Maybe It's The Quarantine Talking, But NASCAR's Esports Takeover Is Hilarious Fun

from the this-is-serious dept

As we all live through this bad but real life knockoff of a season of The Walking Dead, we’ve talked about how professional sports leagues are dealing with forced shutdowns. With auto-racing leading the way, several leagues and/or broadcast stations have turned to broadcasting athletes playing video game versions of their sports since they cannot broadcast the real thing. This has been done over varying mediums and to varying degrees of professionalism, but it’s quite clear that there is a thirst during what is nearly a national shutdown for something like the live sports the country regularly enjoys.

And maybe I’ve been confined to one space for too long, but NASCAR’s version of all of this, broadcast on Fox Sports, is getting genuinely entertaining. Not only as intended, either, but also due to the wild variance with how serious those involved are taking all of this. Let’s start with the NASCAR driver who failed to take it as seriously as those around him would have liked.

The eNASCAR iRacing Pro invitational Series event, where NASCAR drivers are racing each other on the internet because they can’t currently do it in real life, is already giving us some spicy sports action. During Sunday’s race, which was televised, Bubba Wallace quit in the middle of a race after tangling with a rival in the most video game way imaginable.

In case you can’t see the embedded video or tweet, Wallace got bumped a bit during the video game race and decided to rage quite on national television. When a whole bunch of people gave him shit about his tantrum on Twitter, he essentially responded by telling everyone to screw themselves since this was just a video game, not real life.

But here’s the thing: video game or not, the iRacing broadcast on Fox has very real sponsors, one of which was not at all pleased with Wallace’s attitude and actions.

And if you can’t see that one, the tweet is Wallace’s sponsor telling him it’s dropping its sponsorship of him. As the earlier tweet stated, esports are sports now, and that includes the fact that athletes need to maintain their image when sponsored by corporate interests easily swayed by public perception and pressure.

But if you thought it was only the corporate goons taking all of this seriously… nah.

In the same event, as The Guardian reports, driver Erik Jones missed qualifying because of connection issues, and “seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson fired his spotter less than 20 laps into the race after falsely being told he was clear of another car, only to crash.”

If that isn’t entertaining on some kind of level then you just don’t like sports or video games or weird and interesting events that feel like the future. If all sports is esports now and that means pro athletes getting hammered by sponsors for rage-quitting games on national television, then I’m all for it!

Filed Under: bubba wallace, competition, esports, racing, sponsorship, sports, video games
Companies: nascar

Benchmark: Video Games Now Realistic Enough For Racing Games To Factor Into Racing Certs

from the real-talk dept

Normally, when we talk about any issue involving how realistic video games are becoming as an art form, those stories revolve around either the decrying of realistic violence within the games or occasionally governments attempting to use realistic game footage to pimp their own fictional military capabilities. But, while those stories often come off as silly, those examples and their like are not the only benchmarks for just how realistic gaming is becoming. Other examples involve games reaching a realism level high enough to open the door to real-life application.

Serving as a recent example of this is the latest from racing game giant Gran Turismo, which has achieved enough realism to earn it a partnership with Formula One Racing as a sort of proving ground for racers to get their license with the professional racing organization.

A new partnership with the FIA means that in-game progress can now count toward a racing license with the association. The partnership with the FIA somewhat mirrors the GT Academy, which allows some of the best Gran Turismoplayers to compete for the opportunity to drive a real race car.

Through the FIA partnership, game racers will be tracked on their ability and their “race track etiquette”, which I assume is a way to ensure that drivers are performing not only well, but in a manner that would be safe for real-world drivers around them. In addition, there will be a sub-section of the game specifically designed in partnership with the FIA, where drivers can compete with one another and have their skills and driving behavior analyzed.

This isn’t just a cool benchmark in gaming realism, either. It provides a nice example of how this kind of realism can benefit an industry like the racing industry in very real ways, both in terms of safety and cost.

Considering the astronomical costs of pursuing a career in motorsports, being able to knock certain aspects of it out in a video game—without the cost of wrecks, mechanical issues, parts and just buying a car—could open the opportunity for a wider array of competitors. Purchasing a gaming setup fit to race isn’t cheap, but it’s far cheaper than running real races.

Believe me, the moment that Major League Baseball teams start looking to the management of video game teams as a proving ground for hiring general managers and coaches, I’ll have a whole new career path on my hands. More seriously, this type of thing won’t eliminate the need for real-world racing experience to qualify for a license, but it likely will have a nice weeding-out effect for potential drivers.

Filed Under: certificates, racing, reality, video games, virtual reality

DailyDirt: High Performance Vehicles Without Internal Combustion Engines

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Racing cars is supposed to lead to technologies that eventually end up in consumer vehicles. So if that’s the case, there should be a lot more electric car races on the way, right? Well, there are… But the performance of electric cars isn’t always awe-inspiring (except for straight-line drag racing, perhaps).

• The European Union is talking about starting a Formula One racing event for electric vehicles. It could begin in 2013 if everything runs smoothly. [url]
• Peugeot set a production electric car record at the Nürburgring track — finishing a lap in about 9 minutes. Too bad that translates to a somewhat unimpressive average speed of 86 mph, though… [url]
• All-electric cars usually suffer from limited range (compared to hydrocarbon-burning vehicles), but putting motors in the wheels eliminates drivetrains and other components — which could produce electric cars with more practical recharging requirements. The Japanese SIM-LEI vehicle uses the same batteries from Toyota and gets a 200 mile range, which might help to end “range anxiety” for EV drivers. [url]
• The National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) promotes all kinds of electric vehicle performance competitions. Instant torque is a nice feature for electric motors, apparently. [url]
• To discover more interesting car-related content, check out what’s driving around StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: electric vehicles, f1, racing, range anxiety
Companies: nedra, peugeot, toyota