Fire up your virtual engines

Now the online computer simulation, which debuted last August, has added NASCAR's endorsement.

IRacing.com Motorsport Simulations, based in Bedford and co-owned by Henry and Kaemmer, said it has reached a deal with NASCAR that could catapult iRacing.com to a new level of success.

NASCAR says it will adopt the company's simulation - which is played against other users - as a virtual branch of auto racing, with potential scoring updates on NASCAR's website, spots on ESPN, and NASCAR trophies for the best video racers in the country.

"We're literally going to be a brand of motor sports to them," said Tony Gardner, iRacing.com's president. "It's going to be NASCAR online."

NASCAR said it expects the first officially-sanctioned online races to start in 2010. Superstar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and several other professional racers are already hooked on the computer simulation, practicing for real races on it during their spare time.

"Over the years, many of our drivers have helped develop their skills by participating in virtual training like iRacing," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president for competition, in a statement. "It's exciting to now have an online, NASCAR-sanctioned series like iRacing that will be entertaining for our fans and help provide them with a greater understanding of what it takes to be a NASCAR race car driver."

Indeed, very few of auto racing's millions of fans know what it's like to weave a race car through a crowded field at 150 miles per hour. That divide between fan and driver is what Kaemmer, an amateur race car driver himself, has strived to narrow.

"I think if we can show people what drivers are doing in a race, and people get a chance to try it out themselves, they'll say, 'Hey, this is really cool,' " he said.

But it's unclear how many fans will be willing to put in the practice time to get good at the simulation, and pay the online fee - the basic, annual subscription costs $13 a month. IRacing.com has signed up 12,000 subscribers since it started, targeting mostly amateur race car drivers and experienced simulation players.

The simulation puts players behind the wheel of a car, staring out the windshield as they race around the twists and turns of re-created tracks from across the country.

The car is controlled with store-bought electronic brake pedals and a "force feedback" steering wheel that pulls and vibrates according to car movements. In practice mode, players are on their own, but those who join a scheduled race will be pitted against drivers in their ability class who are also online, sitting at computers anywhere in the world.

IRacing.com does look like a video game, but the level of interaction a player has with his car and others puts it in a different field. Kaemmer and his team of programmers, using a variety of high-tech tools, have painstakingly mimicked the physics and aerodynamics of real race cars, as well as every bump and dip of real race tracks. Made with 3-D laser scans, the depictions are accurate down to the blades of grass on a track infield.

As in the real world, the object isn't just to win - you must drive safely if you're to succeed and advance to more challenging levels. The simulation records every action to compute your ever-changing driver rating, and, unlike video games, you must race under your own name, taken from your credit card.

"Because none of the natural deterrents to over-driving a race car exist in the virtual world, we knew we needed a system that would greatly reward safe driving," Henry said in a statement. The Sox owner, whose love of simulated auto racing brought about his partnership with Kaemmer, pushed to turn the racing simulation into an organized activity. Henry also sponsors real NASCAR racers - he is co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing.

Of course, no video simulation can hope to copy the physical and mental stress of an actual race, let alone the 100-plus degree temperatures drivers endure. Nor do iRacing.com drivers have to deal with the danger and consequences of a real accident, or the substantial cost of owning a race car.

For the moment, though, iRacing.com is as close to reality as it gets, said Andy Mahood, an amateur driver who has reviewed racing simulations for PC Gamer magazine for the past decade.

"Anybody that excels at iRacing, I would venture to guess, can get in a real race car and run with the middle of the pack," Mahood said. "They've nailed it."