Gooden Goes From Virtual To Real Victory Lane

June 25th, 2010

BEDFORD, Mass – Wyatt Gooden is a young driver in a hurry to go places.

Last Sunday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, the 21-year-old Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup rookie continued his fast rise by stepping atop the podium for the first time in his young career — thanks to a little help from iRacing.com.

Gooden, who earned his ride in the Jetta TDI Cup series after winning the iRacing.com Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup online racing series, earned his first professional auto racing victory that day ahead of fellow iRacer and Mid-Ohio pole-winner Arie Ouimet.

“This is a remarkable accomplishment, really a big deal,” said Steve Myers, executive vice president of iRacing.com. “It’s the first time that someone with no previous experience in racing cars has gone from an online racing competition to the real-world winner’s circle — and in just half a season.”

Last fall Gooden, a computer information systems student when he’s not racing, bested 1,163 competitors to win the iRacing.com Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup online racing series and earn his way into the selection process for the 2010 real-world version of the series.

Earlier this year Gooden, a veteran kart racer, turned in a standout performance at the three-day selection trials in Las Vegas, making the 25-driver field for the 2010 season. Thanks to his championship performance in the online series, Gooden qualified for a scholarship that covered the entry fee for the entire 10-race series.

“Clearly Wyatt Gooden has a great deal of native talent, as he demonstrated in his kart-racing career and in the iRacing.com Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup series last year,” said Myers. “But it’s very gratifying for us to be part of the development of his real-world career. This should be inspiring to race game enthusiasts who dream about someday being able to follow Wyatt’s lead.”

After crashing out in his first race with the series and losing a tire in the second, Gooden picked up the pace and has been consistently one of the fastest drivers on track.

“The last two races Arie and I have had the fastest cars at the end of the race,” said Gooden. “In the first couple of races the experienced guys blew us away, but now we’ve figured out how to arrive at the track ready to be smooth and fast.”

As a “simracer” Gooden had never before sat in a real-world race car. What Gooden did have was countless hours practicing and racing iRacing.com’s highly accurate simulation of the Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup car on tracks that host seven of the 10 races on the 2010 schedule.

“The level of competition (in the Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup) is really high,” Gooden said. “There are six or seven guys who have really stepped up over the course of the season.”

According to Gooden, there are quite significant differences between racing karts, where he excelled at a national level, and a full-sized race car, and competing in iRacing.com was a key in bridging the gap.

“I learned from iRacing how important it was to drive within your limit and hit your marks every lap,” Gooden said. “To keep up with the fast guys in both the virtual and real-world series you have to push hard every lap and not make mistakes.”

Like many other Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup racers, Gooden spends a good deal of time practicing on iRacing.com. When Gooden found out that iRacing had released its virtual version of Mid-Ohio in the days leading up to the Jetta TDI Cup event there, he cancelled his plans so that he could practice instead.

“I was so excited. I dropped what I was going to do, went home and downloaded Mid-Ohio and started driving,” said Gooden. “It has the best rhythm. I must have done three or four hundred laps last week.”

Apparently that extra practice paid off as Gooden held off Ouimet for his first series victory. Who says iRacing is just a video game?