After a successful inaugural race, the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series is set to race at the virtual Texas Motor Speedway in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 125.
Last Sunday’s race at the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway, won by Denny Hamlin, drew 903,000 viewers on FS1 and was the single most-watched esports event in U.S. history. The Texas race will air on FOX, FS1 and the FOX Sports Go app.
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“iRacing has been around a long time and it’s just something that keeps evolving and they’ve perfected,” said Clint Bowyer, who finished 16th in last Sunday’s race. “Man, the timing couldn’t have been anymore right for a perfect storm situation. Here we all are, just longing for some sports action, some competitive action that we can broadcast and show a fan and, boom, here it is in our lap. It was a great race last week at Homestead.
“I can’t wait to get it going on again this time on the big brother station. We’re gonna put it on network on Fox. I can’t wait for that and can’t wait for the viewership and everything else. The opportunities that FOX has created for all of it, they took a chance. They didn’t exactly probably know everything about iRacing and jumped in the deep end and it worked and it’s gonna be even bigger and better this Sunday at 1 o’clock. I cannot wait.”
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With one race in the books drivers continue to compete in practice races during the week to gear up for Sunday. The Dixie Vodka 150 at HMS featured nine cautions.
“Now that drivers have had some time to get comfortable with making the switch from racing in person to racing in a virtual realm, I can imagine that we will see a lot of hard racing this weekend that is hopefully entertaining for the fans tuning in,” said Michael McDowell.
Ryan Blaney will be one of the iRacers in Sunday’s field that did not compete in the Dixie Vodka 150. While he’s new to iRacing, his spotter, Josh Williams, on NASCAR Cup Series weekends is not. Williams is an established iRacer and recently won “The Replacements 100″ at the virtual Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 15.
“I practiced on Monday and Josh has kind of been helping me out,” Blaney said. “I’m not the biggest tech savvy person out there, especially when it comes to that stuff, but it was neat watching everybody on there again. There were a lot of Cup guys and Xfinity guys and some Truck guys doing it, but it’s something I’m pretty green at, so we’ll see how it goes.” (Read More)
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Erik Jones was one of the drivers that made his return to iRacing last weekend and finished 10th. This week, Jones was limited on practice time as he moved into a new house.
“I honestly did not know how I’d do in last week’s race at Homestead,” Jones said. “It had been forever since I last went iRacing, so it was like I was a rookie all over again. But things came to me fairly quickly, although I’m still nowhere near where I want to be. Performance aside, I think we all came away from that race impressed with how the entire industry rallied around it, and fans seemed to like it too.”
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Jones’ Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch recently had to borrow a sim rig for his home after using Ty Gibbs’ for Homestead. With one in place at his house, Busch has had more time to practice this week after finishing 29th in the first race.
“I got the sim guys over to my house to set one up,” Busch said. “Last week, I had to drive 45 minutes over to Ty’s to practice and then 45 minutes back. So now, after we put Brexton (Busch, son) to bed, I can go down there and start working on getting better.”
Greg Biffle, who won in his return to NASCAR last season in the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series race at Texas, will compete in Sunday’s race driving the No. 16 Ford.
“How exciting is it to get back behind the wheel of the No. 16,” Biffle said. “I watched the iRace last week on TV and I was really impressed with the overall quality of the broadcast and the racing. It was just a lot of fun and I’m really looking forward to being a part of the show this weekend.”
At Homestead-Miami, Hamlin used fresher tires to charge through the field and pass Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the final lap en route to the victory.
“The most interesting thing to me was the tire strategy with the guys taking none, two or four tires,” said Bowyer’s crew chief Johnny Klausmeier after watching the race. “It seemed very realistic, especially at Homestead-Miami Speedway where you have a lot of tire fall off. Guys could get their track position, but after 10 laps, the tires were wearing out and they were shuffling around, moving and jockeying.
“As a crew chief, I wanted to put my hands on things and work on the car. So, it was different for the drivers to be able to just instantly change things and make the car different on the computer. It was neat and a great show for the fans.”
