First NHRA-themed video game in 15 years launches tomorrow.
- NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed for All includes online and multiplayer options. In career mode, gamers will battle their way through the NHRA ranks.
- In the game, you’ll find many of the real cars, real sponsors, real drivers, and even striking computer renderings of current NHRA drag strips.
- Think Madden at 330 mph.
When Jeffrey Young, NHRA vice president of marketing and communications, came on board with the series in 2018, a top priority was finding ways to attract new fans and to reach the younger crowd.
The NHRA and game developer GameMill are making a pitch to do just that this week with the launch tomorrow [Aug. 26] of the NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed for All video game.
It’s the first NHRA-themed video game release in 15 years. And, even casual gamers know that 15 years is basically a light year or two when it comes to video game development. NHRA officials and the game development team at GameMill hope that fans, new and old, will believe this new game offering was worth the wait.
“Maybe the No. 1 question I get all the time is, how are you going to grow the younger fanbase?” Young told Autoweek. “I think video games is one of those steps to get the younger fanbase into this world and introduce them to drag racing. When COVID hit, a lot of people went to video games to do NASCAR and other sports, as well. So, we asked ourselves how do we make sure we’re a part of that going forward?”
— John Force (@JohnForce_FC) August 11, 2022
The answer apparently was to dive right in and bring GameMill along for the ride. The result is a game that features five NHRA Classes: Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Mod, and Super Modified. Gamers will also find 38 NHRA drivers, including the game box cover driver Brittany Force, along with John Force, Antron Brown, Steve Torrence, Eric Enders, Greg Anderson, and Ron Capps.
In the game, you’ll find many of the real cars, real sponsors, real drivers, and even striking computer renderings of current NHRA drag strips, including Bristol Dragway, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, zMax Dragway in Charlotte, Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, and Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.
Think Madden at 330 mph.
Set your alarms for August 26th and the release of the all new @NHRA #SpeedForAll video game!
Don’t forget to head over to https://t.co/daHU6ANllV and vote for your favorite TF driver! 😎 pic.twitter.com/oigQKXRymh— Antron Brown (@AntronBrown) August 8, 2022
“The game’s primary mode is a rags-to-riches career mode in which the player will take on many roles in form,” says Alex Knight, senior producer for GameMill Entertainment. “They will take on the role of a driver and partake in the race weekend events directly. But beyond that, they also will find themselves tuning their car, performing research and development to gain opportunities to race in new classes, but equally so they do have the management aspect as well in managing their team’s finances, hiring/firing crew chiefs and drivers, and buying replacement parts when things go awry.
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“There’s a lot of depth to experiencing a season in NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed for All, and the game offers 20 of these seasons. For anyone wanting to experience some quick NHRA drag racing action though, the game offers a ‘quick play’ mode in which you’re able to select from talented NHRA drivers, or play as your own career driver and race the fully tuned up cars and dragsters.”
Capps just might be the biggest gamer in the NHRA paddock among the drivers. He recently got a sneak peek at the game that will be on full display during the Labor Day weekend US Nationals at Indianapolis.
“All the drivers and crew guys are going to love it, but the fans are really going to dig it,” Capps told Autoweek. “It’s got a lot of things that probably will teach the fans a lot about the sport—the tune up stuff and how the cars work. And what happens when you do something and the car goes out and blows up. You know what I mean?
“So they’re going to understand what our crew chiefs go through a little bit more as well. And there’s a career mode where a game player can actually start off in a super modified car and work your way up to a Funny Car.”
You ready to race this Funny Car to victory?!
You’ll get your chance soon! 👀@NHRA #SpeedForAll ➡️ https://t.co/qFrEYF3g0j pic.twitter.com/PJJWDJDK1r— Ron Capps (@RonCapps28) August 4, 2022
Young added that fans of the 2007 game should be happy with the 2022 version.
“Games change over the years,” Young said. ” A lot of our fans like that 2007 game, so we wanted to keep this game true to that somewhat. But games are big into career modes now.
“There’s online options, there’s multiplayer options, but the main piece of the game is going to be career mode, where you start off with a class called Super Modified. You learn to race, you learn the rules. It’s kind of an entry level for those who don’t know how to race, but for those that do, you start really learning on how to tune, how to tinker with the car, and then you also can move up the category so you’ll be able to make money and then buy into the next categories—Pro Mods and Pro Stock, Funny Car and Top Fuel. So the goal is to kind of eventually build your full team, your full roster.”
A sneak peek of the @MonsterEnergy dragster from the @NHRA: Speed For All video game coming out August 26th!What do you think?
You can find out more at https://t.co/fJKATfL094 pic.twitter.com/vkQhPxcU62— BrittanyForce (@BrittanyForce) August 6, 2022
GameMill immersed themselves into the NHRA experience, beginning with the early stages of the development.
“NHRA was deeply ingrained with our development of the game right from the concept phase, all the way through production of the game,” GameMill’s Knight said. “They provided countless resources to us, feedback, and direct guidance on elements ranging from telemetry data, track data, driver stats, staging flow, and so much more in between.
“(TV announcer) Brian Lohnes was also specifically integral and provided so much historical and factual information in building our tutorials and game script. Furthermore he provided his “Voice of NHRA” for the entirely of the game to make a truly authentic NHRA experience.
“Our goal from the start was to create an NHRA game that was faithful to the sport, but also accessible to a wider audience. We want the younger, and new-to-the-sport audience to be able to enjoy our game just as much as the die-hard fans coming from the PS2 games nearly 14 years ago. For this reason, we’ve created a blend of a ‘sim-cade’ experience for all to enjoy. NHRA was right by our side from the get-go to help us with this design, and we feel we’ve accomplished something awesome here to revitalize NHRA in the game space.”
Below is a first look at the latest trailer for the game, which officially launches along with the game on August 26.
Mike Pryson Mike Pryson covered auto racing for the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and MLive Media Group from 1991 until joining Autoweek in 2011.
Keyword: Exclusive New Trailer: 'NHRA Speed for All' Video Game Designed to Check All the Boxes