HE might be the king of Tigerland, but trying to be king of the Mount is a very different prospect for Richmond AFL star Jack Riewoldt.
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Next Monday Riewoldt will be sitting in a simulator and taking on Bathurst's iconic Mount Panorama circuit as a competitor in the Supercars celebrity race.
As a two-time premiership player, a three-time Coleman Medallist - the award given to the AFL's leading goal-kicker - as well as a three-time All-Australian, there's no doubting that Riewoldt is a competitor.
That is why he has been spending plenty of time in the simulator under the guidance of Super2 series driver Thomas Randle and been picking up pointers from current Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin prior to his Bathurst test.
"I've been down there punching out a few laps around the mountain and look, I started on a pretty low base, so I've rapidly improved," Riewoldt told Supercars SideTracked.
"I couldn't get much worse, I think I crashed about 25 times in my first lap around there.
"I'm getting better slowly and I think I've still got another couple practice runs before Monday night."
Though Riewoldt has never raced an actual Supercar, he was taken on a hot lap of Sandown three years ago by McLaughlin.
It gave the Tigers star some idea of what a Supercar is capable of.
"I've been lucky enough to do a lap with Scott around Sandown about three years ago, it was on the eve of the 2017 preliminary final," he said.
"I just got the feel for what it was like, Scotty said he was basically going about 70 percent."
While there are plenty of simulator nuances Riewoldt is coming to terms with, there is one area of virtual racing that stands on top of his list of challenges.
"The braking thing is probably what I've found the most amazing thing," he said.
"The speed's there, but it's the ability to brake and how quick they corner is something you never really know until you've been in a Supercar or been in a car that goes like that.
"My goal is before the race, I want to get down to 2:08, 2:09 for a lap around Mount Panorama in a simulator.
"I'm getting better, about two seconds better every time, so with another 14 visits to the simulator I think I'll be down there."
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Another of the celebrities who will take part in the race, former Supercars driver and now commentator Neil Crompton joked he has "done exactly nothing" to prepare for his return to Mount Panorama.
"I had a couple of goes [in a simulator] about three weeks ago and they were average ... but it's a fair line up," he said.
The celebrity race will be streamed live on the Supercars Facebook page from 7pm.
