraparound screens. The company uses off-the-shelf products to assemble their own motion base, which provides three axes of motion with three electric stepper motors. Currently, their software is compatible with most headsets and computers, but, ultimately, they’d like their software to be completely hardware agnostic.

Training for Pike’s Peak

In fact, Dobson himself used the VR Motion simulation software to prepare for his foray at Pike’s Peak back in 2015. Dominic, despite his CART and Group C experience, needed to reacquaint himself with a light and powerful prototype, and turned to VR Motion to gain some experience on a course which offers virtually no time for testing.

Since real-life practice is restricted to different thirds of the course in the preceding days, Dominic needed a way to string together those three sections and understand all the surface changes that occur over the 12.4-mile course.

After twenty-two simulated runs, VR Motion’s other Founder, Keith Maher, predicted Dominic would be able to make it to the top in just ten minutes and twenty-five seconds. Turns out, Dominic beat that predicted time by ten seconds, and snagged both the win in the Unlimited class and the Rookie of the Year award—which he attributes entirely to the preparation VR Motion offered. It was then that Dobson felt he needed to take a role in the company, and has since acted as a Co-founder/COO.

Though Dominic’s professional racing career is long over, he remains an active force in the racing world. Currently, he helps move young talent up the rungs of the motorsport ladder, and his protégé, if you like, is the young Andrew Evans. Last year, Evans competed in Formula Ford 2000, and had never been to Laguna Seca, where his championship final would take place.