NASCAR is experiencing a landmark moment this weekend with the Anduril 250, its first race on an active military base (in this case, Naval Base Coronado on San Diego Bay).
The race’s Qualcomm circuit is already in iRacing’s simulator (and will feature in NASCAR 26), where in its first week the circuit saw players from 72 countries run 155,000 laps on the 3.4-mile, 16-turn course (NASCAR tells me this covers more than 527,000 miles, enough to circle the Earth more than 21 times).
NASCAR has a few gaming-related announcements and nuggets to share ahead of its first foray on a military base.
- Kyle Larson is the cover driver for NASCAR 26, a reveal that happened during a gathering aboard the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier that’s spending its well-earned retirement as a museum ship (and on which my kids must have taken a picture of every darn rivet and bolt they came across during our visit several years ago). Larson made several burnouts on-deck (the Midway was the largest aircraft carrier in the world at one point) in the No. 5 Chevy Camaro ZL1 he drives for Hendrick Motorsports.
- Speaking of that Camaro, it’s coming to Rocket Racing in Fortnite on Saturday as part of a bundle that features liveries for eight teams: Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, Trackhouse Racing, HaasFactory Team, Jr. Motorsports, Hyak Motorsports, Team AmeriVet and Joey Gase Motorsports.
- The Qualcomm circuit hits Driving Empire in Roblox on Friday. Like FIFA with FIFA Super Soccer, NASCAR has seen strong engagement numbers on the platform: more than 45 million players and 400 million lifetime visits.
- NASCAR is diving into Twich during Sunday’s Cup Series race. The Twitch CreatorCast is the first time it’s picked a gaming personality-driven broadcast with streamers Agent 00 and ExtraEmily.
