I don’t play a lot of games — especially car-racing games — and I don’t really care that much about NASCAR or Formula One or any of those things. But I was fascinated to read about an incident that happened in a race in November, in which driver Ross Chastain used a technique from a video game, known as “riding the wall” to move ahead by two spots and qualify for the championship (he also set a track record for fastest lap). Here’s a video of it:
In an interview after the race, Chastain was asked how he came up with the maneuver, and he said: “I played a lot of Nascar 2005 on the GameCube with Chad [Chastain, his brother] growing up, and you can get away with it. I never knew if it would actually work … and I just made the choice, and I grabbed fifth gear down the back and full-committed. Once I got against the wall, I basically let go of the wheel and just hoped I didn’t catch the turn four access gate or something crazy.”