Richmond Raceway this morning will announce that it will host the first "NASCAR Heat 2" video game tournament competition at its Classic Amphitheater venue the weekend of its upcoming NASCAR national series races. SportsBusiness Journal first reported last month that "NASCAR Heat" developer 704Games was in talks with tracks and teams about setting up esports competitions. Despite looking toward '18 for a full rollout of the tournaments, 704Games has landed on Richmond's regular-season finale this year to start that effort. That is in part because Richmond's race weekend in mid-September is a few days before the game is released nationally on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC.
The tournament, which will be held the Saturday morning of race day for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Federated Auto Parts 400, will feature 64 players using the Xbox One version of the game. The tournament will be sponsored by GameStop and Aaron's and see the top eight finishers awarded with a physical copy of the game, with all 64 players getting a download content code for the title. The gamer that comes in first will get access to a suite plus pre-race and victory-lane festivities for the race later that night.
