The Last Garage is the platform of choice for the next eROC 

At the recent Sim Formula Europe event in Maastricht, Marcel Offermans took centre stage to discuss his plans for his The Last Garage sim project.

As well as explaining his tie-in with British sportscar manufacturer BAC and the creation of a virtual version of the Anglesey circuit, Offermans was able to tease his and Heusnkveld’s involvement in creating Dutch manufacturer Donkervoort’s new car.

But Offermans also revealed that TLG would be the platform of choice for the upcoming eROC (eRace of Champions) event, complementing the real-world competition taking place in Sydney, Australia on 7-8 March this year.

Sim racing and the Race of Champions

“One event that’s coming up and that we’re doing together with our partners from Sim-Department [German sim racing venue solutions provider] is going to be in Sydney, Australia, in the stadium where the Race of Champions will be held in March [2025],” stated Offermans in a public address witnessed by Traxion contributor Ewan O’Leary.

“We’ll be running the finals of that on the new racing simulation [codenamed The Last Garage] so that will be an event where you can see us do some other cars and other tracks,” he continued. 

Previous eROC winners include F1 Esports stars Jarno Opmeer and Lucas Blakeley, with the latter going on to defeat four-time Formula 1 World Champion Sebastien Vettel in a real-world head-to-head race at the 2022 event (and Valtteri Bottas in 2023!).

“We’re building a rally simulator that as far as I know will be the first time that we will have a simulator where you have a co-driver sitting next to you that is also sitting in the same rig… and can shout the pacenotes at the driver in real-time,” added Offermans, intriguingly.

Quite how this will work in practice is yet to be determined, but it sounds like a fun way to replicate the real-world ROC’s passenger ride experience.

ROC 2025

This year’s ROC event will take place at Accor Stadium in Sydney’s Olympic Park, with Vettel set to be joined by the likes of Bottas, Sebastien Loeb and Travis Pastrana in head-to-head races on a specially designed asphalt track.

Previous eROC winners include sim racing superstars like Enzo Bonito in 2018 and James Baldwin in 2019, so TLG’s new rally simulation should receive valuable feedback once the competition’s lineup is decided.

“They’ll [use] rally-like cars” states Offermans, “we’ll do a rally stage here in the Netherlands so that will be the first opportunity to see that publicly,” he continued, highlighting TLG’s progress with its rally simulation, which even extends toward possibly creating a spiritual successor to Richard Burns Rally.

What do you make of eROC’s switch to The Last Garage for 2025? Let us know in the comments below.