The driver ratings for iRacing Studios’ newly released NASCAR 25 video game have sparked a lot of debate across the fandom. NASCAR also posted a video where drivers guessed and debated the ratings, which featured several humorous but very real disagreements.
A lot of the discussion centers around how and why William Byron was ranked as the No. 1 driver with a perfect score of 100, but there were various other decisions that left fans (and some drivers) openly contesting the ratings online.
‘It just didn’t really make sense’
Speaking at a Saturday media availability at Las Vegas, Noah Gragson was very candid when asked for his take on the ratings, and if he feels insulted by the fact that he was ranked No. 31 out of 47 with a overall rating of 71.
“I don’t really care about that,” said Gragson. “It’s just you look at who is the best driver in our sport right now? Then why isn’t he 100 overall? It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, but whoever the guy or girl was that did it, they did a bad job, in my opinion, but I personally don’t care if I’m a 71. I made a joke about it saying, ‘Oh, dang. I’m kind of trash. Is that me?’ I just don’t think the facts were really real on anybody’s stats, not even saying mine were low or high or anybody else’s was low or high, it just didn’t really make sense when we were doing it, but the rest of the game is really, really good.”
A true NASCAR console game is something that fans have been craving for, and the game itself received nothing but praise from the Front Row Motorsports driver.
“I think the first thing is it’s important that we have a good game because we haven’t in the last 10 years, which sucks because I think all of us drivers currently in the series have grown up playing NASCAR video games when they’re really, really good,” noted Gragson.
“I know I would race a legend car right over here at the bullring and we’d get done with practice and have down time and set up a little TV and Zane Smith, Riley Herbst and myself would play NASCAR Inside Line together and have fun. We’re definitely gonna play this new NASCAR ‘25, the iRacing game because I got a little sneak peak and played it for a couple minutes and thought I was pretty good. I think it’s important that the product is good. I think the fan base will realize that and support it if the product is good. We haven’t really had that in the last 10 years, unfortunately, but I truly do believe that this year we have a good console game and everybody will enjoy it. It’ll be fun.”
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