The Department for Enterprise, promoters of the Isle of Man TT Races, this week announced the ‘Virtual TT powered by Motul’ – part of the eight day TT digital entertainment programme, ‘TT Lock-In’ taking place this June; but exactly how does it work and who is taking part?
The ‘Virtual TT powered by Motul’ will see eight TT heroes getting to grips with a new challenge, by tackling the familiar course from the comfort of their own homes via the newly released game, Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 2. Each professional rider will team up with an experienced gamer from around the world to complete one lap of the famous course on the game. The team’s aggregated lap time will be their leaderboard score as they go ‘head-to-head’ with the other teams to decide who will be crowned ‘Virtual TT 2020 Champions’
The programme, hosted by Chris Pritchard with commentator Dave Moore, will feature host interviews with both riders and gamers, ‘live-action’ gameplay footage, ‘in-game’ player reactions and post-race reactions.
Post-race reports will be released the following day via iomttraces.com, and official Isle of Man TT and Digital Isle of Man social media channels.
The line-up of professional riders features some of the biggest names in the TT, including local racer, Conor Cummins; UK riders Jamie Coward, Davey Todd and Peter Hickman; Australia’s Rennie Scaysbrook; France’s Julian Toniutti; Spain’s Raul Torras Martinez; and Californian, Mark Miller.
Each of the TT stars will team up with an experienced gamer from around the world; from Russia, Alex Petrov; from the USA, Stefy Bau and from the UK, Darrel Grundy, Sara Leghari and Kenny Lam. Also joining the line-up are three local gaming enthusiasts, Sam Tipper and Louis Porter, as well as Aaron Hislop, son of racing legend Steve Hislop.
A complete schedule for the ‘Virtual TT powered by Motul’ and the ‘TT Lock-In’ can be found on the TT website, and fans can watch via iomttraces.com and the TT Races Official Facebook page and Isle of Man TT Races Official YouTube channel