With the NASCAR season currently suspended because of the coronavirus outbreak, the governing body is doing what it can to still entertain racing fans. And it has a clear advantage over other sports.
Seven Cup Series races have been postponed through May 3 — at least for now — so NASCAR team up with virtual iRacing platform to form the exhibition eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series. Last Sunday, Denny Hamlin won the series’ first race after duking it out with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the end at the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, where NASCAR would have been racing in real life that day.
The iRacing event was even broadcast on FS1 with NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon and broadcaster Mike Joy calling it like a normal race. What wasn’t totally normal was Clint Bowyer offering commentary from behind the virtual wheel mid-race.
More than 900,000 viewers watched at least some of the race, which isn’t bad considering this is a very advanced video game.
“This thing came together so fast, and things are being thrown at us and changing,” Gordon said Friday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “And it’s not our normal way of doing things, and we had fun with it. Mike Joy did a great job leading that, and, of course we had Clint Bowyer — you can never go wrong with Clint Bowyer — and Regan Smith and Michael Waltrip.”
Gordon shared some details about how exactly this unique eNASCAR broadcast works, especially during a global pandemic when people aren’t leaving their homes unless it’s necessary.
He also spoke about what fans can expect for the second event in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, which is Sunday at the virtual Texas Motor Speedway, where NASCAR would have been real-life racing this weekend. It’s at 1 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on FOX and FS1.
ICYMI: @JeffGordonWeb joined #TMDNASCAR and explained the ins and outs of broadcasting an @iRacing event. @TheMikeBagley | @PPistone | @NASCAR | @NASCARONFOX pic.twitter.com/WmT7LH1Xjt
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) March 27, 2020
To prepare for the virtual race’s broadcast, Gordon said he ran some laps at Texas, just like he did for Homestead, and said the details of the iRacing simulation are “incredibly close” to what it actually feels like driving at these tracks.
He continued on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio:
“The production actually comes from iRacing. They have their own studios up in Boston, and then that’s fed down through the FOX studios in Charlotte. And so we’re using their producers, our producers, we were trying to tap into the webcams and be able to have some audio talking to the drivers.
“We had audio issues with how that was being distributed to us. I think we have that sorted out this week. So you should see more of these guys in action, meaning in action from home, showing their face, how focused they are. We might even try to interrupt them and have some fun with that.
“But I think that it’s, in many ways, similar, except for you’re not looking out there for the track. You might be covering a race and you might be looking at a monitor … but a lot of times, you have the luxury of looking out there at the entire race track and picking up some other things, where this is completely looking at that monitor. And you’re having to just talk about the pictures that you see, and sometimes we know what’s going to come next, but we don’t always know what’s gonna come next.
“And I think we’ve got some things that we learned from in-car shots of how we can recognize who’s in-car it is when we go to it. But I think overall, it was very smooth. It went really well, we had a lot of fun, we had a great race and learned some things.”
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