From Sim to Track: James Corban on Racing, Technology, and Performance

Paul Spain:
Greetings and welcome along to the New Zealand Tech Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Spain, and real privileged to have James Corban joining us on this episode. How are you, James?

James Corban:
I’m doing great, thank you. Thank you for having me on.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, look, it’s a real privilege to have you joining the podcast today and of course, a big thank you to our show partners to One NZ, 2degrees, Spark, Workday and Gorilla Technology for supporting the New Zealand Tech Podcast and keeping us broadcasting. Now, sort of, you’ve got a little bit of a different role as far as sort of, you know, tech’s concerned to most. So, you know, tell us where you cross into the world of tech.

James Corban:
Yeah, so I’m an up and coming professional racing car driver and within tech, I do a lot of work on the simulator and you have to dial that in. And also with cars, you’re constantly going over the data of you’re driving and how you’re braking and how you’re turning and how to improve the car. And that’s all involved with tech and data and software.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, be very data driven, right?

James Corban:
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Paul Spain:
So today I wanted to sort of delve into part of the reason I got you on is this time of year people are kind of often sort of thinking about gifts and investments and things like that when it comes to Christmas. And one of the gadgets that we got our hands on was Logitech’s Trueforce RS50 system, which is their racing wheel and pedals and so on, which is quite a step up from some of their other gear, which is fun too. But I thought, oh, this is getting a bit more into the professional realm. So keen to get someone who understands this, this stuff a little bit more. So maybe later you can tell us a little bit about the sort of SIM racing kit and so on that you use. But yeah, it’d just be interesting to hear about how you landed into this world of racing, professional motorsport.

James Corban:
Yeah. So I grew up with the dream of wanting to be a professional race car driver. And I finished school, didn’t grow up in karting and finished school, studied two years at a Bible college, leadership college. And then at the end of that I was like, okay, I’m going to go full force into racing. And In March of 2023, just two and a half years ago, I did the New Zealand Racing Academy just down at Hampton Downs, and it was my first official test day in a car and within three sessions I was significantly faster than the professional driver drivers there.

Paul Spain:
Wow.

James Corban:
Yeah.

Paul Spain:
And what. So is that something that happens very.

James Corban:
Often or no, I’ve never really. You hear a lot of cool stories that happen where people get into cars in the past, but for someone like me, I didn’t have the experience behind me or the family that was interested in motorsport. They do support my journey a lot, but also to get in a car and be quicker than professionals straight away was a bit of a pinch myself moment and it made me realize like, whoa, this is possible and I gotta go full force into this. Yeah. So it was very humbling and exciting. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
Wow. And so, yeah. What have, what have you, you know, what have you been able to do sort of from, from there so far?

James Corban:
Yeah, for sure. I, from that test day I got onto a race team and then I met some other guys and started racing with them and got a bit of practice in real cars which I hadn’t had. And then we won an endurance championship together in a BMW in my rookie season, which was amazing and I love the endurance side of it. And then from there, during my first season, I had an opportunity to go to the US and test with the top US Formula 4 team. And it was quite funny actually. I went over there in my mind, I was like, I want to go break the lap record. And I came in as this bold younger guy and they were telling me, hey mate, before you even consider one of our championships over here, you should go and drive the really slow formula cars and get some wheel to wheel experience. But then after two test days, they didn’t offer me a seat in their two club level Formula 4 championship.

James Corban:
They offered me a seat in the top professional FIA F4 series. And that was hugely humbling as well. And from there I networked and tried to find the backing to get there. Cause it costs a lot of money to.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, how expensive is this stuff? If you want to do say, yeah, Formula 4F4.

James Corban:
Yeah. So that series, US F4, I was needing about 85 a weekend just to race. And then on top of that you have a bit of insurance and travel. So to do the full five round series, I was looking at half a million dollars to race. Yeah. So it’s a bit of coin.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty challenging. And so what did that journey sort of look like in terms of trying to raise some funds and so on?

James Corban:
At that point I rang everyone I knew and tried to network with some of the highest people in New Zealand motorsport, the most experienced, and some of the wealthiest too. And I got quite a bit of feedback that I should try and buy what’s called an FT40, which was an old generation formula regional formula three level car. And that, that would be cheaper and you’d get a lot more experience in that. And it’s actually a quicker car than the F4, so ended up making that choice and for the price of maybe one and a half rounds in the US you could own a car and do a whole championship. So that’s ended up what happened. And I bought a FD40 off Kenny Smith, who’s a pretty iconic person in New Zealand motorsport and a great mentor and he. Yeah, then I won the championship in that car in my first season with my manager helping me out and helping me set up the car. And he’s a mechanic by trade and that was pretty special.

Paul Spain:
Brilliant.

James Corban:
Yeah. So yeah. And then at the same time I met a guy called Gerald Trass. He used to own a Ferrari GT3 team. So Ferrari road cars converted into race cars. They raced around Bathurst, the Bathurst 1000. And I met him at the track at the track day, I remember there. And I drove one of his cars after getting to know him and I was faster than him.

James Corban:
Then I drove his Honda, which he had, and I was about four seconds quicker and he wanted me to race for him. So I raced on short notice within two days. I drove the car on a Thursday afternoon. I raced on Saturday morning.

Paul Spain:
Wow.

James Corban:
And that was amazing. And then he built the car to almost championship winning car level. And then I did a round in that and I won the round which was very special. And some of the other guys had more upgrades to their car and we didn’t have that, but we still managed to beat them on points and. Yeah, and that’s kind of where I’m at now. I met another guy at the track called Robert Wang, he’s an amazing, amazing guy. And I offered him some setup advice one day on his car which had just involved me driving it and feeling it and seeing where the pain points of the car was. And I got in and within three laps I was 2 1/2 seconds quicker than his best time.

James Corban:
And he loved that. Some people wouldn’t love that, they get beaten in their own car, but Robert’s an amazing man and he loved that and I managed to give him some good feedback and we’ve stayed in contact and driven his car a few times. And then he’s just bought production race series and is starting this corporation called street to Track which is designed to get street races off the streets and into a safer, more competitive, more fun environment like the racetrack. And so he’s busy managing production race series which is one of the largest grids in the country with the most amount of cars. And he was like, james, I want you to race my car. And a bit like same kind of deal that I had with Gerald and super honoured to kind of be thrown in the deep end and do a good job and perform and keep his car clean. And it’s a huge honour to be chosen to do that and given that opportunity.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, cool, cool. Now, sim racing, I’ve been, I guess curious around the way that more sports we’re getting into, you know, we’ve got sim golf and I was talking at a golfing conference a little bit about that and you know, the future of golf in that industry in the last few months. There’s the sim racing side and so on. So we’re sort of, we’re seeing, you know, varying sports where there are simulated sort of digital, I don’t know if you can say equivalents, but sim options. How close and how important do you think is the sort of sim side of racing these days?

James Corban:
I do think it’s very important. I personally spend quite a bit of time on my simulator and have spent quite a lot of time and it’s the biggest thing about it is you can train the same techniques, especially with braking and steering that you would in the real car and it’s a lot cheaper than real track time. So with the cost of a simulator, you just buy it, buy the software and it’s kind of more like a one time investment with maybe a few extra little payments. But to get on the track you’re looking at spending a lot more per day to get the same amount of laps. And on the sim obviously you can reset and just do reps, really laps and laps and laps. And it’s very imperative. Yeah, I do find that it lacks a little bit of that real feel. I found that getting into Gerald and Rob’s car and other cars like the F4 car in the States, I have a bit of a natural talent and I can just find the limit of a car and don’t know how to explain it almost, but now I know how to articulate that.

James Corban:
But then with the simulator, the only two points of kind of feedback you’re getting is through your hands, through the wheel, which you get through your body and the G force in a car and your eyes. Whereas in real life you’re using all your senses. But also the simulator does just help you to train those fine muscle movements, especially with braking. That is really crucial for real life. But F1 teams and things like that. They have simulators that are worth tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. And it’s crazy what they do. I think before race weekend they will put through their software.

James Corban:
I think Max Verstappen said like 100 billion different scenarios of different weather, different tyres, different strategy choices so that they know what setup to put in the car to make it quicker in the real life race weekend and what strategy’s gonna be best and running all the variables instead of just guessing on the day. So it’s imperative for high level motorsport to get a good result nowadays.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Now we’re coming to the end of the F1 season. We’ve just been playing the F1 game or simulation on the Xbox with the Logitech RS50 system. But looking at the actual F1 this coming weekend, is it the final for the year?

James Corban:
Yes.

Paul Spain:
So who’s your pick? Cause it’s kind of neck and neck in there in terms of you’ve got three races that are pretty close. You mentioned Verstappen. Do you think he’s going to. He’s going to manage to sort of, you know, pop to the top or.

James Corban:
You know, it would be pretty incredible.

Paul Spain:
Oscar Piastri, how do you think that’s going to land? Or is it going to stay with Lando Norris, who’s at sort of top of the table?

James Corban:
I’m not sure. There’s so many variables that happen with racing. You know, there could be a turn one incident or a tyre blow, so you never know. But. But all three drivers are incredible. Yeah, I’ve heard it’d probably be nice for Norris to take a win. Oscar is an animal. He’s amazing.

James Corban:
He’s so focused and great at driving and he’s more new to it than Lando. But Max is just. People call him a freak of nature. He gets in anything and he’s super fast. A bit like Shane Van Gisbergen from New Zealand. And I mean, Max, he had a bit of a rough start to the season, so it’d be pretty incredible if he brought it back and got another world title. Yeah. But hats off to all of them.

James Corban:
It’ll keep us all on the edge of our seats.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah. You know, I guess it’s interesting to. Yeah. To see that change where, you know, for quite a number of years it was, you know, Mercedes, you know, dominating and then Red Bull and then, you know, certainly for a pretty good chunk of the season. Yeah. McLaren’s been in an impressive position in terms of their performance. Right. Which is Cool.

Paul Spain:
I think, you know, for a Kiwi with that Kiwi connection and you know, Back to Bruce McLaren, it’s always nice to sort of see those Kiwi connections. And of course, we’ve had Liam Lawson racing this season as well. You know, it’s looking like he’ll be around for next year as well. Although you have to kind of stay tuned to all the online gossip if you were placing bets on that. But what I saw this morning, it was looking like he’s around for at least another year, hopefully.

James Corban:
Yeah, we’re all rooting for him.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And on that note around McLaren Logitech also sent over some of their new gaming and racing headset. Their A50. This is the McLaren Racing Edition, so it’s in the McLaren colours and is a very nice headset. We’ve got a McLaren fan in our office here and yeah, he was pretty impressed. Looks like their, you know, retail prices in that sort of 700 to $800 range. So not a low cost investment, but yeah, be quite nice to wear with the racing. I’m picking based on your comments before we jumped into recording.

James Corban:
Yeah, when I put them on, I was like, man, how do I win this? They feel very comfortable and wireless is always very helpful when you’re on the sim.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And it’s nice to have a bit of a look in it. So, yeah, the wireless is pretty handy, but yeah, definitely super comfortable. Now, on that basis you mentioned about winning things, we have realised it’s been quite some time since we’ve done a listener survey. So we’ve got a bunch of giveaways coming together and if you could help us out and jump across to nztechpodcast.com survey and fill in our survey, then yeah, you’re gonna be in the draw for some nice giveaways. We’ve got things there From Motorola, the Edge 60 Fusion handset, Logitech, their Kasa pop up desk. We’ve got two of those, one in pink, one in grey. They’re really cool.

Paul Spain:
So you’ve basically got a little enclosure which is not much bigger than a laptop and you can fold out to basically a stand to put your laptop on and that sort of sits up nice and high. And because it’s tilting up your keyboard, then you’ve got a separate Bluetooth, wireless keyboard and mouse that you can use on the sort of flat of your table. So, yeah, certainly something quite handy. If you like to work in different places or if you’re going to need to do a work on the go over summer, you can Just basically throw that in with your laptop and that will have you able to work away or game or whatever else you want to do. But it’s got the keyboard and the wireless keyboard and wireless trackpad to go with it, which is quite nice. And then also the Logitech keys to go to, which is a little portable keyboard that you can link up to Android or iPhone and get productive just on your. Just on your phone without even having to carry a laptop. So a few giveaways there.

Paul Spain:
So, yeah, it’d be great to great if you could help us out. As I say, we haven’t done one of these for a while, but it really helps us as we’re planning New Zealand tech podcast for 2026, and we get a little bit more of an understanding on our listener base, which is helpful for our show partners as well, so that they understand who is listening in, but gives you a chance to really feedback any suggestions, ideas or comments that you have from the show, what you like, what you don’t like, and so on. So if you could do that while we’re chatting away on the podcast, that would be great. Or afterwards, we’ll give you a reminder as well. So that’s how you get in and win stuff.

James Corban:
Amazing.

Paul Spain:
I don’t think We’ve got the McLaren headset in there at this point. You know, we’ll watch this space, but. So I really want to know what your pick is, James, for if you had to choose, if you were put on the spot, which is right now, and you had to pick someone, who would be your pick?

James Corban:
Are you more meaning who I’d like to win, or. Well, maybe.

Paul Spain:
Maybe you can give us both. So, yeah. Who would be your preference?

James Corban:
As I said, it’d be nice to see Lando win.

Paul Spain:
Yeah.

James Corban:
Because he’s a few more years into McLaren. He’s been very loyal when they weren’t at the front, and then now he’s got an opportunity to win. So it’d be nice to see him win because obviously it’s every driver’s dream to win a world championship.

Paul Spain:
Yeah.

James Corban:
So Max has won. Oscar’s got a few more years. He’s obviously performing super well, and I think he’s in his third season, so. Yeah, so it’d be nice to see Lando win because he’s been in it a little bit longer. Yeah, they’re all very talented. It just depends on who’s got the right mindset on the day and what happens with the other drivers. But I know Max is very, very good. Max and Oscar especially, like, I don’t know how much they’re willing to risk, you know.

James Corban:
Cause they can shove each other off the track, which then can in their races in itself, so.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah, true, true. Or a teammate can do something, but, you know, presuming there’s no dirty tricks or anything, which we don’t sort of expect at that level, but you never quite know what. People are pretty pushy to get the best results.

James Corban:
Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know who I’m rooting for. I’m obviously ready for Lando, but.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, well, he’s at the top of the table, so the chances are reasonably strong for him, but I guess we will see.

James Corban:
Yeah, just gotta keep the pressure and emotions under check on the day and just execute.

Paul Spain:
How much is mindset in sport for you?

James Corban:
Yeah, it’s pretty high. A lot of people say that if you. I mean, if you turn up on the day and you don’t believe you’re the best, you don’t believe you’re the fastest on track, you know you’re gonna be nowhere. I’m a little bit more calm than that, personally. Like, I have a faith in God and I do a lot of prayer and just trust that his will be done. But I make sure I’m prepped the best I can through visualizing, and every time I get in the car early, make sure I’m all comfortable and all strapped in and then just trying to visualize what I’m going to do and calm myself. Because your heart rate gets pretty high and it can be very easy to get a bit tense, which is actually the worst thing for driving. You want to be super relaxed and super comfortable, which is quite hard when you’re getting thrown around at a couple GS and it gets up to 50 degrees in the cabin of the car and you’re wearing multiple layers of clothing, so.

James Corban:
Yeah, but it’s very important. Like, you look at Formula one, I remember, I think it was China earlier this year, and I think Liam Lawson got knocked out. But all 20 cars in qualifying Q1, we’re within a second. So, you know that’s fractions, right? That’s less than half a tenth per corner, way less than that. It’s nothing. So it’s very important that you just be so dialled in. Try not to listen to the noise. And it’s very easy.

James Corban:
I think, at the top, you’ve got so much noise around you, so much news, so many people hating on you or loving on you. And I hear that most F1 drivers, try not even look at the media. And then for me as well, you try not to look at other drivers and where they are. You just try focus on the job you got to do. Like, especially when I’m driving Robert’s car, it’s like, hey, I’m here to perform. I’m an athlete. I just need to do the best job by my coach or the guy who’s employed me, if you will, to drive his car. So rather than looking at the noise and looking where everyone else is or how much money did that take, or, you know, that’s a lot of stuff I’ve had to work on and dial in and just focus on what you’re doing.

James Corban:
Cause your story and your situation is different from everyone else’s.

Paul Spain:
Things like your general fitness and sleep, all of those things play into it right?

James Corban:
Big time.

Paul Spain:
And so for you, do you use any tech or gadgets to help you sort of sleep, track, or, you know, help you on a fitness front?

James Corban:
Yeah, definitely. I have a Garmin watch and I. I love data and I love improvement. So I’m always looking at my resting heart rate overnight. First thing I do in the morning, I’ll check what my heart rate’s like. I did a hard workout a couple days ago, so my heart rate’s been higher. It’s just really interesting, that kind of data. And then also you check your sleep on the Garmin app.

James Corban:
And for me, I love seeing improvement in the gym and in my running and in rowing and cycling. Yeah. Because I was training earlier in the year between six and eight times a week just to stay fit and strong and ready, make sure my neck’s up to standard as well, because that’s pretty important. And yeah, I’ve had to track calories and track what I’m eating. I had a nutritionist, especially when I was racing my formula car. Cause I was versing a couple guys who weighed 20 kilos less than me. And I’m just a bit taller, a bit older, and 20 kilos, we don’t know for sure, but it could be worth up to a second lap.

Paul Spain:
Wow.

James Corban:
Which is ridiculous. And I know at Formula one, everyone’s kind of in another Formula series, people are at the same weight, but when you’re battling, you’ve got to try, do everything you can. So I was probably less than 10% body fat. I’m still probably around there. But just tracking every calorie and using apps and going back and forth with a nutritionist, it’s pretty crucial.

Paul Spain:
It’s pretty Serious stuff.

James Corban:
Yeah.

Paul Spain:
So what would be your heart rate sort of overnight typically then if that’s something that you track.

James Corban:
Yeah. At the moment it’s sitting around 46. 46 is my resting. Yeah, yeah. Not as low as I want to, want to get to. I mean I want to continue going in endurance sports. I really enjoy it. And something I want to do is Hyrox, which is kind of like a CrossFit.

James Corban:
You run 8km, but in between each k there’s like a CrossFit workstation. So like rowing, ski, yerg, lunges, weighted lunges, farmers carries all these things and it’s pretty full on. You just got to track everything you’re doing and make sure not to blow out. But yeah, I know I’ve got a way to go if I want to achieve the goals I want to achieve in that in the future. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
Oh, good stuff. But the Garmin, that’s obviously you’ve been pretty happy with.

James Corban:
Yes, yeah, yeah, it’s really good tricks my heart rate really well, which is helpful. You know, you want to do a lot of Zone 2 training, which is where your heart rate’s in. You can kind of comfortably talk and have a conversation. It can be quite hard to hold that. So when you’re running, cycling in the gym, you want to be holding that kind of heart rate so that your endurance base can grow. Cause you sit in zone two to even sometimes zone four in the race car all the time and improves just your overall function cardiovascular so that your brain can focus. Because within a race car, because it gets so hot and there’s all these G forces, it is actually quite physical as well to drive and shift the gears and the brakes actually quite heavy. Most people aren’t aware of that.

James Corban:
Like in my formula car, for example, I think I was pushing 80, 90 kilos of force. Just like every time you hit the brakes and you have to kick it on, really, you push it on really fast, then you bleed off and you have to have a lot of control. So yeah, it’s pretty important.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s serious. And so, yeah, you’re talking about that weight on the brakes. How different is that in your sim racing setup?

James Corban:
Yeah, so I, I bought these SIM trick pedals off MRP sim racing and they, they’re regarded as really high level. There’s this guy called the Sim racing garage on YouTube and he gets sent everything simulator to try and to review and he was using them two years after on his own personal simulator rig or his configuration, which is all the aluminium chassis that you have, because you want everything to be stiff when you’re pushing so much weight into the brake and the steering wheel is giving you a lot of feedback, you don’t want flex and in that, you want it to. You want every input to be from you to the simulator. But, yeah, I bought those pedals and I had them cranked up really high and you just change the load. Cell elastomers is what they’re called. And I was probably pushing 120 kilos on the SIM, which is quite heavy, or even maybe higher. It’s really heavy because when you’re in a race car, you got the G force pushing you forward when you brake.

Paul Spain:
Yeah.

James Corban:
In the simulator, you don’t.

Paul Spain:
Right, right.

James Corban:
But then I’ve come out of my FT40 Formula 3 car and you come back to the simulator, you’re like, oh, the brake’s a bit heavy. And I’ve actually lightened it now. It’s probably around that 75 to 90 kilo mark. And it feels pretty much identical to how I sit in the car. I’ve got a formula seat, my feet are elevated like they are in a formula car. Not so much in this Honda I’m racing, but my simulator feels basically like I’m getting in my old car, which is. Yeah, it’s quite helpful. Yeah, yeah.

James Corban:
Helpful for your brain as well when you get back in the real car.

Paul Spain:
Now, to put this sort of simulator together, and I guess this is something we can sort of compare to, say, buying the more consumer gaming sort of style kit. There’s quite a difference in terms of how much work it is to get everything set up right. I know we spent under an hour today sort of getting the Logitech kit and the pedals and bits and pieces set up, not in an actual frame as such, but a reasonably quick job to sort of bolt things together. In fact, probably a lot of the time was faffing around with the Xbox and whatnot as well, and downloading the Formula One software at, what was it? 70, 75 gigs. 75 gigs. So good fibre connection helps with that. But tell us, how much work and effort was it to kind of get your sim racing kit all together and operational?

James Corban:
Yeah, for sure. I started with something less than this Logitech. Like, I got a thrustmaster, which is. You just attached it to my desk and pedals on the ground.

Paul Spain:
Yep.

James Corban:
Dining room table, chair. And that’s like just kind of plug and play almost. Yeah, that’s easy. That was way less work than the Logitech, but then about Two years ago, we upgraded after I was or around the time when I was faster than the pros in real life. I got a full rig and all aluminium, no instructions really, and made a few mistakes. But I think it took around 40 to 50 hours to fully get everything sorted, figure it all out and put it together. Because there are quite a lot of bolts and you want to constantly adjust it to be more like you. Like I said, you know, when I come back from a race weekend, I adjust it and make the steering wheel in a different place.

James Corban:
And it’s not as easy as just sitting in the road car and pushing down the. The thing underneath the steering wheel. To move it, you’ve gotta undo like four bolts and then adjust the angle and have someone else holding it. And it’s quite a mission. So probably now that I know what I’m doing, it’d still probably take 15 to 20 hours to build a proper rig.

Paul Spain:
Yep. So the different levels. So if you go for a sort of lower level one, you pretty much plug and play, whether it’s a low end Logitech or somebody else’s. For something like the RS50 system, there’s a little bit more of few bolts to screw together and so on. Particularly if you’re putting that onto a rig as such. And then, yeah, at the more professional level, that’s where it can take as long or as much money as you want. Right. You’re talking around in Formula one that many millions go into these machines.

Paul Spain:
So, yeah, that’s really interesting. So, yeah, we fired up the RS Logitech today. How did you find it?

James Corban:
Yeah, I was actually very impressed with how it felt, especially like the steering wheel. It looks all quite quality. I’ve heard about these new direct drive wheelbases because most of Logitech stuff has been belt driven, which, once you start taking sim racing seriously, you want to go to a direct drive system, which is what this one is and what my one at home is. And yeah, I was quite impressed. It was quite easy to set up. Obviously I hadn’t seen it before and you hadn’t seen it before and we still managed to do it quite quickly. All the buttons feel pretty quality in the steering wheel. But yeah, when we drove on the F1 sim, the steering, I could feel the understeer and yeah, it was nice.

James Corban:
It was quite nice to drive. I know my simulator coach, I used to see he runs a wheelbase similar from Logitech and he loves it, he runs it and he’s a very good driver. Very pronounced in social media as well, and he loves it and raves about it, so it’s quite cool to drive it.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, I guess that this is sort of the thing, as time goes on, we get more and more options kind of coming through in the market at varying price points. So, yeah, the mass market sort of nature of some of these things, I guess you get that sort of simplicity that they get. They’re a lot easier to set up than say, a complicated setup like yours. And also the price points that they come in at are more reasonable, shall we say, than some of the higher end kit, which can be a big investment.

James Corban:
Right, yeah.

Paul Spain:
So, yeah, looking at the Logitech, it’s called the Logitech G RS50 system for that whole setup with direct drive base and steering wheel, around $1,400 is the retail price. And they’ve got a PlayStation and PC version and an Xbox and PC version. So you can connect to either depending on which model you go for. And then the pedals, I think they’re sort of in the direction of $300, so, you know, it’s a reasonable investment to kind of get in at this level. But of course, there’s the varying price points. So, yeah, thanks for your feedback on that. I thought you’d know a lot more about this than I do, that’s for sure. So, yeah, great to have that insight, James.

James Corban:
Yeah, totally. And also, if you are looking at buying a SIM and you go for a direct drive, probably the most important thing is to get a load cell brake pedal, because there’s the load cell or the potentiometers, and the load cell’s based off how much force you put in, which is more realistic with a real car. But then a potentiometer is based off the position of the pedal, so how far the pedal’s down rather than the force you’ve pushed. Yeah. So definitely go after a load cell if you can.

Paul Spain:
Yep, yep. And Logitech’s GRS pedals that we’ve been trying, those are. Those are load cell.

James Corban:
Yes. Yeah, they are. So that’s what you want, because most of the. If you have a Potentiometer pedal set, what happens is you’ll be using mainly your ankle and the small muscles and your feet and calves to. To brake. Whereas in real life, in the race car, you’re using your big muscles, like your quads and your glutes, to push a lot of force into the pedal and to control it as well, because it’s so much technique when it comes to braking and you want to be training that rather than small, imprecise muscles. That’s very easy to just jump off the brake pedal or lose brake trace as you’re coming off, which is the big science behind driving fast. Yeah.

Paul Spain:
Yep. Oh, that’s cool. Appreciate the insights. Now, a few more minutes before we wrap up. One area that’s been changing in Formula One and in racing is the halos that help protect the drivers. And, you know, if we look back to the sort of early days of racing, you know, it was something of a suicide mission to be a racing driver. And of course, Bruce McLaren sadly passed away testing a vehicle. What do you think around where we’re at and where that side of things is going?

James Corban:
Yeah, motorsport. I mean, historically, you’re racing in the 50s and 60s, I think it was. Multiple people died every year. You were racing with no sights to the track, on roads. There were houses, there were cliffs and people would die quite a lot. But now there’s so much safety involved, it almost feels too much sometimes, like with all the health and safety procedures and everything. But it’s so much safer now, even driving even this Honda, for example, which is not a factory race car like a formula car, it’s so much safer than driving any road car, even like a five star road car, that I could have a crash at over 200k an hour and I’ll probably walk out of it just fine. Not even really have to go to hospital.

James Corban:
It’s pretty crazy.

Paul Spain:
Don’t do that, by the way. Don’t test that, please, James.

James Corban:
No, no, no, I don’t want to test that. But yeah, now with crashing with drivers, we care less about the health side of it and we care more about how much it’s gonna cost to fix it. Because we’ve got a roll cage, got like a five point harness, so you can’t move. Like it’s hard to breathe sometimes, which is how I like it. You make it as tight as possible, you give yourself a couple minutes and you tighten the belts even more. And I’ve got a neck restraint called a HANS device, so I can’t break my neck. And you’ve got all this fireproof gear on, so if there’s a fire, you can walk out of it. With the formula cars, my Car is a 2006 Formula Regional Car and I don’t have a halo, but it’s still really, it’s really strong.

James Corban:
It’s got a carbon fibre tub.

Paul Spain:
So describe the halo. For those who can’t picture it, they’re not familiar.

James Corban:
So, yeah, you look at a Formula one car now or any Formula Junior category. And they’ve got. Right in front of the driver’s eyesight is a pole that comes out towards them, above them, and then it’s like a halo, like an angel halo that goes around them to the back of the car, which is a super strong bit of material and carbon fibre that protects them in a crash, in a roll, so their head and neck isn’t going to be destroyed and take their life. And there’s been so many cases of drivers flipping or cars going over the top of them, if the halo wasn’t there, they would have surely died. A guy I raced with, he had a 150k an hour crash end of last season and he hit the wall, the entire front end of it. Both tyres were off and there was no front to it. And he hit the wall pretty hard, had a big G spike and he walked out of it. He was totally fine, just more concerned about his car.

James Corban:
And that’s a 2006 car. And then now you’ve seen F1 drivers. I think Lewis Hamilton had a crash a while ago where he hit the wall at 300k an hour and walked out of it. And it’s just crazy. My car I’m in doesn’t have a halo. And the thing with that is you’re open to the elements. Like, I’m driving at Hampton Downs and there are sometimes birds flying over the track and I’ve had to like back out of the throttle or like avoid or try and dip down in the cockpit because I don’t want a bird to hit me in the face at 150 because, you know, you can get knocked out, like.

Paul Spain:
Yeah.

James Corban:
I think just before they introduced halos, there was a Guy In Formula 3, he had a. It was 150k an hour crash where someone’s tire came off in front of him and then it jumped up in the air and hit him in the head. Instantly died. And nowadays we’ve got halos that go. They can hold like multiple bus weights on them or something like that. So now if something comes in, like a tire or if another car, like, you’ve seen those crashes when I remember at Monza in Italy, where Verstappen got on top of Lewis Hamilton and the tyre was legit on top of Lewis Hamilton’s head, but the halo was stopping it. If the halo wasn’t there, Lewis Hamilton would have died. You know, the weight of the car would have been.

James Corban:
Yeah, that’s a huge step. That’s really great, you know. Yeah, yeah. Because you are Doing ridiculous speeds and things happen so fast.

Paul Spain:
Anything else that you wanted to add before we, before we finish up?

James Corban:
So, yeah, I’m still looking for support and people to get around me.

Paul Spain:
So if anyone want to put their hands into their pockets and help out, sponsor you or support you in some way, where do they go to find out more or to connect with you in person?

James Corban:
Yeah, the best way would probably be through either my website or LinkedIn. So just. Jamescorban.com C O R B A N that’s my last name. I’m very approachable. I love catching up with people and meeting them, hearing their stories. But yeah, the next steps in my racing career either require connections and me driving with people in their cars and endurance racing, or gathering the budget to be able to then progress to the next step.

Paul Spain:
Fantastic. Oh, it’s been absolutely fascinating having you on the show, James. Yeah, thank you for joining us.

James Corban:
It was a pleasure.

Paul Spain:
Of course, for listeners, just a reminder, please go and fill out our survey, give some feedback on what’s working, what’s not with the show. Any other suggestions? And yeah, if you can answer the other questions in there, it’s pretty quick. You can probably get through it in about 60 seconds. And the plus side for doing so is we’ve got some good giveaways. Those that make the effort to enter usually got some reasonable odds compared to buying a lotto ticket or anything else by a long shot. So we’ve got a Motorola Edge 60 Fusion handset, Logitech keys-to-go 2 Logitech Casa pop up desk in grey and a Logitech Casa pop up desk in pink. So, yeah, if you hop across to nztechpodcast.com survey and we’ll put that link in the show notes there as well to make that nice and easy and quick for you to click on. And of course, a big thank you to our show partners.

Paul Spain:
To guerrilla technology Workday, Spark, 2egrees and One NZ. Well, that’s us. Thanks everyone for listening in and thanks again, James, for joining the show.

James Corban:
Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you.

Paul Spain:
Cheers.