Introducing Season 2 | An Interview with PRC Founder Joviah Ishibara

We are now in Season 2 of the Pineapple Racing Club GT Challenge Powered by Dapper Customs.  As things kick into action, we took a moment to catch up with Pineapple Racing Club founder, Joviah Ishibara, to get a little background info and introduce the upcoming season:

“The PRC was founded by myself, Dave, and some of my friends and moderators from my Twitch Streaming days. Initially, we found ourselves competing in F1 2020 multiplayer seasons on the weekends, but we quickly grew bored and frustrated of racing against AI, and our attention was diverted to ACC.

We wanted to create a private server to race on our own terms, but realised whilst we could invite other people we knew, it was always small numbers.

From there, we decided to start the PRC. To address the first question: Why Pineapple Racing Club? Well it’s obvious. Because pineapple clearly does NOT belong on pizza (always a running discussion on my Twitch stream). We wanted to create a community that’s competitive in nature, but also open to people that were newer to ACC, or new to sim racing in general. Our primary goal is, and always will be, to create a community wherein people can show up and have a good time, at all skill levels, but also be a place people can share their knowledge and help out those that want to improve.

And that’s something I think we’ve been very successful in doing. We’re not believers in the ‘if you’re not first, you’re last’ mentality. We’ve got ourselves a discord server that’s constantly active, and some of our members are streamers themselves, so they’re able to share our races, principles and experiences with their own audiences. 

Season 2 is an important one to us, as for the first time, we’re branching out into the world of broadcasting. Matt, or BreakfastLive as he’s commonly referred to, has agreed to become our season broadcaster, sharing our club races with the world, and commentating along with the action. 

As I said, some of our members have been streaming their perspectives for a while now, but there has never been a way for viewers to see the race as a whole, and that’s something we’re addressing this season. 

We think Matt to be the perfect fit for this endeavour, as he’s been a friend for many years. We can entrust him to promote the club in the correct manner and he has all the necessary knowledge of motorsport. But most importantly, he doesn’t currently have an interest in taking part in the racing. In Season 1, we discovered it was difficult to fill the stewarding and streaming roles, as everyone in the club wants to participate on track, and we don’t want to deprive anyone of that opportunity. So, Matt really does fit the bill perfectly. 

In addition to the broadcasts, we’ll also be uploading race highlights to our YouTube channel as a way to capture the memorable moments and retain them for the future for prosperity.  This is all very new to us, and we’ll be feeling our way through as we learn more and evolve as feedback comes in from our members and viewers. 

This season is also important to me personally, as I had to take a step back from Season 1 due to the deteriorating health of my Father-In-Law. Most people may know already, but my Father-In-Law had been battling cancer for several years and his battle has recently come to an unfortunate end. It was a difficult period for myself and my family and that’s why I’d like to dedicate my participation this season to his honour.

My Father-In-Law has never had much knowledge about computers, video games or motorsport, but he knew it was an interest of mine. So, whenever we were in the same room, he would always ask about “this racing thing” that we were doing here. He never got a chance to see my rig in person or see our races in action, but he always had an interest in hearing about the PRC.

It would have been so great for me to have gotten the chance to show him my rig, let him experience it himself, or even just to watch one of our races. This brings me to my livery for this season: I wanted to move away from the Merc for this season, as I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I used to. The McLaren felt great during some testing and I wanted a livery to commemorate my Father-In-Law.

A dedication to the guy that never got a chance to see us in action, but always showed an interest. The base colours of black/red signify the connection between the blackness of mourning, and my own signature red colour. My father-in-law’s favourite animal was always a Giraffe. Every time he was out and about, if he saw something with giraffe print, he had to buy it. It was just his ‘thing’. So I had to incorporate giraffe patterns into my livery somehow. When I consulted Crash about the concept for the livery, she pulled it off perfectly, and you can see that pattern interpreted on the car.

On the sides of the car is my own Gorilla logo, carried forth from my Twitch Streaming days. The wingplates are decorated with poppies to further signify the mourning period of myself and my family. The rear spoiler is decorated with a less subtle ‘F*CK CANCER’. I don’t think that requires any further comment. And lastly, the roof of my car sports the traditional statement commemorating the dates of birth and death of my Father-In-Law.

Overall, I think it’s a very fitting tribute to an amazing patriarch. 

I would like to thank everyone who takes part in this fantastic community, and to those that dedicate their own time to make this happen, from the backend servers and spreadsheets, to stewards and content creators, and those that help each other out, both on track and off.  Without you, the PRC would not be what it has become today. To think that we have grown to a field of 27 highly competitive, yet friendly and welcoming racers in less than a year is truly humbling.

Please, enjoy Season 2 of our GT Challenge Season.”