This interview was originally recorded on July 31st, 2022

Hello and welcome to the fifth episode of “Ten Questions with…” - the exclusive interview series on VSCAracing.com featuring ten questions or more with a random person from within VSCA or sim racing in general.

Today I'm pleased to say we’re joined by Nicholas Sceats from Kinetic Racing and the No. 67  Porsche 911 GT3R team. Nicholas’ team has just won its first VSCA SortsCar Championship race at Mosport and with only two races to go in the 2022 season sits in second place in the championship, only 50 points out of the lead. Welcome Nicholas! Thanks for taking your time for this interview today.

Nicholas Sceats: I'm really pleased I can be here.

VSCAracing.com: The pleasure is all mine. Well, let's get started. First of all I want to start by saying: Congratulations on your team's win at Mosport. This must have been a very satisfying feeling for you guys to finally get that checkered flag after three consecutive second-place finishes.

N: Yeah, I mean it was actually nerve wrecking to watch but both Vince and Aeden did a really really good job. They did a really really good job at Mid-Ohio as well but just fell on the wrong side of the line for their race. Watching them finally get it was really good and just to make that championship battle that much tighter with that much more pressure.

V: I can imagine, yeah. With only two races to go, your No. 67 Porsche team is now in the middle of the championship battle - It's been amazing to watch. You’re right now only 50 points behind the championship leaders at Torque Freak Racing. So let me ask you: How do you feel going into the final two races at Road America and Road Atlanta?

N: Relatively good. We are kind of really looking at them as two very individual events. Road America can throw up some really interesting races to say the least. 

For a ten-hour race (Road Atlanta) it can really just be about consistency. So we feel good about them, but they are two extremely different races - sprint vs ten-hour - the pressure of a sprint race vs the endurance of a ten-hour race.  

But relatively, overall I think we're just going to go about it the same way that we had for the last six rounds: Just focus on what we need to do, focus on where we are on the track and who we’re actually racing and who we’re not racing.

V: It's been a whirlwind of a season and I cannot believe that it's already been seven months since the season opener. Obviously the season started in January and we have seen six championship rounds so far. What would you say was the most challenging point of the season, for you or your team, if you look back a little? 

N: Probably Sebring. As a result and as a learning experience, for us as a team of how we sit with the rules within the VSCA and how we race. We had to take a really good internal look and realize where we were falling short of the stewards’ decisions.

Maybe we were falling on the other side of the line to what the rules and regulations were. I think that point really set in motion a mentality of just racing - I wouldn't call it completely within our limits, because sometimes you have to push them - but understanding we’re here to get a result, to get points on the board we have to finish and that's where we can see who the championship contenders are. So really, Sebring.

The race after that at Laguna Seca was a real eye-opener that we can make good strategy calls and that we can get a good result. We did get a good result at Daytona there but that was a 24-hour race. I think we came back from at one point, three or four laps down so it was a very different kettle of fish.

V: Just to follow up on that, You said that you realized that you could really make good calls on strategy. A lot of people have been struggling with that and after pit stops they have fallen way back. How important do you think is a good pit strategy in the average sprint race or endurance race and is there a difference? Do you think strategy is more important in the endurance races and the sprint races for example?

N: I find it the other way around. I find that strategy is more important during the sprint races than during the endurance races. With strategy, like we saw at Laguna Seca, there were just so many full-course cautions, that it was really hard not to just jump into the pits and get more fuel and come out.

I just knew from watching so many races and especially IMSA races at Laguna Seca, that track position is key there and to give up track position, really, You got to look at who you’re giving it up to and the pace of the cars that you're going to be following.

So for us it was about taking the risk of having to do a full service under green and come out where we were or jump into the pits and go back. And we just decided to stay out and we were lucky - same for the TFR (Torque Freak Racing, No. 6 Porsche) that we called it like that and we managed to get a full service under a caution period because there were many other cars that were faster than us and just had a bit of pace that dropped back in the pack and had a very hard time getting through.

V: There are rumors that VSCA next year may expand the SportsCar Championship to ten or possibly even twelve races - based on the IMSA schedule which is twelve races per year. What is your take on that? How would that change things for you - if it all - if it was ten or twelve races, compared to eight races this year? 

N: I think it would definitely split our goals between going for an overall championship or trying to see the Sprint Cup and the Endurance Cup championships has two completely different things. I think the overall championship would probably be a little bit out of our reach, just for the fact we currently have three guys that are already committed to our team with VSCA. We will probably need to expand that to maybe five or six just so we have a complete full backed team, if there were others that weren’t available.

I got two kids and a wife and then a career and I'm studying for a qualification. So that kind of stands over the priorities of sim racing. To do twelve rounds in ten months with mean about one race every three weeks or so and the focus of building up the week and a half for two weeks before and then the week before really trying to iron out consistency through the practice sessions and come to race day you're quite comfortable with your own pace, it would mean that that commitment really does take a lot of the year up. 

It would really bring questions or put in doubt my ability to race and every single race throughout every single round and it would really push our focus to probably be on either the Endurance Cup championship or the Sprint Cup championship.

Even though I really enjoyed the sprint races I do find that the endurance, longer series races are what we were about. I hope that answers your question (laughing).

V: Sure! Interesting insight. And of course it's worth mentioning, at this point that nothing has been announced yet by VSCA, so we don't even know yet what's going to happen next year. 

N: I think it's really great that VSCA is looking to expand. We did find that eight rounds felt like: ‘Oh wow, we're already up to round 7 and 8 and it’s July.’ There are five months without VSCA, what else are we going to be doing? (laughing).

There is a huge break and I was just thinking about starting up a few work events with GT Falls and stuff. I think twelve rounds and really fill that block but yeah it's a double-edged sword.

V: And there is like a two-month break between Road America and the season finale at Road Atlanta…

N: There is also a large gap at the beginning of the year between Daytona and Sebring…

V: Right, that’s almost two months as well. But things are a little bit more condensed during the summer and I guess that's also part of the reason why participation has gone down a little. 

So let me ask you: How did you end up racing in VSCA? Looking back when your team decided this, what went into the decision of your team to run in the VSCA SportsCar Championship? 

N: Yeah, that question goes back a long way, even back into the days of “BAM”, Black Adder Motorsports, which was the origin of Kinetic Racing. 

We often had cars racing in DGFX and I think I was racing in a couple of DGFX rounds myself with not too much luck.

V: Just to stop you there for a second, to explain this to our listeners: DGFX was a league run by Kyle Birnie (VSCA Organizer today) and later on it merged with or transformed into what we call today IVRA. Just to mention that real quick.

Yeah, so we always had a good go at DGFX as a team that transferred over to Kinetic Racing when Black Adder Motorsports was dissolved. And we always had a very close eye on the other runnings of IVRA and we've also had a very strong presence in the Majors series as a team; our mentor John King was very much part of this series.

We just felt like we needed to be more focused on one car in one series. And when we saw that Kyle was starting up and yourself was starting up VSCA, we really took a good look at it and said this is a great opportunity for us to do that kind of racing - endurance racing - in one car, that we can we can focus on and where there are stewarts, there are calls being made within the race, there are systems that are in place to deal with strange circumstances.

That really put the spark into more than a few guys within our team actually. The interest started to bend off a little when I started to point out that there actually was an iRating cap. So this wasn't a league for guys that are constantly battling within some of the top ranks, the top split races.

The question for them was really: How do you feel about that? And it came down to that we actually still had four guys within Kinetic Racing that were really interested in it. So we went ahead and that sparked a really good debate within our team about other opportunities. It was a really healthy debate.

V: And it seems to really have paid off for you guys, sitting in second place right now and possibly having a shot here at winning the championship this year.

Among sim racers, as you probably know, there is often a popular debate about the question: ‘How much is it about talent and how much is it about equipment to really be a fast sim racer?’ 

What is your opinion? What kind of sim racing rig do you use, personally?

Nicholas Sceats, the family man: Vacation in Lecco, Lake Como in 2019 with his eldest son Millan - © 2019 Nicholas Sceats

N: I'll start by explaining: Apart from hardware like a wheel, computer and screen, I actually use a rig that is 100% recycled. It consists of hardwood-built sides and pieces of plywood that I cut out and a seat out of a Renault Master van on rails.
My background is in boat building. I was doing that for 18 years. So I’ve got two right hands and if I can make an America's Cup boat I sure as hell can make a pretty interesting little compact sim rig. 

But yeah, I just use a Fanatec CSL Elite wheel base and their load cell pedals. When I first started sim racing I was just using a Logitech XBox Edition and I enjoyed it for a good few years, for maybe four years.

But then I did start to notice, there started to be more accessibility to really high-end stuff. And it wasn't in the range of absolutely blowing a hole out the back of your pocket. It really started to change at the level - I’d say - of what I could do.

I went out and bought a new wheel base, then I realized that I can feel turn-in a little bit better and I can feel the differences that the cars have, the characteristics that they have, a lot better.

I do find that personally, some people will go and spend a couple thousand US Dollars on a wheel and have a little bit of buyer’s regret, you know. That doesn't make them faster.

I think that happens a lot (laughing). But I think that you really have to turn around and look at your own ability and where you can utilize your equipment better to suit how you're driving.

My main problem that I found was: I could never feel turn-in. I could never feel the point where the transition between throttle and break was affecting the main characteristics of the car.

I got to give you a background of a little bit of wheeling and dealing in real-life stuff. It's interesting how it correlated across and being able to feel tires, the fuel load.

And in the last two years especially, with the pandemic we still got around and that we try to forget about, it's led the industry to really focus on what have we got, what are the limits and so they start bringing the price down because they start to realize that the better the equipment is, the more people are enjoying it.

So, yeah I think equipment makes a big difference but so does skill level. There's always the saying of price point for skill level. 

V: You and your team, you’re right now in the middle of a championship battle. And one could say with that comes a lot of pressure. Obviously everybody has a different way of dealing with that. I know you haven't raced at Mosport personally. But what do you do between races to decompress and take your mind off of sim racing?

I should say it should take my mind off VSCA (laughing). Away from sim racing I’ve got two young boys. Last weekend we spent at a really important motocross meet here in the Netherlands, just getting away from the computer, full stop, turning it off and leaving it off.

Playing a bit of Farm Sim. I am studying for a degree in installation technology. It's all about climate systems within houses analysis and people would call the plumbing. But it’s a little bit more than plumbing (laughing).

So that does take a lot of my time where I have to really turn off the computer and even though I am using the same one I have to take the steering wheel away and every little bit of distraction away from me so I can sit there and study for a good six hours. That really takes my mind off sim racing in a big way. 

V: I was thinking at this point maybe let’s change things up a little bit here and change gears. Let's play a quick-fire game of: I give you a word or sentence or something and you say the first thing that comes to mind. 

N: Alright!

V: Alright let's start with: John King (former boss of Kinetic Racing, unfortunately passed away in March 2021 for those who didn't know him)

N: The man. The mentor. Yeah, lots of words. But just absolute respect for the guy. He brought me into sim racing, effectively. I mean, I started and turned up, but I've been sim racing for about five months before he brought me into BAM (Black Adder Motorsports) the team and showed me the ways of how an actual team works.

And he really turned iRacing for me into a team sport, where it was about enjoying it with other people. We would have a large group of us that would go into the IMSA races together and it really brought enjoyment that I shared with other people, even those online. Yeah, he really really made it for me.

V: Favorite Race Track 

N: Uh, can I say all of them? Well, I'm kind of biased as I live about an hour away from Spa. As a race track that I can go to, it's got to be Spa.

V: The next one is maybe a little bit interesting for everybody to hear what you're going to say: Torque Freak Racing

N: Great great competition. I’ve raced against Torque Freak for a long time in different series, be it in official series or elsewhere. They’ve always been there. They’ve always been, they’ve always had good drivers within the team, that you can count on having a good race.

I’m really happy that it's TFR and us at the top battling it out, mainly because they’re names that I know and you know yet it's easier to race somebody when you know who you’re racing.

V: Role model 
There are two fronts on that. There is personal and work life.

Personal life, I definitely have to say Sir Edmund Hilliary, as a New Zealander. He is the closest thing that I have as someone that you can just look up to.

I have read a lot of his books. I can click with the mentality that he has about his views and his approach to getting the job done. 

Professionally-wise it would have to be Sir Peter Blake or Grant Dalton. Sir Peter Blake is a well-known sailor within the world and Grant Dalton is the head of Emirates Team New Zealand which was my last job in New Zealand.

They are two people that are very straight up people. They don’t duck around with answers. They’ll tell you how it is and I really respect that when people can do that.

V: Let's go to one more word here for the quick-fire game: Teamwork. What comes to your mind when you hear teamwork? 

N: Kinetic! (laughing). Sorry to sound cheesy. I think as a team we're absolutely taking no real notice there is actually an individual drivers championship.

We look at that page and go: Wow, that’s interesting! Next! Simply, because that’s our focus. I know that Aeden and Vincent put in some extremely good results. Aeden and I managed to get a good result at Laguna Seca and Watkins Glen together. 

But I think the results that Vincent and Aeden got at Mid-Ohio and Mosport really said a lot about how well they work together. So they will most likely be two that will be racing the next one.

In his home, Nicholas is using a self-made sim rig, entirely made of 100% recycled material in combination with a Fanatec CSL Elite wheel base and load cell pedals. - © 2022 Nicholas Sceats

V: With the climate change crisis more present than ever these days how do you feel about the future of sim racing in general, especially in relation to real-life motorsports? Where do you see sim racing go in the future?

I think we just have to look at the effect it has on the pinnacle, on Formula One. The correlations that they draw throughout a race weekend, back to a simulator with guys in them. That really says it all. They rely on it.

And I think as a sport - some people call it esport, but just take away the “e” please - it's a sport that’s growing because it's more accessible.

And when you see how much money guys invest into a real life racing program, 95% of sim racers wouldn't be able to afford that and this gives us an ability to have that same level of competition; I feel like we do, in my mind.
I think that's only going to grow. There are obviously hiccups on the way like all the “grass gate” at Spa and that kind of detracts. I think it is good that stuff like that comes up because it really shows how passionate we are about it when everybody starts voicing out saying “Hey, this is wrong” stuff will change. It’s sad that it got like that but you know there have been other events -  what's an easy one to bring up - 2005 Indianapolis Grand Prix in America where only six cars started.

It forces change. And this will force change. And it's good that it evolves because it needs to. It can't be stagnant. There will be competition (for iRacing) from other sims. I personally don't really drive too many other sims. I’ve driven a bit of ACC and a few other ones, but I can only really focus on one physics model.

And the challenge, the competition is growing and it’s good. Competition is always a good thing. I think when you start to have a product that there is really no competition for it doesn't develop at that moment.

With the way iRacing is evolving I think it's a good thing. I think in general sim racing is growing but there needs to be a level of maturity about how people are dealing with - I wouldn't say emotions - but results within sims.

Sometimes people take it a little bit too far for my liking. It needs to be still about having fun and again that's why we joined VSCA because for us it was still about having fun and about enjoying it with our teammates. The result was always just the second to how we actually got the result.

V: Well it seems to have worked out quite well for you guys so far.

N: Yeah, I think the more people feel that, the more people understand that it's always about the journey, not so much about the destination because we all know where that is.

It’s kind of the same with the championship like this, that you can look at the end result and be “Yay! We won it!” or “It was a close loss” but it only really makes a difference at the end of the day. 

Our trip getting here has been great and I think like you're saying with VSCA wanting to expand to ten or more events, it would be great because it gives more people to experience more times in the year.

I do think that this type of series is really what I was looking for within sim racing; not just individual events or an individual-based eight results within a season, but to get whatever you want to get in the same championship season.

It was really about the whole season, in one class, in one car, locked into that car and there were consequences for stuff that happened.
For me, I would call it another level of realism we can get here and we can do this and it's evolving and next year it's probably going to be even better. I really really hope it's going to be the next level of the VSCA. We will be there and I really hope we can enjoy it with everyone else.

V: Final question. As an experienced driver and team manager in VSCA, do you have any advice for someone that was considering joining the SportsCar Championship or any newcomers? 

N: Yeah, just finish, ey!

V: That's a good one! 

Yeah, just finish. Really focus on finishing and then see what the result was. Our main goal for Daytona was really to see where we sit within the series. Do we sit in the middle, at the top or at the bottom?

At Daytona we came from quite far back, like I said three or four laps down and it was just about consistency to get back up there and we realized “OK, this is a series we can grow in, but we have to finish.”

And our second round was at Sebring where we dropped a good result. We had to take a step back and look at how to finish.

Third round, OK we got a good result where we had the chance to stay at the top of the series. Round four, even better and then it progressed and now we're getting into round seven and we’re still there and we’re putting the pressure on.

So for us, the only way that we got there was by finishing and not taking risks within our driving that would endanger our result. 

I was rather harsh a few times to different people in our team, thinking about what you're driving and thinking about how you’re driving around people. 

And that's really what you have to do. You have to keep driving - I wouldn't call it within your limit - but within your own skill level to understand that this is where you sit within the series; this is where you sit, when you get good results. 

Consistently you could be the fastest car on the grid and you could be out there passing cars but you know when you're constantly finishing back in tenth through eleventh, your points total becomes pretty miniscule.

And you can be there but you just become that car that's doesn’t really finish with a good result or you can be the car that’s the little sleeper at the back of the field that doesn't always get the fastest lap, doesn’t always get pole position but the end of the day you come home with top-five.

You do that five races in a row and you'll still be there. You'll be there within the top with another chance.

V: Thank You! That was great advice I would say. I hope anybody out there that is considering joining VSCA this season or next season has had a chance to tune in.

Well, here we are. That was ten questions already but I want to give you a chance to add anything if you have anything you would like to add?

N: Oh yeah! We brought on Aeden (Campbell) as part of our team at the beginning of the year. At that time our team manager Jake Fox brought him in. He's been real fine for our team and just his ability to really fit in within Kinetic Racing has really worked out for us. Him and Vincent really worked well together.

If any teams are thinking about coming into VSCA next year or just in general: It’s a really good series. The series is about driving as a gentleman or with respect to the other racers there are.

There are other series out there that are rather individual-based, that are about, you know “Just send it!”. That attitude can get you stuck as we found within a team. 

Other than that: Thanks to TFR (Torque Freak Racing) for being great competition.We’re still going to apply that pressure all the way through Road Atlanta. We will be there!

V: And we will be watching! 

N: I’m really looking forward to it!

V: Awesome! Thank you so much for your time Nicholas. I really appreciate it that you spent your time here today with us for this interview. We wish you and all your teammates at Kinetic Racing of course best of luck for the remaining two races this year and thanks again for being with us here today.