Clash of Racers: Our favorite moments

Clash of Racers: Our favorite moments

Max Benecke and kev1n fought for the Clash of Racers trophy in a show full of racing and fun moments.OverTake celebrated its launch with the ultimate esports racing event: The Clash of Racers. Two teams led by Max Benecke and kev1n fought for glory in a competition that included seven esports racing games. The winner was determined in the very last race of the evening. Here are our highlights from this amazing event.

Stacked teams

The atmosphere in the studio was joyful but also very tense. Both team captains were ready for a great show full of racing and to fight for the trophy. They were welcomed by our Nitro Nights host Melek ‘m3lly’ Balgün and the commentator of the evening Leigh ‘Deman’ Smith.

Team Red was led by iRacing’s number one driver Max Benecke. He faced off against Team Green captain and esports veteran Kevin “kev1n” Rubiszewski. They had assembled two stacked teams with the best of the best: Content creators Jimmy Broadbent and MaximeMXM, our Hardware Review host Dave Gaming and World’s Fastest Gamer James Baldwin are just some of the names that took part in the competition.

Each one of them was pumped to claim points for their team. This led to great racing action in all games.

Exciting chases and much esports racing action

Esports racing is diverse and so was the competition. From arcade to realistic simulations, we got to see it all. The racers gave it all to get the important points for their teams. In race one, esports and real racer Cem Bolukbasi was a bit too eager and came off track early. From there, he was chasing World’s Fastest Gamer James Baldwin but could not catch him anymore. Team Green took the first round.

However, kev1n and his mates were not able stay ahead. The lead switched between the teams almost every round.

Two people from our community joined the clash as well. Harmonic for Team Red and Kami for Team Green raced against each other at Hockenheimring in Forza Motorsport 7. They both earned a wildcard by sending in their fastest lap time on Spa in the game. A special prize waited for the two racers: both were awarded with a brand-new AOC AG272FCX6 monitor to upgrade their esports racing setup.

The races had it all. Bold moves, exciting chases, and some questionable maneuvers.

The interviews and Tom Deacon’s pen

Racing is not only about the action on track. It is also about the intimidation of the opponent and banter after games. Tom Deacon and m3lly asked the questions and learned about an astonishing fact from Jimmy Broadbent’s life.

The teams were also able to score an extra point through the community vote after each race. They did not get tired of inventing creative slogans to make people vote for them.

James Baldwin seemed to be a bit jealous of the wheel collection of our Hardware Review host Dave.

We also got to see that our netman Tom Deacon seems to be quite a winning team joiner. At least he kept on showing support for the team that won the last race by choosing a very interesting decoration for his headset.

Max Benecke drinks then drives to victory

But after all the interviews, community votes and six races it came down to the final clash. Both captains faced off in the Don’t-drink-and-drive challenge. They had to complete the hardest race of all to determine the winner of the evening: Rainbow Road in Mario Kart 8.

But because that is not hard enough for Clash of Racers, they also had to drink a glass of liquid before reaching the finish line. Drinking was not allowed while driving, of course. It was also not allowed to drink everything at once, so they had to do at least two pit stops.

Max turned out to have the better strategy. He won the last race of the night and thus secured the win for Team Red.

It was a great event and we loved celebrating esports racing together with you.

You can watch the entire show on our Twitch channel in case you missed it.

Born and raised close to the Nürburgring.