I will be recapping the first season of the Great Value Racing League. First, I need to tell you what it is. Great Value Racing League is a virtual NASCAR league taking place on 704 Games’ NASCAR Heat 5 video game. Why am I talking about this you may be asking yourself? 3 of Ne-Ca-Hi’s very own (and 2 of EOTH’s very own!) partake in the league. Justin Byers, Jordan Byers, and Noah Ritter have participated in the league every weekend since the end of June last year and the very first season just recently finished up. For this article, everyone will be referred to by their PlayStation Username. For reference, Justin’s name is Justin484805, Jordan’s name is nfan18, and Noah’s name is TheRitter4. 

What is a NASCAR League? A NASCAR League is basically a championship. Every league is unique when it comes to rules and regulations but every league keeps track of points and, at the end of the season, crowns a champion. For Great Value Racing League, it is a continuation of the Skittles Cup Series, another NASCAR League that ran for 5 seasons before shutting down in 2021. Great Value Racing League decided to run all 3 of NASCAR’s main series, the Cup, Xfinity, and Truck series. Some other leagues may opt to run 1, 2, or 3 different series. 

Now for the season itself, the races took place on Friday at 7 p.m. (truck), Saturday at noon (Xfinity), and Sunday at 8 p.m. (Cup). The first race was run on June 24th at the virtual Daytona Superspeedway in the truck series. It was won by Prhuguet. The first Xfinity race was won by nfan18, and the first Cup race was won by VFire_305. Now that opening week is done and dusted. If I went through every race and every driver, we would be here all day and no one wants to read all that. I’ll just summarize the season. Please note that the truck series stats are very slim since the series was not as populated at the beginning of the season Since then, the series has grown and stats will be kept more regularly in future seasons. 

Over the Cup and Xfinity season, nfan18 earned the most wins, netting 28 total wins of the 72 total races tracked. Among short tracks, nfan18 earned 7 of the 16 races. Among road courses, Justin484805 earned the most wins at 11 in only 18 races. At superspeedways, Miguel68-420 earned 3 wins out of 8 races. Most of the schedule is made up of intermediate tracks so they will be ignored from that list. 

In regards to penalties, the race officials gave out a total of 17 post-race penalties, with 3 calls being overturned on appeals. Justin484805 was the most successful in appealing, getting both of his penalties in the season overturned on appeal. Nfan18 earned the most penalties this season at 7, including a DSQ at the Charlotte ROVAL. The driver who sped on pit road the most this season was TheRitter4, who sped in every Talladega race (4) this season (not included in post-race penalties).

3 championships were crowned at the end of the season. In the Truck Series, Chasing_flags, Justin484805–, nfan18-, and Shadowpanther82 all made the championship 4 but it was nfan18 who came out on top. Justin484805 finished in the runner-up spot. In the Xfinity Series, nfan18, TheRitter4, JAKOWAT26, and Shadowpanther82 all made the championship 4 and it was nfan18 who won the championship. JAKOWAT26 finished in the runner-up spot. In the Cup Series, TheRitter4, nfan18-, Shadowpanther82, and JAKOWAT26 all made the championship 4 and it was nfan18 who won the championship, getting the hat trick. Shadowpanther82 finished in the runner-up spot.

Great Value Racing League will have its second season starting June 2nd at Daytona in the Truck Series. Sign-ups are currently open for season 2. Drivers can sign up through the Discord server (https://discord.gg/MYGDMneKDG). The league currently only houses a PlayStation NASCAR Heat 5 league but plans to expand in the future if resources allow it.