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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