Trailer, Video of Game Play: 'NHRA Speed for All' Video Game Designed to Check All the Boxes

• NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed for All includes online and multiplayer options. In career mode, gamers will battle their way through the NHRA ranks.

• In the game, you'll find many of the real cars, real sponsors, real drivers, and even striking computer renderings of current NHRA drag strips.

• Think Madden at 330 mph.
  

When Jeffrey Young, NHRA vice president of marketing and communications, came on board with the series in 2018, a top priority was finding ways to attract new fans and to reach the younger crowd.

The NHRA and game developer GameMill are making a pitch to do just that this week with the launch tomorrow [Aug. 26] of the NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed for All video game.

It's the first NHRA-themed video game release in 15 years. And, even casual gamers know that 15 years is basically a light year or two when it comes to video game development. NHRA officials and the game development team at GameMill hope that fans, new and old, will believe this new game offering was worth the wait.

"Maybe the No. 1 question I get all the time is, how are you going to grow the younger fanbase?" Young told Autoweek. "I think video games is one of those steps to get the younger fanbase into this world and introduce them to drag racing. When COVID hit, a lot of people went to video games to do NASCAR and other sports, as well. So, we asked ourselves how do we make sure we're a part of that going forward?"

The answer apparently was to dive right in and bring GameMill along for the ride. The result is a game that features five NHRA Classes: Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Mod, and Super Modified. Gamers will also find 38 NHRA drivers, including the game box cover driver Brittany Force, along with John Force, Antron Brown, Steve Torrence, Eric Enders, Greg Anderson, and Ron Capps.

In the game, you'll find many of the real cars, real sponsors, real drivers, and even striking computer renderings of current NHRA drag strips, including Bristol Dragway, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, zMax Dragway in Charlotte, Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, and Auto Club Raceway at Pomona.

Think Madden at 330 mph.

"The game’s primary mode is a rags-to-riches career mode in which the player will take on many roles in form," says Alex Knight, senior producer for GameMill Entertainment. "They will take on the role of a driver and partake in the race weekend events directly. But beyond that, they also will find themselves tuning their car, performing research and development to gain opportunities to race in new classes, but equally so they do have the management aspect as well in managing their team’s finances, hiring/firing crew chiefs and drivers, and buying replacement parts when things go awry.

"There’s a lot of depth to experiencing a season in NHRA Championship Drag Racing: Speed for All, and the game offers 20 of these seasons. For anyone wanting to experience some quick NHRA drag racing action though, the game offers a 'quick play' mode in which you’re able to select from talented NHRA drivers, or play as your own career driver and race the fully tuned up cars and dragsters."

Capps just might be the biggest gamer in the NHRA paddock among the drivers. He recently got a sneak peek at the game that will be on full display during the Labor Day weekend US Nationals at Indianapolis.