Hey Racers, Jason here.
I‘m excited to get to know all of you in the Sim Room, but before we put the pedal to the metal, I thought I’d let you know a little bit about me.
It’s safe to say racing is in my blood. Growing up in Benicia, California, I was part of a road racing family and I instantly fell in love with anything and everything on four wheels.
When I was in high school, my dad and uncle purchased an ’82 Toyota Celica and a Mazda Rx-2. We went racing on an SCCA local hobby level, and I was hooked immediately. My dream was to become a professional driver, but that’s an expensive and elusive pursuit. It wasn’t long before I discovered there were other ways to be paid to be at the racetrack. Through grunt work and networking, I steadily built up my racing mechanical and test driver resume. While at UC-Davis —studying something totally unrelated to racing— I filled my free time developing a race car maintenance skillset and learning how to build cars and provide track-side support.
After graduating, I worked for several semi-pro and professional racing teams, traveling the world and working at the track at major events such as the 24 hours of Daytona.
At 30 years old, I was ready for a career change, so I went back to school and got a financial planning degree. My first day in the office, I missed racing.
Jump to March of 2020 — the pandemic hits, and COVID forced us into a world full of virtual substitutes. IndyCar also went virtual; drivers raced each other on the iRacing platform from sim rigs they built at home. Of course, I watched these virtual races on TV, and after hearing the drivers describe the realism of the simulators, I thought to myself, “I have to try this.”
I got my own basic sim rig together, an iRacing subscription and I started racing. I was very impressed. The force feedback, the sensitivity required for the driving inputs, the vehicular dynamics, and the detail of the circuits is absolutely remarkable. This is not your 1990s video game. My passion for race driving was instantly rekindled.
And that’s how the Sim Racers Group was born. I want to share my passion for sim racing with all of you! It’s an affordable, engaging and safe way to race.
I am now the racing driver I wanted to be from the time I was five years old. I have a 12-week season schedule including most of the best racing tracks in the world. I have rivals I’m trying to beat and who are out to beat me. I race every single day. And so can you!
Come race with us!
– Jason
