SEBRING, Florida. (November 10, 2018) – Mazda iRacing eSports World Champion turned real-life Mazda professional racecar driver, Glenn McGee returns to racing duties during the 2018 Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Challenge, November 9-11, at Florida's famous Sebring International Raceway. Competing against his real-life counterparts in identically built Global Mazda MX-5 Cup racecars, the eSports pro-gamer and an international field of professional racing talents will be looking to earn their share of the $80k purse up for grabs.
Competing as the iRacing ‘Virtual-2-Reality’ Driver, McGee's unique induction into professional racing came through Mazda’s innovative partnership with iRacing, using their online motorsports simulation platform; first winning in a world-wide esports competition, driving the virtual version of the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup car, and then going on to win the Mazda Road to 24 Shootout and a $100,000 Mazda scholarship driving the real-life MX-5 Cup. This new-age story and professional racing career continues during the Global Mazda Challenge, in a race that traditionally boast a strong field of proven champions and race winners.
“Its been a dream journey that Mazda & iRacing have put me on; from competing and winning in world-wide eSports competition against the best virtual-drivers in the world, to now racing in real-life, competing against some of the best pro-drivers from around the world in this ultra-competitive series. Its been unreal,” exclaimed McGee, “We’ve had over ten pro-champions in this event before, including Le Mans winners, Indy Lights Champions, as well as several former MX-5 Cup champions. This year want be any easier, as we’ll have guys like GT Champion & five time Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona winner, Andy Lally out there, as well as the Japanese MX-5 Cup Champion, Yuui Tsutsumi, whose raced in this event before and is incredibly fast.”
Since showcasing his successful and practical use of iRacing’s simulation software as development tool to become a professional Mazda racecar driver, McGee has also used the software to coach other pro-drivers and fellow team-mates, including 14 year old, Robert Noaker and 2018 Mazda scholarship driver, Selin Rollan who are both race winners this year in the regular season of the 2018 Global Mazda MX-5 Cup, and will also be fighting for top honors and the big cash payout during the Mazda Challenge. “Both Robert and Selin are avid iRacers, and very experienced and talented racecar drivers, so it’s been really great to work with them on the simulator and coaching them at the track as well,” McGee continued, “They both have good feel in the car, but with the simulator I can isolate their visual skills and really develop them to support their feel. We also don’t get a lot of track time before each event, so we can all work on getting 90% of the way there before we even see the track and be that much faster come race day. We’ve been prepping at Sebring on iRacing in this same manner and I think it’ll pay off forsure, maybe with a big paycheck at the end even!”
Official practice starts on Friday, November 9th ahead of Saturday’s busy day of practice, qualifying, and Race #1 at 4:05 PM ET. Sunday will feature race #2 at 9:50 AM ET.
Both races will be streamed on Mazda USA’s YouTube channel. All sessions will have live timing and scoring hosted at https://mx-5cup.com/results/live-scoring with updates also available via twitter.com/globalmx5cup and https://www.facebook.com/MazdaMX5Cup/.
Visit www.iRacing.com for more news on Glenn McGee and to experience what its like to drive a virtual Global Mazda MX-5 Cup car.