ah that is so so so cool hello everyone and welcome to Beyond pixels and our
first ever show dedicated to Motorsports in the form of NASCAR I love NASCAR my
name is Dan Barry hello everyone my name is noo and I’m as well as excited I big fan of like
cars and uh racing Sports and very excited um to have um NASCAR and U
cararta here represented by Eric and Mitch and then very quickly Beyond pixel’s goal is to provide branded
marketers with Innovative insights around the web stream the metaverse and social gaming and we are super excited
to go behind the scenes in NASCAR recent activation on fortnite and I’m sure our
guests have many interesting points to share okay again joining us today are
Eric lre CEO of cararta and uh Mitch
rasb I hope I got that right director Web 3 at NASCAR uh in addition to being
a co-host here at Beyond pixels I’m also the founder and CEO of web3 and metaverse marketing Network and I’m
proud to confirm that carda is included as one of our top 100 most
Innovative metaverse marketing services and CA is just like so so incredibly
Innovative it’s it’s well well well deserved kind
of yeah like love what you do guys and then on top of that we uh about quickly
about myself we besides being the co-host at V pixel show I’m co-founder and CEO of metaview which is the larg
just gamified experiences Marketplace and then we are always happy to see so many Innovative companies doing uh cool
activations into the space and now we can go to the introductions of our
amazing guest yeah yeah yeah I’m really really looking forward to getting into this so so Eric uh why don’t you start
by introducing yourself and cararta uh and again we get a pretty International
uh uh audience so uh and maybe this is more for Mitch but uh definitely give
you know some background in terms of your Sal and your companies ER we’ll start with you uh lovely to be here thank you so
much for for having us uh hi everyone my name is Eric lre I’m the CEO and founder
of Carta we are a studio that build is building brand and fan experiences uh
games original Ip immersive ad Solutions across uh platforms like Roblox and
fortnite and uh yeah we’re super cool to be here today talking about you know uh
I I love all our projects but this one is extra cool I think so yeah it’s it’s
an exciting uh yeah I’m super excited about today it’s a it’s been a fun journey and it continues to be a fun
Journey so yeah I’m gonna hand over to Mitch now and he can before we do the Handover Eric where are you right now
the room you’re in looks yeah I mean I am in Germany at
Gamescom and basically it was a bit of panicky this morning I checked the the
Wi-Fi in our Airbnb it was atrocious I don’t know there’s you know German
internet is is not sort of it doesn’t have a great reputation as me some of you might be aware of uh but and um we
we’re actually at the part of the Roblox Booth here at Gamescom Gamescom is I
guess the yeah the biggest gaming uh event in Europe and yeah but I luckily
uh I was invited by my my fiance she works at EFG and they had a really sort
of well isolated meeting booth in in their uh Expo Booth here at at Gamescom
and I and so they had some space for me so I’m I’m massively grateful for that because I I was like am I gonna have to
join on my phone or you know I I was pcking a bit so yeah anyway looks cool
anyway Mitch over to you now same same absolutely great to be here appreciate it Dan and odto for the invite to come
join the show with Eric talk about what we’re up to so my name is Mitch rasmason director of web 3 over here at NASCAR uh
NASCAR is America’s Premier for of Motorsports so we’re the number one for of Motorsports out here we operate three
different national series the Nascar Cup series is sort of our Flagship Premier product we raised 38 weekends a year uh
available on NBC and fox depending on what weekend you’re tuning in and we also operate the NASCAR exfinity series
which is sort of the the next series down kind of a feeder series and then also the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
which is sort of our third Premier national series in addition to a variety of other Grassroots and Regional um
Regional leagues so at NASCAR I’m on the gaming and Esports team and we’re an
innovation hub for NASCAR and our task and our charge is how do we reach younger audiences how do we push our
brand into emerging spaces and how do we ultimately innovating and keep NASCAR kind of on The Cutting Edge in highly
culturally relevant spaces and places so for me that means things like web 3 that
means things like AI but it also means things like social gaming Platforms in the metaverse specifically fortnite um
in this context although we do have a lot of other places that we activate in
addition to Discord so if anyone wants to come hang out with us on Discord discord.gg NASCAR we’d love to have you
uh but yeah super excited to get in here and talk about our maps and uh kind of give a little bit of a peek behind the
curtain into the journey because it’s been quite a wild ride thus far cool cool cool
um thanks for that both of you uh so uh we’re gonna get into this now and we
usually address our questions to a specific person but for today we’re gonna we’re gonna kind like throw the
questions out there to you guys Eric and uh and Mitch and then let you to decide
who’s going to start who’s going to finish blah blah blah blah is that cool with you guys Perfect all right all
right so we start adrenaline is building up so
everybody is waiting to start even ourself Dan and myself we don’t know how this relationship between NASCAR and uh
Carta happened how everybody came up with the idea and then I’m sure you guys had very wild dried coming to this
amazing experience at the end of the day so our first question is how ncar like
this decided first of all to go to the ugc gaming or social gaming however people might call it and then why
especially you guys chose fortnite yeah uh obviously I’ll take
that one since uh that’s that’s my that’s my role here so um I guess to
start for us video games are an incredibly important moment and a in a
vehicle for us to to ultimately bring our brand to life and to reach new audiences and also to continue to build
relationship with with people around the world that love our sport um you might not be aware that NASCAR actually has a
really rich rich history of video game starting back in the 80s and like the arcades and the cabinets through the
early console Generations the early 2000s with with you know dirt to Daytona EAS iconic NASCAR series um so we’ve
we’ve been around the block when it comes to video games and what’s been really interesting to watch evolve over the last kind of three to five years at
a high level is the explosion of ugc gaming as as you referred to it um and
really it’s been pretty apparent to us and to me just kind of in my own personal opinion that this is sort of the future right empowering creators to
to build the experiences they want to create not just like go hire a AAA publisher do a licensing deal and you’ve
done video games right there’s so much more you can do now so um I’d say sometime in 2020 we Pro we became aware
of Roblox or maybe um at the time we were aware of it before that but 2020 early 2021 we really sort of Roblox was
that first moment seeing the growth on the platform the the young audience being like this is a place that we need
to be we need to figure this out and we entered Roblox uh in the end of 2021 with a collaboration with a game called
jailbreak which was our first sort of foot in the water really fun activation bringing our brand to life first time in
that platform and we learned a ton and we followed that up last year with our first um NASCAR branded game called the
Nascar Speed Hub so Roblox was sort of that first like real foot in the water and it was that first test ground like
what does it mean to to be a game publisher what does it mean to build fun experiences um but at the end of last
year right where we’re kind of looking at the horizons it’s like what’s next right we don’t want to be complacent and we understood that there’s a lot more to
be done than just activate on Roblox and fortnite has been one of those properties that we’ve been again aware
of for a number of years it’s the biggest gaming platform in the world from my perspective it’s the most robust
metaverse experience out there with the collection of Ip and Brands and all the cool stuff they’re doing and we always
had our eyes set on fortnite and just kind of a function of when and how does it make sense and why and I’d say when
epic made the announcement at GDC in early 2023 around the ufn uh positioning and sort of the
vision of what ufn is going to bring to the Epic ecosystem uh that’s when it
really became real and crystallized right this is sure there was fortnite creative before that but we felt like it
was somewhat limited and didn’t really have didn’t wasn’t really going to do what we wanted to do but we were prepared to build in fortnite like V1
creative but when uaam got announced we thought okay this is the moment it’s time to go all in uh let’s let’s find
some smart people to hire and work with and let’s let’s take a similar approach to that to to Roblox and let’s start
bringing our IP to life in fortnite in in a native way and uh and then
thankfully later that year they announced something called rocket racing and I think I think the rest is kind of History uh to some degree but that’s
that’s it in a nutshell right it’s just a fun way to bring your brand to life it’s um we want to empower our players
to touch and experience our brand in ways they’ve never been never experienced before whether that’s racing or some other creative ideas we have um
planned for down the road sure cool cool very interesting story yeah yeah
yeah appreciate that so um would love now to hear how it all evolved in terms
of the relationship between nasar and carda like from the initial brief to the
game finally being watched I know this is a long answer right this is a long answer
yeah okay right all right may maybe Eric it’s your turn now yeah where do we start
Mitch by the fact that we get sat next to each other at a at the dinner when I
was working at fanatic and you were working at treac in 2019 I don’t
know 20 201 17 actually no
so this is when guys first met or what yeah and but but but I made a complete
fool out of myself because I did not remember when we met again at at when we
actually met and when this story actually starts which is at at seg free
in London last year and um yeah
basically I sort of yeah learned that that you were looking at fortnite right
and uh that you were sort of going to do an an RFP right that’s how it sort of
actually starts uh and I was already uh you know like to sort of and I’m not
sort of being sucking up here I’m I was a big fan of M’s boss as well I don’t
know if he’s watching I don’t Nick Rand uh I’ve seen the year before that at SRE
presenting I think is a you know a brilliant mind in this space and and and
hearing what NASCAR’s Vision was for for Roblox at the time which was what he was presenting then I was like this is
someone I would love to work with and I guess that’s also what I said at se fre I would love to work with NASCAR and I
would love to work with you guys uh and yeah what what what was in the RFP Mitch
I can’t yeah I mean I think it’s important context right that uh well although while Eric and I we got
together at seg three that was like June the process really started in like September the year prior prior when we
were going into business planning and budgeting and being okay you know we need the resources to do this what’s the plan and then in kind of January and
February is when we started to actually speak to various vendors and kind of figure out like learn we don’t know who
are the players like start having conversations and ultimately the brief was it’s pretty high level right it’s
like uh helped bring NASCAR to life in fortnite and at the time we didn’t really know what that meant uh because
at the time the rocket racing wasn’t a thing the tooling didn’t exist ufn was brand new but it was really just like
NASCAR wants to come bring our brand to life in this in this platform what’s your perspective and vision and and uh
you know ultimately how much is it going to cost and how do we you know what do the timelines look like and I just remember when meeting Eric in in London
it was just the energy and the passion was clear and um also it it helps when you have a bit of a prior connection but
I think really it was it was this partnership minded approach right this isn’t we’re going to build one thing for
you and then we’ve solved fortnite we walk away it’s like no we want to we want to be here for a number of years we
want to build together we want to make mistakes we want to learn we want to innovate and candidly like we don’t have all the answers either but we’re gonna
we know we’re gonna do our best to to make amazing experiences and um I think that a big part of it right the
intangibles it’s like there’s developer Studios there’s so many of them out there now right there’s like 150
different places that can build a thing but sometimes it comes down to like that gut feeling of like I think I think this
is the right decision and um taking a risk on on a young company and I think it’s paid
off so after the after the RFP I mean you know you spent another three to six months doing contracts and negotiating
and just kind of all the fun boring stuff and um Eric I think we kind of started talking about Concepts in like
Q4 last year sometime do you want to maybe touch on a little bit of like some of the concepts we were working on and
maybe just absolutely how we how we ended up you know getting to the decision of rocket racing yeah
absolutely I mean basically we had we were up against quite a big challenge uh building for an
I you know this icon of Motorsports and racing NASCAR inside of fortnite because
uh you know I don’t want to you know I don’t want to sound negative but the cars in in in fortnite are made to
they’re built to Traverse uh a battle royale map and uh at the time you know
and still we can’t make custom cars you know this is something I think is sort of
a important to understand about the UFM platform it’s it’s not yet a complete
you know tool set where we can build anything and everything like we can on on Roblox anything is really possible as
long as there’s you know expertise time and you know money to pay for salaries for good people uh but whereas ufn is is
is still limited and so we were thinking like you know our for proc started with
that like how do we create something that is 100% NASCAR and feels NASCAR but
but is you know can’t be straight up racing because the cars are not fun
enough to race uh and basically we started looking at like NASCAR how you
know we sort of Saw NASCAR as you know it is the racing but it’s also the sort
of there’s also the other aspects of NASCAR which is the the culture around it the sort of symbol symbolism the you
know the America being a big theme and you know all that what it sort of feels
like you know it’s so so American and which is awesome and then you know
there’s the sort of tech aspect of these like high performance machines and and
like you know the the mechanics and the engines and the the the tires and all that sort of stuff and then also it’s
the business aspect right so we started like ideating sort of can we can we do stuff that sort of inspired by those
different things and and we had some really fun ideas of like sort of almost
like a yeah this is usually I don’t think you get to hear about the things that wasn’t built in these of
presentations but we’re going to let let you sort of a little bit behind the scene in this uh podcast or and
basically yeah there was a there was sort of a you know Tower Defense concept
where fighting of aliens there were oh my God yeah they were like you know sort of aliens attacking and you know we got
to defend and uh you know like sort of fight of the aliens that want to hurt
NASCAR and America I guess a little bit little bit Independence Day Vibes were
like there were sort of tailgating ideas and there and I sort of another concept
that was really cool that we ended up you know going after and are you okay stop me mit if there something I you
don’t yeah I mean I just think all this is couched with like I really these Concepts I love and I’m hoping we can
bring them to life in the future right so I need my Independence Day moment but yeah no you’re you’re good you’re good
keep going yeah no basically yeah we had another yeah we wanted to and yeah the
concept that we sort of ended up being the most excited about was sort of overcooked you know like collaboration
that type of gameplay with you know because pit stops are also iconic part of this
and and yeah that’s was like how we took on this challenge of the the lack of really great you know racing cars that
we could race and that would be really fun to race to sort of look for the other aspects of what what Nascar is and
we were going down that route and uh you know we were quite Advanced and we were making ufn this engine do things it’s
definitely not buil to do but we were making it and we were trying to yeah our our devs
were like excited and equally frustrated uh about trying to do this brand new
type of game uh but I think you know we learned a lot it was super fun and then
yeah we we uh yeah I was at GDC uh in
San Francisco and uh uh epic games had their big sort of announcements of the
future and and everything sort of changed overnight when they announced
that rocket racing was being not just launched but uh the tools to rocket
racing was being made available to us as well oh my God so so you guys like TR
hard came up with all the things and then in March you found out that now you can change the things and then I can I
can imagine face of developers like oh my God I will uh I will never forget we
were on a phone call and all this happened and and I think Eric or maybe one of the developers basically said like well we always wanted to make a
racing game and now we can so shouldn’t we just do that and right and and granted we’re on like
concept number three we’re like multiple weeks down the pipeline we’re like beta testing I’m like yeah I mean I agree
like this is the correct thing we always wanted to do and the question was like are you guys able to do that right
because for me understanding production doesn’t just happen overnight right it’s like yeah we pivoted three times already
so should we pivot a fourth time the answer is yes only if you know only if there’s a schedule we can actually hit
and thankfully the team um you know found a good Cadence and has delivered to date I think there’s one other fun
bit of context which uh maybe I should have primed but as part of the uh you know we were negotiating we were talking
but you know Eric is is European right so Eric he’s never been to a NASCAR race so I thought it was oh my God super
important right to he needs to come experience what it actually is in real
life just like needed to go experience dream hack and Y tripping in 2017 where this all started so we had Eric out to
Talladega uh and one of his colleagues Daniel at the time and uh showed him a true Talladega Boulevard experience
complete with giant American flags and a cougar in a car and all the fun stuff so
I think that was really eye opening for you Eric right just seeing like the culture seeing the campground seeing the pits smelling the rubber uh I thought it
was so important that he actually like experienced it as as opposed to just seeing it on TV or reading about it
and I think that informed a lot of what we ended up doing and then 100% yeah very very quick I I got excited while
listening to you like this is a perfect model of like Carta and like brand and an agency working together and then we
cannot give like recipes of successful game activations every case is so unique like our listeners know they have
listened as some other brands but in NASCAR’s case like you actually need to go into the culture right so Eric had to
travel and then the kind of uh Readiness from the brand side I very excited that
Mitch is like you guys did so many pivots right and then testing and then
it fortnite is not ready for many things but you jumped in and tried very early so it’s like applause for that and um my
my second question which is coming is that how did you like ensure that NASCAR
was preserved why while adapting into the fortnite right so even though the
race was added and Ro racing like it it’s probably also a huge challenging like bringing everything what’s
happening in real life same level of excitement to the virtu game right or
vir space so maybe Eric you start I don’t know I think I think I think this
what is probably for both of us right but uh I mean for us for us it’s like it’s always about yeah understanding
understanding our our partner and their brand and who they are and what they stand for and and uh you know trying to
really and live into their their fans and their you know how they see the
world and like sort of find that you know it’s like a two Circle vend diagram and then you have like the fortnite
rocket racing platform and the culture and the technology and then you’re
looking for the things where where it overlaps right where where it’s true and
authentic to NASCAR and it’s true and authentic to the platform and and I think um that’s that’s what we what we
try to do yeah I’ll expand yeah yeah yeah go
ahead yeah just let me expand on that real quick because I think completely agree with what Eric said there’s a
couple other pieces of color um I mean for us right NASCAR we’ve been around this is our 76th year of racing so
there’s a lot of history it’s like very very rich in stories and um there’s a
lot of different rights holders the the rights are very fragmented and also the icon the IP is very iconic whether it’s
our drivers or teams our our racetrack facilities or you know the high brand NASCAR itself so for me anytime we
launch anything and anything anytime we bring something to life uh I try to Anchor it in just kind of thinking about
what are our values as a company right and there’s there’s basically six words that are values of NASCAR it’s authentic
courageous inclusive Innovative stewarding and driven and I always try to anchor on at least two or three of
those like make sure we’re sort of guiding ourselves correctly and in this case it was first and foremost like
being authentic to the brand right represent presenting the brand and the IP that we’re bringing to life very authentically um as close to real life
as possible while while being Innovative and the risks we’re taking and in the decisions we’re making making but then
also just high level like being stewarding of our sport right like we’re our sport needs to continue to push into
these spaces and take risks and reach younger fans and um just as long as everything we’re doing was with that
mindset of for the good betterment of the sport and for being really authentic to who we are um I think that’s like the
biggest guiding post and then at the end of the day we are super bullish on the Epic ecosystem and and the whole road
map so I think two years from now the things we’re doing will look way different but you have to walk before
you can crawl before you can run and we just didn’t want to wait three years you know for like the perfect storm we like
let’s just let’s start so and do the best we can along the way Kudos kudos to
you guys it’s actually you actually you answered
my next question that’s how we like to hear Dan efficiency
kudos to you for uh you know for doing that so so so so I guess then the uh the
next question would then be uh how do you define success with a project like
this yeah I’ll let uh Eric chime in after me but for for us uh as NASCAR
really is two things um maybe three number one it’s it’s pushing our brand into new spaces right so there is a
measure of success that is in ible right it’s it’s are you in the platforms that matter right so when I think about
Roblox when I think about fortnite when I think about um the console space and you know like the simulator space for us
is incredibly important like part of it is just making sure you’re present and building great experiences in these
spaces that matter number two there’s always an element of you know wanting you wanting people to say you’re looking
smart and doing amazing things right so internally like making sure that all of our senior leaders and also like track
presidents and marketing people you feel really good about what we’re doing because our job is to help them do their job better right our job is to bring
more awareness to the sport and to keep our sport relevant uh through the longtail so there’s some of those intangibles things and then I think
number three there is an element of of player interest engagement retention and I think this is the secret sauce right
it’s like you’re building in Roblox you’re building in fortnite you’re launching a video game but also it’s kind of like a social media channel you
have to you have to keep the content going you have to keep the eyeballs coming the engagement the marketing and
I don’t want to sit here and tell you I have all the answers there that’s somewhere we’re learning and and really trying to figure out like what is a
successful Benchmark for active players on rocket racing is it is it 100 or is it 10,000 right like some of this is
kind of like unknown um so just by setting reasonable targets and trying to
manage your way towards them as best you can without setting unre unreasonable targets right because if you set your
targets way too high and you you fall short then it’s you know people are going to look at you like what are we doing so part of that managing those
expectations internally and thankfully our group has a lot of cover from our senior leadership to experiment try fail
as long as we’re making smart decisions in the right with the right sort of mindset that like we have a hard time
you know not being successful um and also we have to be good stewards of our of our budget and Resource as any good
business does um Eric I’m curious uh how are you guys thinking about success in this context with us I think it’d be
interesting to hear your perspective on success on this as well I mean there’s like the the aspect of yeah that that
that you’re happy that the client is happy which I feel I feel like we’ve achieved which is you know that’s always
there where our partner you know is like you know then I think on a sort of internal aspect is also the always that
we you know we went after something we we stood for and we can we’re proud of it and we had had fun you know speaking
of values like our sort of core value is joy is contagious we want to do stuff
that puts us smile on our face if it’s a rocket racing map or if it’s a really
well fought out spreadsheet or if it’s a you know whatever it is that you do in the company like do work that you’re
you’re you you are happy with and that you’re having fun doing uh and I think that’s that’s that’s definitely success
and then yeah as as Mitch said we’re I think we’re the first uh organization or
a brand or anyone that has has done anything in rocket racing uh and yeah so
rock as if you’re not aware of sort of the fortnite ecosystem uh it started
with Battle Royale uh you know shooting 100 players starting one one winning uh
at the end uh and still to this day like there’s it’s you know an open ecosystem
but I think it’s 95% of all game plays is play is with guns so it’s still like
you know the racing genre and these all these other genres that are are growing on the platform was still relatively
small so you know we could have probably had more success if we could do
something with you know more battle royale native but that wouldn’t be authentic to NASCAR right necessarily it
could maybe we find the right twist in the future that does that but well you know um so I think I think that’s that’s
it and and the thing about success in any and this is something I talk to with my developers uh quite a lot because
they always they always like to F like so this is how part our partners think
and the fact is that every success looks different in every single project right
as well so uh yeah thank right cool everybody having fun
that’s good yeah especially in the news space it’s very difficult to measure the success and as Eric mentioned like for
our listeners right so as you’ve seen like this examples coming in it’s moving into this space is not easy it’s lots of
work like building Standalone startup doing pivots testing lots of lots of
work is behind the scenes what you guys will see at the end of the day and everybody is excited right so with this
I want to move into our very exciting part actually talking about the tracks
and then M the game and then since Daniel is from Chicago I’ll let him start with this
first even though I’ve lived in La now for like I think it’s like about six
years with like Co or whatever I still consider my hometown to be Chicago so I
still root for the Cubs the Bulls the Blackhawks the Bears um and I have so so
so so wanted to go to uh Chicago to watch the street race in Chicago uh and
I think the last two years it’s rained so I’m like okay next year is the the year it’s not going to rain so I’m going
to do it next year I I I actually used to live in Singapore and formul
one used to do a street race in in I mean they they still do but it’s just
like a super awesome experience and and for me uh to be in Chicago because it’s
actually run on the streets there that that’s going to be really awesome so so um can you can you give us a Lowdown now
of why sh so the the first race that you did we’re GNA we’re going to kind of get
and tease then on on the second one but give us a little bit of background why Chicago uh Etc and so forth yeah uh Dan
you didn’t tell me you’re a Bears fan that might have you impacted my decision to come on here as a big cheesee head
myself so sorry for my International friends but American football runs deep over here
so I grew up in Milwaukee so I grew up okay all right well there we go well I
forgive you you got a little bit of um no so part of it was a function of
again the timeline in the in the production cycle right we’re in March or April we’re pivoting to tracks it’s like
okay we want to do three you can’t just launch three tracks in three weeks so there’s an element of that but also
there’s an element um at least with what we’re trying to achieve here which is promoting our real life events in digital spaces so when we looked at the
calendar and we were looking at our tent pole events our key moments the first and most obvious race to to do this with
was Chicago which is basically three months after we decided to p it we wanted to build a little bit of extra
time to play with the new tooling experiment but Chicago was the big moment for us um for a variety of
reasons last year was our first year running the Chicago street race it was the first street race in NASCAR’s
history and actually interesting story about this which connects to the reason the why is that we actually built and
designed that race course inside of a simulator so that race track started in the digital world uh with our in our
partnership with iRacing and kind of in a bunch of ke industry stakeholders figuring out you know where should turn one be like what what straightaways do
we do how do you Orient the track and uh basically we took it from the Sim into the real life last year and this event
is um not only it was a new type of event for us but you know we there is a there is a Speedway just sou side of
Chicago we used to race that and there’s a rich history of of Motorsports in this area so we wanted to come back to a
market that was important to us but also this track is kind of like a pinnacle of innovation for us it’s it’s one of the
tent pole events uh especially with how it came through the positioning of the event it’s like it’s a festival there’s
music it’s it’s just got a little bit more Street flare right it’s on Grant Park right by the water it’s just a
really cool Vibe unfortunately it rained last year so a bunch of the fun stuff kind of got cancelled but when we were
coming back this year and thinking okay how do you kind of continue to innovate on this this this virtual to digital
Synergy the idea of building this for Chicago was kind of a no-brainer and so
we took a similar approach we basically did a onetoone recreation of the actual circuit inside of rocket racing um and
shout out to the art team at CA I think the the city Sky line is beautiful my golden llama statue is beautiful uh but
ultimately right it was just about uh what makes sense in the calendar and then figuring out how you tell that story and um thankfully it went off
without a hitch and um it was a really great first moment and I we’re not going to have that full circle you know Sim to
real life story every time but part of the magic here is figuring out what is that connective tissue and thread um and
and I’m couldn’t be more happy with with kind of how it shook out so hopefully that gives you a little insight happy to talk a little bit more about any of
their bits uh maybe we can touch on sponsor integration at some point but um it was really that was my kind of qu
follow-up question like since NASCAR is like in real life getting lots of sponsors how you guys work with them and
integrate because we and then and then we will be asking a couple of more questions about the people who will have
time but yeah it’s very interesting question maybe who can answer this I don’t know
but question let me let me start and then maybe Eric you can piggyback on how you view it just like from the ecosystem
more broadly but for us sponsors are super important we have the most brand
loyal fans in sports like consistently year-over-year uh brand see huge value in sponsoring NASCAR and it shows in
sales data and Survey data and it it shows right so uh if you think about NASCAR you think about Billboards you
think about fire suits with logos everywhere you think about liveries with with brand placement everywhere and it’s
just such an in iconic important like authentic component of our sport um so
we wanted to make sure that when we enter these platforms similar to Roblox right we wanted to have some representation of some of our most
important Partners uh but we also didn’t want it to just feel like a giant billboard right there’s this really fine
line of you know sponsored ad and it’s just like Brands everywhere and like at the end of the day it’s all about
building a fun game player first and so we wanted to have some of these really like iconic important brands that kind
of can help weave the fabric of the sport while also leaving us room to think about how do we really do this in
a more structured way moving forward right we have like a something like a hundred different partners or there’s
like you know 50 different like official Partners on the website so we have like this massive book of brands that each
one has a different um goal story agenda some have a really robust gaming
strategy some don’t some are reaching certain fan segments some are interested in others so part of this is working
with the team and figuring out like hey we have this new digital real estate where we can literally do anything we
want who are the right Partners like who’s interested in being involved and um who gets it right like who
understands what we’re doing and wants to be part of the story uh so shout out to the team at Goodyear and Sonoco for being the first two partners that kind
of came on board with our our tracks this year and we’ve got some other stuff planned but
um it does take a little bit of a risk from a brand side right is like yeah we trust you guys we’ve been partners with Goodyear for over 50 years it’s like
NASCAR wants to do it let’s go we trust you and that that trust and report is built up over years and this is just a
new extension of that right whether it’s a new race car or you know a new type of Tire Compound on the track or new fuel
or like a new digital activation in a gaming World wow that’s that’s very
interesting so very quickly maybe Eric knows is like do you guys also allow Brands who are not joining in physical
space face but they want to only join like digital tracks as a sponsors
because many many listeners of us are from the agencies and Brands and then yeah I mean my my focus right now is is
figuring out how we add value to our existing Partners so not really open for
business if you’re not already doing business it’s just kind of the nature of the beast but and again we have a wide
book already and we have tons of tons of interesting like brands that we can bring to life in these spaces so maybe
maybe down the road right when we’ve solved the question of how to do it for all of our existing partners and do it really like authentically whether it’s
Roblox or fortnite or other platforms but for right now it’s really the focus is on people that are already in our
ecosystem and extending value for them in these digital spaces in addition to us okay I’m sure Eric I’m sure Eric has
a different opinion on that but that that’s how we it no no I think I mean I have a maybe a general opinion on on I
how like the sports I mean this is you know this is an asset you have now it’s just like your RAC tracks or an is an
asset or your broadcasts this is a new asset to to sort of monetize uh through
your partners right so I think that’s that’s a good way to look at it that uh with this new opportunity of ugc gaming
so um I think I saw something yesterday um what is it that we’re now hearing
about Daytona um and and and and and and
spefic specifically um were there learnings from Chicago that you were able to then incorporate into Daytona
yeah I’ll start and then I’ll hand it to Eric to talk a little bit but uh yeah yesterday we we released our NASCAR
Daytona track in fortnite rocket racing so it’s available to play on platform
[Music] now built around our most iconic venue
in our Sport and importantly we are racing in Daytona this weekend it’s the night race um so it’ll be a ton of fun and again
we’re trying to bring our real world events to life in these digital spaces so Daytona’s live now go check it out I
think we’ll have a map code on the screen or you can just search NASCAR in fortnite and you should be able to find it um Eric do you want to touch on maybe
the learning side and and that and I can add in color where I see fit absolutely
I mean I think um I think obviously they’re vastly different you know uh one
you know Daytona being a trioval and sort of just going left uh uh type of
racing which US Europeans you know this was one of the you know touching on some
of the sort of prejudice that us us Europeans had coming into this process was definitely is it going to be is it
going to be fun going round and round uh you know and just turning left and and
we that was actually something that we we learned that before uh that we because we tried some some some some
maps where you were going left or no actually in them you were going right but it was One Direction an noal and and
and we just found that it was really fun and exciting to race these like super fast super tight H and that that type of
racing worked really you know I would say a lot better than I think yeah the
Europeans thought it would it was it’s really fun and it’s super fast uh so I
think we were all we were all you know really really EXC excited about uh
coming into working with Daytona because it’s yeah an icon of NASCAR but also an icon of video games if we’re being
honest you know um so yeah and then I think you know it was always and I think this has been you know an ongoing
process about like you know and I think we did well on on Chicago I think we pushed it a little
bit on the sort of art side uh where we you know like how do we create an authentic uh NASCAR Experience but it
can’t be it’s it’s rocket racing it’s not the simulation you know it’s not
trying to be the exact copy of uh you know of NASCAR in reality so I think and
I think we pushed a little bit uh you know further on the art side and I I think it turned out super cool this sort
of Florida you know red sunset uh yeah I think yeah am what what am I missing
here much I think for me um just a couple things number one the first Chicago map there’s just tons of
learning learnings right so as you learn how to put tracks together how to put Billboards in how to like you just carry
all those learnings through so it makes your development more efficient and number two we had a bunch of assets that
we built in the first map which we were able to carry through so for instance the the Goodyear blimp is a a our
partner Good Year let us use the blimp thankfully so you know you build the blimp once and you get it approved and it looks good and then you can drop that
into future ones and you don’t have to build the blimp three times you just have to think about where does the blimp go and how does Sun how does the Sun
reflect off of it right it’s like it’s so I think there’s a lot of that kind of efficiencies of scale and as we March
into um you know the future all those learnings will carry through and build on top of each other um and so I think
there’s a lot of stuff you’re not going to see but I’m sure like the dev team today is much more capable than they were five months ago just because
they’ve spent five months building and and we’ve done a lot of learning and I’ve also said no to a lot of stuff as well so they’re they’re kind of starting
to pick up on what’s important to me and what’s important to us as a brand yeah yeah yeah totally very very interesting
and also like um we love the fact that you guys kind of like like minimizing the time of the next tracks coming in
like reusing the assets it’s very I love this direction and then also like uh my
question was like you you briefly touched about it uh Mitch but uh going further like do you guys think you will
be launching other tracks what what’s kind of like I know it’s very difficult to predict the future especially for
fortnite or U things are changing or weekly or daily basis at some points but
upcoming like six months let’s say like you yeah um so we have at least one more
track planned for this year before we get to the end of the season so we’ve got one more that’s coming we won’t spill the beans on where it is or what
we’re doing but there is one more coming in the next uh you know couple months or so so super excited about that and then
I think from the platform holistically right I I touched on it we’re super bullish on the platform there’s so many
different things you can do on the platform whether it’s VR style games or Prop Hunts or all the Fall Guys
templates are in there now there’s racing templates and part of it’s going to be keeping our finger on the pulse of Epic is like what what’s new right every
every couple weeks whenever the the thefn notes come out it’s like okay what’s in there oh new you know new
camera modules can we play with that right new stats like can we tracking better part of it’s gonna be a culture
of being Nimble for me track building is gonna continue for or at least you know the
next year but I want to find Opportunities to think outside the box a little bit right it’s like are there
some more fun creative ideas we can do uh because if the only thing we did was build RAC tracks like sure that would be
successful right but I’d rather build seven racetracks and have two kind of
totally out there ideas and maybe a third idea which kind of was fun and interesting but fizzled or maybe it’s just more of a show an art piece right I
don’t know like we want to we want to really push the boundaries of this platform and I think it’s just being open-minded about what’s possible
because like really what’s what’s possible is what you can imagine in your mind and then you know assuming epic has
allowed you the tools to make it be I mean we have pivoted uh before so
maybe we’ll pivot again who who who knows but I think that’s always the case right it’s about focusing
[Music] on sorry I’m ting people coming in hey
no it’s it’s about focusing on what will have the biggest and most you know best
effect and be the most fun to play right and focus on the the fans and the players that’s always it right no what
whatever you do I’m sure it’s going to be fun um my first ever uh NASCAR race I
attended was Daytona so I’m really looking forward to to diving into this one but how how do you see this type of
digital activation actually influencing the future of Motorsport fan
engagement it’s pretty I mean we’ve seen this at nasar and in other um in other
context I mean every day we run into people who say you know I i’ learned and fell in love with NASCAR because I
started playing dirt to Daytona you know back in the day or um we have we have drivers like William Byron William Byron
he won the Daytona 500 this year in February he started racing in the simulator like he was a kid and know
teenager and he just fell in love with Sim saying he was asking his parents you know I need a wheel I need a computer and they’re like well this is you know
why are you playing those video games right this is never going to do anything for you right but like then they supported him you got a simulator next
thing you know like he he’s a professional race car driver and he won the Daytona 500 so it’s it’s all about
like building that connection with people across casual games to hardcore experiences low resolution high
resolution trying to have something for every type of player whether it’s mobile PC um and then really just you know
making it fun like video games have to be fun if if it’s not fun what’s the point and I think that’s like the most
important thing to me is I always you know we started play testing Chicago and it was just like is this fun and it
wasn’t fun originally because you know it was too long there were too many too many laps it’s like all right let’s make it fun let’s like make it shorter let’s
had a couple shortcuts Daytona I got on there the first time I was like what is this fun I was like yes this is fun like
now we just got to make it beautiful but like that’s the question that’s in my mind is it fun and if it’s fun people
are going to play it and hopefully they remember us and then hopefully you know they they they tune in watch a race and
or come check out a race in real life and or check out their local dirt track and uh hopefully become a Motorsports
fan for life so that’s that’s my perspective on that yeah thank you so
much and Eric I know um you have limited time so um you can say some uh final
words about the Carta and then how people can find you uh we will also show
up some contact information for our listeners but yes we’ll give you the final words first because I mean I I I
still have six minutes left at least okay sque more juice h no I mean I I
can’t wait to continue I think uh working with working with Nascar has been you know uh such a awesome
experience you know uh Mitch and Nick and the team they you know they as
he talked about they they know not just racing and their own brand they know gaming thly and uh yeah it’s it’s it’s
it’s an exciting future for sure uh but yeah on on Carta you can find us on
carta. game uh and uh add me on LinkedIn please uh let’s let’s chat here you are
yeah Eric lre QR codes Twitter I’m
pretty bad at to be honest or X these days H so so maybe don’t add me there I
mean you C you’re do what you want you know but I I don’t I don’t expect any great content from me
but but yeah but cool and yeah I mean we’re we’re working across fortnite
obviously but also so Roblox and you know we try to try to do things that are you know pushing the the boundaries and
and and innovation of of this space because I I think it’s so important to remember that it’s such so early days
and yes what’s possible and what we can do uh you know what the limitations we
have technically but also I think we’re we just scratch the surface creatively of what’s possible to do in this space
and yeah it’s an exciting future for for you know Motorsports Sports at large you
know entertainment music every industry that that needs to talk to and connect
with young people so yeah yeah and I I think uh I’ve just I think you guys
specialize to a degree I know you do a lot of different like verticals but Sports has been I think one vertical
that you guys uh over at car to really really Excel it yeah we do like sports
we do like music I’m the weird one because
sometimes I mean Nas working with NASCAR is so cool to you know you start off at high level of cool and it’s such an icon
of culture but you know personally I sometimes enjoy the challenge of a really uncool brand or a really sort of
you know uh challenging boring industry as well so we don’t just uh you know G
give me an an insurance company and I’ll try my hardest doing something that’s actually interesting it’s not easy but
yeah but the best is the variety right but yeah Sports yeah oh so I I don’t want this
show to be ended like so many more questions are coming in but like very quickly like to me like just final
question I know this this kind of like um uh many many brands or small amount
of Brands already starting like licensing IPS so imagine like ufn ecosystem developers or creators C do
you guys have implant so they can use like cars or some IPS like some assets
even on the games and then have it like holy ecosystem of like I think Lego is doing that or a couple other bands but
yeah wanted to understand what’s your vision regarding that yeah it’s a great question uh we’ve discussed this a lot
right it’s like it’s one thing for the things we want to do with RP but part of the power of these Creator Le platforms
is empowering the community empowering the creators to to build great experiences and also to use officially
licensed assets or to use real assets and we don’t have a great solution to this yet I mean I know uh you have
something like the Fab Marketplace which has come online with with unreal that’s we’ve been talking to those guys maybe
there’s a you know an officially licensed like NASCAR like texture pack or tool pack um we’ve also been thinking
like on the context of Roblox there’s a ton of really awesome driving racing games uh there’s also some stuff on
there that like you know maybe toes the line a little bit but it’s like how do you like there’s this tension right of
wanting to empower the community but also like I’m a rights holder I’m a brand and and and you want to make sure
that people can find the official experiences you want to make sure your IP is taken care of um and I think every
brand in the world is is is facing this challenge um and if you look at like what Lego and Disney are doing it’s like
well they’ve really leaned all in on this you know unreal on this fortnite platform right they’re like to the tune of you know billions of dollars
investing in it and building amazing things like there’s there’s some middle ground but like I don’t think you can
just check out or not care you have to you have to come up with a plan but you also have to just make sure you don’t
crush your community because like you got to let some stuff go it’s the internet um and I think that’s it’s an
evolving conversation so we don’t have a great answer yet we’re we’re working on what we can do there um I’d hope in a
couple years you know we’ve we’ve solved it but it’s certainly a top priority is like how do you de with it on fortnite
how do you de with it on Roblox how do you deal with it on XYZ other you know who knows what comes up next and it’s
just be nimble sure cool I think we could do sorry I just want to say I
think we could do a whole hour on just that challenge
we can do part two another show like we come back and then talk about IPS and
then MIT how people can connect you and then final words you can share um and we will show up your information also uh
yeah I think I also have some fancy QR code so um you can find me at mitras on the internet LinkedIn Twitter the
platform formerly known as Twitter uh probably the two my two go-tos um I like Eric am also a bit of a lurker on on
Twitter so um but I’m happy to connect with people and I usually tweet about
web 3 stuff and video game related news I love I love rocket League it’s my favorite thing in the world and um I’m
always excited about you know what’s going on in the games and the places I care about uh and then on NASCAR side
nascar.com uh we’re live this weekend we’re live on Saturday with the cup series but usually every Sunday out here
in the US um we’ve got a you know few more weeks until we get to our championship in in Phoenix so and if uh
if you don’t have access to American cable you uh we do have an amazing Netflix documentary called NASCAR full
speed it’s five episodes from last uh released last year during the championship it gives you a really
interesting look at uh what goes on behind the scenes it introduces you to some of our our most important drivers
and some of the story lines and the stuff you don’t see so I would recommend NASCAR full speed on Netflix I believe
it’s available globally um and uh I think that should be a nice primer for you so
yeah check jumping as an European I will I want to understand more about NASCAR
so thanks for recommending and for our audience it will be very interesting yeah so hey guys thanks for joining us
we you know we we probably have like 10 15 more questions that we’d love to ask
so hopefully we’re we’re g to be like following you guys and you guys have kind of indicated there’s some like new
and some even more exciting things happening in the future so we kind of look forward to to to having both you
guys back back again sometime in the future and also like please don’t forget
to check out the Daytona new track which just came out yesterday this is the game
code for the fortnite you can also search um in the search bar like Nascar or Daytona and um thanks again for Mitch
and Eric sharing this very exciting and very nice show we had a great ride with
you guys and I I don’t want to end the show but yeah we’ll come back I am
getting thrown out of the of the games from EPO they have shut down um so I I
can’t pH stay I’m so sorry everyone worries thank you so much
Everyone by thank you guys was awesome all right thank you thank you as we as
we wrap up today’s session we’d like to thank Our Guest um and then also remind
you to join our next Beyond pixels show in October with guests from denu and the
Gang who will be showcasing a huge new project thanks everybody thanks
everybody do not forget to follow us not to miss our upcoming shows and until the next Beyond pixels
