The 18-race 2010 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship series is set to begin at 9 p.m. ET on Tues., Feb. 9 (02:00 GMT, Feb. 10) with a 100-lap event on iRacing’s virtual-world duplicate of Daytona International Speedway. This marks the first time that NASCAR has sanctioned online racing competition.
Results from this race and regular weekly iRacing news coverage and standings for the NASCAR iRacing Series World Championship will be featured on NASCAR.com and inRacingNews.com.
This evening’s race is for the best of the best of online racers. Fifty drivers, who competed in the qualifying series last year, the NASCAR iRacing Pro Series, represent the most talented group of online racers in the world, and will compete via the Internet from their homes throughout the U.S., Canada, the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Finland, India and Australia.
“The competition just to qualify for the NASCAR iRacing World Championship was intense,” said Tony Gardner, president of iRacing.com. “We expect that this evening’s race will be a thriller right down to the last lap. It will be serious fun for the racers and fans to follow this series during the year. We expect the races will also be available to watch via Internet telecast as the season progresses.”
When they aren’t at their computers piloting virtual race cars, these online racing drivers have a widely varied background. Day jobs range from NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) to air traffic controller (Kirk Hapke, Fayetteville, GA), and including tow truck driver and dirt-track racer (Mike Kelley, Omaha, NE); orchestra double-bassist (Florian Goddard, Paris, France); jewelry manufacturer (Josh Parker, Cranston, RI) and college student (Brad Davies, Wauchula, FL). Their ages range from 18 (mechanical engineering student Justin Garrett) to 49 (air-traffic controller Hapke.)
In a qualifying session shortly before the race, these 50 top racers will vie for the 37 starting positions available for the race.
While entry for the NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship is limited to the top drivers, iRacing is also hosting five different NASCAR amateur series that utilize the same real world tracks and five different stock cars that are raced every weekend in the real world including Late Models, Modifieds, and on up the ladder to NASCAR Sprint Cup cars. This series are open to all NASCAR fans of any skill level through membership in the iRacing.com online service.
Just below the World Championship series, the 2010 NASCAR iRacing Pro Series is reserved for the 250 top-ranked oval-track iRacing drivers and commences in May to determine eligibility to participate in the 2011 NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship.
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