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INDIANAPOLIS – NBC Sports will
broadcast IndyCar’s second round of
its iRacing Challenge on Saturday at
2:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN, according to an
announcement from the series and the
network.
The race will take place on a virtual
Barber Motorsports track in place of the
originally scheduled Honda Indy Grand
Prix of Alabama that was set for this
weekend on the 2020 schedule. Like
last weekend’s kickoff IndyCar iRacing
event, NBC’s typical broadcast group of
Leigh Diffey, Paul Tracy and Townsend
Bell will be on the race call.
Wednesday’s news represents a large
growth opportunity for IndyCar’s view-
ership numbers, after the series drew
more than 400,000 total live viewers for
last Saturday’s kickoff race for the Chal-
lenge that ran on the Watkins Glen road
course.
That number grew to 600,000 total
race views by Monday when including
additional personal streams from the 24
drivers who participated in the race,


won by Dreyer and Reinbold Racing
driver Sage Karam, who drove away
from the field from the pole position.
Now on cable TV, IndyCar will have a

chance to see how its viewership num-
bers stack up against NASCAR as both
racing series will make up some of the
only live sports shown on TV networks

this weekend.
During its first two weekends of iRac-
ing cable broadcasts – first on FS1, and
then on both FS1 and Fox last Sunday –
NASCAR has been on a record-breaking
streak in terms of average viewership
across an esports broadcast.
Last Sunday during a virtual race at
Texas Motor Speedway, NASCAR drew
an average of 1.3 million viewers – the
most ever for an esports TV broadcast.
The record broke the series’ own mark
from the week prior in its first iRacing
event set at Homestead-Miami Speed-
way.
During the 2019 IndyCar season, the
series averaged 1.105 million viewers
over 16 of the series’ 17 races at any given
point of a race (not including the weath-
er-affected Iowa race). Particularly on
NBCSN, the season opener at St. Peters-
burg, Florida, a year ago drew an aver-
age of 449,000 viewers during the
broadcast. NBCSN’s most-watched
IndyCar broadcast in 2019 was Pocono,
which averaged 553,000 viewers.
At the moment, Saturday’s race is the
only one of the remaining five IndyCar
iRacing Challenge events scheduled to
be broadcast on NBCSN.

NBCSN will air IndyCar iRacing event Saturday


Nathan Brown
The Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network


Instead of racing Saturday at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama,
IndyCar drivers will compete on a virtual replica. MARVIN GENTRY/USA TODAY SPORTS

Jimmie Johnson got a taste for what
a weekend double running NASCAR and
IndyCar Series races would be like – al-
beit a virtual one.
And even though he struggled might-
ily in the first event of the eNASCAR
iRacing Pro Invitational Series – an ex-
hibition series started while the regular
NASCAR season is postponed because
of the coronavirus pandemic – he still
said simulation racing in IndyCar is
more challenging than NASCAR.
“I feel like there are two hurdles for
me to get over in the IndyCar rig,” John-
son told For The Win about the IndyCar
iRacing setup, which mimics details
ranging from the car’s high speeds to the
lack of power steering. “One, the nu-
ances of the sim, and two, just the real
experience to know what you’re looking
for.”
The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series
champ – who plans to retire from full-
time racing at the end of the 2020 sea-
son – has repeatedly expressed his in-
terest in IndyCar racing in the future.
So initially, he bought an iRacing rig
focused on IndyCar and sports car rac-
ing with a more reclined seat to “prepare
for ’21 and ’22 for the different bucket list
races I want to compete in.” He previ-
ously had an IndyCar test at Barber Mo-
torsports Park scheduled for April 6, so a
couple times a week, he was getting in a
few practice laps.
But things quickly changed. Both the
IndyCar and NASCAR seasons were put
on hold because of COVID-19, the 44-
year-old driver’s test was canceled and
racing moved to the virtual world.
And Saturday, Johnson made his In-
dyCar iRacing debut at Watkins Glen In-
ternational – a road course in New York
state that NASCAR visits once a year –
finishing 16th out of 25 drivers.
He said the difference between rac-
ing NASCAR’s stock car and IndyCar’s


open-wheeled car on the road course
was “mind blowing” – and partly why he
ended up crashing in the chicane known
as the bus stop during the IndyCar race.
“At Watkins Glen, (IndyCar is) prob-
ably 15 to 20 seconds faster a lap there in
a real car from one to the other,” John-
son said comparing IndyCar’s speed
with NASCAR’s. “So braking points, car-
rying speed through the bus stop, carry-
ing speed through the corner – that all
changes so much.”
It may have been Johnson’s first In-
dyCar iRacing event, but it wasn’t the
first time he used his IndyCar setup to
compete. He used it in the first NASCAR
Pro Invitational Series event at the vir-
tual Homestead-Miami Speedway two
Sundays ago, putting him at what he
called a “pretty big disadvantage.”
He finished 31st after starting dead
last in 35th, while Denny Hamlin and

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who have decades
worth of experience in the virtual racing
world, finished 1-2.
“I thought I knew what I was doing,
and then I realized I had no clue, espe-
cially when you have to log in to the
game to race and compete,” the No. 48
Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver
said, thinking his minimal IndyCar
iRacing experience might help him. “It’s
just a different animal.”
So last week, he got a NASCAR-spe-
cific rig and a tutor to help him overcome
some of the technological difficulties he
was dealing with. Whether it’s the iRac-
ing program itself or the apps that racers
use in conjunction with it, Johnson said
learning how much goes into virtual rac-
ing has “been really eye-opening.”
“The level of knowledge you need
about computers is incredible,” Johnson
said.

“Every day last week, I was up until
midnight, one in the morning, going to
school and having a tutor literally teach
me how to run and operate things at the
right level, so I can be competitive, let
alone even drive the thing. Driving has
its own challenges. So that part’s start-
ed off as fun, and then of course, my
competitive spirit kicked in and now it’s
frustrating.”
But the seven-time champ has im-
proved.
In the most recent Pro Invitational
Series race at the virtual Texas Motor
Speedway on Sunday, Johnson finished
19th after starting 25th. However, he
acknowledged he still has plenty of
work to do to figure out the differences
between a real car and a simulated
one, which is “very difficult when you
can’t feel or sense the car to give it the
input.”
While Johnson could compete in an-
other virtual NASCAR and IndyCar dou-
ble – the IndyCar iRacing Challenge fea-
tures five more events held on Satur-
days through May 2 – there’s a possibil-
ity he could have the opportunity for a
real-life one too.
IndyCar canceled and rescheduled
several events, including the GMR
Grand Prix on Indianapolis Motor
Speedway’s road course, which was
originally set for early May. That race is
now July 4 – the same day as NASCAR’s
XFINITY Series race on the road course
and the day before the Cup Series race
on Indy’s oval.
Johnson reiterated he “would enter-
tain” the idea of a NASCAR-IndyCar
double that weekend but ruled out the
famous Memorial Day Double, which is
the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600, calling
it “just not realistic for me.”
“My interest (in IndyCar) is there,”
Johnson said. “It has been for a long
time. The ovals I don’t have an interest
in doing in this stage of life. I just really
don’t. So I’m open to a double if the right
situation happened.”

NASCAR driver gets a tutor for iRacing


Michelle R. Martinelli
For The Win | USA TODAY Network


NASCAR Cup Series driver Jimmie Johnson is adjusting to iRacing.
PETER CASEY/USA TODAY SPORTS
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