Leagues are continuing to flourish in the sim racing world, and it is also happening in Asia, as we stumbled across a name that may be familiar to that part of the globe – AMX. This South Korean entity, based out of the Gyeonggi-do province, is not a newcomer to the community, which is a young motorsports start up.
18 months ago, the parent company Auto-Manix decided to organise the AMX eSports Championship on iRacing, a platform they still hold dear to their efforts now, which saw involvement from many partners and people wanting to take part, including Korean sim racers, professional drivers and influencers.
However now, their focus has gone towards a more accessible route to include everyone that has at least has a PC, a steering wheel and pedal set to help them race. But along with that, the real focus was to build their own internal community, which would welcome people of all skill sets and from around the world – it was a factor to make sim racing fun and enjoyable, with no pressure involved, particularly for those very green when it came to racing.
We caught up with AMX Global Team Manager TJ Han, who was happy to talk to us about bringing the League to life and what the future holds.
“After the eSports Championship, we wanted to take on a whole new challenge for creating a league in the global stage and incorporate our twist on to the industry!
“We especially wanted to develop a community for like-minded individuals who love sim racing, motorsports, competing in general – to further raise the bar!”
Esports does have a huge presence within South Korea, but with more of the platforms that most people will already know, such as CS:GO, League of Legends and Rainbow Six, but there is a growing upward trend thaat sim racing is gathering momentum and looking to further expand in the years to come, which TJ is very excited about.
“Even though it’s a smaller and tighter-knit community, Korean sim racing is becoming increasing popular, especially over the past few years. Here, there is a strong motorsports culture, with quite the number of circuits and a well-run motorsports environment. Therefore, I believe when finding a right synergy of global simracing and Korean Esports culture, there’s endless possibilities to grow even more on both sides!“
AMX decided to go with the approach of making their Beta Season 1 as easy to be a part of as possible, as TJ himself had experienced a feeling of being uncomfortable of joining other leagues, and admits that “I am the WORST sim racer!“
“We wanted to be welcoming to not only new users, but also form connections and bonds between new members and those that have been a part of the sim racing community since the beginning. Providing a comfortable environment to exchange information, ideas, tips/tricks, will create even a higher standard of a ‘sim racing league.’
By going about it in this way, they believe that the league will be even more exciting and competitive, along with providing an emphasis on everyone having an equal chance to be able to race at a high level and succeed over the course of competitions.
Along with the openness for what AMX Global is doing, they are also giving out prize money to drivers that compete, and have a point structure to give drivers more of an incentive to be motivated to compete and also improve, with US $4,354 handed out at the end of Beta Season 1.
TJ goes on to explain that: “It also attracts a wider range of racers, including professional and semi-professional racers who may not have participated in the league otherwise. For us, we believe that as much time sim-racers are putting in to hone their craft, they are over due to get compensation. We hope that our prize funds, especially distributed to a wide range of participants, will assist those that have put countless hours in improving their skills and get to the next level.”
Plus with promoting leagues, social media and live streams are just as important, to firstly get the word out there, along with providing a solid high-quality broadcast with professional commentary on races. He also stated that their platform is to help provide a voice for the characters that are racingm, along with looking into future promotions tat will encourage engagement and further fan participation.
But what is in the future timeline for AMX Global? Well, they have already started with the chapter with Season 1.5, which is a Closed Beta, and also rpovides a combination of free entry races, along with a tier system which sees more prize money set to be dished out. Further details can be found on their website, which you can find at www.amxrace.com.
But along with that, TJ and his team have plenty more fuel in the tank and don’t want to give too much away just yet. But there is some light at the end of the tunnel on this one: “Expect some appearances by different types of influencers, other platforms added to the league and tests of different formats of racing, whether it be team races, multiple divisions, regional play-offs, and possibly come full circle to host another championship here in Korea!“