The coronavirus pandemic has all professional sports leagues scrambling to find ways to entertain spectators. In the world of auto racing, Formula 1, NASCAR, and the FIA are leaning heavily toward virtual performance, with the F1, NASCAR, and FIA recently holding official events. This is a natural progression: online racing is already common and sometimes extremely realistic, so that simulated races can be much closer to the "real thing" than, say, the Finnish ice hockey playoffs.

But even though these sims are realistic, at their core they are still video games, which means a few things: one, people are more likely to screw around than if they were actually trapped in 3000 pounds of steel and rubber moving at 200 mph! . For example, someone like No. 43 driver Bubba Wallace, who tangled with No. 14 driver Clint Bowyer at the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational series in Bristol.

Bowyer had a somewhat different take on the matter:

Wallace made light of the situation in a later tweet, but no one found it all that funny. Blue Emu, "the number one selling emu oil brand in the U.S." (emu oil is used in a variety of applications, including moisturizers, anti-inflammatories, and pain relievers, but so far there is little evidence of its efficacy), terminated its sponsorship in response to Wallace's tweet.

Wallace's furious resignation was undoubtedly the high point of NASCAR's iRacing weekend drama, but it was not the only moment of excitement. Jimmie Johnson fired his virtual spotter (which I don't think is actually possible since he is basically an NPC), and Erik Jones seems to need a new PC.

Thanks, ESPN.