COMPETIZIONE SRO America GT Rivals Esports Invitational Series

SRO America Racers Set to Battle in New GT Rivals Esports Invitational

Austin, TX – Following a successful SRO E-Sport Charity Challenge to raise funds for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, SRO Motorsports America is excited to announce GT Rivals, a weekly esports invitational where real world racers, sim racers, and invited guests go head-to-head in GT World Challenge powered by AWS’ official game - Assetto Corsa Competizione.

Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC), developed by Kunos Simulazioni and published by 505 Games, lets players experience the real atmosphere of the GT World Challenge series. Designed for esports, Assetto Corsa Competizione is bringing sim racers into an immersive experience behind the wheels of today’s top GT3 racers from Acura, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG, Porsche, and more.

GT Rivals will help racing drivers and motorsports fans stay engaged with the passion they so deeply love. Drivers will race across the best circuits in the world in a weekly challenge to take place Sundays at 3pm EDT, streamed on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook for fans to catch all the action.

The series will launch with key esports partners including ASUS Republic of Gamers, ASUS TUF Gaming, Fanatec, Sim Lab, Champion Motorsports, and SYM TV.

Each round will feature up to 30 drivers made up of real world racers from SRO America, joining sim racers, and invited guests. Confirmed to participate during the GT Rivals season are current and former GT World Challenge America powered by AWS drivers Kyle Marcelli (Racers Edge Motorsports), Shelby Blackstock (Racers Edge Motorsports), Colin Braun (DXDT Racing), Ryan Dalziel (DXDT Racing), Daniel Morad (Alegra Motorsports), Guy Cosmo (K-Pax Racing), Patrick Byrne (K-Pax Racing), Andy Soucek (K-Pax Racing), Max Root (Wright Motorsports), James Sofronas (GMG Racing), Jeroen Bleekemolen (GMG Racing), Greg Liefooghe (Cameron Racing) and Mark Issa (Vital Speed Motorsports).

From Pirelli GT4 America, drivers Derek DeBoer (The Racers Group), James Pesek (PF Racing), Nicolai Elghanayan (Marco Polo Motorsports), Jason Bell (GMG Racing), Steven McAleer (Classic BMW), and Kenton Koch (Bsport Racing) will join GT Rivals. TC America drivers Toby Grahovic (Classic BMW), Steve Streimer (Rooster Hall Racing), Kevin Boehm (DXDT Racing) and Kevin Anderson (TechSport Racing) are also in the mix. Plus, former Pirelli World Challenge driver and GT Academy winner Bryan Heitkotter will get back behind the wheel of a virtual GT3 car for this esports invitational. More drivers will be announced shortly.

Calling the action, SRO America pit lane reporter Ryan Myrehn will be joined by former TC America champion Tom O’Gorman and SYM TV’s Kyle Heyer.

Events will include a 120-minute open practice, 20-minute qualifying, and 60-minute sprint race, streamed live every Sunday at 3pm ET beginning April 12th through May 31.

Event Schedule
April 12th | Laguna Seca Raceway
April 19th | Misano
April 26th | Paul Ricard
May 3rd | Spa Francorchamps
May 10th | Suzuka
May 17th | Barcelona
May 24th | Mount Panorama
May 31st | Kyalami **Finals Event**
*Subject to change

https://www.tcamerica.us/news/188/s...-battle-in-new-gt-rivals-esports-invitational

 

Watched the first race today , , good race apart from start Very professional coverage

 

I fully agree, the broadcast was top notch. And it will only get better with 1.4 I'm sure!

Enviado desde mi ONEPLUS A5010 mediante Tapatalk

 

Thank you for all of the hard work. Today's race was a fantastic addition to my day and I look forward to the next one!

 

Watched this today as well, awesome stuff. Was wondering if they had contact disabled for the first lap same as the charity race, that was answered quickly... haha

 

I watched the enormous success it has on YouTube. Impressive. And this is just the start.
Fill kunos with money SRO!

 

Good job from Champion Motor Sport for working with SRO and making this possible in such a short notice.

There was definitely a need for a solid platform in the US time zone and this event would give the right boost.

Maybe an America DLC in 1Q21?

 

+1

 

It was fun to watch, and broadcasting was superb.

 

I watched the race, too. I think the only weak point was many of the drivers were not experienced with ACC, so there was a clear performance gap between the 2-3 "experts" and the rest. Also, the first lap was a mess, 1) lots of drive through for wrong grid position (cancelled, ok) 2) too many crashes. My advice would be to disable collisions during the first lap, same as happened in the Monza charity event. That just makes the race more solid and enjoyable for all.

 

I actually thought the first lap collision spiced it up. And the collision was caused by the driver 2nd on the grid (Koch) after his poor start - caused a chain reaction. Although we don't like to see it this could (and does) happen in real life.

As the drivers get used to ACC they will only get better and the performance gap should reduce.

Commentary / production was great. Well done to everyone involved and thanks for feeding my need for some live sport (albeit I watched it in delay).

 

The chat was hilarious too, so many people asking "what game is this?", or "is this iRacing?" xD

A bit gutted about ACC being so unknown in the US, but hopefully events like this will change that.

 

I was in the race, one of the 5 sim racers from CMS, so I get to see what's happening behind the scenes. First of all, incredible commitment and professionalism from the CMS (Champion Motorsports online community) founder and admins, including chief and supporting stewards. The SRO Americas series directors and marketing folks are super engaged. All of the Pro drivers from these IRL series are really taking this stuff very seriously. It's true that there's still a group that are very new to ACC, but I am very confident that the standard of racing and racecraft is going to rise quickly.

We have private servers for practice and the Pros are on at all times during the day and night practicing, learning setups, learning ACC settings and in our Discord voice chat talking with our community drivers to get a lot of info.

This is great for motorsports and even better for sim racing, and now finally in the US too!

 

Hi Keith,
So glad you guys are doing this!

 

This is really great to know. Hopefully this will make ACC more popular in the US, there is a big market there and not everything is about <insert name of well known online sim here>!!!

 

Absolutely agree with what you've said here Keith. I'm a former CMS member (different timezone) and still in contact with a few of the community, and was so pleased to hear about this joint venture.

 

Live right now. Qualy underway followed by one hour race.

 

Misano race - Round 2 of the GT Rivals Esports Invitational - was incredible. Tight battle for 2/3 of the race at the very front, with Josh Staffin (Champion Motorsports sim-racer) holding off pro drivers Bryan Heitkotter and Kenton Koch. Great racing through the field. Check out the replays. Next week.... Paul Ricard (and I'm hearing it might be a nigh race... gulp).