Virtual Car Race Opens

The Irvine Spectrum’s Entertainment Center just got a bit noisier.

NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway opened last week, enticing racing fans to stop by the virtual reality arcade, slap down $7.50 and slip into the driver’s seat.

Twelve cars are parked inside a darkened room. The cars are mounted so they can pitch back and forth, replicating the “feeling and force of each turn and hit,” said Rick Moncrief, chief technology officer of LBE Technologies, the Cupertino firm that developed the computer game. The vehicles are connected to a computer network that drives the images on the screens and the motion of the automobile. Each vehicle is equipped with a steering wheel, a stick shift and racing seats, and five screens--surrounding players with high-speed digital images of the track.

The arcade is sponsored and co-managed by the National Assn. for Stock Car Auto Racing. Four other speedways already exist: in Schaumburg, Ill.; West Nyack, N.Y.; Dallas, and in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

“We’re giving people a chance to see what it’s like to actually drive on the Charlotte Motor Speedway, not sit in front of a video screen and simply watch a movie,” said Lee Knowlton, vice president of operations for the entertainment venture. “NASCAR has a huge following, and this is helping us bring even more visibility to the sport.”

Even with a strong following, the speedway faces some serious competition for an already fickle game audience.

The Spectrum already has two other high-tech playgrounds. Dave & Buster’s, a 55,000-square-foot attraction, recently opened next to the NASCAR shop. Aimed at both kids and adult audiences, Dave & Buster’s is known for its billiards room, laser battleground, video arcade and the motion-simulator rides in its iWERKS Turbo-Ride Theater. Then there’s the Sega City/Gameworks arcade. Opened in 1996, the arcade is being redecorated--including adding a small restaurant--to bolster the shop’s appeal.

Analysts have long wondered whether such location-based entertainment--the catch-phrase for such multimedia playgrounds aimed at an adult audience--will ever grow beyond its youthful niche. Dave & Buster’s staff say the Irvine location is doing great business. GameWorks officials insist their Irvine location is doing “just fine” but decline to release financial details. Staff at the arcade note that a core crowd of high school and twentysomething high-tech workers regularly pop by during lunch to play.

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com.