NASCAR driver Ross Chastain surged from 10th to 5th in the final turn of yesterday's 500-lap race to earn a spot in the season-ending Cup race. And he did it with a move he learned in a video game.

Chastain used a classic "wall riding" strategy. The idea was to accelerate at full speed into the racetrack barriers and pass five rivals. This reckless maneuver not only earned Chastain's team, Trackhouse Racing, its first appearance in a NASCAR championship final, but also set a record for the fastest lap in the history of Martinsville Speedway (open in new tab) where the race took place.

As a child, Chastain said in a post-race interview, "I played a lot of NASCAR 2005 on the GameCube. But I didn't know if it would really work," he said in a post-race interview. Nevertheless, he did not give up: he "grabbed the fifth gear from behind and fully committed" and "basically took my hands off the wheel" and left his fate in the hands of the gods of stock car racing.

It obviously worked, as evidenced by the fact that Chastain is among four racers competing in the championship this coming Sunday, but not everyone is thrilled with this racer's game-inspired antics. Last year's champion Kyle Larson told reporters (open in new tab) that the move "doesn't look good for our sport at all (......). It's pretty embarrassing," he said. Of course, Larson himself tried a similar move (open in new tab) in last year's race and failed, so perhaps he is jealous of Chastain's technique.

This is a dramatic example of video games crossing over into the real world, but it is not the only overlap between the world of NASCAR and our own. More than a few NASCAR drivers are honing their skills in iRacing (opens in new tab). iRacing is a racing sim with lots of rules, which we ourselves like (opens in new tab). Personally, I'm hoping that Chastain will pull off another game-inspired trick in Sunday's final. Perhaps he can cheat the system by running backwards across the finish line right after the start.