eNASCAR Heat Pro League gears up for second season
The second season of the eNASCAR Heat Pro League gets underway Wednesday night with several new competitors and some competition changes.
The league, a collaboration among Motorsport Games, NASCAR and the Race Team Alliance, features 14 eNASCAR teams and is played on NASCAR Heat 4, the newest iteration of the NASCAR video game franchise. Each team features one Xbox player and one PlayStation 4 player.
The 2020 season gets underway at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday as the Xbox and PS4 players kick off the first four-race segment with 50 laps around virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway. Drivers qualify Tuesday night in a 15-minute open session based on fastest single-lap speed.
The season’s races can be viewed at NASCARHeat.com/Live; Facebook.com/NASCARHeat; or Twitch.tv/704nascarheat.
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The 2020 season features a 14-race schedule that will include competition in all three NASCAR national series – Cup, Xfinity and Trucks. Stewart-Haas eSports captured the inaugural series championship in 2019.
Each of the teams was required to drop one of its players in the offseason and three – Chip Ganassi Gaming, GoFas Gaming and Gibbs Gaming – elected to select two new players. A total of 17 drivers (from a field of 48) were selected to fill the vacancies during a draft on April 8.
This season, Stewart-Haas eSports will compete with Xbox One player Matthew Selby (Slick), a new addition to the team, and PS4 holdover player Brandyn Gritton (Hot Rod), as it attempts to win its second consecutive championship.
“I’ve always been fast at Homestead and I love the multi-groove racing. Unfortunately, luck hasn’t been on our side there,” said Gritton, 24, who led the league in wins (four), poles (seven) and laps led (219) in 2019.
“We dominated our last race there, but got beat on fuel strategy. That has us feeling pretty confident that the speed will be there in our Smithfield Ford Mustang.”
Selby, 17, is new to the eNASCAR Heat league not new to sim racing, having competed for nearly 10 years.
“I’m ready to get this season started and genuinely excited to be with Stewart-Haas eSports,” he said. “Homestead is a fast and unforgiving track, so I’ll need to manage my equipment in order to be in a position at the end where we can win in our Haas Tooling Ford Mustang.”
The 2020 Pro League schedule consists of 12 races divided into three, four-race segments, a wild card race and a championship race at a date and track to be determined.
Segment 1 consists of Wednesday’s Cup race at Homestead, a Truck race at Watkins Glen, an Xfinity race at Dover and a Cup race at New Hampshire.
Segment 2 consists of a Truck race at Mid-Ohio, Cup race at Talladega, Xfinity race at Iowa and Cup race at Atlanta.
Segment 3 consists of a Truck race at Eldora, Cup race at Fontana, Xfinity race at Road America and Cup race at Las Vegas.
The wild card race will be a Cup race at Daytona in July.
2020 eNASCAR Heat Pro League lineup
Team, Xbox player, PS4 player
Chip Ganassi Gaming – Luis Zaiter, Maxwell Castro
Petty eSports – Diego Alvarado, Mike Braas
Hendrick Motorsports GC – Sam Morris, Nick Jobes
RCR eSports – Mitch Diamond, Joey Stone
Germain Gaming – Daniel Buttafuoco, Kyle Arnold
JTG Daugherty Throttlers – Justin Brooks, Mathew Billingsley
Wood Brothers Gaming – Slade Gravitt, Cody Giles
GoFas Gaming – Riley Ogle, Jason Mitchell
Gibbs Gaming – Matthew Heale, Josh Parker
Roush Fenway Gaming – Nick Walker, Brandon Hanna
JR Motorsports – Tyler Dohar, Joe Gornick
Team Penske eSports – Brad Tedeschi, Corey Rothgeb
Leavine Family Gaming – Jose Ruiz, Josh Harbin
Stewart-Haas eSports – Matthew Selby, Brandyn Gritton
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| Series | NASCAR , NASCAR Cup , Esports |
| Author | Jim Utter |
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