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New league wants sim racers to level up for real cars
Video game car racing enthusiasts will soon have the opportunity to prove their gaming and real-life racing prowess by competing in Racing Prodigy’s new competition -- the Prodigy Racing League. The impetus behind the league is to make motorsports more accessible “using esports as the pathway to race cars on real tracks.”
“Our plan is that iRacing and some of the other games and simulations will be the new way for racers to enter or aspiring racers to actually enter motorsport,” Racing Prodigy CEO David Cook told SBJ. “We can't cost-cut real motorsport enough to open it up to the masses. The only way that we can open up motorsport is if we get the financial barrier down to that of traditional sports. It has to be under $1,000, or in some cases under $100, to participate.”
Cook is no stranger to iRacing and using simulations to train drivers, having facilitated the first competitions at Mazda, where he saw many of the world’s best simulation racing players compete against the carmaker's top real-world racers in actual racecars. He watched as sim racers beat real racers. “We are all very aware that the skill set transfers from 'e2real,' or from simulations, to real, so this isn't a revelation or inside baseball,” Cook said. “This could be something where in two or three years we will see drivers start to get [signed to racing teams].”
Under a new “e2real” framework, the new competition series will see players compete in four titles -- iRacing, Street Kart Racing, rFactor 2 and RaceRoom -- over the course of 12 events taking place from June to October. The top 15 performers will be awarded a Prodigy Pass, the “golden ticket of motorsports,” to compete in real Radical SR1 race cars at Prodigy Week, which will be hosted Oct. 30-Nov. 1 at Atlanta Motorsports Park.
The league is already off to a good start on the partnership front, inking deals with Sim-Lab, Grid Engineering and Asetek SimSports. They will provide “high performance, industry leading products” as well as prizes for tournament winners and other select participants.
Players of racing games and those interested in competing in iRacing esports are starting to see more opportunities to compete (or just play). Recently, SBJ’s Tom Friend looked at the F1 Arcade set to hit Boston in March 2024 that will see customized Vesaro V-Zero full motion simulators. During the pandemic, Fox and ESPN were among the networks that filled air time with iRacing when NASCAR and other sports paused their schedules.
It’s growing so much so that the league has had an incredible news launch finding itself not only in niche gaming media news but mainstream news including coverage with CBS and NBC affiliates, as well as numerous car and auto racing publications.
The effort begins with iRacing on June 19 with the PRL iRacing GR86 Cup Open Challenge for participants ages 13+. -- Kevin Hitt
