[VIDEO] “Turbo Tom” Milner Talks About His Passion for SIM Racing

When a 12-year-old boy helped create amateur racing mods with a group of young developers aspiring to make professional games, none of the people involved could have imagined where they all would be almost 20 years later.

That 12-year-old boy is Corvette Racing driver Tommy Milner, a two-time Le Mans winner who’s currently featured in a YouTube video installment of “Built by Drivers” automotive series done by Donut Media.

The developers themselves have done pretty well, too, growing up to become the team behind Project CARS 2, which will be available worldwide starting Sept. 22 for the Playstation 4, Xbox One & PC.

The game will bring more than 180 cars – including 2015 C7.R and Z06 – and 60 tracks to those gaming platforms.

Powered by the studios’s Live Track 3.0 technology that allows dynamic surface conditions and the title’s comprehensive dynamic weather engine, Project CARS 2 is able to simulate racing in any weather and season, including heavy winter weather and snow.

“I feel like there’s definitely a part of my driving that was developed in sim racing,” Milner says in the video. “The discipline needed to be good in racing, you can learn that and hone that skill in Project CARS 2.”

Definitely something to listen to from a kid once known as Turbo Tom on the forums in his youthful days of sim racing.

“Here’s this young kid who we knew wasn’t racing cars but he was involved with the sim racing scene and he would test our mods out and he’d give some feedback, but in general he was a fan of what we did,” says Rod Chong of Slightly Mad Studios.

Laughing, Milner explains that Turbo Tom came from early on when he was just 11 or 12 years old “and I thought this is a cool name Turbo Tom.”

“I got hooked right away,” Milner says.

Having done sim racing for so long, Milner says blending what he learned in real life helped him prepare for racing Corvette.

Milner’s input likewise has had a big effect on the way the cars handle in the sim games, according to Chong.

“Having been a part of Project CARS 2 it’s been a lot of fun for me and rewarding to see how far sim has come,” Milner says.

“I’m having the most fun I’ve ever had driving sims because I’m driving it criticizing every little detail trying to figure out how do we make this perfect.”

Source:
Donut Media – YouTube

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