My Gran Turismo Journey
Hello there!
Hope you don't mind a long read, but I wanted to share my journey with the Gran Turismo series and how it has changed my life. Seeing as this is the GT community, I wondered if anyone else has had similar experiences and would be open to discuss or share what Gran Turismo means to them.
So I'm only 22, and my experience with Gran Turismo only started when I was 18, so not that long ago. I know some of you have been lifelong fans, some even starting from 1997, so I must seem like a baby 😂
It was when I had got my driver's license and had saved up to buy a used Hyundai Elantra, my first car that I still use today!
I was honestly scared of driving, big time. I was hesitant, cautious, only driving somewhere I absolutely had to be, I never went out to just drive for fun. I new nothing about cars except from Pixar Cars, Speed Racer, and Transformers. All I new was they looked cool, but where ultimately just a way to get from point A to B. I played soccer growing up so the car I knew the most was my mom's 2011 Honda Odyssey 😭
But then....2023 happened. I was about to graduate high school, and early in the year, I was about to watch John Wick: Chapter 4, and I was super excited for it! I watched the movies when I was younger but made sure to marathon them ahead of time. One thing that stood out to me upon rewatch were the really cool cars and well choreographed car action scenes, especially in the first two, and the motorcycle chase in 3. It got me curious about class muscle cars for sure.
Then, JW4 had upped the anty and gave us the Plymouth Barracuda chase through the streets of Paris and it was so freaking awesome. But more importantly, I needed more....I had the need for more car action and to see more cool cars doing cool car things....
So in 2023, not long after JW4, I saw trailers for Fast X, the tenth F&F movie, and I was like "damn this Charger chasing a bomb through the streets of Rome looks awesome" and it seemed what I was looking for, and decided to marathon the series.
Best choice I ever made.
I don't even need to explain how F&F gave me the car culture virus, you already know, I'm sure most of you did the same 😂
Even as the movies got more and more crazy, I was here for it. The characters, the action, the stunts, and just seeing a variety of Muscle, JDM, Supercars doing cool shit in awesome locations was enough to get me hooked.
All of a sudden I was doing research on the history of each car company's various sports cars and learning everything I could from YouTube channels like Donut, Mighty Car Mods, Larry Chen, Jay Leno, Corsicar, THE SQUIDD, and even watching Top Gear!
There was just one problem....
I didn't know how to race or drive to the limit. F&F may have good races, but I didn't really learn anything about manual shifting, drifting, or racing aside from the basics or what I saw in the movies. But I wanted to learn, I had the need to want to race.
Then the 2023 Gran Turismo movie came out. I had heard of the series and had played some racing games when I was younger, but I sucked at them and it was a blind spot for sure. All I knew was it was about a kid who played GT and went to race professionally.
And when I walked out of that theater, I had a massive smile on my face, but more importantly, a strong desire of passion and determination had filled me. It was a very inspiring and uplifting, triumphant racing movie, and for someone getting into cars and racing, it was almost like I was reassured that "Yes, there is a place for you here. You belong here. Racing is for everyone." The fact that I'm not rich, I don't have a sports car, I don't live anywhere near a racetrack didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was the fact that I could teach myself to race, and that was enough.
By the way, yes, I'm aware the movie has a lot of glaring inaccuracies to the real events, but I still enjoy it anyway. I made sure to read up on the actual GT Academy story and Jann's career, which was honestly more inspiring haha.
But in a vacuum, the movie is still excellent and does its job well :))
So after that, I got GT7. I started on controller and completed the main campaign, doing all the license tests, collecting all the menu books, and getting to drive a wide variety of cars on tracks all across the world. I learned about engine placements, transmission types, learned how to drive manually, weight transfer, proper braking, pitting rally, car tuning, etc.
One by one the assists came off until only ABS remained, and I graduated to using a used Logitech G29 on a wheel stand, which only made the experience that much more rich.
It was just an amazing experience, and a game that I still play everyday.
In fact, I got emulators up and running and beat the first 6 GT games and PSP and the Prologue titles too ofc! 😆
I wanted to know more about the series so I did research and got the series deepcut lore from Roflwaffle, an amazing GT YouTuber! The series was so much more vast and complex then I had imagined, and playing the older games was a treat! GT3 was my favorite of them, I love how focused the campaign was! 😄
Also shoutout to Rory Alexander, SuperGT, Jimmy Broadbent, Misha Charoudin, DustinEden, and DoVe_7, and mrxbas who I found through seeking more GT content, those guys are the best 😂
And now? Driving is no longer scary. I applied what I learned in GT to my daily driving and my humble Hyundai Elantra feels great to drive. I'm not setting any lap records anytime soon, but I feel like a confident, safe driver who can adapt to changes, and isn't afraid to go out for drives and enjoy the freedom that comes with it. I love my car because I love driving, and vice versa.
Since then, I've poured countless hours into the GT games. I've enjoyed several more pieces of racing fiction like: the F1 Movie, Initial D, MF GHOST, Subaru & Subaru, Rush, Grand Prix and LeMans movies, Ford v Ferrari, Audi vs Lancia, the Senna Netflix series, Wangan Midnight, Capeta.....I could go on 😂 (yes I know these all have liberties taken)
And I follow real racing series like F1, IMSA, WEC, WRC TransAM, NASCAR, IndyCar, Super Formula, Super GT and Formula Drift!
Really hoping for more points for my GOAT Fernando Alonso 🙏
But the point of all this is that GT changed my life. It helped get me into cars, taught me the basics of racing, and showed me an entire world that I didn't know was possible. And it also showed me that sometimes all of us have a hidden passion or talent within us, we just need a key to open the door.
So....thank you GT and thank you Polyphony Digital 💙
And hopefully, I'm not the only one who's had this kind of experience, let me know if any of you went through something similar!