New Fast Track License

[Troy Dalton]

Great news!

iRacers with High Safety Ratings Get In-Season Upgrades

No one likes to wait, and beginning next month with the start of 2009 Season 4 iRacers who achieve a safety rating of 4.0 and fulfill minimum participation requirements will no longer have to wait for the end of a 12-week season to be promoted to the next higher license level – they’ll be automatically promoted immediately and eligible for all the benefits of their new license.

“It seems fair that drivers who demonstrate a really superior ability to race safely should be able to advance their licenses at a faster rate,” said Dave Kaemmer, iRacing’s CEO. “We’ll maintain our standard end-of-season promotion schedule for racers who have at least a 3.0 safety rating, but less than 4.0. This new FastTrack option provides additional incentive for clean driving.”

Kaemmer noted that new automated program also provides for a swifter penalty for drivers who exhibited really bad driving habits, including in iRacing’s Pro series.

“The incentives for good driving are both positive and negative,” Kaemmer noted. “Drivers whose safety ratings drop below 1.0 at any point during a season, including participants in the Pro Series, will be demoted immediately to the next lower license level. This is a pretty serious penalty for a Pro license holder; there won’t be any FastTrack promotions to Pro status, so they’ll also have to wait until the next year before they can be eligible again.”

Holders of C and B licenses are eligible for mid-season promotion and demotion under the FastTrack program. D license holders may be promoted but are not subject to demotion, while A and Pro license holders are subject only to the demotion part of the program. Rookie promotions are unaffected by the FastTrack program; those promotions will continue to take place every four weeks.

Complete details of the FastTrack license promotion program will be added to the Sporting Code prior to the program’s implementation at the start of 2009 Season 4.

[vendsale]

Pretty cool! I know it's a long wait for license promotions when your just starting out.

[TimCollier]

Not a bad idea...as long as it doesn't create guys who don't race and just drive in safety circles all month.

I'm probably going to let my membership lapse anyway...after trying it for over a month, I still can't see the value of the service, at least not at the level they want you to pay for it. And racing against guys I don't know (and end up most likely not wanting to race with them again) just seals the deal.

[Troy Dalton]

I'm no iRacing fan boy, but I do think iRacing got it right with the "Safety Ratings" because it encourages drivers to drive within their own abilities.

Regardless of your sim of choice, open online racing or closed league racing, there is always the temptation to push the envelope beyond the cars/drivers abilities. Everyone does it and for the most part it is a very common practice and it happens all to often within the confines of a race. This is likely because there are NO repercussions from doing so. In the real world there are thousands of dollars and lives at risk.

iRacing's Safety Ratings force everyone to drive in a manner that makes them consider the fallout from driving outside of the envelope. Now I'm not saying that iRacing doesn't have it's share of knuckleheads, but in my experience, the racing is cleaner and drivers are less apt to take unnecessary risks in iRacing, which is much more realistic. However, that doesn't mean the racing isn't spirited. I've had some great battles with many drivers and only once did I get into a scrap with someone that required a PM.

In my opinion, iRacing's Safety Rating is by far the best possible solution for encouraging clean driving and punishing poor driving. Plus, it is completely non-subjective, consistent in it's rulings, and show's no favoritism. Yes, it does occasionally punish an innocent bystander, but that's not as common as it once was...well, at least in my experience.

One thing that I've found to be true is that there are two types of drivers; those who are in control and those who are not. Unfortunately the sim racing world has been infested with drivers who think they are aliens, but drive like fools. iRacing tends to weed them out pretty quick.

Cheers,
Troy

[davidan]

Nice addition they made here!

[Troy Dalton]

Disclaimer: I'm not here to start a debate on the pro's/con's of fast tracking, there are plenty of threads over at iRacing that concern that topic. I just recently finished "Fast Tracking" from Rookie to a "B" class oval license in only 29 days and I simply thought I'd share my experience.

First of all, there is a misconception about TT's (Time Trials) and their role in fast tracking. Yes, you can complete your MPR with TT's alone, but it is very difficult to accrue SR (Safety Rating) points running TT's. On average it takes around three times the amount of incident free TT laps to equal a single incident free race. Yes, I have run quite a few TT's, but I can tell you from experience that TT's have a very minimal impact on your ability to "Fast Track" to the next level. The bottom line is that it is much harder to earn SR running TT's versus normal races and incidents in TT's are more severely punished as well. Personally, running TT's actually slow's down the fast track process...I'll explain later.

Side Note: I had a 3.98 SR "C" class license and thought I'd run a couple TT's to get over the hump. Well, I spun during the TT and lost -0.02 to my SR, so I simply ran a 50 lap Late Model event and earned the necessary SR increase to fast track to a "B" license.

When I was advancing from a "D" to a "C" license I had an SR of 3.44. I ran a TT in the Late Model series and competed 60 incident free laps. That earned me 0.03 towards my SR. At that rate I would have had to run about nineteen TT's of at least 60 laps and complete approximately 1,119 incident free TT laps. However, on average I could earn approximately 0.09 SR for every 50 lap event. So, yes...you could conceivably fast track on TT's alone, but I venture it would take quite a long while.

In my case I started with a 3.28 Rookie license and here are my stats over the 29 day period:

Races: 18 (860 laps / 36 Incidents / 12 incident free races)
Time Trials: 35 (1309 laps / 4 Incidents / 33 incident free TT's)
Total Laps: 2,169 (Does not count Practice / Testing / Hosted Races)

Ok...now about those pesky TT's that I mentioned before. I think they actually hinder your progress and it's possible to accomplish the same task in a much shorter time by strictly running races and shunning the TT's. Based on the averages that I experienced, you would only need to complete seven incident free races at each class level to fast track from Rookie to "B" class and it could be done in as little as 860 laps. Even if you do accrue a few incidents along the way, the incidents in a race are much less punishing and can easily be overcome by running a subsequent incident free race.

Anyway, that was my experience and now it's onto earn that "A" license.