Supercars To Green Light Virtual Racing Series

This might just be the next best thing to racing a Supercar.

An official virtual version of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship is being put together.

It's all part of a push to expand the sport's appeal to a younger audience.

If you've been honing your skills on the Forza series or cutting laps on Gran Turismo, then this could be for you.

Around the world, eSports competitions are booming with European soccer giants and NBA franchises increasingly aligning themselves with teams in respective eSports.

A professional league won't happen straight away, but it will happen according to Supercars boss James Warburton.

It's not hard to race virtually at Bathurst with the famous track already featured in the likes of Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport games for PlayStation and XBox.

But should a tournament be based on either (or both) of these games, there's talk of getting star Supercar drivers to take on gamers and fans.

“I think we’re extremely well advanced in this area because the platforms already exist," said Warburton.

“We’ve got the games with our cars and teams already on them, as well as big events and the capacity to stream it online through our digital platforms."

Nissan's also done the miles in the virtual world, with a global GT Academy program that's turned PlayStation gamers into real world pro racing drivers.

Harvey Norman's already on board as a commercial partner, so it's just a question of when the Supercar fans can expect to get their game on.

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