PlayStation petrolhead

The year was 1983, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, The Cult was just getting together and Activision's Enduro was a blockbuster hit for the Atari 2600. When Enduro came out, I was three years old, and my toddler thumbs couldn't yet handle a joystick. But by six years old I had the game mastered.

At eight, my parents bought me my first Nintendo Entertainment System and shortly after that, a copy of Rad Racer. Now, Rad Racer was a breakthrough, not just because it was the first Nintendo game to use 3-D glasses, but because it offered the choice of—gasp—two cars. One was a Ferrari 328 and the other an F1 car. Sections of the game comprising night driving through city courses were the source of constant frustration.

Then came my first real thrill ride. My sister's boyfriend pulls up in a black, Fox-bodied, Vanilla Ice-style Ford Mustang 5.0. He shows my 11-year-old self a burnout and some g-forces—and a manual transmission—and whoa, Nelly, I couldn't wait to get my license.

The next eight years were a mishmash of Daytona USA, Hard Drivin' and Need For Speed until 1996 when I turned 16. I learned to drive in my dad's Ford Thunderbird and learned to wrench in auto shop class one year later. After that I was hooked: hooked on speed, hooked on cars and hooked on fixing anything that was broken.

But regular driving wasn't that much fun, in itself. Driving my 1980 Ford F-150 “three on the tree” to get around didn't turn me into car guy, though it did teach me to drive a stick shift.

At the same time, newer and better racing games were coming out for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and my knowledge of cars was growing with each one of them. I knew what I liked, I knew how fast they went and I knew that I would probably never own a Ferrari. But that was OK. I could immerse myself in the gaming world and drive all the dream machines that I read about in magazines. I could rattle off stats, describe paint hues and debate wheel choices that I had never seen in real life.

Smash cut to present day. I still play video games regularly. I still credit them with teaching me about Nissan Skylines, the Mazda 787b and the Ruf Yellow Bird.

To me, gaming is just another part of being a car guy. I would have never felt the need to get out on the autocross track if I hadn't played Gran Turismo 2 until I passed out. I would have never counted the days until the American version of the Nissan GT-R hit our shores. I would have never known that a Ruf is a Porsche, post tune. I probably would have never jumped headfirst into journalism.

Part of being a car guy, to me, is sponging up info from all avenues—video games, Web sites, movies, music and even pop culture. Justin Bieber has a Fisker Karma, Kim Kardashian bought a Lamborghini Aventador for Kanye West, Lindsay Lohan crashes Porsches like it's her job. It all feeds into it.

If one person can lay out the horsepower stats for the last seven Ferraris, Aston Martins and AMGs having never seen them in the metal, another person can drive the wheels off his Mazda Miata, and yet another person can yank a cylinder head off Chevy Camaro.

Which one is the bigger car guy?

I say they're all equal. And instead of discrediting the various avenues each of us took to become gearheads, we should be celebrating our common love of cars.

Listen, contrary to what we enthusiasts experience on a day-to-day basis, we're a dying breed. In 1983, almost 90 percent of 19-year-olds had their driver's license, by 2010 that number had dropped to 70 percent. You can likely chop 60 percent off that number for the kids who don't care what they drive. Then you're left with one out of 10 kids that have a passion for cars. The least we can do is stick together.

By Jake Lingeman