How do iRacing series work?

[Scrambles]

Hi guys,

Can someone explain to me how iRacing series/leagues actually work? There is very little info on their website that I can find. Do they run championships similar to typical sim racing leagues, with set races, at set tracks, at set times, with qualifying?

When I had a subscription way back in 2011, there were no such championships available on a D license. You could only jump onto the server in short (less than 30 mins) races and race against whoever happened to be there at the time. I seem to remember they were called 'Strength of field' series or something. Such a system really doesn't interest me, though I understand I may have to do some 'grinding' to improve my license rating to begin with.

Can anyone offer any insight or send me a link that explains things?

I'm in Australia so I'm worried about time zones too.

Thanks

 

[Decenten]

Mazda Cup and skippy have races every hour. they usually have enough to go official
every other series has races every 2 hours bar Indy winter series and the pro series. But some dont get the participation and therefore most of the time dont go official. There are times that are high size of field races for those usually on a weekend and can be found on the forum

 

[xnorb]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but here's how i see it:

Every series goes for 12 week.
The Mazda Cup goes from December 15th 2015 to March 7th 2016 (guess all do)
Every week the track changes. Last week was Okyama (short), this week is Lime Rock (chicane)
You do races each week to score points for the championship.

Don't know how those points are calculated and which championship points are used for your ranking (as you can do multiple races each week in the same series) but basically, that's what those series are in iRacing.

There are several series available and the higher your license the more series you have to choose from.

 

[Scrambles]

Thanks for the responses guys.

...usually have enough to go official

What do you mean by going official?

Is there anyway to see the grid/participation sizes at any given time? Like I said I'm in Australia, and I'm worried that server numbers will be low when most of the Euros and Americas are sleeping There's no way I'd pay for a subscription before seeing the numbers.

 

[Scrambles]

Also, what sort of length races are typically hosted? Do they run many events that are long e.g. 80+ minutes?

 

[xnorb]

In the Rookie series races are usually 10-30 laps long, but of course also depends on the track.
The Mazda Cup seems to run races around 20-25 minutes. (which seems to be the race length iRacing is aiming for in all series if i'm not mistaken)

In C Class you start running longer, highlight being 180 minutes endurance GT3 races.

 

[Decenten]

by go official I mean that the races have more than 6 participants and therefore irating can be gained or lost and championship points are available

 

[Scrambles]

Thanks for the info
How full or empty are the servers during the Aussie arvo/nightime @Decenten? Early morning for you @xnorb?

 

[xnorb]

I just started actually racing, but for the Mazda Cup i was able to get grids of 10-11 racers every time i registered for a race (and usually there were 4 splits, so plenty people).
Don't know about other series, tho.

 

[snyperal]

There's usually quite a few Australians about although I'm in gmt and unfamiliar with their timezones.

I think the most common race length is about 30-40 minutes with the occasional foray into lengthier races. You will pretty much always have a race in gt3 or gt1 although it's not always clean and respectful. Sometimes downright poor. Other series, ie; skip barber and ruf c spec have a mini community full of clean, helpful racers.

 

[Fritz Anker]

Each series has their own participation minimum to go official. Some are higher than 6 - I seem to remember SRF requiring 10, but that was easily found almost every race. Also, you are seeded for the season within a division, division 1 being the fastest. Not sure the algorithm that determines the division, but I'm sure iRating, and how you placed in the last season is in there. The divisions can run together in each session including race. The races themselves can be splitted - if participation is very high - I've had races with 80+ drivers registered. Splits are determined by iRating so even the top split will have various divisions within them.

The last I read regarding championship points' calculation, is it averages your top 50% of race points for each week. This is may be different depending on series, and it might have changed too. So, for a given week, if you ran four races, the bottom two will drop and it will average the other two for your champ points. Think it's a good approach, but the downside is if you race twice and win a gaggle of points, you may not want to race that series again until the next week. Unless you have a boatload of confidence, talent, luck, or just don't care about the championship.

I also wouldn't worry too much about servers. If you have a pretty decent connection you'll be find no matter where you land. iRacing's netcode is pretty darn solid - if not the best in the business. There are "blinkers" and people do get dropped from time to time, but I would bet that is client side issues for the most part.

 

[xnorb]

I also wouldn't worry too much about servers. If you have a pretty decent connection you'll be find no matter where you land. iRacing's netcode is pretty darn solid - if not the best in the business. There are "blinkers" and people do get dropped from time to time, but I would bet that is client side issues for the most part.

In simracing in general the netcode is damn solid (AC aside, no clue what they screwed up) as long as your internet connection is stable, you are basically fine.

 

[Scrambles]

Thanks @Fritz Anker

About the servers, it's not the netcode I'm worried about, it's whether or not the servers are empty during the Australian afternoons.

 

[Decenten]

On weekends its you wont have a problem. At around 7pm from Thursday onwards races go official for v8s in aus. Mazdas, skippies and ruf cup go official quite often as well

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

at the beginning you will probably want to look into the series which run decent grids at aussie times. there is a sizable australian community on iRacing, see if you can find any contacts outside the iRacing forums.
once you are on the iRacing homepage, you can look up the results for the season running for every single day at a glance, this will tell you how many people joined at what time gmt.
some series run every two hours, these rae the less populated series.
divisions and iRating come into play lateron.
if you were a member back in 2011, you will pick up where you left, i.e. you will probably start with all gains or losses you aquired back then, both in Safety Rating (SR) (which determines how far/fast you advance from rookie via d, c, b, a to pro) and the iRating, which determines a) which grid you are put on if a race splits into two or more grids, b) what number your car gets on the grid in a race (not in practice): highest iR gets the 1 and from there down, c) what division you are put in at the beginning of a new season. Of these, the car-number is the most important, as it gives you some orientation of how you stack up against the other players on the grid.
if you are still rookie, your iRating and Saftey Rating are not displayed openly but still figured out in the background (if i remember correctly), once you advance to d-level, they are shown.
quali these days is attached to the race session, two laps on an empty track, a set time to run them in (e.g. 7 minutes). only clean laps are counted (in which no SR was lost), those not setting a time are put at the end with lowest number car first.