Following the emergence of a clip highlighting a fresh spate of cheating in iRacing, the cheater himself reached out to us to offer their side of the story, supposedly.
In an earlier post, we reported that Callum Cross was shown on a Twitch stream having mysteriously gained a few seconds on second place in the opening corners of a race. The time gain was initially attributed to a “grip flick” exploit which some use to warm their tyres at warp speed, however, it turns out that is not the case.
DUE TO THE VIDEO BEING SET TO PRIVATE, THE CONTENT IS NOT VIEWABLE
Cross, or someone pretending to be him for whatever reason, contacted me through Twitter DMs, originally sought to clear up that there was in fact no relation between himself and Chief Steward, Nim Cross.
[Apologies on behalf of this site for the confusion caused in our yesterday’s article relating to this incident. – Editor.]
The reality is as we wade through this network of cheating and unanswered questions – yes unanswered because iRacing never respond to our emails asking questions about cheating in a report earlier this year – we are finding a twisted maze of cheaters, some with vendettas while developers remain tight-lipped, suggesting denial.
But cheating is rife in all sims and simple to do if you know the tools and tricks, but no developer will admit it until they get caught. A little like the emissions scandal…
iRacing, in particular, is big business these days with substantial prize money and vested interests such as sponsors etc from blue chip manufacturers, Porsche and BMW spring to mind, while the service booming with new wannabe aliens, vloggers and VIP real-world race drivers.
Thus hunting integrity is one of our main missions, inherited unexpectedly when we started this site to report sim news earlier this year.
This week the Callum Cross story blew out of proportion, we were bombarded from all sides with information and disinformation, and of course the insults from the expected sources.
But the biggest surprise was Callum himself, or someone purporting to be him, tapping us up for a gloat and proud admission.
This is how it unfolded during a Twitter chat between the writer and the self-confessed “hobby” cheat:
Callum Cross: “Cheating/Exploiting is quite funny, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are cheaters in the pro scene. iRacing has a wonderful and unique way of loading the game and exploiting the physics in the game whilst it’s loading.”
So what are we watching in the video? It’s been shared and viewed thousands of times, what are we actually seeing you do?
CC: “It did blow up quite quickly, I’m surprised, hopefully it shows iRacing that it needs to work on a lot more than just better UI’s for their game. I’m basically exploiting the physics of the game, I’m not gonna give what exactly, as I’m sure it’s used by others.
How long have you been doing it [cheating/exploiting] for? And you’re saying you’re not doing it for the results, but to get iRacing’s attention?
CC: “I’ve been cheating for just over a year. It’s never to get anybody’s attention but it does show what is possible in the game.”
What made you start cheating then?
CC: “I have been doing this kind of stuff since the age of 15. I work in the software industry so finding and exploiting stuff which was seen in the video is pretty standard.”
So what is it you actually gain out of exploiting?
CC: “I just want to see what’s possible. When you exploit a game or software it’s more about the learning experience but being able to jump on a game and being able to beat the best is quite funny.”
Were you expecting the video to gain so much traction?
CC: “Nope, What was funny though is that I had the video linked to me around 2PM in the afternoon, I checked my iRacing account and had somebody asking me if I could sell them whatever I used. Which is quite funny really as you would expect such a small game to not get much attention but people will take any advantage they can get these days especially in video games.”
Did the name Nim Cross mean anything to you before all the articles started floating around?
CC: “Nope, but I now know the guy was a Chief Steward at iRacing. I contacted you to edit the original post as he had nothing to do with me and what I use. I didn’t want the man to lose his job by such a weird accusation.”
That’s the interview. The screengrabs below.
You decide if this is the real Callum. He claims he is not afraid of a ban because he will simply set up another account and do his “hobby” or maybe he is playing us. Either way, that “us” is now the readers of this site too!
Whatever the case this info is flooding our open-plan newsroom which we now include you – our readers – to help us decipher what is going on here and share your thoughts because this is bordering on bizarre. You cannot make this stuff up!
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There’s heaps more folk cheating on iRacing, would be someone doing it right now. Apparantly there’s quite a few high profile pros using them.
I find your argument less than convincing considering Nim Cross was involved with Papyrus from GPL through all of the “NASCAR Racing” releases. He’s the guy responsible for the training session in all of the NR releases plus wrote all of the supplemental information from Papyrus on car setup, and racing strategy. When I said he “wrote the book” the was meant literally not as hyperbole.
The fact I, some dipsh*t on the internet am the one to inform you of this instead of your taking initiative and the literal 15 minutes required to do a bit of background research I’d wager is a good part of the reason you’ve been met with so much hostility. Maybe my Ruth, Cobb analogy was a little bit off as they are household names. It would have been better to say would you trust a baseball journalist who had no idea who Honus Wagner, or Sandy Koufax was?
I’d wager that 95 out of 100 sim racers wouldn’t know who Nim Cross is. But 95 out of 100 sim racers aren’t holding themselves out as journalists and subject matter experts either. That’s the difference.
It was a slip-up by a rookie on our team. It was quickly sorted and apologies made.
What more do you want done?
I have been simming since GPL and Papyrus days and I only vaguely know Nim Cross. Iraing is not the centre of the universe FYI.
I have to Google Ty Cobb, like you would have to Google Rahul Dravid.or Brian Lara
I’m still left wondering how this; ugh “journalist” (we’re getting real loose with that term) could purport to be knowledgeable about sim racing and not know who Nim Cross is? I mean the man quite literally wrote the book on pc racing simulations and this is the first you’ve heard of him?
That’s covering racing and not knowing who Bill France was. Or baseball and being clueless who Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb were.
The only way to feel good about playing racing games is to enjoy the race for the race, the second you become competitive is the moment you become at a disadvantage to cheaters. I dont play racing games to win anymore, I play to be involved and enjoy the activity of racing, if I win… well there probably wasn’t a cheater present and I’ll be happy about it, if I lose then I lose, there may have been a cheater ill never know in most cases but its never a good idea to investigate, you will find what you hope you wont.
I have a youtube video showing blatant cheating in asseto corsa competizione, devs were notified by me and others and the only response to it was they know about it and are in communication with the cheater to hopefully find a workaround, the truth is they can’t stop it.
“Professional” events are actually a lot safer to race in if you dont want to face cheaters because they are closely monitored by many eyes, a cheater cant hide easily so thankfully it seems esports etc are relatively fair.
Race for the love of racing, if you win you win, but make no mistake, you will have probably lost to a cheater on any online driving game you have ever played.
You could easily verify his identity by asking him to send a message from his iracing account.
Thats what i mean, these people chearers are pathetic. Ive been telling all a long for years that that there are cheaters, but nobody wouldnt believe and now u see. This is only one, but i believe there are more cheaters, a lot basterds. Its not funny because a lot of people pay a lot of money to have a real honest race and these cheaters are unfaire assholes. Hopefully they get ban for life and iracing need to remake the game qith new content ENGINE 4 or whateffr but they need to upgraden, its a must.
How many more? one has to wonder…