HOMESTEAD, FL--EA Sports has partnered with Game Live over the years for annual Madden, NCAA Football and NBA Live Challenges—a series of national and international events that feature the best gamers in each sport competing in tournaments at retail locations and online.

This year, to celebrate the next generation debut of NASCAR 08 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, EA Sports partnered with Craftsman to bring an 11-city tournament tour and Xbox Live online tournament to life. The thousands of contestants were whittled down to 16 winners, who were flown to Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida this past weekend to compete on pit row before the Ford 400 with CBS sportscaster Brent Musburger serving as master of ceremonies. There were four rounds of four-player gaming on Xbox 360 with 12 cars and 13 laps using the Microsoft Wireless Steering Wheel. The winners of those four races competed in the Finals, which was a 27-lap challenge.

"My two sons play video games so I'm always watching them," said Musburger. "I'm from a generation that didn't grow up with video games, but as a form of media, it's captured the attention of millions. NASCAR is interesting because I know a lot of the drivers who use the game as part of their preparation for races. It's fascinating to watch this game because there's so much realism in there. I know there's a lot of growth area with the NASCAR Challenge and I'm sure EA Sports will move in that direction."

Brandon Coppinger of Nashville, TN (three of the four finalists were from that state) drove NASCAR 08 cover athlete Tony Stewart to victory, walking away with a check for $10,000 presented by new EA Sports President Peter Moore. Coppinger also received a 42" Toshiba DLP TV, a $500 gift card to Sears, a $500 gift card to Kmart and the entire collection of EA Sports 08 games on a platform of his choice (in this case, PS3).

"I've been playing racing games like Bill Elliot Racing since I was a kid," said Coppinger, who's a college student. "Every Thursday night I get together with my friends and play a NASCAR 08 league on PS3."

Coppinger is studying to become a sports broadcaster, so it was great to have Musburger there during the finals. He even asked him for some advice once the race was at hand after two of the four finalists blew out their virtual engines.

"If EA Sports has the NASCAR Challenger here again I will come back here next year and I will repeat," said Coppinger.

Randy Chase, product marketing manager for NASCAR 08 at EA Sports, said due to the success of this year's challenge, he expects next year's tournament to grow larger. EA Sports focused on the southeast, which is the core base of NASCAR fans. Next year, Chase hopes to add even more markets to the competition. With both the Madden Challenge and NBA Live Challenge migrating to ESPN TV programming over the past few years, Chase said there's the potential for the NASCAR Challenge to head to that network, especially since ESPN now broadcasts races again.

This year's NASCAR Challenge gained traction as an expansion of an in-game advertising deal with Craftsman, which sponsors the NASCAR Truck Series. Scott Howard, manager of marketing partners at Craftsman, said the company wanted to target a more mainstream audience and decided to focus on the NASCAR 08 game as part of its overall plans.

"We're looking to get more involved in emergent media and we wanted to do more than just the in-game branding," said Howard.

Craftsman, the official tools of NASCAR, has a special playable fantasy Nextel Cup car in the new game. In addition, Craftsman sponsored the customization shop in the game, which allows players to tune their cars.

"Players who tune their car will automatically earn a Craftsman Mechanic Award," said Howard. "We talked to EA Sports about using our brand for a tournament, and the NASCAR Challenge is the result of that. We want this to be an annual event and we want to make this bigger and better."

Chase said that while NASCAR 09 for PlayStation 2 is being developed in the new Raleigh, NC studio, the next generation versions will continue to be developed at EA's Tiburon Studio, home to Madden, NCAA Football and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Golf. The new Raleigh Studio will ramp up and work on next generation games, but for franchises outside of NASCAR, added Chase.

When it comes to future NASCAR game SKUs, Chase said Tiburon is exploring options for the PSP franchise, which could come out every other year. In addition, the studio is talking to consumers about other consoles like Wii and Nintendo DS NASCAR games.

"Our next gen NASCAR games focus on the simulation aspect of the sport," said Chase. "For Wii, it's important to understand what that consumer would want in a racing game. The Wii product would likely be a much different product than the NASCAR games we've come out with to date."