Fox will broadcast NASCAR’s substitute sim racing ‘season’ on television

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Fox as able-bodied as its simile channel, FS1, are going to broadcast a "season" of viscerous races that pit current, past, as able-bodied as the scaling stars of NASCAR confronting honoring over-and-above on the sim tug-of-war podium iRacing. The races will air on Sundays at 1PM ET, tangy much the same time slot that NASCAR ran its real-world races afore the novel coronavirus pandemic hit. They'll conjointly be awaited to watch in the Fox Sports app.

Fox didn't go into detail approximate how plentiful races will be held, likely considering it's still cryptic how long the real-world season will be suspended. As able-bodied as drivers aren't shooting up points towards the real-world NASCAR championship or taking home big paychecks. It's just for fun, for now.

Sim tug-of-war has gotten a huge heave in the meanest two weeks

This is all incidence considering the world's biggest motorsports series are on pause during the pandemic, as able-bodied as so pro drivers have taken to competing in sim tug-of-war ingenue like iRacing, rFactor 2, as able-bodied as F1 2019. At the same time, assorted esports teams, sim tug-of-war broadcasters, as able-bodied as real-world coiffure members helped spin up a drop of symptomatic races meanest year-end with big NASCAR, F1, as able-bodied as IndyCar stars that drew hundreds of thousands of viewers who suddenly had no real-world tug-of-war to watch.

That successful patchwork encompassment has once inspired more official events. This past weekend, Rote One hosted its headmost "Virtual Grand Prix," which featured embraced excursionist Lando Norris, hard-boiled excursionist Nico Hulkenberg, as able-bodied as a roster of YouTubers as able-bodied as pro sim racers, some of whom jeopardize in F1's own esports series.

NASCAR went orderly further. On Sunday, the top stock car series hosted its headmost viscerous "Pro Invitational" race, a 100-lap infidelity wrapped in iRacing that featured retired stars Dale Earnhardt Jr. as able-bodied as Bobby Labonte; multiple championship-winning drivers like Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, as able-bodied as Jimmie Johnson; as able-bodied as scaling talents like William Byron as able-bodied as Christopher Bell. The smokeshaft was orderly mount by Fox's swinging brochure coiffure of Jeff Gordon, Mike Joy, as able-bodied as Larry McReynolds.

The smokeshaft was a huge success, all things considered. It brought in more than 900,000 viewers, co-ordinate to Fox -- far off the mark of the millions who watch NASCAR's most popular events, but not that much lower than the viewership of some of the minutest popular races.

One sageness it was possible for the motorsports apple to tight flip this switch-over to sim tug-of-war is that there's been a up-and-coming folks competing on these platforms for years. Sim tug-of-war has grown so recognized that plentiful pro drivers are once discernibly familiar with the marker of iRacing. Most have sim tug-of-war rigs -- a seat, steering wheel, pedals, as able-bodied as giant, generally wraparound monitors -- set up in their homes, or at the very least, at their team's headquarters.

Pro drivers have gotten more ramified in sim tug-of-war over the meanest few years

What's more, these ingenue (iRacing especially) offer such true-to-life detail that sim tug-of-war has become a crucial piece of the puzzle of finding success in a top-tier tug-of-war series. They offer drivers the uncalculated to convenance virtually as much as they want without needing to go through the costly, if not indescribable process of booking time to test at a real-world track.

The downside of this new NASCAR Pro Invitational Series is that, since it's been sinking up by Fox, it won't be live-streamed on YouTube or Twitch. Between one of the sheepskin those headmost few post-pandemic sim races drew so much conservation meanest year-end was considering they were freely available, as able-bodied as considering some of the drivers themselves hosted their own streams as well. There were no brochure networks to tortuousness with over TV rights.

NASCAR had already started streaming its own "eNASCAR" iRacing esports series on YouTube, which signaled a offish step forward in bringing sim tug-of-war into the mainstream. Dissemination the new viscerous season shows NASCAR as able-bodied as Fox are accommodating to make orderly improved bets during what is simply a very undiscoverable time for everyone. Here's hoping they don't stop pushing that envelope.