Digital joy for JamWest fans
Caribbean Motor Racing Sim Club (CMRSC) will join forces with Jamaica Simulation Racing Association (JSRA) this weekend for a long-awaited event in the sim-racing community – the release of the digitised version of local circuit JamWest Speedway.
Both organisations will host the JamWest Inaugural Race, an open invitational sim-racing event on Saturday, September 23, starting at 4:00 pm to be streamed on the CMRSC’s YouTube channel.
“CMRSC worked hard with the talented track creator Hal Ghent who has already given us South Dakota Circuit in Guyana, and Wallerfield in Trinidad,” Rahul Nasseir, founder, CMRSC, told the Jamaica Observer‘s weekly Auto magazine.
Stephen Stewart, president, JSRA, had nothing but high hopes for the upcoming event.
“For us this is full circle. The JSRA was formed on the back of what was then Jamaica’s biggest sim-racing event, the AMSOIL Caribbean Sim-Racing Series in 2021, which used the iconic Dover Raceway in St Ann. Since then Jamaican sim racers have been asking when JamWest Speedway would join the virtual race world. I’m glad we’re able to be a part of the historic moment in regional eSports,” Stewart said.
Nasseir, a Canadian, explained that Jamaicans weren’t the only ones wanting to race the circuit on their sim rigs and it took three months to bring the famous Caribbean circuit to computer screens using Google satellite imagery for maximum detail to make the track feel even more realistic.
“In the past couple years we have seen some talented mod makers bring us our home tracks in the Caribbean to sim racing with the likes of the South Dakota Circuit, Wallerfield, Bushy Park in Barbados, and Dover Raceway in Jamaica. The last thing left was to bring the famous Jamwest Speedway to life. So the CMRSC worked hard with Hal to create the track,” said Nasseir.
While numbers have yet to be fully determined for Jamaican participation, the JSRA has five confirmed entries, competition is expected to be fierce for the title of first-ever virtual JamWest Speedway winner.
The race format will see a 10-minute qualifying session followed by a 15-minute Sprint race. All drivers are limited to the Radical race car.
“Directly after our event on Saturday evening, the track will become public to all members of the sim racing community to download. Further information on how to obtain the track will be featured on the broadcast,” said Nasseir.
