Can Video Games Make You a NASCAR Champion?

NASCAR Champion, Brad Keselowski, won the NASCAR Nationwide Series auto race on Saturday, August 10, 2013. Instead of making the usual thank you speech to God and his family, Keselowski credits video game playing as a child. He tells NBC sports he remembers the Watkins Glen track from one of his games. He says:

 “I remember I spent a whole summer when I was kind of locked in my parent’s shop, because I was just young enough to where they wouldn’t let me touch anything and just old enough to where I wasn’t getting a babysitter. And I remember spending a whole summer sitting on the computer in the office area running Watkins Glen as a video game. My Mom could tell you that story. I guess it was only a month or two that you have off, but Watkins Glen was always a track I ran.”

 Although the title of the video game was not specified in Keselowski’s speech, here is just one example of the many benefits to playing video games! Perhaps NASCAR drivers may want to consider warming up a couple of months before a race by racing the same tracks on video games just as Keselowski did. I mean, memorizing the track is a strategic move to winning a race!

So the next time your mother yells at you to get your butt off the couch and do something with your life just come back with an, “I’m an aspiring NASCAR driver. I’m warming up my skills here!”