The NHRA stands poised to make a run at a demographic they haven't held firmly since the late 1960s, and to do so, they plan on playing games, literally. 

Since the pandemic hit in early 2020, NHRA has been working with video game developers to create a game that genuinely extols the virtues of the straight-line sport. 

A lot of the details on the upcoming game remain hush-hush, but what has leaked out, one can assume strategically, is it should be available in time for the Countdown. 

One person, who knows more about the game than he's allowed to tell, is NHRA's FoxSports announcer Brian Lohnes. 

Lohnes has been working on the voiceover aspect of the yet unnamed video game. 

"I like video games, but I wouldn't call myself a gamer per se, but I do like video games," Lohnes said.

Lohnes said his status is subject to change once he's allowed to take the game for a test run. 

"I will definitely be playing this if for no other reason than it's dominated a large portion of my life for a long time," Lohnes admitted. "It's funny because I think because of the fact that I don't necessarily live as a gamer per se, some people are really hardcore about it, I think it's good to be able to balance what we need to have in the game and what we want to have in the game and what the fans expect us to have in the game, and it's cool."

Lohnes understands there's a fine line between being cheesy and badass.

"There is, and this game will not be cheesy," Lohnes explained. "I think that's, to us, I think that's one of the most important things has been knowing the expectations of fans have a very high. People that want to play this game, I've been stopped in the pits a hundred times already walking in and out of here about, 'When's it coming out? What's it going to look like? I saw the teaser that went up. The car looks awesome. What's the Funny Car going to look like? What's the pro's car going to look like?" 

"So there is a lot of pressure on this thing, but I can tell you one thing, it will not be cheesy."

According to Lohnes, for his part, he's already done an estimated 3,000 lines of voiceover, which will make the game similar to the Madden NFL series in terms of realism. It's also made him a superstar in the eyes of his sons, who are chomping at the bit to play the game their father had a hand in developing. 

"The novelty of being on television wore off pretty quick, but the video game thing has reinvigorated my cool level with my sons, but I think ultimately what the game will be, and that's who I'm most excited for," Lohnes said. "I'm most excited for my teenage sons to get on and play this game as much as I want our hardcore fans to play it.

"The fact that it will be interactive to the point where you can stage events, and you're going to race other people. You got a buddy that lives in Saskatchewan, Canada, and you live in Massachusetts; you could hook up race against each other in this game. So way less about me being an announcer and way more about engaging a massive section of fans that we have not been able to talk to in the way they want to be talked to in a long time."

Lohnes also believes the realism of the game will help him better understand the challenges of racers and tuners, which, in turn, will make him a better announcer for understanding the big picture. 

"I think for the average person, there a massive amount of work going into the physics of the game, going into the interface of the game, if you will," Lohnes said. "The NHRA tech department has been super heavily involved with the development company to make this a program where if you just want to jump on the game and play, you can jump on the game and play. 

"If you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of what's making the car work and how you can make it go faster and how you can tune it, the ability that the fans will have, the players will have, to get in there and do that is not something they've had in any other drag racing game yet."

And this aspect of generating a line of interest amongst a much younger audience could make the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series a much younger demographic. 

Could NHRA have visions of its first Cole Trickle-type driver and tuner? One could only hope so. 

"As crazy as it sounds, the game will evolve. The game is kind of a living platform," Lohnes added. "So as this game evolves and as we evolve it, I really do hope that there will someday be somebody that comes out of this game and actually is able to tune a race car. At least basically, from what they're able to do in this game because the idea is to present as realistic a situation as we can for the really technically savvy people to get in there and try their hand at not knocking the supercharger off at 800 feet.

"We've seen it in road racing, we've seen it in open-wheel racing already. Companies like Nissan have put programs together where they have taken video game players that have been exceptionally good and put them in race cars, and they have become professional level race car drivers. So again, I think if we do the job right, and we've dedicated a lot of time to doing the job right, I do think that this will provide a platform where someone will be able to be ahead of the game when they go to license in a really fast race car.

NHRA has struggled since the Vietnam War era when 2.2 million young men, mostly just out of high school, were sent off to war.

"It gives us the biggest chance we've had in decades to reestablish a toe hold there that we can then expand," Lohnes said. "For us, I look at what the company's done in investing in our social media department, expanding there, and really changing the way we communicate with a lot of people to reach a younger audience, but that only takes us so far. When you get somebody to play the game, it's one thing to get somebody to like an Instagram post, or it's one thing to get somebody to interact with a TikTok video. We need to do all that, but when you get somebody engaged in the game, and they're either playing as a driver they know, or they're playing as themselves, and they begin to understand the competition, begin to understand how much it kills your soul to lose in the first round on Sunday. 

"That's what gets you to show up in real life and do this. So yeah, I think it's one tool, maybe the biggest tool we're going to have in the box over the next couple of years to really reestablish ourselves with that generation of potential fans."

Currently, the name of the game is up for discussion, with the options remaining as secret as national security. 

"There will be some stuff coming up that fans will be able to have some input, if you will, onto what the end result, the name of the game will be," Lohnes explained. "I actually don't know what the end result of that will be. I know that I have recorded things that have several options that will be presented to people."

Lohnes confirmed the production company used presently is GameMill Entertainment. 

"They're the overriding company we're working for, and then they work with a bunch of different people," Lohnes explained. "It's a global effort. So when I was in the recording studio, I had a Zoom call that was running in my ear, much like making the TV show. I had directors and producers in my ear from Europe. There are people in Belgium that are working on this game, and they were like, 'Reread that line with a little more enthusiasm." 

"This is as interesting a thing as I've ever been involved in, and it's as exciting a thing as I've ever been involved in, just because when we were starting to see things come in, we're starting to see the tracks that are being modeled. You're going to be racing on our race tracks, and the look of them is astounding. So I'm really excited because I think, knock on wood, we're going to overdeliver on what people's expectations are here."

And all drag racing fans have wanted are the same entertainment venues other so-called big-league motorsports enjoy. Lohnes believes their desires will soon be reality.