Video games and sim racing have contributed to motorsports’ evolution. They also provide drivers another avenue to sharpen their skills off the track, while allowing NASCAR to save significant resources by testing new ideas in simulation instead of physically building experimental layouts.
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And virtual reality is promising to make the experience all the more immersive. iRacing, a realistic racing game, supports the most popular VR headsets, including those from Oculus and HTC. It places drivers directly inside a virtual cockpit, delivering a pretty realistic racing experience.
However, NASCAR 25, a standalone console game produced by iRacing, was launched without VR support. The PC version uses Unreal Engine, which could enable unofficial VR modding, but it does not include native VR functionality at release. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not a big fan of VR in racing, though.
Despite acknowledging the progress, Junior believes virtual reality carries some notable drawbacks. Regardless of how impressive modern VR has become, he outlined concerns about its limitations, particularly in long-distance clarity.
Junior explained that VR struggles to render distant cars and objects, causing them to appear blurry or “furry,” making triple-monitor setups preferable for competitive experience.
“It’s amazing… I had a couple of different headsets that I went through over the last couple of years. But dude, what you put it on, and you look, everything is perfectly in perspective. Just the depth perception is dead on. You look around in this thing, you’re in it. You’re in the truck, right?” Said Junior, before adding that the issue reveals itself the moment a driver looks beyond the immediate surroundings.
“And the only problem right now with uh VR is how much better triple monitors or even a single monitor is at distance. So, if I come up off the turn, everything in the car is very clear, crisp, sharp,” he said.
“But it’s if you’re coming up off of turn two, it’s the car that’s going into turn three that’s just a blurry, fuzzy ball, and it’s just not crisp enough. And when you’re racing on monitors, all that sh*t at distance is very clean,” concluded Junior.
Because of that gap in clarity, Dale Jr. understands why serious sim racers often resist switching to VR once they’ve experienced the sharpness of a multi-monitor setup. The NASCAR icon feels VR delivers unmatched immersion and a powerful sense of sitting inside the vehicle, making it ideal for other gaming genres.
Junior pointed out that racing demands precision, especially when judging cars a quarter-mile or half-mile ahead. Until VR can render distance with the same clarity as monitors, he is not ready to commit fully. For him, immersion cannot outweigh the need for accuracy when racing on the limit.
