Here's one tip for you: every long journey starts with the first step. If you know where you're going, just start walking in that direction. It doesn't matter that the path is obscured from your vision. It will light up once you go along. With that said, you should follow your dreams. Don't listen to the naysayers, put your mind and back into it, and don't give up even if you fail multiple times. And that leads us to the topic of the day.
More often than not, parents want the best things in life for their children. But the gap between generations might interfere with the translation at times. If you've ever heard your parents saying that they wished you'd become a doctor, lawyer, or police officer, it's just them hoping you'll have a stable, good-paying job to support you in life.
It's only natural for people who grew up in the '70s or '80s to think differently than those who were born in the '90s or 2000s. And this one kid we met a few years ago has been dreaming about a career in motorsports for a while now.
While it may be easier to access such a job in countries that have a strong culture for racing and cars and bikes in general, that's not a valid statement in any given place on Earth. So we sat down with 22-year-old Tudor Triponescu to see where his journey started and how he came to be a racing engineer at such an early age.
He remembers his first contact with cars when he was two or three years old. An automotive magazine had captured his attention and kickstarted his appetite for anything with an engine and wheels.
Photo: Sorin Marius Mirea
Growing up in the early 2000s, it didn't take long for him to get hooked up on video games. And the one that had a profound effect on him was Mid Night Club 3: DUB Edition Remix.
Playing for days, months, and years in a row shaped his taste in cars, and he has recently purchased another copy of it to play on the Playstation 2 as he did in the good old days. As fun as that game was, he felt the need to move on to something more advanced, something that would challenge him.
And that's where Assetto Corsa comes in. Tudor has been playing the game for five years now, or a combined total of 1,500 hours. That's about 62 days of playtime! By comparison, I've only racked up 192 hours in the past three years.
Still, Tudor doesn't seem to think that's impressive, and he noted that he's currently just playing for fun. "I took part in several online competitions where I scored some pretty good results in the semipro class, but once I moved to the pros I realized that you need a lot more seat time to keep up with those guys and I stopped driving competitively since"
Photo: Sorin Marius Mirea
I asked him about his favorite car/track combo, and he mentioned that he never gets bored of taking his BMW M3 GT2 out on Spa in Belgium. And who can blame him? The thought of the Eau Rouge section alone is enough to work up an appetite for sim racing.
Even though he's spent quite a bit of time playing the game, his current sim setup isn't all that advanced: a Logitech G920 is good enough for some basic action, in his perception. As we've recently fiddled around with the setup of our virtual RV, we asked him about his experience with tuning cars in the game.
"I learned how to adjust my setups using trial and error. I still remember the time when I was using toe in on the front wheels on my M3 GT2 and I just couldn't figure out why my tires would get thrashed that fast"
I was curious to know how he made the step from working on cars on his computer to being an important part of an actual race team. Three years after buying Assetto Corsa with the money he had initially saved up to attend a drift event, he was already quite familiar with basic car setups and motorsport strategies.
Photo: Mihnea Tatu
One day, he saw a sponsored post in which a local racing team was looking for an Automotive college graduate to hire as their race engineer. "When I saw that job offer, I instantly thought that I didn't stand a chance at making it past the interview.
I was studying Industrial Engineering and Robotics, but I did previously work on the Formula Student project developed by our faculty." Tudor quickly left any unwanted anxieties behind and applied for the job. The interview was supposed to last for an hour, but they ended up spending almost 5 hours together talking about cars and racing in general. A total of 64 people applied for the opening, but the 20-year-old college student was the one to make it through.
Cars have become a way of life for him: he drives a Lexus IS200, he runs a large Japanese car community that recently organized its first big event with dozens of cars on display, and he is now working for a team called Cube Performance.
He just recently submitted his degree thesis on Active Aero which must have been quite a novelty for his supervising teacher while also juggling races in the Ligier Series and Radical Cup with his team.
I asked Tudor, who is a big fan of Niki Lauda and Toto Wolff, for a word of advice for anyone that dreams about a job in motorsports: "Go with your gut instinct, if you want it, your brain will set itself to make the decisions required to get you there. Stay curious, read as much as possible, and educate yourself. You have to be both smart and a bit wild to make it in this industry!"
The things Dragos enjoys the most in life are, in no particular order: cars, motorcycles, diecast cars, and drifting. He's seen (and driven) many vehicles since he started his writing career back in 2009, but his garage currently houses a 1991 Mazda RX-7 FC3S Turbo II and a 1999 Suzuki SV650-S. Full profile
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