NASCAR driver fired for idiotic behavior in esports [Updated]
Kyle Larson benched and dropped by his sponsors after racist remark. …
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Update: On Tuesday, both the Chip Ganassi Racing team and Chevrolet ended their contracts with Larson over the incident. The original story follows.
Over the past weekend, another NASCAR racing driver has learned that acting like a 12-year-old moron in an online video game does in fact have real-world consequences. Kyle Larson—an early graduate of NASCAR’s “Drive for Diversity” program thanks to his half-Japanese ancestry—was competing in the series’s new Pro Invitational iRacing series on Sunday night when he used the N-word while talking to his spotter.
In the two days that have followed, Larson has been suspended without pay by his race team and has been benched indefinitely by NASCAR. He has also lost his major sponsors. This follows an incident a week ago when NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace lost a sponsor after rage-quitting a race.
During this weekend’s esports race, Larson lost communications with his spotter (who acts as a second pair of eyes). “You can’t hear me?” Larson asked, followed by the racist remark. Larson may not have realized that his audio feed was being broadcast to the entire livestream, although several other stunned drivers pointed this out to him quickly.
“NASCAR has made diversity and inclusion a priority and will not tolerate the type of language used
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