Hi everyone.
I suppose I would consider myself the veteran of the Championship and of racing games in general.Although not the oldest gamer I know ,at 41 I've seen racing games come from the good old days of the arcades in the early 80's to present day with the consoles and PC's ruling the gaming side of the sport.I suppose it all started for me as a kid with good old scalextrix which i inherited from my uncle who had all the old 60's classic cars from the GT 40 to Stering moss and Jackie Stewart era.I grew up in the James hunt and Nikki Lauda era and had all the cars but my favorite was always the JPS Lotus,Wish I still had it.As a fan primerally of F1 When racing finally came to the home console I couldn't resist and bought the Mega Drive and in 1989 the game that started the ball rolling for me came out,that game was the groundbreaking Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco Grand Prix II.An absolute classic to this day.
After this period I took a break from the world of racing games to concentrate on Family and career and it wasn't until the launch of the Playstation that I would come back and sit behind the virtual wheel of a racing car in yet another Milestone in the history of racing games,Gran Turismo,then Gran Turismo 2 on the PS2.It wasn't until XBOX live when I raced human opponents that I got the BUG for online racing .I never was the fastest racer ,and now at my age with slower reaction time I guess I never will be ,but it hasn't dampened my enthusiasum and love the games.Probably ,for me,the greatest online racing game of all time has to be TOCA 2 and 3,Toca 3 comming at the end of the first xbox era which was a shame. I used to run mini championships on Toca 2 with my friends and had some epic battles.
So I hope this has given you all an insight into where i came from.I certainly haven't played racing games as much or as seriously as some of you guys,but I certainly intend to keep playing and staying involved as long as I can do.
Clay.