This interview was originally taken on November 12th, 2021

VSCAracing.com: Hello Kyle! Nice to meet you! Thanks for taking the time today to speak to us.

Kyle: Sure thing!

V: So, this is going to be the first in our series of “Ten Questions with...”. And you're of the lucky one that we picked as a first interview partner we appreciate you taking the time.

K: Glad I can be a part of it.

V: Alright, so without any further ado, let's get started. How did you come up with the idea of VSCA and why did you create VSCA?

K: So, Ben Fischer who is the owner of VSCA, him and I have known each other for years and he approached me with an idea of wanting to run a league. And he didn't have a lot of experience in recent years running a league whereas I just left my position running IVRA and on iRacing. And I had a lot of experience with that and DGFX, running those for the last five years.

So, he approached me and wanted me on an advisory-type role. Basically, he had an idea of creating an IMSA-based championship that was over a calendar year rather than in the winter months, which is common on iRacing.

He wanted my input on if it was feasible, how it should take off, how it should run and how it should work. So that's kind of how everything started.

The conversations for the start of the league began in fall, winter of 2020. I want to say it was February of 2021 right after the iRacing 24 Hours of Daytona when we basically said: “Yeah, we want to do it.” And then we just started to go from there.

V: What is it that you're working on right now for VSCA? I'm sure there might be multiple things but maybe you can pick one?

K: The main thing currently at this moment in time that I'm working on is fine tuning regulations. The documents and the regulations primarily around race control and our sporting code with the racing guidelines and what we have on track.

So, what I'm doing currently is, I'm building out an entire document for race control that serves as kind of a guide on how to review incidents, based off the guidelines, that we have set up.

So, for instance you know when you start off, it has different subjects related to what part of the race you are currently looking at. Are you looking at the race start? Is it a full course caution? Is it an infraction in pit lane? Is it car to car contact? What is the instant revolving around?

And then depending on that you'd select the right one and then within each section you have different areas too. So, if you took the race start for instance, then you would have options such as: Is it a jump start? Is it someone not switching sides if they needed to? Is it going three wide before the first corner?

There are so many different areas and questions. The document leads describes how race control should review an incident and it just slowly finetunes everything down to where it gets down to the very end. And it references our rules book and regulations and everything and it gets to the very end and it says: This is how you should rule it and then if they follow the guidelines as they're reviewing it then they'll be able to come up with the correct answer and then if there's a penalty that has to be issued.

Really all the race marshals then do is just punch in the car number and out pops the iRacing command and they just do a copy paste and send an iRacing command and away they go.

So, that's the main thing that I'm working on now. And then once the new iRacing build drops in December - so next month, it's in about a month, this is when it will drop - then I'll be doing a lot of BOP (sic: balance of performance) testing for GT3.

V: Wow, that sounds like exciting times and certainly like you have a full plate.

K: Yep. To both (laughing).

V: Well, thanks for giving us some insight into that. That sounds very interesting. I want to go back a little bit. How did you get into sim racing originally, personally?

K: I come from a family of racers. My mom's side of the family races Porsches and still does to this day. At one point for two or three years my uncle raced in the IMSA GT3 series with the Porsche Cup car.

And there's a race in California, the 25 hours of Thunder Hill. I've been a part of a winning team that won that race from 2009 to 2013 overall. So, we have that side of the family on my mom’s side.

And then on my dad's side of the family was a lot of dirt bike racing and motocross. So, racing has always been in my family.

I've never been in a position financially, to have my own car and run. So, sim racing was an outlet for me to be able to do that. It started off with Gran Turismo Forza; I think that's kind of how everybody gets their first start in sim racing on a computer or console.

So that's how it started off and then I found of iRacing one day. As soon as I started on iRacing everything else just wasn't the same and I stopped playing it.

I don't play Forza, I don't play Gran Turismo. I really don't play anything else. I'm not being a fanboy. It's just that good of a product iRacing has. So, that's kind of how it started and it’s where I'm at.

V: There are a lot of people always talking about the various aspects of sim racing compared to real life motorsports. You've mentioned that part of your family has roots in real life motorsports. If you had the chance to change one thing about sim racing in general, what would it be?

K: The easiest way to describe that is the attitude of drivers when they're racing. It's the aggression. In real life you have this subconscious fear of personal harm in case if you wreck. And there's a financial burden in case if you wreck.

Those two things you don't have on sim racing. I'm guilty of it to where in sim racing, I go flat out right away and find the limit immediately and then back up to it whereas in real life you have to slowly approach the limit.

I was wondering how it would translate, too, the first time I was at the racetrack. And the first time I went on to the track I was just instinctively - without me doing anything different - slowly trying to approach the limit, because there was that personal fear of getting myself injured, the financial burden, all that sort of stuff.

So, we don't have that in sim racing and because we don't have that in sim racing, a lot of drivers on sim racing are making moves, where it would never even cross their mind in real life, to make that move.

It's that aspect of real life that I would really like. To have people not just kind of “YOLO” it into every corner and be that turn one hero and everything. It would be really nice, to actually race with clean drivers, who actually race as if they would in real life.

And that's kind of Leo the aim of VSCA and that's what we wanted to really encompass. Racing with people, who have that same kind of mindset.

V: One question that we like to ask: What kind of wheel or pedal set or rig to use for your sim racing races?

K: I have a Sim Lab Drive GT. I think that's what it's called. It's a rig and then I'm actually using a seat out of a 1971 Porsche. It's an aftermarket seat, that was in there, but it was a 1971 Porsche 911. That's the seat and then my pedals are Fanatec ClubSport pedals.

And then my wheel is a Fanatec ClubSport Wheel 2.5. And then I have an old school – well, I called it old school, but it's not very old school considering it's a VR headset - but it's a rift Oculus Rift.

I think it's the CV1, I think that's the second generation of the Rift. It's not the original one, but the second one. So that's what I'm using right now.

I actually want to move to triple screens, but I won't be able to do that until I move to different place, just because I don't have any room, to be able to have the space needed for triple screens.

So that's what I have. It's ever evolving, like everybody. It’s just never ending. It's like a car. It's never ending. There's always things you can upgrade to it. It's never finished.

V: We've seen some questions from people considering joining VSCA. Some of them are hesitant, because the endurance races on your schedule run on the same date as the iRacing special events. What is it that you would say to those people?

K: Whenever I question people, a lot of the time it's really to see how convinced they are and what they believe in. And the thing that I question is: When they're hesitant on that, really at the end of the day, why do you want to run iRacing special events? What does the iRacing special event provide you vs. running in the VSCA event? And the other way around: What does running in VSCA provide you that the iRacing special event doesn't?

In the iRacing special events, obviously there are tons of splits and you know the match-making and then you have the iRating and the safety rating.

About the safety rating: Yes, you would be able to earn a lot by it. Safety rating is not hard to get in my opinion on iRacing. I mean, you can go do three or four races at any official series, that's running at the Nordschleife.

You can gain whatever safety rating you want to get back. We saw that from two or three years ago at the iRacing 24 Hours of Spa. A few people were trying to get as many incidents as they possibly could, to show that an incident limit was needed for that race.

So, they went down to the lowest safety rating you can get, like a D license. And literally in a week, they were back up to an A license with a safety rating of 4.0. because all they did was run races at the Nordschleife.

So, that's the thing with the safety rating. With iRating it's very minimal. I think, personally, the most iRating gain or loss I’ve ever had in a team special event was like 20. So, it's very minimal there.

Whereas with VSCA, you have more structure to it, obviously with the regulations. But you're also in a league setting and it's just known that in a league setting, you're going to have more people that are like-minded and you're going to have cleaner racing generally - not always - but generally you're going to have cleaner racing.

I think that's the biggest difference between. Then when you really look at the amount of work that we've put in, from the regulations to the Sporting Code to everything that we have.

Everything that we have done within VSCA and the Sporting Code revolves around the amateur racer and clean racing.

In the third aspect of that is obviously realism. Basing it off the IMSA Sports Car Championship.

But if you look at every single thing that we have, everything that is in the Sporting Code, everything in the regulations, everything that we've done, then you can track it back to one of those three things. At least that is our goal.

That's kind of what it is: Do you want the special event? Then you’re running with a bunch of random people who are crazy aggressive and if they wreck: “So what? There's another race in six hours.”

Or do you want people who are like-minded and realize that it is a 24-hour race. And do you want to be able to do the entire race?

That's a big thing and I think that's really the selling point of VSCA.

There were people who started off and said that we weren't going to have a full grid. And now we’re 70ish days away from Daytona and we only have five spots left in a 55-car grid. So, the fact that it won't be a full grid is not an issue.

V: I want to ask you a personal question, because I think all of us sim racers have been in this situation before, that someone is talking to us in a personal setting and they ask us: “What is your hobby?” and we say our hobby is sim racing. When you say this to someone, that your hobby is sim racing, what reactions do you usually get? What kind of experiences have you had with that?

K: Well, with most people it's usually one of two reactions. The people who really know me, they just kind of accept it, because they just know how much of motorsport nut that I am. And it's kind of like “Oh yeah, that makes sense.”

Whereas people who are just kind of getting to know me, they don't really understand it. I don't think they really put two and two together, because they just don't know, they just don't get it. But then when I take a picture or bring them into the house and show them the real setup that I have, the wheel I have, the pedals, the seat and the VR headset.

I'm doing all this stuff and I explain some of the races and everything that I do and how I'm racing with guys around the world and all this sort of stuff. That's when their eyes kind of open up and they're like: “Holy crap! This is really cool.” They really like it and then when I do have races they’re like “Send me a link for whatever races you're doing. I really want to watch it.”

When we send them those links a lot of times they’re saying: “This just looks like real life!”. And they'll sit there and then it becomes that question, it's like the real life: “How do you know where you're going? How are you able to react that quick?”

It's kind of one of the things where they see it and then all sudden, they're like “Wow, that's really cool.”

So that's kind of the reaction I get. It's either they it doesn't phase them, because they know who I am or they're like “Oh, what's that?” and they don't really know the information.

V: When we talk for a moment about your personal sim racing career. What has been your biggest accomplishment and biggest disappointment, in your opinion?

K: So I have an equal tie for the biggest accomplishment.

The first one was, I want to say it was 2017. I think it was the third year that I was an organizer and the owner of DGFX and we had a full grid and it was the first time I was actually able to race.

The first race of the season was at Silverstone and I was running in the P2 and me and the other organizer we're running and we set out a goal to show people that you can do well without picking up a lot of incident points.

It was a four-hour race at Silverstone. I think we ended up only having three incident points. Unfortunately all of them were ones that I collected and they were all off tracks. But what was really cool about that was, we were running about eighth and as we come down to the end of the race, right inside the pit window, I think we had like 42 minutes left, I came down pit road and I was the first one in the class to come down pit road.

And I remember, as soon as I came out, within the first lap or two I'm like “Oh man, we really wish that there was a caution. It would work out perfectly.

Five minutes later a caution came out and sure enough everybody else went into the pits and I know through the cycle I became the leader of the class and then I was the fastest one on track and no one can catch me for the rest of the race and ended up winning it. So that was really cool.

The second one was last year or two years ago, the iRacing 24 Hours of Le Mans. Our team had two cars in the same split. And both teams were running the Porsche GTE over the 24 hour race.

We had I think a 13 second gap or something around that between the two of us, when we finish first and second in that race. So that was probably the one of the biggest achievements and ironically that was also one of the biggest disappointments because in that race I finished second.

Our team car finished second that I was in, rather than finishing first. So it was kind of a bittersweet thing. It's not really a big disappointment but at the same time it kind of is, because you're so close. But those were kind of the biggest highlights, that I've had.

V: As VSCA you say you want to offer “club level racing for amateurs”. That's officially what you have been promoting. Can you elaborate a little bit, what does that mean, the term “club level racing” and how do you define who is an amateur?

K: When you look at it, just in general an amateur is - especially in racing - someone who doesn’t make a living racing. So, when you look at iRacing you can still have an amateurs and pro drivers.

Obviously within iRacing you have the Pro Series, across the board. And the Pro Series drivers and the World Championship Series drivers, they're making money doing it.

But then you also have semi pro drivers, which are drivers that are either equal or on par with the pro racers or they're trying to get to that level and they might not be in the championship but they're right there with them and they might not be in the championship because of one reason or another, but that's just where they're at speed-wise.

Whereas the amateur driver are people like myself, who are motorsport enthusiasts and have no desire to make it to the pro level on iRacing, don't have the speed obviously, to make it there but then at the same time, they're not the newbies.

The guys - and I'm not trying to stereotype – who just came over from Forza and treat every race like a three-lap sprint race, that's kind of who the amateur driver is.

As far as the “club level” goes: When you look at club racing anywhere in the world – me, I know club racing in the United states – club racing in the United states is really just a group of people who are getting together who are doing it for fun.

I'm not talking about NASCAR and oval racing, because I do know that NASCAR and oval racing in club racing is completely different than those that I'm familiar with in road racing.

On the road racing side, a lot of them enjoy it, they don't want to spend a lot of money on it. They can't spend a lot of money on it, but they just want to be out and have a good time with people that are like-minded.

So, that's kind of what it is. Since the club racers are people who aren't the fresh new guys off on iRacing, they aren't the pros or the ones who are trying to reach the pro level or anything like that on iRacing.

They're kind of that middle ground. We have the experience, we've been around for a while, but we're not going to go up to the top. That's kind of who it is we're shooting for and then we're just trying to get that club racing type culture with just clean racing and everyone's here to really enjoy it and have a good time.

V: Well, here we are with the final question already. Outside of sim racing and motorsports, what else are you passionate about? Do you know something, that you could talk about for hours? Is there anything else outside of sim racing and motorsports for you?

K: While sim racing and motorsports is definitely the big one. I do follow other sports. I like hockey. I don't have cable so I'm not truly up to date on everything that's going on in regular TV. But I do like hockey, follow hockey.

The other big thing: Before a recent career change, I was a golf instructor. I don't watch a lot of golf, but I know the golf swing very well. I could talk to people for a long time on theories, methods, all that sort of stuff, as far as golf is concerned. So, I guess that would kind of be a big one outside of sim racing and motorsports.

But nothing really bigger. I'm really just kind of up for any sort of conversation

V: Alright, we want to thank you so much once again for taking the time and talk to us and we will see you in January at Daytona!

K: Yeah, thanks a lot and obviously if anyone has any questions or anything just feel free to ask. I’m an open book, for the most part.