VRA Grand Touring Club Cup
Season 1
Rules Package
Contents
- About The Series
- Fee
- Liveries
- Car Choice
- Communication
- Championships
- Driver PRO/AM Selection
- Race Sessions
- Safety Car
- Point Scoring
- Bonus & Penalty Points
- Schedule
- Steward Reviews
- General
- Admins
1. About The Series
This is a championship for people who want to experience the thrill of driving GT3 cars, during European friendly time slots, in a controlled friendly league.
Our races take place on Sunday evenings, every other week (December 27th is an off week).
The cars we use are the Audi R8 LMS, BMW Z4, Ferrari 488, Ford GT, McLaren MP4-12C and the Mercedes AMG.
This is an open setup series where faster drivers are encouraged to help slower drivers with help, advice and hopefully the sharing of setups.
There are no minimum requirements for iRating or Safety Rating.
All of our races are shown live by Backfire Simsport TV.
The league is limited to 60 drivers.
If the league reaches it's 60 car limit, subsequent driver sign ups will be placed on the "Reserve" list. If a league driver drops out, the 1st reverve driver will be contacted and given 24 hours to pay the league fee to secure the place. If the 1st reserve driver fails to secure the place, the 2nd reserve driver will be contacted, and so on, until the place is filled.
As a league driver, please let us know if your circumstances change and you can no longer race with us. We can then offer your place to another driver.
2. Fee
The fee for each 12 meeting season is £10.00 GBP, this covers the broadcast cost and also the hosting fee’s.
Joining the league after Round 6 will cost £5.00 GBP.
Fee’s are payable to backfiresimsporttv@gmail.com via PayPal and need to be in GBP.
3. Liveries
Paint packs are used for the series. You are required to submit your paint in plenty of time to backfiresimsporttv@gmail.com.
You will need to re-submit your paint if you make any changes.
A decal layer will be added to each paint by the admins. This will cover the front windshield banner and rear winglets so please leave these area’s blank.
Any driver that does not submit a paint will be given our league default paint.
We have a number of BSTV logo’s that we can share if you want to help to advertise the broadcaster on your car.
We do ask that you have permission to use any logo’s on your car from the owner.
The deadline for submitting paints is 23:59 on the Saturday before each race. Paints submitted after this this will be added to the paint pack at the broadcasters discretion.
4. Car Choice
The car that you start your first point scoring race in, is the car that you are locked into until after Round 6, at this point, drivers will be given one chance to switch to a different car without penalty.
Any driver joining a race session in the wrong car will be deducted 200 points for each and every time this happens.
A driver can switch car before the "free transfer window", but they will be deducted 200 points for each car change.
A driver must notify the admin team before joining a race session if a car switch is taking place.
We will use the standard iRacing BOP.
5. Communication
We have our own Discord server for race nights and general chit chat.
We know most teams and drivers run their own voice comms so it is not mandatory to use our Discord. However, the broadcast and post race interviews will be done using the BSTV Discord server.
A link to join our Discord server is on our website.
6. Championships
We have a PRO Championship, an AM Championship and a TEAMS championship.
Drivers are allowed 1 drop round to allow for any unforeseen circumstances, so your total points in the championship will be calculated from your best 11 rounds from the 12 available rounds.
Teams are made up of one or two drivers, and both drivers score towards the team championship.
7. Driver PRO/AM Selection
In order to keep the championship fair, and also to give the “slower” drivers something to race for, drivers will be placed into either the PRO or AM categories by the admin team before the start of the season.
The process to determine who is PRO and who is AM is as follows :-
Sunday 16th August, all iRatings from league members will be collected and the “average” iRating will be calculated. This is known as the Season 1 League Average.
Drivers above the average will be placed in PRO, and drivers below the average will be placed in AM. Any driver with the exact league averaged will be placed by the admin team.
The PRO & AM drivers will then be announced.
Any subsequent new members will be decided by the season 1 league average.
The decision is final and will not be changed until the following season where the same process will be followed and a new league average obtained.
PRO drivers will be given a red front windshield banner and AM drivers will be given a yellow front windshield banner.
8. Race Sessions
Our servers start at 5pm GMT on race days.
Practice = 60 mins
Qualifying = 30 mins
Race = 90 mins
Fuel Limit = 65%
Sessions begin at Sunrise sim time
We use iRacing dynamic weather
We strongly suggest that you join any session through the LEAGUE > LEAGUE SESSIONS tab on iRacing as some drivers have had issues in joining sessions through the HOSTED tab.
9. Safety Cars
During each race there may be a safety car with a full course caution. The caution will be thrown by the admin team for the following reasons.
Random Safety Car - Before each race, a random yes/no will be generated to decide if the random safety car will be a part of the race or not. If YES is generated, a random number between 15 & 75 will then be created by the broadcaster (camera man). The drivers and commentators will not know the outcome of the random number. The number relates to the minute of the race and if a caution has not occurred (blocked track) before this minute, the admins will bring out the yellow flags and normal caution rules apply. Due to the track length at Le Mans, there will only be a safety car if the track is blocked.
Blocked Track - At any point during the race that the admin team feel that the track is blocked due to an accident, the admins will bring out the yellow flags and normal caution rules apply.
Notes - If a caution comes out before the random safety car minute, then the random safety car will not be implemented.
If the track is blocked after the random safety car, the caution will still take place.
All restarts are single file, lapped cars to the back.
10. Point Scoring
| Position | Points |
11. Bonus & Penalty Points
Pole Position - The driver gaining pole position from the qualifying session will receive 5 bonus points.
Fastest Lap - The driver with the fastest lap in the race will receive 5 bonus points.
Incident Points - Each driver will receive 1 penalty point for every incident point they collect.
Drive Through Penalty - On reaching 20 incident points in any race, a driver will receive a black flag drive through penalty.
12. Schedule
13. Steward Reviews
From time to time things can get heated and/or mistakes may happen.
If you feel aggrieved by a situation, we ask that you do the following.
Allow a 12 hour cooling off period before protesting
View the incident from different angles and different cars
DO NOT abuse any other drivers involved via voice or text
If after reviewing the incident, you feel that you need to protest it, please use the protest form stating which race, which lap, and which cars were involved.
The race control admin team will review the incident, give you an honest view on the incident, and apply penalties where required.
All decisions are final.
Drivers gaining a position using unfair means are expected to give places back.
We pride ourselves on sportsmanship and clean racing so if you recognise that you have unfairly gained a position, then please allow a position reversal to take place at your earliest opportunity.
Any driver found to be abusive towards another driver, on any of our media platforms, Facebook, Discord or iRacing, via chat or text will face a pitlane start for the next race they attend. A second offence will be penalised with a race meeting ban, and a third offence will result in the driver being excluded from the league. No arguments.
14. General
Black flags will only be cleared during practice sessions.
We use iRacing dynamic weather so bear in mind that the weather conditions will change from session to session.
You will get 1 free repair per race. Please note that any slight damage, even from taking a curb too vigorously can result in your free repair being used. You can turn this off and decide when you want to use your free repair.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact one of the admins or email one of us from the contact list below.
15. Admins
Clyde Whiting
Pete Bingham
Sam Buzin
Bill Switzer
By entering any race you are agreeing to have read and understood the above rules.