At the end of every year, sim racing streamer Jimmy Broadbent hosts a fun 23 hour race around Zolder on iRacing to raise money for charity, and this year looks like it will be the most stacked yet in terms of high profile participation.
Jimmy Broadbent is a name many of you within the sim racing community will know of. But before he started uploading to his YouTube channel which has now amassed nearly 1,000,000 subscribers and subsequently became a real life racing champion, Jimmer admits to being in a dark place.
He has been open regarding his struggles with mental health, and aged 13 he lost his father to suicide. At one point, he lost his job, house and his fiancée left him, resulting in him moving back in with his mother and into his famous shed. Broadbent's situation has seen a stark turnaround now, with his own house and a child on the way with his partner Annie Avery.
As a result, mental health is an important subject for Broadbent and every year, he hosts an event to raise money for MIND, a charity that sets out to help people who deal with mental health issues. The event itself is designed to be humourous in nature, with people breaking out into power ballads to serve penalties and Jimmy himself wearing a maid's outfit and waxing his legs.
This year will be the sixth rendition of the Race For Mental Health taking place 9-10 November. With over £300,000 being raised across all previous runnings combined, donations can be given on the event's JustGiving page.
There are many huge names from across the sim racing and real world of motorsport that will be involved in the event.
His current real life NLS teammate Steve Alvarez Brown - better known as Super GT - will also be taking part. As will sim racing content creator turned real life Clio Cup racer Jaroslav 'Jardier' Honzik, and F1 game YouTuber Benjamin 'Tiametmarduk' Daly.
Jimmy, Jardier and Tony Kanaan have competed in the Porsche Esports All-Stars, and quite a few others from that series will be involved in the event too. Reigning and 2-time champion Casey Kirwan - who is also an eNASCAR champion - is taking part, as is 2022 champion Tyson 'Quirkitized' Meier and also another former champion who we will get to.
Other participants from the series confirmed for the event are Matt Malone and Daniel 'DanSuzuki' Sosulski, and there are undoubtedly a lot more names that are too big to list. All teams taking part will compete between four classes: Daytona Prototype, Australian Supercar, GT4 and MX-5.
Tell us about how the event came to be, and what elements of it set it apart from traditional organised sim racing events?
"The Race for mental health started back in 2019. I had recently hit 300k subscribers and wanted to do something good with that number. Mental health issues affect the vast majority of us, including many people in the sim racing community. It seemed to make sense that we do some sort of race, and given that (for some reason I forget) Zolder was a bit of a channel meme, we decided to hold it there.
It was originally meant to be a 24 hour race, but I made an admin error that meant that people couldn't swap drivers. We restarted the race as a 23 hour, which felt appropriate. Imperfect but still awesome. Anyone is can enter, so long as they do so in good spirits!"
For someone experiencing this event as a driver for the first time, what would you provide in terms of advice regarding their approach?
"This ISN'T a serious event. We actively encourage people to have fun/interesting liveries and we're open to a wide range of driver skill. We purposely pick difficult car combinations and have a range of silly/fun penalties in place. One year we even had a dramatic reading of 'WAP'...That was special.
It's hard sometimes to run that line between 'non serious' and 'chaos', but we have a long suffering dedicated race director in the form of Oscar Hardwick. Without him the races would be a lot less fun.
These are the sort of races that got me into sim racing - messing about with friends, enjoying our hobby and not ruining it by taking it too seriously. Ultimately it's not about going fast, just about raising money for charity. Basically, don't take it too seriously and you'll have a great time."
From all the previous runnings of the event, what have been your personal highlights?
"For me, this event is the most important thing that I do as a content creator. To date, we've raised nearly £300,000 for mind which is an unbelievable amount of money. One of my favourite moments was when about 5000 viewers all banded together to get the 'total raised' amount to hit EXACTLY 69,420. I think that moment sums up what this race is about."
What do you hope is achieved in the race that has not happened before and what can you promise the viewers watching the event through the various POV streams?
"Obviously we'd love to smash our PB year which was 72K in 2020, but to be honest i'll just be happy if we can get every car to the end of the race! As for what to expect, this event is like no other sim event that exists."
The race begins at 4pm CET on 9 November with an hours worth of both practice and qualifying beforehand.
Will you be joining our streams for the Race For Mental Health? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion on our forums!
Jimmy Broadbent is a name many of you within the sim racing community will know of. But before he started uploading to his YouTube channel which has now amassed nearly 1,000,000 subscribers and subsequently became a real life racing champion, Jimmer admits to being in a dark place.
He has been open regarding his struggles with mental health, and aged 13 he lost his father to suicide. At one point, he lost his job, house and his fiancée left him, resulting in him moving back in with his mother and into his famous shed. Broadbent's situation has seen a stark turnaround now, with his own house and a child on the way with his partner Annie Avery.
As a result, mental health is an important subject for Broadbent and every year, he hosts an event to raise money for MIND, a charity that sets out to help people who deal with mental health issues. The event itself is designed to be humourous in nature, with people breaking out into power ballads to serve penalties and Jimmy himself wearing a maid's outfit and waxing his legs.
This year will be the sixth rendition of the Race For Mental Health taking place 9-10 November. With over £300,000 being raised across all previous runnings combined, donations can be given on the event's JustGiving page.
There are many huge names from across the sim racing and real world of motorsport that will be involved in the event.
The Participants
The biggest names undoubtedly that are confirmed to be participating are 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan and current F1 title holder Max Verstappen, but there are a few other real world racing names to consider. Daniel Morad who races in IMSA and also runs his own YouTube channel, and the guy who Jimmy won the 2022 Praga Cup title with, Gordie Mutch.His current real life NLS teammate Steve Alvarez Brown - better known as Super GT - will also be taking part. As will sim racing content creator turned real life Clio Cup racer Jaroslav 'Jardier' Honzik, and F1 game YouTuber Benjamin 'Tiametmarduk' Daly.
Jimmy, Jardier and Tony Kanaan have competed in the Porsche Esports All-Stars, and quite a few others from that series will be involved in the event too. Reigning and 2-time champion Casey Kirwan - who is also an eNASCAR champion - is taking part, as is 2022 champion Tyson 'Quirkitized' Meier and also another former champion who we will get to.
Other participants from the series confirmed for the event are Matt Malone and Daniel 'DanSuzuki' Sosulski, and there are undoubtedly a lot more names that are too big to list. All teams taking part will compete between four classes: Daytona Prototype, Australian Supercar, GT4 and MX-5.
Words From Jimmer
In the lead up to the event, we managed to get some time with the man himself to give us a few words about the event and what he hopes to achieve.Tell us about how the event came to be, and what elements of it set it apart from traditional organised sim racing events?
"The Race for mental health started back in 2019. I had recently hit 300k subscribers and wanted to do something good with that number. Mental health issues affect the vast majority of us, including many people in the sim racing community. It seemed to make sense that we do some sort of race, and given that (for some reason I forget) Zolder was a bit of a channel meme, we decided to hold it there.
It was originally meant to be a 24 hour race, but I made an admin error that meant that people couldn't swap drivers. We restarted the race as a 23 hour, which felt appropriate. Imperfect but still awesome. Anyone is can enter, so long as they do so in good spirits!"
For someone experiencing this event as a driver for the first time, what would you provide in terms of advice regarding their approach?
"This ISN'T a serious event. We actively encourage people to have fun/interesting liveries and we're open to a wide range of driver skill. We purposely pick difficult car combinations and have a range of silly/fun penalties in place. One year we even had a dramatic reading of 'WAP'...That was special.
It's hard sometimes to run that line between 'non serious' and 'chaos', but we have a long suffering dedicated race director in the form of Oscar Hardwick. Without him the races would be a lot less fun.
These are the sort of races that got me into sim racing - messing about with friends, enjoying our hobby and not ruining it by taking it too seriously. Ultimately it's not about going fast, just about raising money for charity. Basically, don't take it too seriously and you'll have a great time."
From all the previous runnings of the event, what have been your personal highlights?
"For me, this event is the most important thing that I do as a content creator. To date, we've raised nearly £300,000 for mind which is an unbelievable amount of money. One of my favourite moments was when about 5000 viewers all banded together to get the 'total raised' amount to hit EXACTLY 69,420. I think that moment sums up what this race is about."
What do you hope is achieved in the race that has not happened before and what can you promise the viewers watching the event through the various POV streams?
"Obviously we'd love to smash our PB year which was 72K in 2020, but to be honest i'll just be happy if we can get every car to the end of the race! As for what to expect, this event is like no other sim event that exists."
OverTake Confirmed
We are proud to confirm that OverTake.gg will be competing in the event driving a Ford Mustang Australian Supercar, we will be streaming it all on our Twitch and YouTube channels. Our entry is made up of seven drivers across both our video and editorial team and a member of the community:René Buttler - Product Manager, Jimmy's teammate in the 2022 24 hours of Le Mans Virtual
Michel Wolk - Video Editor
Yannik Haustein - Editorial Lead
Luca Munro - Editorial Contributor, Abruzzi Prototype Challenge LMDh AM champion
Emily Jones - Videographer, 2021 Porsche Esports All-Stars champion
Eliza 'ELZ' Indriani - Streamer, More Female Racers PRO-AM Season 4 champion
Stefan Schlacher - OverTake community member
The race begins at 4pm CET on 9 November with an hours worth of both practice and qualifying beforehand.
Will you be joining our streams for the Race For Mental Health? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion on our forums!
