Getting to know Road to Pro: Liam Sheen

Road to Pro Qualifying series broadcasts on the Podium eSports Twitch channel. We hope you enjoy reading these and learning about the drivers. This time we have sat down with Liam Sheen. You can view all of our Getting to Know profiles on this page.

What was the first racing game you ever played?

The first racing game I technically played was NASCAR Heat 2 in 2017. Although, I’d consider BeamNG.drive back in 2016 to be my first dabbling into sim-racing/driving because I was fascinated in cars, and that was the first car game I played.

When did you first discover iRacing and what got you hooked?

I discovered iRacing in late 2017, I was looking to buy some older NASCAR games on Steam after playing through NASCAR Heat 2 a couple of times. I heard NASCAR ‘15 was a good game and tried to buy it but it had been delisted. The recommended one was iRacing and it was all I could ask for in a racing game. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of spending 2017-2019 driving on a controller, and due to my lack of talent on a joystick, I spent most NiS races on “the meme stream” throughout 2018. In early 2020 I got a wheel and the people that I’ve met are what kept me in it. Ever since then, the gradual progression, improvement, and looking back at where I was keeps me going.

How did you get connected with your current team that’s assisting you in Road to Pro?

My connection stems way back to mid-2021 and it’s really a big domino effect. Blaze Crawford gave me the big opportunity I was looking for, and let me run some RTP races for his team, Unattached, last year. That is something that I’ll forever be grateful for. At the end of the round 1, High Performance Motorsports added me to their team, and I spent most of the summer running laps with them and spotting for Max Brady throughout round 2. When HPM disbanded in November, a few guys went to Nexxus eSports, and eventually, I followed them over. So that’s how I ended up at Nexxus.

Who is your favorite race car driver? And why?

Kurt Busch is my favorite driver simply because I like the way he carries himself these days. His yearly win is always exciting to watch, and he’s really hard to not like and pull now that he’s nearing the end of his career.

If you could go to any racetrack and watch a race live, where would you want to go?

I went to Daytona this year with a bunch of my iRacing friends so that’s crossed off the list of big ones. The next race I’d like to go see is the Indy 500. The prestige of the event seems too big to just never see for yourself.

What is a skill or talent that you have that not many people know about?

Until I got a pretty bad injury back in 2016, I snowboarded basically every day. I had been snowboarding since I was 5. Haven’t touched a slope since because I can’t hold my balance.

For anyone watching you race, who wants to end up where you are, what advice do you have for them?

Well, I haven’t done too much on iRacing to be some big advice animal or some big prestigious role model driver. That said, I guess for those that are running in the bottom splits of races right now, I was once there too. Legitimately. Over time I kept at it and improved gradually.

While it can be discouraging to see people join after you and surpass you in a shorter amount of time, everyone has different learning speeds. The thing I always kept in mind is if I’m not trying to get better, I’m only getting worse. So as long as you stay at it and keep going, it’ll eventually pay off, it just might take some time.

If you want to learn more about Liam, you can follow him on Twitter by clicking here. You can watch Parker and others race in the Road to pro series on the Podium eSports Twitch Channel