There is hardly anything that Dale Earnhardt Jr touches and it doesn’t turn to gold. He took the wheel of the #8 car and dominated it the whole time he was in NASCAR. Took his team JR Motorsports to the Xfinity series in 2005, and already has four championships. Joined the podcast world and created a whole empire of podcasts under the ‘Dirty Mo Media’ brand. He joined iRacing as an executive director in 2020.

Only recently their ‘season 2 2025 build’ was released. They have new ARCA cars for users to experience. And so many new tracks were added. Only recently Portland International Raceway was added. And these additions are great for the racing world as both drivers and fans use these simulators.

Just look at their progress! It has left everyone impressed, including a certain iRacing pro! And who better to judge the progress…than someone who started his career on iRacing, but now is a front-runner in the Truck Series?

Rajah Caruth reviews iRacing’s new updates!

There have been quite a few examples in NASCAR who started out as sim racers and got glory in the sport. William Byron is probably the most popular example. And Byron is currently one of the best, if not the best, drivers in the next-gen era. So naturally, Byron’s journey motivated many. Enter Rajah Caruth, who brought some inspiration from the animated CARS movie too. Jokes aside, he joined iRacing in 2018 with a dream to become a race car driver. Fast forward to 2023, he had a full-time ride in the Truck Series, became the third black driver with a NASCAR win, and has HendrickCars.com backing him as a sponsor. That’s quite a big journey!

Anyway, like some of our drivers refer to dirt racing as their roots because that’s where they started. Caruth’s roots are technically sim racing. So he still keeps going back to it, both to practice and to have some fun. Well, all drivers use Sim, but Caruth is a fan and loves it. And recently he was trying the new updates to the Bristol and Las Vegas tracks. Folks, based on his reaction, iRacing has done a great job with it.

Caruth in an X post wrote, “.@iRacing did an amazing job with the rescan of Bristol and Vegas. Most realistic tracks I’ve driven online so far. Can’t wait to try the other places.”

And not only this, but iRacing has been on an upward trajectory ever since Dale Earnhardt Jr joined. Only recently we were discussing their ‘Debris Refresh’ update. It was done to make debris a very real part of the simulation…as it is in actual races. According to iRacing, “The update adds new types of debris, improves their physics properties, upgrades their appearance, and vastly improves how debris is generated and moves around the track over time.” This is the level of detail they are trying to bring in.

Also, only last year they bagged Microsoft. The Technology giants are partnering with the simulator company to bring artificial intelligence into the simulators. Recently iRacing president Tony Gardner shared his excitement had said, “We couldn’t be more excited to work with Microsoft on new AI-based learning models which hopefully will lead to iRacers having even a better experience, not to mention improving their racecraft and performance. Our goal is to leverage the realism and quality of our existing product, build upon our market-leading existing single player opponent AI, and learn from the collaboration with Microsoft Research to create new and improved features that will benefit all iRacers.”

And with Junior at the helm, iRacing has now probably taken the biggest steps in their journey so far! Junior is heavily involved in all this because at the heart he too is a simulator racing fan. Back in the 1990s, he spent the whole day playing ‘NASCAR Racing.’ Like obsessed would be an understatement.

If you don’t know…it was a video game iRacing’s predecessor Papyrus developed in 1994. In fact, Junior and his passion is the reason why NASCAR got introduced to iRacing. He brokered their first meeting, which was held in the JR Motorsports offices in North Carolina. And when in 2010, iRacing launched the eNASCAR division, Junior was the winner of the inaugural race on the Daytona International Speedway.

And it’s not just racing, Junior probably loves all kinds of video games. Naturally, Junior is heavily involved in the making of iRacing’s ‘NASCAR 25 game.’

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You can be a NASCAR driver too!

One of the most significant aspects of the game is the career mode. It allows a user to be a real person in the game who has to climb the ranks like any driver usually has to do in NASCAR. Probably starting off as an ARCA driver. And keeping the realism alive, users also have to get sponsors, and sign contracts. Do everything. And from all the teasers it’s clear that they have given equal importance to ARCA racing. We all know how ARCA is often ignored. But it’s the developmental series and has a separate fan base. With this iRacing is trying to bring attention to smaller series, and it reeks of Dale Jr.

He’s often in support of the smaller series. Like how recently ARCA got criticized for their running of the Daytona race and the havoc they caused. All over the internet, ARCA drivers were ridiculed. But when veterans like Denny Hamlin called ARCA racers inexperienced, Junior blamed the whole approach to draft racing, “I believe that all of the classes (or series) they got to reimagine the entire way we approach restrictive plate racing.” 

And coming back to the game. According to the makers, it’s massively better than the last NASCAR game, ‘NASCAR 21: Ignition.’ Be it in terms of the details, the graphics, basically everything. The biggest improvement for most fans is Dale Jr. stepping in to develop the game with the iRacing banner. Ever since iRacing purchased the NASCAR license for $5 million, fans have been over the moon because it would mean a better product given to them.

Also, the date hasn’t been released yet, but it’s expected to be launched sometime in the fall of 2025. Can’t wait! Folks, are you excited for the game? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.