The GT Academy National Finals came to a close this weekend, after two days of intense competition. The nation’s top 32 racers battled at Jolt’n Joe’s Restaurant in downtown San Diego, July 13th and 14th.
The top 16 virtual racers will fly to the world-renowned Silverstone racing circuit in the UK to participate in a week-long boot camp in August, which will be televised and aired on Spike TV’s GT Academy television series later this year.
GT Academy North America finalists will be judged and eliminated by an expert panel of racing professionals, based on each competitor’s skills, performance and overall aptitude for the requirements to become a professional racer. The top driver will train under the guidance of professional racing drivers and compete in selected races for a Nissan racing team.
Below are the 33 competitors who participated in the tournament, with the top 16 advancing to the final phase of competition in Silverstone (ranked in order of placement).
Taking one step closer to possibly becoming a part of a professional race car team, these 16 finalists emerged from a pool of over 400,000 racing hopefuls who competed for a top spot through Gran Turismo 5, battled their way through two days of intense racing, and earned a spot as one of the final 16. Congratulations from Sony, Polyphony Digital and Nissan North America to these truly amazing 16 individuals.
Congrats to Patrick Crider and Jeff Stuart for dominating the Racer X Challenge, winning the one-of-a-kind GT Academy 2012 designed – HumanRacing® GT Chassis equipped with the Thrustmaster T500RS wheel and pedal set.
Be sure to follow GT Academy (North America) on Facebook for up-to-date info for the 16 finalists traveling to Silverstone later this year!
Just give us all our free cars and racing suit now instead of one piece at a time every week for a over a month. That move was not want we all had in mind. Then put GT5 on the PSN store I mean what the heck is the hold up. Its not too big a download for psn so stop using that dumb excuse every time. Otherwise ROCK ON GT5!
Yea, even though we all are not good driver, we love racing simulations. They give us practice. And we certainly deserve free cars after waiting estimated 5 to 7 years. Even though we expected more, the game is still great. I hope we can all get free games instead of these expensive DLC. GO GRAN TURISMO! I’m counting on you to give us a great simulation of racing!
Chances are pretty high me and a high majority of people used one these guys replay ghosts on GT Academy to get the Gold prize.
Sweet. Glad to see some of the progress of those few that stood out above over a million entrants. Cant wait until next year!