NASCAR, may have postponed their season until Martinsville, but that did not stop them from doing some virtual racing at Homestead Miami Speedway.
Yes, you heard right, virtual racing. What they were racing on was a simulation called IRacing. IRacing is not your ordinary NASCAR video game. You have to shift, break and floor with real pedals, and turn while your body is shaking.
William Byron started out his career actually in IRacing in 2006. 11 years later, the Charlotte native won the 2017 Xfinity series championship. Byron has 298 top tens and 100 wins in IRacing.
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Last Sunday’s race had everything you wanted to see in a real NASCAR race. Drivers from the Cup, Xfinity and even retired drivers like Hall of Famer Bobby Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr competed to see who would get bragging rights.
There were a lot of cautions during the first half of the race. Specifically, the biggest was when seven time champion Jimmie Johnson though that the caution came out and slowed down. Little did he know that he was the caution. He slowed right in the middle of the racetrack causing a big pile up.
The best parts of the race was Twitter and the broadcast in general. Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon called into different drivers, the best being Clint Bowyer who escaped a wreck thanks to Jeff being his pretend spotter, Alex Bowman’s dog Finn taking over while he had to use the bathroom, and Ryan Blaney being Chase Elliott’s crew chief. The race at one point was number one trending on Twitter.
In the closing laps, it was a battle between Dale Earnhardt Jr in the 8 Filter Time Chevrolet Camaro and Denny Hamlin in the 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry. Both touched and Hamlin beat Junior to win the race. Hamlin ended up donating a total of $6,400 to help Miami families affected by the virus.
Because of the success that this race had, NASCAR announced that the next race at Texas will be broadcasted on the regular Fox channel, FS1 and the Fox Sports app.
Results
1.)Denny Hamlin 11 Toyota Camry
- Dale Earnhardt Jr 8 Chevrolet Camaro
- Timmy Hill 66 Toyota Camry
- Chase Briscoe 98 Ford Mustang
- Garrett Smithley 51 Chevrolet Camaro
- Alex Bowman 88 Chevrolet Camaro
- Bubba Wallace 43 Chevrolet Camaro
- Ryan Preece 37 Chevrolet Camaro
- Ty Majeski 45 Chevrolet Camaro
- Erik Jones 20 Toyota Camry
- Matt DiBenedetto 21 Ford Mustang
- Landon Cassill 89 Chevrolet Camaro
- Parker Kligerman 77 Toyota Camry
- Ross Chastain 6 Ford Mustang
- Joey Logano 22 Ford Mustang
- Clint Bowyer 14 Ford Mustang
- Ryan Truex 40 Chevrolet Camaro
- Bobby Labonte 19 Toyota Camry
- Ty Dillon 13 Chevrolet Camaro
- Justin Allgaier 7 Chevrolet Camaro
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr 47 Chevrolet Camaro
- Austin Cindric 12 Ford Mustang
- Michael McDowell 34 Ford Mustang
- Chase Elliott 9 Chevrolet Camaro
- Brad Keselowski 2 Ford Mustang
- Christopher Bell 95 Toyota Camry
- Austin Dillon 3 Chevrolet Camaro
- Chris Buescher 17 Ford Mustang
- Kyle Busch 18 Toyota Camry
- John Hunter Nemechek 38 Ford Mustang
- Jimmie Johnson 48 Chevrolet Camaro
- Anthony Alfredo 33 Chevrolet Camaro
- Kyle Larson 42 Chevrolet Camaro
- William Byron 24 Chevrolet Camaro
- Kurt Busch 1 Chevrolet Camaro
Ian O’Brien is a Contributor for the Unwrapped Sports Network website. Follow him @Ianthekicker41 on Twitter.