SIM VERSION OF STAR MAZDA CHAMPIONSHIP RACE CAR TO BE USED BY 7,500 OF THE WORLD'S BEST RACING GAMERS IN THE FINAL ROUND OF THE INTEL GP SERIES
Demonstrating its versatility and popularity among racers – both real and SIM -- the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear 'Pro Mazda' race car has been chosen as the vehicle that will be raced by 7,500 of the top gaming racers from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia in the Intel® GP Series, a global online racing tournament organized by Intel and iRacing.com. Drivers will compete in a 2010-spec Star Mazda Championship race car at the legendary Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Northern California.
In March, 2011, following three regional finals, the top ten qualifiers from around the world will travel to Germany for a final 30-lap championship race, held in conjunction with the Intel® Extreme Masters World Championship.
“We are very excited to partner up with iRacing.com to deliver a global online and onsite competition named the Intel GP Series”, said George Woo, Intel Corporation’s marketing manager of the Intel Extreme Masters. “This provides us a global competition platform that will allow the best participants in each region for a chance to compete at a live event for cash prizes. Also, iRacing.com is one of our key innovation partners of our gaming showcase that is part of our Intel Extreme Masters global professional eSport competition tour. This will allow consumers from around the world to trial this premier online PC racing simulation service in an open wheel chassis which is a great addition to our immersive gaming showcase”.
The online competition consists of one week-long iRacing series for each of the three geographical regions featuring Star Mazda formula cars at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The top ten finishers from each region advance to a one-race shootout with the highest-placed finishers qualifying for the Germany world final event.
The European one-week series, which included 701 races contested by 2,463 drivers, concluded on August 2. Drivers from Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Finland and England are among the ten qualifying for the European Regional Final on August 21, 2010 at 1PM CEST. That race will be broadcast via streaming video on the iRacing.com public site, as will the U.S./Canada, Asia/Australia Finals and the World Final in March, 2011. (iracing.com/multimedia/live-broadcasts).
The U.S./Canada one-week online qualifying series runs September 7-13, with the regional final set for October 9 in New York City. The Asia/Australia one-week online qualifying series is scheduled for confirmation in the near future. Reflecting the current geographic distribution of iRacing.com’s membership, four drivers each from Europe and U.S./Canada will qualify for the World Finals, and two from Asia/Australia.
“The ten drivers who make it to Germany next March can rightfully claim to be the best online racers in the world,” said Tony Gardner, president of iRacing.com, whose infrastructure, virtual cars and virtual tracks are at the heart of the tournament. “Our 20,000+ membership roster ranges from casual motorsport fans who have fun racing with their friends and building their driving skills to professional real-world racers who use iRacing to stay sharp in the off season or learn new tracks. But they are a competitive bunch and when they have a chance like this to showcase their skills, the racing gets intense.”
The Intel® GP Series is open to all online racers, but they must join iRacing.com in order to compete. Gardner noted that while most of the world’s most skilled sim racers are already iRacing.com members, a number of people have joined the service specifically for the purpose of competing in the series.
"The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear has been the choice of rising stars from around the world for the past twenty years," says series founder and CEO Gary Rodrigues. "Many of our drivers utilize iRacing to prepare for upcoming races and having our car make the jump from bolts to bytes, from asphalt to cyberspace, is a unique validation of our car as both a serious racing machine and a world-class classroom on wheels. We've been working with iRacing for several years now and it's been a mutually profitable association that had helped cultivate a new generations of Star Mazda fans."
Earlier this year, rising American open-wheel racing star Conor Daly, son of racing legend Derek Daly and current championship points leader in the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear, got his first hands-on experience with Formula One racing at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal courtesy of iRacing.com, Grand Prix Tours, Dell and Intel. He, along with Virgin Racing F1 driver Lucas di Grassi, competed against twenty Star Mazda Championship iRacers from around the world in the finals of the Grand Prix Masters Tournament. The event featured the highest scoring iRacers during the Grand Prix Masters Tournament, held April 27- May 3 and sponsored by Grand Prix Tours, Dell and Intel.
"I was confident of being able to hold my own against these guys because I use the iRacing.com Star Mazda Championship simulation quite a bit to stay sharp between races and learn new tracks," says Daly. "The iRacing.com simulation is as close as you can get to actually strapping yourself into the car, and the detail of each track is particularly realistic. The Star Mazda Championship car is one of the most popular simulations on iRacing.com and you've got to be really good to be a top racer in one of these international competitions. They get a lot more track time than drivers who race the real thing, but it was an interesting new challenge and I'm interested to see the outcome of this Intel GP Series."
