The IZOD INDYCAR Series and iracing.com are very excited to announce a new online premier racing series that will feature virtual INDYCAR action!!! The series will feature both road and oval courses, and allow iracing members from all over the world to compete against each other in a live format. The overall winner and top finishers will be crowned at the end of the 16 race season, scheduled to take 30 weeks to complete. Bimonthly results will be posted and featured on a dedicated webpage on INDYCAR.com. This premier series will also feature a road and oval champion just like the real-world series! The Premier series will begin on Saturday, February 19 th. The races will begin every 4 hours in a 24 period, providing drivers in every time zone with an opportunity to participate. All races will occur on Saturday to maximize participation, giving 6 possible races in one day. At the end of 30 weeks (and 16 total races) an Overall IZOD INDYCAR Premier Series Champion, a Road Premier Series Champion and an Oval Premier Series Champion will be crowned. Races will take place on Saturdays only, all day, one race occurring every 4 hours. Qualifying will be open during the week proceeding the Saturday race day. Drivers will be placed into race splits by irating using a snake-splitting format (see below), and then ordered on the individual race grid by qualifying time. This divides the racers in as even a group as possible so that race points will be close. The results of each race will be reported on the IZOD INDYCAR Series webpage as well as being available on an iracing website page location to be determined. The top 20 Overall racers, the top 10 Road and top 10 Oval drivers will have their names displayed on a standings page created by INDYCAR and the full standings will be available on iracing.com. In addition this series will feature full news coverage on INDYCAR and inracingnews.com. It is also expected that selected races will be broadcast live for fans to view worldwide.
The Premier series points will be calculated in the same way as Standard FIRSTsanctioned series except that a seeding process or snake splitting will be used. (Ref: FIRST Official Sporting Code Section 4.6). The Premier series will include one drop week for each category, Road and Oval. For the sake of clarity, the overall championship points total will factor in one Oval drop week and one Road drop weeks. The Premier Series races will not include resets. Race splits will differ from standard iracing.com Series. Race splits will be made based on a seeding process. The driver registered for the event with the highest irating will be seeded #1, next highest #2 and so on. See Example below. Qualified Drivers may compete in as many races as they choose each race day (every other Saturday, 6 races per day). The best 50% of a driver s race performances (based on points scored) in a given Race Day will be averaged at the conclusion of each Official Series Day and that will be the driver s Race Week Point Total and count towards the season championship standings. Again this is the standard scoring method for an iracing standard official series. Seeding Process or Snake Splitting Example: Registered Drivers 100 Split into 4 races Server #1 Server #2 Server #3 Server #4 #1 Seed #2 Seed #3 Seed #4 Seed #8 Seed #7 Seed #6 Seed #5 Seed #9 Seed #10 Seed #11 Seed #12 Seed #16 Seed #15 Seed #14 Seed #13 Seed
The schedule of 16 races will be designed to mirror the actual INDYCAR schedule as much as allowable. The Premier Schedule is as follows: 2011 Schedule*: 16 Races, 8 Oval Races, 8 Road Races Michigan 2/19 Texas 6/11 Phoenix 3/5 Milwaukee 6/25 Laguna Seca 3/19 Sebring 7/9 Barber 4/2 Road America 7/23 Watkins Glen 4/16 Mid-Ohio 8/6 Homestead 4/30 New Hampshire 8/20 Mosport 5/14 Infineon IRL 9/3 Indy 5/28 Las Vegas 9/17 * Schedule is subject to change To be eligible to participate in the Premier Series, each driver must have a C license with a 4.0 minimum safety rating. A B license with any safety rating or above is also eligible. A driver must have both the Road and Oval minimum license requirements to participate in both the Road and Oval series. However, if a driver has a B license in only Road they can compete in only the Road Premier races. Same is true for the Oval side. No iracing employee or any employee of the IZOD IndyCar Series may be eligible to win this championship. The Overall Champion will be the driver with the highest calculated point total over the course of the 16 race, 30 week season. There is only one division in this series. The Overall Champion will win airfare, hotel accommodations, $1000 cash and a trophy. They will be flown to the final race in the real-world IZOD INDYCAR Series to be presented the trophy on stage in front of the introduction ceremony crowd.
OVERALL Premier Series Champion: -Hotel, airfare, and VIP tickets package for 2 people to the final IndyCar race at Las Vegas in 2011 -$1000 cash from iracing -Overall Champion Trophy Road Premier Series Champion: -$500 cash -Road Premier Series Trophy Road Premier Series 2 nd Place: Road Premier Series 3 rd Place: Road Premier Series 4 th Place: Road Premier Series 5 th Place: Oval Premier Series Champion: -$500 cash -Oval Premier Series Trophy Oval Premier Series 2 nd Place: Oval Premier Series 3 rd Place: Oval Premier Series 4 th Place: Oval Premier Series 5 th Place: Can be found on iracing.com member site Click here: http://membersmedia.iracing.com/pdfs/iracing_com_competition_contes t_rules_1_25_11.pdf