http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/08/04/2489341/river-park-gets-first-raceroom.htmlA German automotive parts company that is branching out into arcade-style driving simulators has chosen Fresno for its first location in north America.
RaceRoom opened Monday in The Shops at River Park.
Twenty-nine simulators allow customers to get the experience of driving a car with a high-performance KW Automotive suspension on racetracks that mimic California's Laguna Seca and others around the world.
The company has 13 RaceRoom locations in Germany, Denmark, Monaco, Sweden – and now a location in River Park sandwiched between Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grill and See's Candies.
"If it can work here, it can work anywhere," said RaceRoom's marketing manager George Ciordas, adding that Fresno is a good test market.
The company expects to add five locations in major markets around the country soon. Locations include Universal CityWalk, the shopping district outside the entrance to Universal Studios Hollywood.
RaceRoom is hoping to attract customers from all over the central San Joaquin Valley, but it has broader appeal for car enthusiasts, Ciordas said.
The company plans to market to car clubs as far away as Sacramento, San Jose and Los Angeles, whose members routinely caravan to long-distance locations, and invite them to make a day-long event out of it.
That fits with River Park's strategy of promoting itself not just to locals, but also to travelers passing through town on Highway 41, said property manager Whitney Buford.
"We're all for [welcoming] different varieties of people who might not necessarily have come out to River Park before," she said.
KW Automotive's owner chose Fresno for the first U.S. RaceRoom location because of his connection to the Valley. The company has a plant in Sanger that makes spindles and sway bars, components of a car's suspension, and the owner lived there for a short while.
KW suspensions come standard on high-performance vehicles such as the Dodge Viper ACR. They also are sold as after-market parts for car lovers of mid- to high-end cars who want to upgrade their car's performance. And professional road racers in Europe often use KW suspensions.
KW owner Klaus Wohlfarth and his family spent three years living in Sanger in the mid 2000s, in part to oversee the company's purchase of the plant. The plant was known as Belltech Inc. before it was bought.
Wohlfarth is also the majority owner of SimBin Studios, a Sweden-based game software developer.
He blended the companies' expertise and created RaceRoom.
"They have ties to the racing world, so whatever it is they're developing here is fact-based and based on their own involvement in the racing business," said Dan Spears, Sanger's manager of planning, community and economic development.
RaceRoom executives don't like to refer to their simulators as arcade games, said Darrell L. Edwards, RaceRoom's director of North America.
The simulation software is modeled after the performance of cars with KW suspensions.
"The physics, the information that come through the tracks and the cars, that information is put into the actual software," Edwards said.
Some professional drivers have bought the simulators for their own training, he said.
"It's very different than the arcade experience," he said. "The car handles like a real car, rather than a toy car. ... You can actually slide and drift and correct like you would with a real car."
Drivers feel resistance in the steering wheel as they make turns. "Butt kickers" in the seat make it rumble when drivers go off track. They can make pit stops for fuel and new tires that improve their performance.
Parents often do better than their children, Edwards said, because even though the kids might have been raised on race car video games, the simulator is more like driving a real car.
Customers can choose between simulators with one screen, or three. They can drive one of 72 cars on 31 racetracks, including Germany's famed Nürburgring.
They can race each other or the computer. The business also holds tournaments with players competing from all of RaceRoom's worldwide locations.
Race sessions start at $5.49 for 15 minutes. A cafe area sells food and is available for parties. Trophies are available, and customers can have their photos taken on a podium.
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http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/08/04/2489341/river-park-gets-first-raceroom.html#ixzz1UBFEiqgO
I'm gonna try and go check it out sometime.
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