Few days ago, Mania-Actu did an interview of one of the best overall Trackmania² Stadium player in the world, the German  Simon "SPEED U NEED" Busch.

• Hey Speed U Need ! Can you introduce yourself IRL & IG ?

Hey! My name is Simon “SPEED U NEED” Busch. I am 20 years old, living in a small town at the Rhine in Germany and studying at university.

I'm a Dirt and Tech player, driving for team  eK.

• How did you discover TrackMania, and when did you start the game ?

Back in 2007, it was my father who shew me Trackmania Nations ESWC at his pc. I enjoyed playing it right from the start, but because I didn't have an internet-connection at my own pc I could only play it very occasionally.

So I actually started playing the game when I got my internet-connection in summer 2008.

• If you had to tell us what TrackMania represents for you in five words, what would you say ?

• Everybody knows that you're a great overall player. Do you prefer Tech or Dirt ? What do you like/dislike in both ?

In terms of driving I enjoy them both equally I think. Of course I really dislike the bugs in both of them. Especially those, which are not avoidable and do always appear when you are going to push it to the very limit.

But concerning the community, I can say that on tech everything is a bit more international and professional than on dirt.

• You were a player of TMNF, and now TM2S. Do you prefer the new game and was it difficult to make « the switch » ?

Switching over to TM2 wasn't a big deal to me, as the driving physics are very similar to TMNF. The only things which took me a bit of time to get used to were the lighting effects, especially the shadows, and the new sounds of the car.

But actually I have to say that I don't prefer the new game yet, as I can't really see any big improvements. Instead, it still has many little bugs and even some, in my opinion essential things, as working Relay-servers for example, are still missing.

• Could you tell us something about your path in TM, with teams, achievements, awards, … ?

Shortly after I started playing the game, me and some guys on the “Hamburg City Racers” server, founded the  Fanatics International team, which was the dirtsquad of the spanish techteam.

With that team, I participated in pretty much every bigger Dirt tournament. But with a 3rd and 4th place in ESL DPS 1 and 2, being our greatest success, we could unfortunately never win any title. Sadly, that team went down in 2012 due to inactivity.

But already one year earlier I had also joined the just founded techsquad of team  eK easyKiller, to drive just for fun in the 5th ESL CAP division. What had started as a pure fun-team, quickly moved into a serious competition-team, being now, over 2 years later, one of the well established teams in the tech-scene, finishing 2nd in the 2nd ESL CPS division last season. And I am sure, that this story is not over yet.

At the same time though, I was still attending some dirtcups, improving my skills there, which in the end lead me to the victory in the 3DMAX Dirt Supremacy, which is surely my greatest success in TM so far.

• We never saw you in LAN. Could you be interested to do some offline tournaments and why ?

SUN: I'd be definitely interested in going to some offline tournaments. Mainly to finally meet some of the guys I am racing and competing with for several years now. But also because offline tournaments are kinda the next step in the esports' point of view.

• The new update of the game called « Maniaplanet 3 » is coming. What would you see in it ?

I don't really know, as the update lists weren't very detailed yet. I can just say that I'd like to see Nadeo trying to optimize their games first, before starting such big projects, as an action maker. In terms of Stadium, that means to me implementing such features, as relay servers, removing such bugs, as the wrong position you're getting shown in the roundsmode, and maybe even use the space for improvement, which was already there in TMNF, as the spectatorsmode for example.

So this is my point of view, as a Stadium competition driver. But as I said, it's to early to judge the new update yet. We'll have to see what it finally brings, and how Nadeos futureplans will look like.

• Thanks for your answers mate, cya on the game and perhaps one day in LAN !

Thanks for the interview, cu on Track' !