CMS NARS 2024
Virtual PCC Championship
The first ‘short’ series of the year will be a return to a spec series that created a lot of buzz and excitement in it’s first outing at NARS – the Porsche Carrera Cup!
Raced in real life across the globe in many different championships and levels of competitiveness, the Carrera Cup is one of the most popular race series to be found.
The NARS virtual version will be an international series, with circuits from around the globe to challenge drivers with a variety of venues each with unique characteristics. Drawing from some of the most exciting and challenging tracks from around the world, our drivers will have the chance to influence the final choices to set a unique NARS series.
As with all NARS activities, his series will conform to the CMS General Competition Rules which may be found on the CMS Discord Server and the CMS website (click the link at the top of this page). All drivers are expected to know the GCR and shall be required to abide by them.
Additional track-specific instructions will be provided via a drivers race brief that will be posted on the CMS/NARS discord channels and briefly summarised prior to the start of the qualifying session on race night.
The Car
We’ll be using the S397 Porsche 992 GT3 Cup mod, which can be found at the Steam rF2 store as item 1872951506. With only very limited setup options, the emphasis is on learning the car and track to race competitively while having fun and close racing at the same time.
The Circuits
The series will be made up of 10, hour-long races, with 4 of the venues having been decided by a community vote. The schedule is as follows:
04 Jan Cote d’Azur Exhibition Race
25 Jan Red Bull Ring, Austria (included in the NARS Steam Workshop item)
01 Feb Kyalami, South Africa (Steam Workshop – linked to NARS item)
08 Feb Hockenheimring, Germany (Steam Workshop – linked to NARS item)
15 Feb Nurburgring, Germany (DLC)
22 Feb Matsusaka, Japan (Steam Workshop – linked to NARS item)
29 Feb Ibarra, Equador (DLC)
07 Mar Hungaroring, Hungary (included in the NARS Steam Workshop item)
14 Mar Bathurst, Australia (included in the NARS Steam Workshop item)
28 Mar Guapore, Brazil (DLC)
04 Apr Detroit Belle Isle, USA (included in the NARS Steam Workshop item)
Event Schedule
7pm/1900 Eastern – Server Reboot / Practice
8:50pm/2050 Eastern – Driver Brief/Announcements
9:00pm/2100 Eastern – Qualifying (15 minutes)
9:20pm/2120 Eastern – Warm-up (10 minutes)
9:30pm/2130 Eastern – Race
Start
Formation lap to rolling start, double file
Orange Zone (OZ)
There will be an OZ designated for each race in the driver notes that will be posted to the CMS/NARS discord channels and noted again in the pre-race brief. There will be an automatic review of the OZ post-race.
Car Categories
There will be three car categories for this series – PRO, PRO/AM and AM, to account for the differing levels of capability and time commitment to be found in our community.
Drivers who have raced in CMS before will have been noted in the stratification for 2024 with the option of moving up a driver class, for the year, if they wish. They will then race in a car category as allowed by their driver class. Drivers new to NARS will be placed in the PRO/AM car category and then adjusted by the race admins by the end of race 3 in the season, if necessary.
Admins retain the right to reassign a driver up or down a car category if they are not correctly placed based on special circumstances or drivers’ performance.
Championships
There will be three individual driver championships, PRO, PRO/AM and AM. Drivers will need to check their CMS rF2 driver classification prior to racing in the series.
Drivers will automatically be entered in the championship appropriate to their class when they pick their car. No changes in driver championship will be allowed unless as a result of admin decision for drivers new to CMS who are classified.
Points will be awarded each race for championship standings with two ‘drop’ races for each driver over the course of the year.
There will be a team championship for teams composed of two or three drivers – either a PRO-PRO/AM combination or PRO-PRO/AM-AM combination. Drop races will apply and points will be scored according to overall race position, with the top two positions per team scoring points.
There are also two additional driver trophies – one “Hard Charger” per class to recognise drivers in each car class who make the biggest gains from their starting positions and the “In the Groove” to recognise the driver who drives the most consistently during their races, regardless of car class. These trophies will be awarded at the end of the season.
Points
Races: 25-23-21-19-17-15-13-11-9-7-5-4-3-2-1 point thereafter
There will be a bonus of 10 points awarded to each driver who finishes (no DNS or DNF) in all the races for both the driver and team championships.
Hard Charger Trophy: 4 points per class to be shared between the drivers in each class gaining the most grid-to-finish positions in the race. 1 driver=4 points, 2 drivers+2 points each, 3 or more drivers=1 point each.
In the Groove Cup: Points are gained by drivers driving the most consistently in the race compared to their own fastest race lap as follows: 5-4-3-2-1.
Details on how to follow championship results are provided in the NARS Discord channels.
Custom Liveries and Numbers
CMS standard liveries are provided and drivers are encouraged to paint their own custom liveries. Templates will be pinned CMS/NARS Discord channels and will contain a number of required elements (CMS/NARS banners and numberplates) that must be respected.
The livery template is at here .
Custom livery files must conform to the following naming convention:
numberclassinitials.xxx (for example 37PROmko.dds, 37PROmko_region.dds etc)
As a minimum, the files must include a paint.dds file, paint_region.dds file and paint.json file, following the above naming convention.
Livery files must be submitted to the Discord channel assigned for the series liveries no later than 4 Jan 24 in order to be included in the NARS custom file for this series. If you miss this date and still want to run your livery, custom skin uploading on default NARS cars is welcome and encouraged, but please log onto the server a couple of days before to mitigate server load from skin transfers on race day.
The use of the NARS numbering system is required for custom liveries and drivers not yet holding a NARS racing number may choose from those available, as listed at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13wo6t9tP2E1LCAUaJxE0osyKsnnnuyfh3N5T9Iv2WbQ/edit?usp=sharing . Instructions on how to choose either a permanent or series-specific number are provided on the individual pages.
Settings
We will use the latest stable build of rFactor 2.
The damage setting is 75%.
Crash Recovery is off. Drive carefully!
Driving View is open.
Auto Clutch, Blip, Lift and Brakes/Clutch are the only rF2 global aids available.
1x fuel, 1xtires
Weather will always be live weather conditions.
The server name will be “CMS PCC [track name]”.
The server race password will be provided when the server is rebooted on race day.
General
The rf2la app will be used to record the hot laps and instructions for following the series standings will be provided at #pcc24-info.
All races will be live-streamed on YouTube at our channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Kdp07PvIeW47f0_sM0emw
Race Communications
We will use the CMS Discord rFactor 2 voice channel for race communications.
CMS Discord is available at https://discord.com/invite/4ckmjPX
The voice channel is only required to monitor race control during the event. You do not need a microphone if you do not want to speak.
If you have a microphone, please set it to “push to talk”. If that just doesn’t work for you, PLEASE set the voice-activated audio level up considerably so your coughing, wheezing or sim controls grinding isn’t “shared” with everyone else. Don’t be “that guy/girl”.
Chatter during free practice is permitted and encouraged! For qualification and races, please be brief in your communication on Discord and talk only if absolutely necessary. One sentence then quiet is requested. No text chat AT ALL during qualification or race.
Abusive and/or profane in-game chat, Discord, or forum post language may lead to that driver receiving a sanction up to and including a ban from CMS.
Should a driver join the event server without being in the Discord NARS voice channel, they will be asked in rFactor 2 text chat to join. If by the start of the driver brief they have not joined the voice chat, they will be removed from the race server by race control until they rejoin with Discord active and they are on the NARS voice channel.
Competition Rules and Stewarding
This series will conform to the CMS General Competition Rules that may be found on the CMS Discord Server. All drivers are expected to know the GCR and shall be required to abide by them. Additional track-specific instructions will be provided via a drivers race brief that will be posted on the CMS/NARS discord channels and summarised prior to the start of the qualifying session on race night.
Pit Entry/Exit Lines: On circuits that a white line is drawn at the pit road entry or/and exit, crossing this white line to entry or/end exit the pit is prohibited unless specifically permitted in a pre-race brief. Otherwise, it is permissible for tires to step on the white line, but crossing the line with one tire completely will result in a post-race Incident Review Request and penalty.
There are no live stewards. A post-race Incident Review Request may be submitted for adjudication with any resultant penalties to be served in the next race competed by the driver(s) at fault. The IRR form may be found at https://cmsracing.com/incident-report/.
rFactor 2 system assigned penalties during races must be served. The Race Director will only have the capability to clear penalties and driver DQ during practice on the race server and then AFTER qualification but before the race.
Connection Notes
Drivers are strongly advised to reboot their computer just before joining the server on race night.
Don’t use a WiFi connection. Only Ethernet cable connections are permitted for NARS events.