Wonderful humans of ZED RUN – welcome to this week’s edition of the ZED RUNdown!

As we approach the end of February on the verge of more announcements, improvements, and changes, now seems like as good time as any to focus on what makes ZED RUN tick: the humans. Everyone from those working day-to-day to make the game great, and you, our incredible community, who continues to drive the game to places it will thrive.

In celebration of all the passion, smiles, brains, and energy found in this space, we’ve prepared a special human-focused edition of the ZED RUNdown. Come for the racehorses, stay for the people who make ZED run.

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REWIND

Virtually Human Studio posted the latest entry in its Humans of VHS series, with the most recent team member spotlighted being Chief Marketing Officer, Shannon Dix.

Follow along on Medium for more company-related content, including deep dives on all the incredible team members that make up Virtually Human Studio.

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NASCAR Cup Series Weekend at ZED RUN Recap

Those of you who watched the thrilling finish to this year’s Daytona 500 know it was one for the ages, with Austin Cindric outpacing Bubba Wallace by just a nose as the pair left race cars crashing to the finish in their wake. NASCAR Cup Series Weekend at ZED RUN was no different, with some incredibly close finishes resulting in split-second time differences amongst heated competition.

Highlights captured from the first of many 2022 NASCAR activations at ZED RUN:

• Nearly 35,000 racehorses participated in our NASCAR Racing Challenges
• 109 unique stables took home a racing challenge prize
• An overwhelming majority of NASCAR ZED Pass prize winners won multiple $100 prizes
• Some NASCAR ZED Pass holders took home three or four shares of the racing challenge prize pool

Thank you to all who participated, and a special congratulations to those NASCAR ZED Pass holders who capitalised on the ability to take home multiple prizes. Expect to hear much more as our team is finalising exciting plans for NASCAR ZED Pass holders.

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Product and UX Updates

In an expanded effort to bring our community the biggest and most up-to-date product and UX updates, we’ve decided to combine the two departments in one massive fortnightly Roundup post. The new format allows our teams more time to collaborate and provide in-depth updates on not only what changes are imminent, but what we’re doing to adapt to the hottest topics on the community’s mind.

Our first double-stuffed Roundup dropped this past week. If you missed it, check it out here!

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Meet the ZED RUN Team: Zorine Te

ZED RUN is incredibly bullish on the team, and we’d love for you to meet some of the talented humans who make up our unique diversity that stretches across the globe.

This week, we’re spotlighting a member of our marketing team, Zorine Te. Originally from Australia and currently based in Los Angles, California, Te comes to ZED RUN with a vast amount of experience, specifically in esports, having worked at Yahoo! Esports prior to her arrival at VHS.

Tell us about your role! How did you start working for ZED RUN?

I’m a Senior Marketing Manager, with a focus on the partnerships and marketing aspects of ZED RUN. A few months ago, a recruiter reached out to me about an opportunity where my games industry experience would be a great strength to the company, and here I am today!

What’s your favorite hobby?

Video games. I spend a lot of my spare time playing various video games, across a variety of genres. I can’t imagine my life without gaming.

Who is your role model and why?

Itachi Uchiha from the Naruto series. The pinnacle of self-sacrifice.

What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given?

“Go after your dreams with energy and passion, or you may as well stand back and watch them wash down the drain” – The Meaning of Life, Bradley Trevor Greive.

To me, it’s better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.

Where do you see Web3 in three years?

Barely on the cusp of mainstream adoption, and hopefully some more problem-solving for the environmental considerations have been achieved.

Thanks, Zorine! Connect and follow her on Twitter.

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Creative Corner

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A few weeks ago our team teased an image of a ZED RUN underwater racetrack. At the time, we weren’t quite sure if our creative team was serious about taking the plunge or just showing off. As it turns out, they were super serious! So serious, in fact, that the idea of bringing your digital thoroughbreds 20,000 leagues under the sea is close to reality. We’ll have to learn later how the racehorses actually get down there.

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Community Achievements

Who doesn’t love an underdog? Or in the case of ZED RUN, an under-horse? In any event, the success story that is Super Variant — a Z268 racehorse owned by @krazykatkatalberta of Krazy Stars stables — is just too good not to share.

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Pressed for time and wanting to participate in the ZED RUN #SuperFoal event, Kat, who the community affectionately refers to as the ‘Crazy Scientist’, says she did some homework. Super Variant was ultimately just a shot in the dark that ended up being a bullseye.

“I opened the stud barn, saw a Slate Gray Z268, looked at his lineage — which had good looking history, despite being a Pacer — and decided to take a chance on him,” Kat says. “I saw the Father had run two races — a first-place finish, and a 12th place finish — so, I figured he might pass down some variance.

Did he ever. Turns out, Super Variant is a fire-breathing dragon in marathon races and recently made it to the final of the Fibonacci Cup and qualified for the Podium Plate. The lesson here? According to Kat, it’s that hard work and research can equate to success at ZED RUN, regardless of stable size or investment.

“I think that this should give hope to the smaller stables that may feel they can’t compete with the big boys.”

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Community Stories

Let’s be honest — every NFT project these days advertises that they have the best community. It’s easy to retweet each other and talks about how much you share an interest in a pfp. It’s really no different than every sports team claiming they have the best fans.

But what sets the ZED RUN community apart from the pack are the multitude of examples of community members making real differences in fellow members’ lives; many who, before ZED RUN, were complete strangers.

Enter the story of ZED RUN stable owner UpperMoon, and how a chance meet-up in 2021 at ZED RUN NYC led to a life-changing gesture this past week from a fellow community member.

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“I lost my trucking business due to COVID,” UpperMoon says. “During a casual conversation at the ZED RUN NYC meet-up in November, I was speaking to one of my Blood Tool brothers, a group of ZED RUN community members led by a well-known stable owner @DanShan. I told him I was working on reopening another trucking business but it wasn’t going well. Long story short, he told me he would help fund it, and fast-forward to today with his help, I was able to buy a semi-truck and can provide for my family again.”

UpperMoon says the meeting and follow through on a promise have changed his family’s life, and reinforced his belief that ZED RUN has built a truly tight-knit community, one that looks after each other both online and in real life.

“For as much as we complain at times, it’s because we love ZED so much. The ZED RUN community is so passionate and incredibly giving.”

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Content Creators

To end the week, we’d like to give a shoutout to all the creators who have been working with the ZED RUN team behind the scenes. We’ve been conducting a weekly check-in call with some of the most trusted, beloved, and well-known ZED RUN content creators to learn more about each other, and how we can work together to grow this incredible community.