As of December 07th 2024 – Version 1.2
Disclaimer
This rulebook has been developed with the permission of IVRA. Significant portions of the content are based on IVRA’s official rulebook and have been adopted with their approval.
Preface
Top priority for all parties involved, primarily organization, racecontrol and drivers, should be the idea of sporting fairness. The following rules are binding for the organization as well as for the drivers/teams and aim to provide a reasonable and transparent framework for a sporty fair competition on the racetrack.
Above all stands iRacings Official Sporting Code & Code of Conduct. In any official SimRacing Republic session these rules are in action.
Additionally for any session hosted by SimRacing Republic the following ruleset applies.
If it proves necessary, racecontrol can make deviating decisions in favor or expense of participants, if provided that all participants receive the corresponding information. These decisions named by Race Control or Sporting are binding for all participants.
§1 General Code of Conduct (GCC)
Your primary goal, as a Team and/or a Driver, should always be to drive cleanly and safely while on track. All participants should strive to act professionally and demonstrate good sportsmanship at all times. We consider this to be mitigating misconduct on track, in chat, in the Discord server or anywhere else. Derogatory, offensive or otherwise inappropriate language is prohibited in all communication forums; SimRacing Republic reserves the right to evaluate potential problems on a contextual basis.
The following are examples of (but not an exhaustive list of) a breach of the GCC:
- Bribing or attempting to bribe anyone connected with an event
- Acting to enable a person, team, or car known to be ineligible, not properly entered, or registered to participate in an event
- Intentional wrecking during any official session
- Failing to comply with Series Organisers, Race Control, or any other official or staff member instructions
- Trolling and/or any unprofessional behaviour that is to the detriment of SimRacing Republic in any forum
- Attempting to subvert the iRacing anti-cheat software
- Attempting to exploit a bug or glitch in the iRacing programming to gain a competitive advantage
- Interfering in another car’s session whilst no longer competing in the session
- Producing driving behaviours or manoeuvres that provide advantages to affiliated vehicles that are outside of the class or lap the car is on. Cars in all classes must drive to the pace of their class, within reason.
Any person in violation of the GCC may be subject to warnings, penalties, suspension(s) or removal from the series as organisation see fit. If any person feels that a participant of SimRacing Republic is in violation of the GCC, please notify Series Organisers directly through Discord in a private message, outlining the concerning behaviour, and the situation will be assessed.
SimRacing Republic reserves the right to change the regulations before and during the season. These changes will be communicated in the Discord Server.
§1.1 Simulation & Organization
All races are hosted by SimRacing Republic. In order to participate in a race, you have to use iRacing in the latest version and if necessary create a team.
As a means of communication Discord is used. Access to each leagues channels will be granted after confirmation of your entry. For Further Details regarding communication, read through §4 Communcation
§ 1.2 Conditions of participation
§ 1.2.1 Connection to Server
Each participant must have adequate hardware that is capable of ensuring a fluid image representation in conjunction with corresponding settings of the simulation, even with a full field of starters. The use of a headset or microphone is not required, but is recommended for the purpose of communicating via Discord.
§ 1.2.2 Entry / Teams
Nomination for a series or event is binding and can be canceled up to a specific date in the respective invitation to tender. The minimal safety and iratings are also executed within that invitation.
§1.2.3 Waiting list
Excessive entries lead to a waiting list. If not all places on the grid are assigned after the closing date, all teams on the waiting list will be contacted in descending order, according to: first come, first serve. Nominations of a team, that has already received spots in the event or series, are placed at the end of the waiting list.
§1.2.4 Entry-fee
In some series or events, an entry fee is payable for successful designation to cover running costs. Further information is to be found in the tender.
§1.3 Registration
In order to make a correct entry, the form found on the discord server must be completely filled in. First, the status of the entry is set to “reviewing” and, if accepted, set to “confirmed” or, if not accepted is set to “declined”. If your status is declined, we will give you a description of why that is in the respective registration tab.
§1.4 Skins
The skins will be distributed via discord, as we use separate decals for our events to represent our sponsors and to ensure a high quality stream. Skins are made available in good time before the event.
In order to enable the distribution of skins before free practice, your own skins must be uploaded to the designated Folder no later than Saturday 00:00 GMT one week prior to the event. Each series is going to have an own upload link, that you need to follow.
We will review all skins for general terms of conditions and approve them accordingly. The status of each teams skin is available through the google sheet.
§1.4.1 Skin Terms of Conditions
The cardesign (skin) should be based on a usual motorsport design of racing cars. Offensive cardesigns are generally not tolerated. By uploading the car file, the team assures the broadcaster that he holds the rights to all logos used or that he has permission to use them. The submitter of a design refrains from submitting any rights to the design in favor of the organizer.
§2 Organization
§2.1 Minimum nominations per class
To prevent a class of being undercrowded, a minimum number of vehicles per class is defined. This amounts to 5 vehicles. If this number is not reached, the slots of the corresponding class will be distributed proportionally to all other classes.
In order to meet the fairness idea of the rules, the teams that wanted to start in the canceled class are asked first for a slot in one of the other classes. Only then will the waiting list be served.
§2.2 Inc-Limit
Generally, an Inc-limit is set. This may be adapted to each event and can be found in the corresponding drivers briefing. The leagues standard Inc-limit will be set according to 50 for endurance races and 20 for sprint races. Follow up incidents are 25 for endurance and 5 for sprint races.
After exceeding the set inc-limit, iRacing will automatically give you a penalty.
§2.3 Separation of powers
In order to ensure that a series or event runs smoothly, tasks in the sense of the league are distributed differently. Generally, these tasks fall into the following categories:
- Organization
- Racecontrol
§2.3.1 Racecontrol
In general, all SimRacing Republic events are monitored either by an afterrace or by a live race control.
A Live-RC should always be preferred. Whether this is actually used depends on the organization and its feasibility within the series.
§2.3.1.1 Live Racecontrol (LRC)
In any case, if a LRC is used, it is sufficient if the incident is assessed by one RC member only. RC will then directly speak out the penalty according to our Penalty Catalogue.
§2.3.1.2 Afterrace Racecontrol (ARC)
If a series or event uses an ARC, there is a 24 hour protest period after the end of the (last) race. All protests received later than that are rejected.
An incident in an ARC must be assessed by at least two marshalls. If there is no equal opinion in the penalty decision, a third member is enclosed. He looks at the incident and makes a final decision. His decision can no longer be challenged.
§2.3.2 File a Protest
During a race, there may be situations in which one team or driver is disadvantaged. In order to officially check these situations for sporting regulations, a protest must be filed.
If you are to protest, generally all protests must be submitted using the slash command for the Racecontrol bot called /protest. Other types and forms of protests are ignored. Mark that you are only allowed to use this command in your respective team channel.
Hint: If a LRC is used, you might find the respective incident already under investigation, so there is no need to file a protest. Please, double-check the specific race control sheet to find out.
§2.4 Spotter
It is mandatory to use a spotter. This can be done either virtually by iRacing or external programs like Crew Chief. Alternatively, a team member can also act as a spotter.
In order to comply with the fairness concept of this series, all incidents that obviously could have been avoided with a spotter will be penalized severely.
§2.5 Briefing
During the briefing, all drivers must join in the appropriate discord channel. The race directors address the most important things of the event and walk through the Briefing document shortly.
The Briefing is a must for all participating in the event. If team racing is enabled, each team must appear with at least one team member. If a team or driver is not present in the briefing room, a penalty will be imposed.
§2.6 Legal information
By submitting the entry, the participant agrees to refrain from any claims against the SimRacing Republic and its sponsors. Any legal action is not allowed.
§3 Ranked System
In order to offer the best possible experience to all participants, we do require a basic understanding of simracing standards. Through its rating systems, iRacing offers the possibility to check general driving skills based off their iRating and Saftey rating in advance. However, those are just numbers that may not fit the actual racing capabilites. For this reason, we are re-evaluating ranks according to their system, yet we may shift a driver in ranks as we see fit.
Ranks are reviewed twice a year, on January 1st & July 1st.
§3.1 Ranks
| Rank | iRating | Saftey Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Iron | < 2000 | any |
| Bronze | >= 2000 | any C-class or above |
| Silver | >= 3000 | any B-class or above |
| Gold | >= 4000 | any B-class or above |
| Platin | >= 5000 | any B-class or above |
| Diamond | >= 6000 | any B-class or above |
| Iridium | >= 7000 | any B-class or above |
§4 Communication
In terms of communication between Teams, Drivers, Racecontrol and Organization, Discord is used. Once you downloaded the app, make sure to be part of the Discord server, by clicking this link.
A. All official communication from Teams must be communicated in the SR Discord server team area and acknowledged by a Series Organiser. Official communication includes items like changing cars, car numbers, or Team IDs. Any information sent in via PMs on iRacing or Discord is not considered official.
B. During races the iRacing radio functionality will be used by Race Control for race communications. All drivers are required to have their radio enabled and their @RACECONTROL receiver turned on. Drivers or teams who fail to have their Race Control receiver turned on will not be exempt from any penalties that occur because of such negligence.
C. There should be no communication between teams during qualifying or race on any public radio or text channel in-sim. This includes the preset text messages like “Pass Right”, “Sorry” and “Pitting In”.
D. For any non-essential communication, Race Control will use the Discord server.
E. To contact Race Control, teams must use the slash command of the racecontrol bot called /rc on the discord server in their respecitve teams channel.