Vehicle tracking company Tracker has developed a virtual online game and tracking system that allows users to track and compete against racers in the 2014 Cape Epic mountain-bike race, taking place from March 23 to 30, in real time.
On the Tracker Ride Epic website, users can track riders in real time by searching a team, rider or race number, or decide to view the top ten riders.
Tracker explained in a media release that the live rider-tracking feature offered two views. In the elevation view, users could see whether the specific rider that was being tracked was on a flat, uphill or downhill section, and where the water points were located, while the second view gave users a bird’s eye view of the terrain with an application programming interface from Google Maps, enabling the users to see live images.
Further, owing to the integration of the live tracking platform and the Ride Epic online game, players of the game had the ability to pit themselves against actual riders in the race.
“[Therefore], as a player passes some of the avatars in the game, he is passing real riders in the race,” Tracker noted.
The player with the top score at the end of each stage of the Cape Epic was eligible for daily prizes from sportswear retailer Columbia, Internet service provider RSA Web and cycling retailer Cycle Lab, with the top player at the end of the campaign winning the grand prize of R25 000.
Absa was also offering an additional entry into their Diepsloot Mountain Bike Academy competition, of which the grand prize was a Project 1 Trek mountain bike worth R100 000, for players of the game that collected eight Absa tokens.