With World’s Fastest Gamer season two winner James Baldwin about to make his professional racing debut next week, aspiring racers looking to follow in his footsteps will get their next chance from today thanks Gear.Club on mobile devices.
Baldwin will race a McLaren 720s GT3 in the British GT Championship for the first time next week with Jenson Team Rocket RJN – the team co-owned by ex-Formula 1 World Champion, Jenson Button.
Last October, the British gamer beat out nine other finalists in the Engine Media-created event to earn a real-world race drive valued at more than US$1 million.
Now, Engine Media’s game studio Eden Games is launching the second round of qualifying for season three of World’s Fastest Gamer today on Gear.Club – the massive mobile racing experience available on both Apple iOS and Android platforms.
To celebrate Baldwin’s upcoming debut, entrants will also get the chance to race a virtual version of the gamer’s McLaren to try to qualify for the season three finals. The second qualifying session for the competition runs from today through to August 16.
The opening Gear.Club qualifier held earlier this year was a massive success with thousands of gamers trying to race their way into the finals to showcase their skills.
In the opening round of qualifiers, gamers drove the equivalent of seven return trips to the moon – an incredible 5.4 million miles. A total of 424,680 qualifying laps were completed to try to earn this coveted life-changing prize.
“We very excited about James’ impending debut as the World’s Fastest Gamer winner, but equally looking forward to seeing the intense competition on Gear.Club as gamers take their shot to try to follow in his footsteps,” Engine Media co-CEO and World’s Fastest Gamer creator, Darren Cox said.
“With James about to go racing in British GT, we thought it was the perfect time to select the McLaren 720s as the car of choice for the next qualifier and put it in the game with the same livery.
“We’re very much looking forward to seeing where our next finalist will come from.”
A total of 10 finalists will eventually compete in the World’s Fastest Gamer season three finals. Details on the remaining qualifying events will be announced soon. Information on the timing and location of the World’s Fastest Gamer season three finals have been delayed due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
“Last year we took the gamers on a 10-day ‘driver’s dream’ tour of California testing the racers both online and on track,” Cox said.
“We have a number of concepts for the World’s Fastest Gamer season three finals, but these have been delayed due to the current global restrictions on travel. When we can finally bring the ten finalists together, we certainly believe it will be well worth the wait – we have some incredible opportunities looming on the drawing board.”
World’s Fastest Gamer aims to bring together the best of the best from the gaming world – regardless of whether they play on PC, console, or mobile.
Potential finalists can download Gear.Club from the Apple iOS store or for Android on the Google Play store.
Baldwin will join fellow British racer Michael O’Brien for the opening round of the Intelligent Money British GT Championship at Oulton Park on August 1-2. The British gamer’s battle to earn the World’s Fastest Gamer crown was recently showcased in the six-part World’s Fastest Gamer season two documentary series shown on the ESPN network in the US.
US residents can still watch season two of the gamer-to-racer competition on the ESPN app.
World’s Fastest Gamer is one of a number of ground-breaking esports programs created and run by the soon to be renamed Engine Media (from Torque Esports). Torque confirmed in May that it had completed its acquisition of Frankly Inc. (TSX-V: TLK) (OTCQX: FRNKF) (“Frankly”), and WinView, Inc. (“WinView”) – to create Engine Media – the new brand at the forefront of esports, gaming, news streaming and sports gaming across multiple media platforms.
To date, the combined companies have clients comprised of more than 1,200 television, print, and radio brands including CNN, ESPN, Discovery / Eurosport, Fox, Vice, Newsweek, and Cumulus; dozens of gaming and technology companies including EA, Activision, Blizzard, Take2Interactive, Microsoft, Google, Twitch and Ubisoft; and have connectivity into hundreds of millions of homes around the world through their content, distribution, and platform.
