The Race That Doomed Pro Sim Racing Isn’t What You Think

A forgotten disaster in the history of sim racing has resurfaced, and the deeper you dig, the more unbelievable it becomes. Everyone remembers the chaos of the 2023 virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans, but buried on iRacing’s own channel is a race so messy, so caution-filled, so poorly timed that it allegedly tanked a seven-figure TV deal before it was even signed. This was the 2018 Peak Antifreeze Series race at Richmond, a slow-motion meltdown filled with missed laps, endless yellows, and one of the most anticlimactic finishes imaginable.

• Why did the broadcast completely miss the first 10 laps, including the opening caution, leaving viewers confused before the race even began?
• How did 55% of the entire event end up being run under yellow, turning a 200-lap sim race into nearly an hour of pacing?
• What caused the unprecedented streak of seven cautions in a row, many happening on the exact restart lap with tiny incidents snowballing into full yellows?
• Why do insiders still point to this single race as the moment a major TV broadcast deal allegedly fell apart and reshaped years of iRacing’s pro-series structure?

This one race changed far more than a finishing order. It altered schedules, formats, and even the future of sim racing on television. From a flip at Richmond to a four-lap cooldown to end the race under caution with no green-white-checker, it’s a case study in how everything can go wrong at once. If you’ve never seen the worst professional sim race ever run, this video is the perfect rabbit hole.

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