Magnus Racing does it again: Fire/Asch pun in pre-race release headline - MotorSportsTalk

The only thing better for Magnus Racing’s third driver for the Sahlen’s Six Hours at the Glen this weekend would have been if they brought in a guy named “Rain” and cued up some James Taylor.

Instead, two years after the team suffered this fire at Watkins Glen, the team known as much for its biting but always on-point satirical press releases as its on-track prowess has brought in a guy named Asch.

Sebastian Asch, that is.

The German joins John Potter and Andy Lally in the team’s No. 44 Flex-Box Porsche 911 GT America, as the team seeks its second straight win in the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup after also winning the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

“When we were sifting through our options, we came across Asch,” Potter said in the team’s pre-race release. “Through his name alone we’ve found someone who can not only draw a parallel to our race here in 2012, but a couple of crew guys for other reasons.”

At Sebring, the team had Marco Seefried alongside Lally and Potter… which made for a perfect sequence of off-the-wall videos called the “12 Hours of Seefried.”

Then at Detroit, after missing the setup, Magnus did what only Magnus would do – embrace the frustration of how bad the weekend was off-track, and assemble this PR of pictures as “Magnus Racing Visits Detroit.”

This is why Magnus continues to win as much off-track as they do on track, and remain such a refreshing team in modern day, sometimes stuffy and overly corporate world of motorsports.

Follow @TonyDiZinno

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”