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It’s common these days to hear professional athletes talk about their experiences growing up playing games like Madden or NBA 2K and having it influence their real-world competitions. Heck, football and basketball players spend a lot of time debating their rankings in-game as they continue to play even as adults. It’s not often, though, that we hear about NASCAR drivers waxing poetic about their time playing video games prepping them for races in real life. That was the case for NASCAR racer Ross Chastain this past weekend. In the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 qualifier race, Chastain pulled off a move straight out of a video game in order to squeak past the finish line just in time. In fact, the feat was so reminiscent of a video game move that it shouldn’t be too surprising to learn that gaming is indeed where the racer got his inspiration. Give this a watch:
Speaking with NBC after the race, Chastain told the reporter that he’d drawn inspiration for his last-second maneuver from the time in his youth spent playing NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup on Nintendo GameCube. Yes, a GameCube game gave him the idea, and in that moment at the end of the race Chastain decided it was time to see if the antics he pulled off in the game would net him a real win. Well, with this qualifier now under his belt, it turns out that those years playing GameCube paid off with some serious dividends.
Have you ever taken something that you’ve done or learned in a video game and had it help you in real life? Give us some examples down below!
Source: Nintendo Life
That is a great story, and I’m happy for him without question. Personally, though, I hope I would never make a high-speed physics decision based on videogame logic!
The closest I’ve come was to let thoughts of Super Monkey Ball’s billiards minigame fill my head at an actual pool table. In that case, though, the GameCube was far better than my eyes and hands at getting the angles and force just right. :^)