A NASCAR Champion’s Blog

Hudson (and iRacing) atop the Homestead-Miami Speedway scoring tower.

What’s it like to be a NASCAR champion?  Let’s back up a little bit first.  I remember sitting at my PC a few years ago and watching as Richard Towler walked onto the stage at Homestead-Miami to receive his NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Championship check of $10,000.  Then, watching him walk into the media center with Dale Earnhardt Jr, sit next to him, and answer questions from the media.  In my gut I had envy.  I wanted to be that guy.  I always dreamed growing up of making it in the sport of NASCAR.  Ever since I was a kid that was all I had ever wanted in life more than anything.  It made other challenges in life, like school, especially hard because I couldn’t think about anything else.  I am the type of person who, when I get something in my head, nothing else matters.  Literally.  It consumes every thought, every day dream, every action.  You’re drawn to friends who are racing fans. So in school all we talked was racing.  My senior project in 2004 was on the advances of NASCAR Safety (haha).  So you get the point.  It is all I wanted.

“Sure, there were tons of trials, but deep down in my heart I knew it was going to happen.  This was my time.”

Seeing Towler win that first NASCAR iRacing championship sparked something in me.  I knew one day it would be me.  There was doubt along the way; sure, there were tons of trials, but deep down in my heart I knew it was going to happen.  This was my time.  That feeling is the same feeling, in my opinion, that controls the direction of your life.  It’s the feeling it takes to leap out of an airplane, or drive 200mph into a corner, but in greater and greater measure.  It is also the same reason I turn red and steam boils out my ears as I am sim-racing and watching cars pull away.  The “Kyle Busch” reaction of we finished second and I am so mad I could spit nails right now!  It is the highest measure of that emotion that you can imagine.  I am a very fortunate person in life.  I have an awesome life, with my own business, a trophy wife who is 20x out of my league and loves me with all her heart; great family who love me and love each other.  Anything I have ever put my mind to, I have done it — even when it seemed impossible.  This feeling, this emotion, it creates miracles. It is an amazing power that has given me everything I have in life.

Your 2013 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Champion: Tyler Hudson.

I remember watching a show at the end of 2012 when Brad Keselowski won the Sprint Cup Championship.  The script “Hall of Fame” came on as he was walking onto the stage.  You can be the greatest, you can be the best, you can be the King Kong beating on your chest.  Standing in the hall of fame, and the world’s gonna know your name.

This was the final turning point for me.  Seeing Brad, who was this ordinary racer being crowned champion, and hearing those words did something to me.  Right then, right there, I couldn’t take it anymore.   Every time I needed motivation, I thought of those words, that song, and seeing Brad walk onto the championship stage.  The chase for greatness was burning so hard inside of me.  Even when I wanted to give up this season, God put people in place to remind me of that burn inside.  How it was meant to be, and it was going to happen.  It didn’t seem to matter how wrong part of my season went, or how bad the odds looked.  I feel like God was laughing at me, saying You think I can’t handle this?? I am God, creator of all.  This is nothing.  Miracles happened, literally.  Things that weren’t supposed to happen happened.  Like missing a race and coming from 60+ points behind in five races.  It was simply destiny and there was nothing I could do about it.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s move on to what being NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Champion actually includes!!

Now that we’ve got your attention, click here to read the rest of 2013 NASCAR iRacing.com Series World Champion Tyler Hudson’s blog on iRacing.com.

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