Nestled in the heart of the Huntersville, North Carolina, business park is an office building like many others. But its exterior and the name on the door give away nothing regarding what’s inside.
This is the home of the Chevrolet simulator.
It’s a typical office space, complete with a waiting area and receptionist. There are a kitchen area and conference room, as well as other working areas. But then there’s a room where numerous computers and screens are set up. Through a bank of windows, it stares into an even bigger room where the simulator sits.
The simulator itself is the cockpit of a race car. Drivers climb in like they would a car, strap in with the same seat belts, look at the same digital dash, and use a standard steering wheel. The shifting mechanism even came from Hendrick Motorsports. Once inside, the top comes down completing the car look with the roof, windshield cut out, and driver’s side window complete with window net.
The simulator’s environment is as close to the real thing as it can be. And coupled with NASCAR’s move away from testing, the simulator has become an increasingly popular tool.
“I think maybe (the testing ban) accelerated the development and the use of the simulator because it is a decent proxy for the racetrack,” John Plyler, Chief Engineer/Program Manager for the Chevy Driving Simulator Laboratory, told RACER. “It’s very immersive for the driver. It’s an immersive environment for the team as well, because of the data that’s available is largely the same as it is on track.”
The simulator does move, although primarily to give a sense of changing direction, and it does not necessarily account for the banking of each track. There are five projectors and a wraparound screen for graphics to help the driver feel as though they are at whichever track being run. Even the torque on the steering wheel adds to the illusion.
“One of the first tell-tale signs to us that we were doing something good early on, was after an initial acclimation where the driver gets used to what’s going on with the simulator and gets used to the motion and the graphics, and starts talking about the car, the track, the setup,” Plyler said. “That’s a pretty good sign that it’s become a good proxy for what’s happening on the track.”
The current location of the simulator has only been up and running for about three years after splitting from its sister company in Mooresville. In that time, Plyler says the staff has grown from a handful of people to 35-strong, with specialists dedicated to working on simulation, the simulator, NASCAR team support, database, and software.
Alex Bowman spends a lot of time driving the simulator. He works for both Chevrolet, where he runs the wheel force car during organized tests, as well as Hendrick Motorsports. For Chevrolet, the data collected from the wheel force car is brought back and attempted to be matched in the simulator. For Hendrick, Bowman works on the simulator running through setups for all four HMS cars.
Bowman knows very well how far the simulator has come, recalling on his first day how hard it was just to make a lap. Nowadays, Bowman says it is “really, really close” to what it’s like being on a live racetrack.
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Bowman climbs into the simulator, as he has done plenty of times before. Only this time he’s talking to RACER on the other end of the headset, and not engineers or a crew chief.
Running laps at a virtual Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Bowman says everything he’s working with inside the simulator feels the same as a race car. The only difference is that it doesn’t get hot, or as noisy, and there are times in the simulator when he finds it easy to cross the line and spin out.
“We’re always making progress, and it’s always getting closer, but I would say for the last six to eight months we’ve really been able to use (the simulator) and feed setups to it and run through all our weekend setups and it be a huge positive,” Bowman told RACER. “And it’s only going to get better the more data we get and the more we refine it.”
Bowman (BELOW) used to spend a lot more time in the simulator, but as he and Chevrolet continue to prove its worth, more of his peers are becoming sold on the idea. It’s almost led, Bowman jokes, to everyone fighting for time.
Austin Dillon said he’s used the simulator for road courses. Rookie Ty Dillon and his Germain Racing team are at the facility on Wednesdays. AJ Allmendinger has also used it and admitted he got sick after his first few laps before adjusting to the movement and graphics.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Greg Ives are also big proponents of the simulator, having used it quite a bit already this season and making it a regular part of their process. The No. 88 team has credited the simulator with providing a good direction on setups for places like Dover International Speedway and Pocono Raceway.
Bowman’s work in the simulator also helps his Hendrick teammates. The setups the four cars unload with on Friday could be the same ones Bowman has run through already. He does the same thing post-race to see how well the information from the track correlates to being in the simulator.
“For sure,” said Bowman of how good it feels when the Hendrick cars run well. “It’s probably the biggest deal when they unload fast; when they’re off the truck fast. A lot of that comes from a lot of work in the simulator. That’s been really good to see. Just a testament to how good it is.”
Jeff Gordon gave the simulator his seal of approval last year after using it to prepare for his substitution role in the No. 88 – something Bowman also did. For the latter, it was helpful for him not only to work on setups, but to simply become reacquainted with the racetracks after having been out of a car for several months. Absolutely, Bowman says, has there been an increase in drivers using the simulator.
“I think what really solidified that was Charlotte (last October),” he says. “It rained out practice one day, and we came in here and we ran through all our practice stuff that we had that we were going to do at the racetrack,” Bowman said. “We ran through it here, and we were running second or third when we blew a tire. Had qualified second.
“We were really strong, and it was all based off simulator stuff. We hardly got any track time, so that was all based off simulator stuff and we ran up front. From then on it was really eye-opening for everybody, and definitely there was a significant uptick as well in wanting to use it.”
The simulator is available to NASCAR teams as well as those at Corvette Racing and in IndyCar. The Corvette drivers use virtually the same cockpit. For IndyCar, the engineers simply switch out the NASCAR cockpit for an IndyCar pod.
As an OEM, providing its teams with resources is something Chevrolet prides itself on. And as the simulator continues to bear fruit, Bowman and Plyler believe it will continue to become an even bigger attraction.
“It’ll get better and better,” Plyler said. “Again, it’ll never be reality. But as the level of immersion increases, which really means the realism increases, as our knowledge of the tires evolves, aerodynamics, yeah, it will.”