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Well anyone who likes a bit of sport knows that there isn’t much going on anywhere in the world at the moment. Football is cancelled, rugby is a goner, yachting, mountainbiking, skiing, all gone. But what about motor racing?
Well sure, the actual belting around racetracks is right out, but let me tell you about iRacing.
iRacing is virtual racing. And I’m not talking about watching or playing a video game here. With all forms of motorsport being curtailed, virtual racing has suddenly been kicked up a few dozen notches, and I’ve got to say, it’s actually really good.
Take the Indycar version of it. Since all Indycar racing has been put on hold until at least May, if not June (actually who knows?), there was a bit of pressure to find something to keep fans interested. Indycar has teamed up with iRacing and come up with a pretty brilliant concept. It’s not particularly new but what is new, is that almost all the current Indycar drivers are involved, and quite a few other tag-a-longs, newbies etc are also competing. Even the amazing Robert Wickens, a very experienced (but new to Indycar) racer from a couple of years ago who was paralyzed following a massive Indycar crash in the USA in 2018, is competing using specially adapted hand controls.
One of those newbies is our very own Scott McLaughlin, whom I have written about a couple of times recently, documenting his introduction to Indycar racing and upcoming debut race. Well due to this virus destroying all sport, that debut has been put on hold, but that hasn’t stopped him notching up his first win in Indycar, at yesterday’s iRacing Challenge: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama.
Now initially I thought that this iRacing thing might be a bit of a washout, but oh boy was I wrong. This stuff is very very close to the real thing. The concept is that the actual drivers all race together for a virtual championship. Different tracks have been selected from the best that they go to, although they will throw in a random ‘dream’ track for the last round, which many are hoping will be Bathurst, a place where Indycar would never normally be racing.
Each of the drivers are competing from their home offices, lounges or basements using high-tech simulator equipment. Some of the guys have quite modest gear, but some have massive set-ups costing many tens of thousands of dollars.
The racing is extremely realistic. Practices and qualifying take place just like a normal race weekend, then a full one-hour long race takes place. The graphics are of very good quality and because the images you see on your TV all relate to the actions of real drivers, the racing itself is very much like in real life.
Added to this is the fact that what you watch on your screen is just like a race that you would see on the TV, complete with in-car shots, multiple angles, helicopter shots etc. Perhaps most important of all, the original commentary team are commentating for the entire race. So it really is like you are watching a live race. They even had Miss Alabama singing the Star Spangled Banner (from her lounge?) prior to the race, and famous NBA star and Hall of Famer Charles Barkley gave the ‘Start Your Engines” call, from his patio.
Really the only difference is that if you wreck your car, you can re-set and start again from the pit lane, but that will put you down at least half a lap, and you can only do that twice before you are disqualified. Similarly off-track excursions are punished with slow lap times just like in real life. If you damage your car, it will affect the car’s handling; if you drive too hard, you might burn out your tyres or run out of gas.
These guys take it so seriously that every racer had their engineers helping them with strategy calls etc during the race and some of them even had spotters assisting them to know where rivals were and suchlike.
So plenty of strategies are required, and this is where Scotty McLaughlin came to the fore in the latest race, pitting when no one else did and working a different strategy to everyone else, working his way to the lead with six laps to go before taking the win. Click here for the full race roundup.
Scott has been into virtual racing for at least a decade, using it to hone his racing skills, particularly in the off-season, so he has a lot of experience on the simulator; however, so do most of the competitors, so given that this racing is so close to the real thing, it actually provides a pretty good indication of how things might go when he finally gets his chance to start his first, real life, non-virtual Indycar race.
So give watching it a go. Sky TV is showing the races live. The next one should be scheduled for Sunday morning next week and replays are being shown, or simply click on the link below to view the last race via YouTube. Next week’s race should start about 8.30am on Sunday (4.30pm Eastern Standard Time, USA) and the V8 Supercars version of the same thing will be on Wednesday evening.
You never know, you might find you actually enjoy it as much as I did, which was quite a lot!
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