Get to Know: David Massieux

This week I interviewed an iRacer who could definitely be described as consistent by his fellow competitors.  If you look at his stats, you can see why. He definitely doesn’t have the most starts on iRacing – with 144 oval starts and 140 road starts – but he has won 35 and 34 times on the oval and road side, respectively. What’s more, he has finished in the top five in over half of his road and oval starts. With Class A licenses and over 3900 iRating on both sides of iRacing, this driver is a strong and fierce competitor, wherever and in whatever he races. This week’s featured driver is Club France’s very own David Massieux…

Q:    How long have you been sim racing?

A:    I started sim-racing truly with iRacing in April 2010.  Before that I was on rFactor for a year, driving with a controller, kidding around with friends.

Q:    How did you get started in iRacing?

A:    It’s actually a funny story.  I talked to a friend’s friend on teamspeak about rFactor.  We were talking about realistic mods, and he ended-up telling me that if he had the money, he’d go on iRacing, which made me take a look at it. At that time there was a promotion at $5 for the first month, and after a week I renewed for year, thinking that at worse I’d only drive the Solstice since it was so fun.  But I ended-up buying the entire content in a matter of months.

Q:    Which race car driver in any racing series do you dislike the most?

A:    Above everyone? Michael Schumacher, he stands for everything I hate in competition: “do everything to win no matter what.”  To me being respectful on track is important.  I’m more of gentleman driver in the end, even though its naive of me. I like to act as if sim-racing is a dangerous sport, with death and injuries possible.

Q:    What type of hobbies do you do outside of iRacing?

A:    Frankly nothing anymore, lots of things planned, so you could say that my hobby is thinking about the future, and although I’m not an alien, I’m training a few friends in various series on iRacing and sometimes rFactor.

Q:    What is your greatest accomplishment on iRacing?

A:    Ahah that’s a tough one, (as I) didn’t do lots of impressive things. I’d have to say beating my best friend Cyril Nousbaum at Charlotte when I started training seriously, showed some kind of improvement of my skills since he’s a tough one to pass and get away from.

Q:    What car and track combination on iRacing would you like to drive in real life?

A:    Realistically? Mid-Ohio in the Nationwide since they run there, but if it was possible, VIR Grand West in the Sprint Cup.

Best friends Massieux and Cyril Nousbaum (1) go side-by-side at Martinsville.

Q:    What type of racing do you like to watch on TV?

A:    What’s left of real racing (I hate paddles, autoblip and above all high downforce cars) being : NASCAR first, and a few races from the V8 Supercar, and some GroupN Rally (the only thing left from the golden era, IMO).

Q:    How do you think your fellow iRacers see you?

A:    Ahah this one is a good one too.  I’d say they’re split into two categories: Those who like me for what I do in practices, and those who hate me, seeing me as an hot lapper . . . you know one of those who only run one category (Mazda MX5 for me since I’m quite often in the series, and getting decent hot laps since a year or so).  But to be truthful, I drive any car that doesn’t have high aero and that gives me a hard time, to improve body control and physics’ understanding, and when I’m taking a break in a practice I observe others and help them if they want it.

“Road racing isn’t punitive enough, people often forget about the danger side on road.”

Q:    What are three things that people on iRacing probably don’t know about you?

A:    I’m a right foot braker in all cars (probably lots of people wondering why I do it even in the Sprint Cup).
I made my YouTube channel for the only purpose of keeping records of what we did with Cyril and Evan, good times to go back at and helps me track my progress and what to work on.
I hate road tracks in general, thus my love for NASCAR and its walls.  Road racing isn’t punitive enough, people often forget about the danger side on road; kills the racing in my opinion.

Q:    If you could go back and see one race from the past live at the track, what race would you choose?

A:    I sincerely would have a hard time choosing between the first NASCAR race at Charlotte on dirt and the first Formula One race back when it was about balls and skill.

Air France!

Q:    If there was one thing you could change about iRacing, what would it be?

A:    Introduce some tarmac hill climbs (and downhills) racing. It exists in real life, and as much as it is only time attack, it’s still something that I feel lots of people would love.  We already have lots of cars running them irl, so iRacing, please make it happen.
And I’d like to add a little thing: we have too much initial grip, it shows in the lap times we do on road, as well as in the braking and turn- in points we use. I watched this week’s qualifying at Sonoma, and it’s scary to see how much faster we run, almost 3sec for my best lap using the fixed against the Q set JJ used. That would be a big problem to address in order to make iRacing go in the right direction.

Q:    What is one thing that you love the most about iRacing?

A:    Without a doubt its database, the recording of every stat, what you do, what others do, where you stand, others and yourself improved, and the ability to see ones consistency through consecutive championships and track/car combos.

Q:    Overall, how do you rate your success on iRacing?

A:    Never good enough? Sincerely not good enough, it’s getting better each season, but it’s still not where I want to be; striving for perfection, I would only like to quit doing mistakes and drive more smoothly.

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