I thought you might like to hear a great story surrounding the announcement of our deal with NASCAR this past weekend and how it all came about.

We actually have had a dialogue going with NASCAR since the very early days of this company.  We have known some of the folks in the licensing department for well over a decade at this point so it made sense to keep the lines of communication open. 

The real turning point for this deal though was a meeting we had on July 31^st of last year that was brokered by Dale Jr.  Dale had been advising NASCAR on some of his ideas on what they should be doing in the gaming space and he was pretty emphatic that they sit down and talk with us.  When he reached out to us to tell about this we obviously were enthusiastic about it so he communicated this to NASCAR and they picked July 31^st as the date.

Now this part right here should make all of you proud of this sport we call sim racing and the importance of it to John Henry.  July 31^st is the trade deadline for Major League Baseball.  When John heard that we had a sit down meeting on the 31^st brokered by Dale Jr at his race shop he immediately said he felt it was important that he attend.  This was no ordinary trade deadline and the significance of this day will forever be a footnote in MLB history.  July 31^st of 2008 was the day potential Hall of Fame left fielder Manny Ramirez was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers and John was heading to a meeting to cement the future of sim racing when it happened.

We had a terrific meeting with NASCAR, one in which Jr dragged one of his monster computers from his house down so Paul Brooks, Blake Davidson and Nick Rend could demo the software.  Jr was the one that actually sat at the computer and toured them through the website and software showing them all the thought and engineering that has gone into this service.  Both sides left the meeting with a desire to work together and nine or so months later here we are.

I have had a lot of great experiences in my life, but being present for such a historic meeting for this sport we call sim racing ranks right near the top, not to mention getting to watch such a historic day in the history of the Boston Red Sox from behind the scenes.

I know most of you probably tuned in to hopefully see some development updates so I will throw some out there to tide you over until I do a true development update blog.

As I posted in the forums last week the Lotus 79 is drivable in a development build right now and it is a blast to drive.  Eric Hudec has been working on the car and doing a terrific job so far.  I have asked him to do a blog post of his own on how the development of the car is going and some of the back stories around it.  I think you will enjoy that.  Ian is working on improving the aero models for the COT, Nationwide and Truck models with new data we have received and is plugging away at the Corvette.

For international licensing news, we just literally inked a deal five minutes ago for two tracks outside of North America and expect we will annouce this........wait for it.........soon!

I have teased you in the past about a big track announcement for the month of May and there has been a delay in that actual announcement.  So I will instead ask you to think about Jim Nabors singing the following….

I have always been a wand'rer

Over land and sea

Yet a moonbeam on the water

Casts a spell o'er me

A vision fair I see

Again I seem to be

Back home again in Indiana,

And it seems that I can see

The gleaming candlelight, still shining bright,

Through the sycamores for me.

The new-mown hay sends all its fragrance

From the fields I used to roam.

When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash,

Then I long for my Indiana home.

Fancy paints on mem'ry's canvas

Scenes that we hold dear

We recall them in days after

Clearly they appear

And often times I see

A scene that's dear to me

And finally for one last tease, we have announced two of the three tin tops I had promised earlier (Ford GT, Mustang FR500s) and the third will be announced very soon, hopefully accompanied by an international track….

Have a great weekend and I hope all of your significant others let you have some peace while you watch all the wonderful racing this weekend.

Steve