According to iRacing’s official Twitter account, players of the PC racing simulator have accumulated the impressive total of three billion laps driven.
The subscription-based sim has been with us a surprisingly long time, with a first launch back in August 2008. It’s by no means as popular as console racers, in part due to the $13 monthly fee (or around $8.25 with a longer-term subscription) and the relatively small official standard car list, but the depth of simulation makes it a firm favorite for many.
A licensing system and code of conduct usually helps keep things civil on track… though not always. Combined with the considerably more technical nature of the vehicle simulation, it makes iRacing a platform for more serious sim racers, using a higher level of equipment.
Like many other racing platforms, iRacing has experienced something of a swell in participation numbers in recent months. The sim now has somewhere in the region of 160,000 subscribers, helped along by official events and live streams from big names like Lando Norris and Max Verstappen.
3 billion is an incredibly large number.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed by playing iRacing! pic.twitter.com/lKU9q0WCXI
— iRacing (@iRacing) June 10, 2020
In addition to the raw lap count, iRacing’s “numbers guy” has calculated that players have pounded out roughly 4.6 billion miles. That makes the average racing lap in iRacing 1.53 miles long. Handily, that’s almost exactly the course length of Lime Rock Park, one of the 19 tracks included in the basic subscription package. Another 70 or so are also available at additional cost, with an individual license required for each.
All put together, that means that iRacing’s subscribers have driven slightly further in terms of miles traveled than NASA’s New Horizons probe — which famously delivered high resolution images of Pluto in 2015. They also accumulate an additional million miles every day. It isn’t quite Gran Turismo numbers, but it’s still a pretty impressive level of dedication.
