The green flag has fallen on a competition that takes virtual eSports racing champions and trains them to compete competitively in real racing cars, part of plans to build a new race track and associated media company.
Prodigy Week kicked off Monday at an Atlanta racetrack, part of Racing Prodigy, which plans to build an entire circuit of drivers and races to debut over the next year built around some of the best video game drivers putting their skills to use in the real world.
Racing Prodigy sponsored a series of qualifiers in August and September in various racing games, whittling down thousands of potential contenders to a dozen finalists from nine countries. A second Prodigy Week is planned for early 2024 to qualify and train a total of 50 virtual-turned-real race car drivers who will be “selected” into teams to drive around a new real race track.
The first class of Racing Prodigy riders during the Day 1 practice sessions.
(Image courtesy of Racing Prodigy)
“We’re providing an incentive to do more laps, to strive,” Racing Prodigy CEO David Cook said. Although the game publishers are not actual sponsors of the startup, “it is a synergistic partnership. We are happy to partner where they have invested in their game. They will help with a lot of promotion and coordination of the tournament with their audience.”
The qualifying rounds featured competitive games from four publishers by title iRacing, Street Car Racing, RaceRoom and Street Kart Racing which can be mobile, PC or console based, further democratizing access for potential competitors.
Other sponsors include the Primal Racing School based at the Atlanta Sports Car Park in Atlanta, Georgia. The Racing Prodigy finalists will practice on the school’s fleet of Radical SR1 racing cars this week.
Racing Prodigy is somewhat similar – with important differences – to a previous program from early 2010 that was the spin-off of Sony’s bestseller Grand Tourism video game franchise. Then, champion Grand Tourism players had a chance to gain real-world professional racing experience for a year through GT
GT
Sony Pictures Entertainment ended up using the experience of Jann Mardenborough, who won the GT Academy in 2011, as the basis for its recent Grand Tourism a film starring David Harbor and Orlando Bloom.
Cook ran a somewhat similar program for Mazda, and racing giant McLaren had its own driver program for a while, Cook said. The drivers were really talented, competing in high-level races such as the famous 24 Hours of France at Le Mans. But the programs of the day had fatal flaws when it came to creating long-term careers.
“We took a gamer out of his community, put him in a broken business model, gave the driver a year or so, and then it was sink or swim,” Cook said.
One challenge even for the very good drivers was finding sponsors to help keep the race going after the one-year run ended, Cook said.
“Most sponsors haven’t heard of them,” Cook said. “It’s hard to find sponsors for months when the competitors have been building relationships for a year. We know this model is not sustainable.
However, these competitive academies have established one thing.
“We’ve really learned that skill set transfers” from virtual to real life, Cook said. “But then the challenge became sustainability.”
One driver who found out the hard way about sustainability was GT Academy winner Nick McMillen, now an advisor to Racing Prodigy. He said the GT Academy gives talented drivers who don’t have access to family money or a racing team a chance to show what they can do.
But racing, like so many competitive sports, is a brutal challenge for disadvantaged talents early in their professional careers trying to build a reputation that can propel them into a self-sustaining career, McMillan said.
“If I wanted to run (the lower-level racetrack) GT 4, the cost would be $300,000 per driver, plus $500,000 to $1 million per car,” McMillan said. “That doesn’t even make it to the GT 3. The cheapest place there was $800,000.”
McMillan would subsequently flounder for years after his run at the GT Academy, trying to find a “place” anywhere he could. The minor leagues of racing are really tough, thanks to an equally challenging economy.
“In baseball, if you’re talented, you’re going to get discovered, you’re going to make a team and you’re going to move up,” Cook said. “When players get to Major League Baseball, they make real money. But they have fans, they have advertisers. It doesn’t have to be a paid sport.”
Therefore, Racing Prodigy is trying to learn from the shortcomings of these earlier programs, trying to build a true racing league for virtual-to-real drivers that can become a sustainable business, gathering audiences and monetizing the races and racers with advertisers.
“It’s open to everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic background,” Cook said. “It’s a completely different racing model.”
Another of Racing Prodigy’s advisors is Bobby Labonte, a longtime stock car driver in both the United States and Europe.
Labonte said he has used racing simulators for more than three decades, throughout his Hall of Fame racing career that includes more than 700 NASCAR races and the 2000 Winston Cup championship.
“Even when I was doing stock cars, I was doing simulators,” Labonte said. “All (NASCAR) teams use simulators. I’m sure every driver has equipment at home and equipment in the shop.
Now, the use of simulators is practically necessary for real-life racers to sharpen their instincts on specific courses and keep in top mental shape for the rigors of the track, Labonte said.
“You see kids these days and they’re so much more advanced,” thanks in part to their virtual learning, Labonte said. “Whatever gives them an advantage. They can go out and amaze everyone. I think it’s just a great opportunity.”
Labonte, who will be one of the judges during Prodigy Week, said the winners will show more than just track excellence.
Accordingly, Prodigy Week training includes health and fitness tests, psychological assessments and even media training, because anyone hoping to represent corporate sponsors needs to know how to handle sometimes difficult questions.
It’s the combination of everything that makes a champion athlete, Labonte said.
“For me, it’s all over the place,” Labonte said. “It’s not going to be based on speed or they’re articulate. You want the whole program. You have to be fast, you have to run well, there can be no falls. How do they deal with problems, how do they bear (misfortune)? That’s the whole picture. You have to have everything right.”
