The 2015 NASCAR season is right around the corner which means one thing, its almost Daytona 500 time. Not only will you be able to watch the Daytona 500 on February 22nd but you will be able to compete in the virtual iRacing Daytona 500 between February 19th-23rd.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/yRR-7a8DPIw[/youtube]
Like in past years, the entire 500 miles can be run online against 31 (should be 42…) other competitors from all around the globe. Unlike past years, the race is now part of the official NASCAR iRacing Series.
The Daytona 500 use to be a stand-alone “World Tour” event like the 2.4 Hours of Daytona and 1.2 Hours of Sebring. Now the race caries a little more weight as part of the season long championship in the NASCAR series.
This also means you’ll get multiple shots at the race. Just like every other race in the series, four fixed setup races and three open setup races will go off between February 19th-22nd. This is good for a few reasons. First, less load on the servers, which have had issues in past Daytona 500’s. Second, if you get caught up in the “big one (wreck),” you’ll have another shot at it.
The bad part of this format is I think it makes the race a little less special. One of the things that made the 24 Hours of Daytona special last week was that you only had one shot. If you get caught up in a wreck, that’s racing and you have to come back next year, just like real world.
With that said, I do understand the integration into the season long championship and having a stand-alone race would be redundant. Compromises, eh?
Lets talk race distance. While nearly every race in the NASCAR series is half distance of the real Sprint Cup races, a handful of races are the full distance. The Daytona 500 is one of them. 500 miles at Daytona is grueling. I drove nearly five hours in last week’s 24 Hours of Daytona for team Inside Sim Racing and that wasn’t easy. The 500’s I’ve done in the past were way harder. They take forever, especially if there are a lot of cautions. NASCAR drivers are the real endurance drivers in my opinion.
With that said, I think I’m going to give it another go this year. How about you?
2015 NASCAR iRacing Series Info
Description of series: This is the official series that follows the weekly Sprint Cup track schedule, racing the Gen-6 cars for the entire NASCAR Sprint Cup Season.
Objective: A special event style official series aimed at providing fun and competitive NASCAR racing for every license level except Rookie. This series is also intended to have a direct tie-in to the excitement of the real world NASCAR Sprint Cup Series by being at the same tracks each week and battling through a long and varied scheduled – just like the real world drivers.
Setups: There will be both Open and Fixed setup series running concurrently.
Race times:
Fixed Series:
Friday 2:00 GMT (Thursday 9:00pm est)
Saturday 10:00 GMT (Saturday 5:00am est)
Saturday 17:00 GMT (Saturday 12:00pm est)
Monday 2:00 GMT (Sunday 9:00pm est)
Open Series:
Thursday 2:00 GMT (Wednesday 9:00pm est)
Saturday 2:00 GMT (Friday 9:00pm est)
Sunday 15:00 GMT (Sunday 10:00am est)
*We will be adjusting GMT start times after the US switches to Daylight Savings Time. GMT start times will change beginning March 8 and switch back again on November 22. The Eastern Times will be consistent throughout the full season.
Race distance: Approximately half the distance of the real world race. Several races will be full length including the Daytona 500, Charlotte 600, Michigan (June), Brickyard, Watkins Glen, Talladega (October) and Homestead races.
iRacing member eligibility: Oval license level D4.0 class and above are eligible. This will be an oval license class series even though several of the races will be held on road courses.
Resets: No resets
Server farms: US Servers only
Qualifying: Single car 2-lap qualifier 15 minutes before each race; qualifying is not required to enter the race. Qualifying times from first race of the race week carries to subsequent races, unless you post a better time in a later qualifying session.
Lucky Dog rule: The iRacing Lucky Dog rule will be in effect
Incident limits: 22 max incidents
Race Warmup time: 10 minutes
Number of races and drop weeks:
Fixed series: 36 weeks
Open series: 36 weeks
Drop Weeks:
Fixed series: 5
Open series: 5
Field size: 32 cars max
Caution flags: Full course cautions on ovals and local yellows on road courses.
Other competition notes: These series will operate the same way as a standard iRacing series. There will be 10 standard divisions that are set based on normal procedures before the start of the series. Splitting will be done by iRating. Gridding will be done first by qualifying and then by iRating. You do not need to post a qualifying time in order to race. The standard iRacing points system is in place.
I’ll give it a go for sure 🙂
I do like the big ovals, they are big enough I can stay out of the way, so I will give it a try.
going to watch online if thats possible… still rookie, guess i’ll be in spectators 🙁