Brought to you by DiRT Rally 2.0
Have you ever put hours and hours into a game, and then wondered if you could transfer those skills to the real world? What if you could become a master at a football game and then play for Manchester United? Or beat a rhythm game on expert, and then play the guitar on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury?
Well, Jon Armstrong has done just that. After playing rally games at home when he was just a kid, the Northern Ireland native entered the world of motorsport at the age of 13. He went on to compete in World Rally Championship 2 and eventually smash his way to winning the Rookie title in the DMACK Fiesta Trophy in 2016.
But real life rally is not the only place Armstrong is a champion, he has recently moved into competitive video games and is the current World WRC eSports champion.
With the unique position of having a foot in both worlds, Armstrong has most recently worked as a Rally Consultant on DiRT Rally 2.0 – the latest instalment of Codemasters’ racing franchise.
We caught up with him to pick up some tips on how to excel in both the real and digital racing worlds.
JOE: So, how did you go from an IRL rally driver to becoming a virtual one?
Jon Armstrong: It’s a funny story. Basically, I got all the way up to WRC 2 level, one step down from the premier class. Then in 2017, I couldn’t really find the budget to [continue]. So I turned my attention to eSports, just to keep a competitive mindset going, something I could fill the void with.
It’s a strange alternative, but I’ve been playing video games since I was five years old. I was playing the first Colin McCrae Rally in the late 1990s. I basically learnt to drive through video games. So for me to go back to sim-racing and eSports was pretty easy and wasn’t a huge leap.
I’ve always been involved in sim racing and the community, the DiRT franchise in particular. I was involved in some of the tests with the first DiRT Rally game, and DiRT 4. And then as I was talking to [Codemasters] more and more, I came to the studio to help out. The next thing I was coming in for a job offer.
You are credited as ‘Rally Consultant’ for DiRT Rally 2.0 – what does that job actually entail?
This is the first job I’ve ever had in a gaming company. And the first I’ve ever had in a big office environment – it’s very alien and different to what I’ve done before. My role is to bring the knowledge that I have from both rally and from sim racing – it’s quite difficult to find someone who has done both at a high level. I try to give everyone at the studio enough feedback on the game, in the areas they are working on, so it is as authentic as it can be.
I work with the car handling team to make sure the physics are always improving. I also do the pace notes and make sure they are accurate and being triggered in the right areas, also making sure the tracks deform in the right manner, and the way the tire wear works.
A lot of new things in this game in particular, they needed real life knowledge in order to balance it, and make it as authentic as possible. I’m always doing something different.
You don’t have a background in game development – what was it like coming into Codemasters?
One of the first things was that you don’t realise how much people power it takes to manufacture a video game of this size. It’s crazy. When you’ve never been in a gaming studio, when you come in and see the vast amount of people, and they are all working on pretty small areas of the game – each person has a different chunk to make.
There are lots of other obstacles that you don’t necessarily see from the outside. I’m learning every day about how games are made.
To get into the level I’m at without having to go through game testing is quite unusual, so I feel very lucky.
What’s the biggest difference between driving in a rally IRL, and playing a top rally game?
The biggest difference is you don’t have the same G forces as in a real car. You don’t have the same forces when you go over a jump. What we try to do to in DiRT Rally 2.0 give you as much feedback as possible through the steering wheel, to tell you how the car is doing, and how to react.
Obviously, games are getting closer and closer to the real thing. We put a lot of effort into the game, and into the handling model, to make sure it is authentic as it can be.
What advice would you give to a young kid who wanted to get into real life rally driving?
If you want to get into rally you can start through eSports to learn the basics of driving. I’ve always said the grassroots of motorsports is kart racing, but now it is almost like it is eSports, because it is the cheapest way to get in there and start racing. It doesn’t cost very much, you can race against the best people in the world. And you can really hone your skills.
To get into real life racing, it’s quite difficult, because of the barrier of budget and money, and finances. But if you can start off small, learn as much as you can from that level, and work your way up, If you are good you will get opportunities to get sponsors.
One of the main things is to be proactive in the community. Speak to as many people as you can, in whatever race series you happen to start in. My career especially, started off really small, doing junior events with a 1.2 Vauxhall Nova when I was 13. I raced in that championship for four years until I was 17, and I could get my road licence. It will snowball if you work hard at it, and keep dreaming big.
And what advice would you give on getting into eSports?
eSports is a bit different. The barrier to entry on real life motorsport is money, but when you take that away, the next issue is how much time you have.
It’s almost like time is money. The more time you have, the more time you can practice, and improve, and shave off every tenth of a second you can. If you are starting out, you need to realise it is going to take a long time, and you will need to invest a lot of time into it to improve it. That the most difficult barrier to get past, just how much time you need to put in to become a top level player.
But if you have the ambition, put in the effort and you’re good, it really is simple. You just need to find the time and start racing.
And if you can, try and get into a community of players who are really focused on the particular niche that you are best at, because they can give you tips, and help you improve.
What will players learn from DiRT Rally 2.0 that they could transfer to real life rally?
They’ll learn the basics of the sport. They’ll know what is required to drive a real life car – how to accelerate straight, braking, hand brake turns. We’ve focused on making that as realistic as possible. You’ll learn how to do all that, and you can totally transfer that into the real world.
Even listening to the co-driver in the game [will help]. That’ll train you for real life. Once you get in a real car with a co-driver beside you, it’ll just be like second nature. You’ll learn how to set up your car as well, you’ll what makes the car feel better, what suits you as a driver and what suits your driving style. How you can get the most out of the car set up. The balance of the car, a rhythm through the stage.
Do you need to be in good shape to be a rally driver?
Yeah, it definitely makes it a much easier task. A 50km stage in full fireproof overalls and helmet, it gets pretty warm in there. So you do need a level of fitness to endure that much heat and time in the car. And it is pretty physical, you are wrestling a rally car through a stage for a long time.
You need to work on fitness that improves your endurance, but also your mental [state]. You need a high level of concentration. For both real life and sim racing, I would go to the gym, [doing exercise] on a swiss ball, while also throwing a ball at a wall, so I’m working my core but also training my mental hand-eye coordination.
DiRT Rally 2.0 is available on Amazon
