Manny Ramirez and iRacing probably isn’t a combination anyone was prepared to hear in conversation.
NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. joined the “Dan Patrick Show” on Friday to discuss the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series and went into depth on the world of sim racing. As he discussed it, Earnhardt Jr. brought up an interesting story regarding Red Sox owner John Henry and Boston’s 2008 trade of Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“And a funny story I’ll tell you,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “So iRacing was started by Dave Kaemmer, who was a sophomore engineer that develops games, and John Henry, owner of the Red Sox. John Henry is a big sim racing fan and those two partnered to create iRacing two decades ago. And I put together a meeting between iRacing and NASCAR right around 2008 or so.
“Junior Motor Sports, NASCAR comes in, and iRacing comes down from Boston. John Henry comes and so we are sitting there and I am telling NASCAR about iRacing and how important it is we form a partnership and they get involved. And John has to step out of the office because they had to take a call because they had a blockbuster trade.”
The trade they were discussing is the Ramirez deal that sent the All-Star left fielder to the Dodgers, with the Red Sox receiving outfielder Jason Bay from the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Dodgers shipping third baseman Andy LaRoche to the Pirates.
“He had to get up out middle of the meeting to go and talk about this trade, finalize, do whatever they do,” Earnhardt said to Patrick. “So, I thought that was pretty cool.”
While iRacing has been around, it’w now garnering more attention than ever. Who would have thought Ramirez would have been involved somehow, even if he didn’t happen to know it.
