A bicycle in a training session would sound bizarre to a NASCAR driver, considering it doesn’t even run at a fraction of the speed of the actual cars on the track, right? But it was these two wheels that enabled Lee Pulliam to complete his preparations for the O’Reilly Auto Parts debut with JR Motorsports earlier at Martinsville. His 5th-place finish came through extreme hard work in training, which even ended up making him nauseous.

Racing sims have become a large part of driver training now. Most of the young drivers on the Cup Series field spend hours practicing on these sims; however, the motion sickness can be rather unforgiving.

“When I first went there and did it that first session, I threw up four times at Pratt and Miller. I’d run outside and throw up, and it was all I could do to drive a car,” said Pulliam in his recent appearance on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s podcast.

Training on a simulator was difficult, but he used his experience and figured out a solution to solve his nausea problem.

“I brought my bike with me because I had heard that, whenever you throw up, you jump on a bike, it’ll help you [regain your] equilibrium,” said the 37-year-old.

Seemingly, that worked for him. At the same time, he started using virtual reality glasses even while playing video games, to help him get used to the motion sickness in the racing simulator, and it ended up helping him.

“The next time I got an emotion rig, I was perfectly fine. I had zero issues. I never got out of the car, did the full session. And then I was like, that’s amazing,” Pulliam told Dale Earnhardt Jr.

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This was essential for Pulliam. While he is 37 and has been involved in racing for a long time, he has never had the perfect opportunity to run NASCAR in a competitive position. However, Dale Jr. gave him the opportunity to run the NOAPS for the first time, and he delivered an impressive 5th-place finish.

It was quite apparent that his training, including his time in the simulator, helped him run the race in such a competitive manner. These simulators have been helping drivers for quite a long time now, but some still don’t seem to be spending enough time behind the virtual wheel, and a former driver is not happy with it.

Former NASCAR driver disappointed with lack of racing sim use

Kevin Harvick expressed his disappointment at drivers for missing out on simulator sessions in a recent episode of his podcast. He revealed it helped understand the car better, and the lack of practice on the simulator would be evident on Sunday.

“How are you going to fix it, fellas? Tell me how you’re going to fix your car if you don’t go to the simulator,” he questioned. “Being in there week after week allows things to be developed around you, especially when you’re in a new scenario where you have new aero packages [..] And if you’re not in there scaling those tires and you’re just leaving it to the sim guys to be able to do that, in my opinion, it’s going to take you longer to catch up.”

These simulators have become so accurate now that the drivers can figure out possible car setups, race pace, and even strategies by modifying the weather and track temperatures. While the new drivers, including the likes of Tyler Reddick, have been spending quite some time practicing on these simulators, it is apparent that the older drivers find it a little unorthodox.

As NASCAR progresses, simulators will also advance and will be able to help drivers more than they have previously. It will be interesting to see if drivers still put off practising on them, as results could be defined by their work on simulators.