Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin delivered a wild finish to the inaugural NASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational series race last week at a virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, and NASCAR’s best drivers will be back online to participate in a nationally …
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin delivered a wild finish to the inaugural NASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational series race last week at a virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, and NASCAR’s best drivers will be back online to participate in a nationally televised race on Sunday.
Hamlin edged Earnhardt Jr. to claim the win in a race filled with tight battles and plenty of accidents, and the first broadcast on Fox seemed to be a hit with fans. Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon will be back on the call Sunday for a race at virtual Texas Motor Speedway, the site of Earnhardt Jr.’s first career Cup Series win.
The O’Reilly Auto Parts 125 will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET on Fox.
Field: A total of 31 drivers are locked into the field:
Kurt Busch
Austin Dillon
Ross Chastain
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Chase Elliott
Denny Hamlin
Ryan Blaney
Ty Dillon
Clint Bowyer
Greg Biffle
Chris Buescher
Kyle Busch
Bobby Labonte
Erik Jones
Matt DiBenedetto
William Byron
Tyler Reddick
Michel McDowell
Ryan Preece
John Hunter Nemechek
Kyle Larson
Bubba Wallace
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Jimmie Johnson
Garrett Smithley
Timmy Hill
Parker Kligerman
Alex Bowman
Landon Cassill
Christopher Bell
Daniel Suarez
An additional four drivers will earn a spot in the field from a last-chance qualifier race. The LCQ race will begin at 11:00 a.m. ET and will be streamed at eNASCAR.com.
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.
“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.”
This is a captured screenshot of Denny Hamlin’s and Dale Jr.’s virtual cars from NASCAR’s iRacing event at the simulated Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
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.
— 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.”
Denny Hamlin edged out Dale Jr. to win NASCAR’s virtual iRacing event.
As Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin battled for the lead on the last lap of NASCAR’s virtual race Sunday, you almost forgot it was a video game being broadcast on FS1.
At the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway track, Earnhardt — who retired from the NASCAR Cup Series at the end of the 2017 season — was out front going into the last lap and running on the inside. But Hamlin on the outside moved ahead of Earnhardt on the backstretch, the two made contact coming out of Turn 4 and Earnhardt slid down to the inside of the track as Hamlin took the checkered flag.
In a world without sports because of the global coronavirus pandemic, it felt like a real race. Except Hamlin was driving barefoot, and Earnhardt only had one hand on the wheel.
“I like feeling the pedals,” Hamlin said on a conference call with reporters after the race ended. “With shoes, I can’t do it, so I always go barefoot.”
Seven NASCAR races have been postponed at this point because of the COVID-19 outbreak, so the governing body and iRacing partnered up for the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series. The first exhibition race was Sunday at the virtual Homestead track, where NASCAR would have raced in real life this weekend.
With at-home setups ranging from the most basic with a computer on a desk to super intense rigs with moving seats and roll cages, 35 NASCAR drivers competed in the 100-lap race. Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman were among the big names racing.
While several drivers are new to participating in iRacing events — Johnson had jokes about his technical difficulties as he struggled to figure out exactly how it works — Earnhardt and Hamlin are not. As FS1’s broadcast pointed out, this was Hamlin’s 31st iRacing win in his 164th start.
“He’s really really good,” Earnhardt told FS1 immediately after the race. “I’ve raced him on here for two decades. I thought he would be hard to beat.”
There are plenty of guys who participate in iRacing more regularly now or in recent years, but as Hamlin said: “Certainly it’s going to be hard to find anyone in the field whose [online] experience dates back further than me and Dale Jr.”
Earlier this week, Hamlin pledged $5,000 if he won to families in the Miami area impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. It was matched by Kevin Harvick and FOX Sports.
And as far as that last-lap contact goes, Hamlin — who estimated his intense simulator was in the $40,000 price range — said he “definitely” would have raced Earnhardt that hard in real life. Junior, on the other hand, said he probably gave the No. 11 Toyota driver more leeway than normal.
“I was trying to get a good finish, I was trying to win the race, and I was trying not to wreck anybody,” Earnhardt told FS1. “So I think I probably gave him a little more room than I really wanted to, but I had to to keep from crashing him or anybody else.”
Sunday’s virtual event was just the first in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series. When NASCAR announced this temporary replacement Tuesday, it described it as a “multi-week series” but didn’t specify the dates and times of any future races.
However, because Sunday’s race was at the track where NASCAR would have been racing anyway, it’s reasonable to guess the next one will be at the virtual Texas Motor Speedway, where the sport was scheduled to be next weekend.
If NASCAR gained even a handful of fans who caught some of Sunday’s broadcast, Hamlin said he’d consider that a success.
But he also spoke about the advantage iRacing has over other sports’ video game versions. Regardless of how advanced (or not) a racer’s setup is, their real-world skills translate more directly to the competition with steering wheels and pedals.
“NBA players can’t go and play NBA 2K and put it on TV and make it look like the real thing,” he said. “You can’t go play Madden and make it look like the real thing. There’s so much animation.
“But iRacing’s platform, this is something that really can gain a lot of traction simply because it’s as real as it gets. So I’m excited that this is just the first step and hopefully something that builds for years and years to come.”
Alex Bowman tried to get his dog to take over while he took a bathroom break.
With sports currently on hold because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, NASCAR is doing the next-best thing.
Thanks to the iRacing video game — which Clint Bowyer praised as “truly realistic beyond belief” — NASCAR held a virtual exhibition race Sunday in the newly formed eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the NASCAR Cup Series was scheduled to race in real life this weekend. It’s a unique advantage NASCAR has over other sports during this global pandemic with precise data making the tracks and cars as realistic as possible, while racers have steering wheels and pedals to have total control over their cars.
It was a 100-lap event broadcast on FS1 with big-name drivers like Bowyer Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott and William Byron — who got his start in iRacing before working his way up to the Cup Series — on the track. NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon and FOX Sports’ Mike Joy were even calling the race.
"I barely made it right there. I think I passed 15 cars."- @ClintBowyer
But unlike real life, it didn’t look like anyone took this too seriously, like seven-time champ Johnson who’s new to iRacing and joked about his technical difficulties and not really knowing how any of this works.
And some drivers were tweeting during the race for a hilarious twist on this simulation event.
It’s not real, so why not have a little fun with it? Here’s a look at some of the best in-race tweets from NASCAR’s top drivers competing in the Pro Invitational Series event and others in the racing world.
Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney are good friends, so while Blaney wasn’t competing in the race, he offered his services as Elliott’s crew chief, a “lifelong dream.”
From criticizing his real-life Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson to his dog lending a hand to eating an Uncrustable, Bowman won this race on social media.
Even IndyCar Series drivers Josef Newgarden and JR Hildebrand chimed in with their thoughts on the virtual event.
This is such a strange time. I’m watching this @NASCAR@iRacing event on FS1 and it’s without a doubt making a difference for me while we can’t race in reality! I love it.
But Bowyer has been competing on virtual versions of NASCAR’s tracks with guys like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., NBC Sports’ Parker Kligerman and country music singer Tim Dugger.
“We’re racing until 2:30 in the morning!” Bowyer told For The Win about what he thinks was his Tuesday night because “this quarantine thing’s got me screwed up on days.”
“We raced street stocks from Homestead to Dover to Talladega to Rockingham. We had a hell of a good time!”
It’s the Dixie Vodka 150 — a 100-lap race at the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the sport was supposed to compete this weekend — and will be broadcast by FS1 at 1:30 p.m. ET.
“I gotta get better,” said Bowyer, whose previous experience with iRacing has been in dirt late model racing as a team owner. He’ll also be providing in-race analysis for FOX.
“I don’t want to get my ass kicked on this thing with all these guys. We compete week in and week out, there’s nothing that sucks worse than getting beat by a Denny Hamlin or any one of these guys.”
Other drivers participating in the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series include Earnhardt, Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and William Byron, who started his career in iRacing before working his way up to the Cup Series.
“That’s where [Byron] was found,” Bowyer said. “This cat’s driving the No. 24 [Chevrolet] for Rick Hendrick for crying out loud. So he is the favorite in this thing, I can promise you that.”
With no racing or really any other sports right now, NASCAR has a unique advantage. The simulated tracks have been created with extreme detail to mimic their real-life counterparts, and racers are competing with pedals and a steering wheel. Some setups, like Hamlin’s, have seats that move accordingly when the driver hits the banking in a track’s turns.
iRacing has been around since 2004, and NASCAR has taken advantage of it. The eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series features some of the best simulation drivers competing in a season for more than $300,000. But it’s not limited to the pros, and fans can buy an iRacing setup and progress through the ranks to find themselves competing against Cup drivers on any given day.
“The advantage NASCAR has is the iRacing platform,” Hamlin said Saturday on ESPN’s SportsCenter. He owns two cars in NASCAR’s already existing pro iRacing series.
“When you look at other sports and everyone’s on hiatus, the racing will be as close to the real thing as possible — closer than any other sport.”
New to iRacing in situations somewhat comparable to the Cup Series, Bowyer called the realistic simulations “mesmerizing.”
However, he and Hamlin agreed what isn’t quite realistic is the experience level of the sim drivers in Sunday’s race. People like Hamlin and Byron have years of experience with iRacing, unlike Bowyer, who’s “way behind” and said it’s like the equivalent of him attempting to drive a Cup car for the first time.
They also both speculated that regardless of drivers’ experience levels, the most skilled ones will finds ways to get the most out of their simulated cars.
“I guarantee I will be more nervous cranking the engine and leaving pit road this Sunday than I would be in real life simply because there are so many X factors,” Hamlin added on ESPN.
But in a world without sports, this is as close to real as they can get, and it’s not comparable to other sports’ video games.
“This isn’t a video game,” Bowyer said. “This isn’t Madden football or the NBA game you play. This is real life. You’ve got the football in your hand, you’ve got the baseball bat in your hand, you’ve got the steering wheel, you’ve got the throttle pedal, you’ve got the brake pedal, you are the guy.
“You’re not telling some computer what to do. You are him! You’re controlling every aspect of the race car, and I’m telling you first hand from somebody that’s just got on here cold turkey, my mind is blown how competitive it is and how realistic the controls [are]. Everything is through the roof. It’s more realistic than I could have ever imagined.”
Some of NASCAR’s biggest stars are competing in a new exhibition eNASCAR series while real-life racing is postponed.
Basically the entire sports world is on hiatus as the result of the novel coronavirus outbreak with the NBA, MLB and NHL among the many sports organizations suspending their seasons. But NASCAR has a way to keep its drivers competing against each other.
Sure, other pro athletes are grinding away at Madden and NBA 2K and FIFA 20 and so many more video games mimicking professional sports. But those video games don’t quite compare with iRacing, NASCAR’s greatest asset in these uncertain times amid a global pandemic.
NASCAR and iRacing, the online racing simulator, announced Tuesday night the creation of the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series, a multi-week series to fill the temporary racing void with drivers like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin — who owns two cars in the already existing pro iRacing series, including one with a Jumpman paint scheme designed with Michael Jordan’s help. Dale Jr.’s team, JR Motorsports, also has two iRacing cars this season.
(The two organizations already had a partnership for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series, which is in its 11th season with some of the best simulation drivers competing for more than $300,000.)
This isn’t the same as, say, NBA players being themselves in 2K. iRacing requires a computer, a steering wheel and pedals, more or less allowing real-world professional racing skills to translate to the virtual track. Several current drivers in NASCAR’s top series have started their careers in iRacing.
I’ve been running on a laptop on a cardboard box in our dining room. I do have a new @NZXT system and ultra wide monitor on the way, but something like this is all you need to get started to see if you enjoy it, which you will. pic.twitter.com/n7sfaAvgEs
Earnhardt Jr., Hamlin and William Byron are among the successful Cup Series drivers who previously raced online.
“I was very good at iRacing back in the day; I sat on the pole and won some really big, prestigious races,” Hamlin told NBC Sports in February. “Now back then, there were like 5,000 people that raced online, and now there’s over a hundred thousand that do iRacing.”
And currently without real-life racing, there are a few more sim drivers joining or returning to the virtual track. In addition to Dale Jr., Busch and Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are expected to participate in this exhibition eNASCAR series.
The first race is set for Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET on the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway track, where NASCAR was scheduled to compete this weekend before the season was suspended. Remaining race times have not yet been announced, and, according to Autoweek, NASCAR is attempting to get the first race aired on FOX Sports or NBC Sports Network.
NASCAR president Steve Phelps spoke about NASCAR’s reliance on iRacing during the coronavirus pandemic while on a media conference call Tuesday prior to the pro series announcement. He said:
“There are discussions we’re having with FOX about what things we can do, discussions we would have with NBC, things that we can put through our own channels that satisfy our fans. Our fans are obviously thirsty for this content. We want to provide it to them smartly and have interesting content as opposed to just repurposing some of the content that’s already been done.”
“Thirsty” is an understatement. With the season postponed after just four races in 2020, fans are desperate for competition. And as just about every other sport being put on hold in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, some NASCAR fans, inexplicably, argued for competition to carry on, despite the fast-spreading virus and ignoring the severity of the situation.
That group of fans didn’t get its wish because it’s just not safe for those in NASCAR or anyone they may interact with to gather right now. But there is a pretty solid next-best option.
While virtual racing certainly isn’t exactly the same as the real world, it’s close enough, especially compared with the alternatives other pro sports have to offer.
And we got a quick preview of what this exhibition eNASCAR series could be like. Sunday, drivers and others in the industry united for a one-off iRacing event called The Replacements 100 at the virtual Atlanta Motor Speedway, where NASCAR was scheduled to race last weekend.
It included Earnhardt, Hamlin, Alex Bowman and Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., and Ryan Blaney’s spotter Josh Williams outlasted Byron for the win. As Autoweek reported, the Twitch broadcast peaked at 27,000 viewers.
Diehard racing fans or those with experience online (watching or competing) will surely tune in for NASCAR’s exhibition iRacing series regardless, and big names like Earnhardt, Busch and Hamlin could attract more people who might not be interested otherwise.
Plus, if it comes to fruition, successfully broadcasting these races on national TV would shine a spotlight on the virtual racing, which NASCAR has been trying to promote anyway. And it could just reach a much broader audience and quench that thirst.
With a total of seven Cup Series races postponed at this point — and perhaps more to come — NASCAR has a noticeable and rare advantage over mainstream sports in the gaming world. It’s playing the only real card it had, and while iRacing isn’t quite the same, it’s good enough for now.
