Unless you’re really into your cars and motorsport, you may not have heard much about Praga. But the Czech company has been building and racing vehicles for more than a century, including top-level, championship-winning go-karts, sportscar racing, and the Dakar Rally.
To celebrate that heritage and, with the current global situation making actual racing difficult for many series, Praga has joined forces with sim racing club 27Racers to launch a championship with a bit of a difference… and with an epic prize.
Despite being pretty much the root of professional motorsport, karting isn’t always represented particularly well in sim racing series, but the Praga Sim Racing events aim to change all of that. Held using the karts on Gran Turismo Sport (which means you can spend far too much time creating an awesome livery and race suit and then wishing you’d practised more), it’s a series that anyone can enter – and you’ll definitely want to enter, because the prize will be the chance to drive one of Praga’s actual racing machines – the R1.
Praga R1’s compete in a number of championships around the world and won its class championship in last year’s Britcar series. Designed to race from the ground up with a carbonfibre monocoque, lightweight, and a turbocharged 380bhp engine, make no mistake, this is a proper racing car – it almost looks like a single-seater with a roof and wheel covers – and you could get the chance to drive one.
Mark Harrison, Head Of Commercial Operations at Praga Cars, explained the decision to create the series:
“As with most motorsport this season, our plans to go racing with the R1 had to move online during lockdown. But, with go-kart production at the heart of Praga’s business, we also spotted an opportunity to enter the world of sim racing with karting challenges. We developed this idea hand-in-hand with 27Racers, one of the most influential online racing communities at the moment, to be a safe and fun community for kart racing on the web, regardless of skill level, budget or location.”
If you want to enter (which of course, you do), head over to www.27Racers.com to sign up for the series. The next race takes place on 16 June at 8:00 pm BST, with races taking place throughout the summer. For updates on how things are going and for more information on the prize in the coming weeks, you can also follow @Pragasimracing on Twitter.
