iRacing

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This is a neat promotion.

Fans can challenge NASCAR driver Greg Biffle around New Hampshire Motor Speedway at  Game On in Boston

That Roush Fenway Racing superstar Greg Biffle, defending champion of the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, will challenge fans to hit the gas in iRacing.com’s NASCAR simulators from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Tuesday 8 September at Game On! The event is free and open to all aspiring drivers who think they have what it takes to sit behind the wheel of some of the world’s most powerful vehicles.

I’ve suspected for a while that iRacing have been developing a tie-up with the Indycar series. We’ve had a number of hints but nothing has been confirmed up to now.

I suspect this will change over the weekend.

iRacing confirmed a while back that “a big announcement” was due in August so I obviously suspected Indycar but today, iRacing’s David Moulthrop posted this on his blog;

I will start a journey to California for another major announcement by iRacing this weekend

Indycar is at Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, California this weekend!

I suspect this deal has been in the bag for some time and I think the intention was to announce it before the NASCAR tie-up but  the NASCAR deal got done earlier than expected and so took priority.

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After running a great race for 150+ laps, Marcos was looking at a top 10 finish at Pocono in the Pennsylvania 500 in his iRacing.com car when eventual race winner Denny Hamlin turns Marcos’ team-mate David Reutimann out of turn 3 taking Marcos out in the process which effectively finished his race.

“Not sure what happened there. We were running in the top-10 and all of a sudden David (Reutimann) got turned by the 11 (Denny Hamlin) car and I had nowhere to go. That pretty much ended our day.”

On the plus side, Marcos got a lot of TV coverage running up front (and even leading for a lap) which is great for iRacing and the car looked awesome out there!

As Marcos Ambrose prepares to race his iRacing sponsored car at Pocono he talks about his sponsor on NASCAR Trackside.

NASCAR drivers Marcos Ambrose and David Reutimann talk about how Marcos tutored David at Virginia International Raceway in the finer points of road racing, Marcos being a former Australian V8 Supercar champion, prior to the recent road race at Sonoma.

There’s some nice in-car footage and of the VIR track at the 0:43 mark.

iRacing’s Australian ambassador Marcos Ambrose put in his best qualifying performance this season at Sonoma and will start in an excellent 3rd place on the grid.

Marcos had been strong in the practises sessions so this was well deserved.

Dale Earnhardt Jr talks to the media about iRacing and the NASCAR deal.

Part of the back story to the recent NASCAR/iRacing partnership  was that last year Dale Jr. was advising NASCAR on the direction they should take in the gaming world and was adamant they consider working with iRacing;

We had a terrific meeting with NASCAR, one in which Jr. dragged one of his monster computers from his house down so Paul Brooks, Blake Davidson and Nick Rend could demo the software. Jr. was the one that actually sat at the computer and toured them through the website and software showing them all the thought and engineering that has gone into this service.  Both sides left the meeting with a desire to work together and nine or so months later here we are.

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• The NASCAR announcement press conference [video] (popabawa.net)

Since the NASCAR announcement, iRacing has started to get quite a bit of coverage but it’s awesome to seen a mainstream gaming site like Gamespot doing a fairly in-depth article.

In the article Dave Kaemmer discusses the forthcoming NASCAR series;

“NASCAR has been interested in sanctioned on-line competition as a form of motorsport for a long time, as have we,” said Kaemmer. “The technology in most peoples’ homes is now to the point where it is possible, and NASCAR was impressed with what we had produced at iRacing.”

Read the full article here;

http://uk.gamespot.com/sports/blogs/sports-blog/909097139/26885855/iracing-the-next-step-for-nascar-gaming.html?tag=blog;title;1

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iRacing CEO and co-founder David Kaemmer joins NASCAR driver and iRacing member Dale Earnhardt Jr, along with NASCAR representatives Robin Pemberton and Blake Davidson to announce the partnership between NASCAR and iRacing.com, starting in 2010.

“The online world is an ever-growing marketplace filled with NASCAR fans,” said Blake Davidson, managing director of licensing products for NASCAR. “To provide those fans with the most realistic NASCAR racing environment, iRacing was the right partner for us.”

Davidson said Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brad Keselowski and A.J. Allmendinger are the drivers who will be competing in iRacing.

“Their involvement, along with NASCAR Competition, in the development will make the experience even more authentic,” he noted.

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I was pretty close with the predictions I made on Friday, iRacing and NASCAR have joind forces to create the sanctioning body’s first officially licensed and sanctioned online competition division.

“Our members are passionate about racing,” said John Henry, iRacing’s co-founder and chairman. “They love to drive, and they love to compete. And they do it in the context of their overall love for racing in both the physical and virtual worlds. We’re pleased that iRacing has been chosen as the home of NASCAR-Sanctioned Online Racing and expect that many of NASCAR’s most avid fans will find iRacing’s NASCAR-sanctioned series a great way to deepen their connection to and enjoyment of the sport.”

Details of the series will be released later this year but with the Chevy Impala and Silverado already in place there is scope to release all the vehicles and recreate these series in their entireity.

This is big news though, this is an actual division of NASCAR they announced. An online official NASCAR division.Wow.

This should also mean a hefty inlux of new drivers to iRacing which is great news for all members, even if you only ever stick to the road courses. Extra revenue means a more secure future for all of us

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