BoD Nominees - ChampCar iRacing Series

[Rapido]

Given the current ongoing ChampCar BoD election cycle, I would be interested in hearing any thoughts that the nominees had around the ChampCar iRacing Series, which is currently supported by ChampCar and nearing the end of our fourth full season. With full grids combining both real world ChampCar drivers and those interested in joining, the series has proved popular with both participants and viewers of the live stream. With Simracing proving an increasingly viable alternative to real-world competition, and other series such as Lemons and AER hosting online series, it would be good to understand where the current candidates stand on the below questions.

 

• How important do you think it is for "budget-focused" US racing series, such as ChampCar, to support online competition?
• How would you suggest ChampCar further supports the iRacing Series in order to expand popularity and viewership?
• How would you propose creating a pipeline or process for virtual-only teams and drivers to make the transition into racing in a real-world ChampCar event?

 

If any candidate wants to learn more about the series as a whole, I would recommend tuning into the live broadcast of Round 15 tonight, race starts at 9:30pm ET. Several current ChampCar members (and voters!) will be in attendance.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Rapido

[MR2 Biohazard]

Personally, as person who tries to enter iracing, but my internet sucks so bad I blink in and out and make it horrible for others, I think it is a great idea to have iracing to get new members. I am currently waiting for my Starlink to come so I can play again and have been waiting since Feb, fringers crossed I get the email one of these days. I think iRacing is important and can be more important than advertising in other avenues to actually attract new members and younger future members.

 

I think if you can get people involved in the iracing against people that really race cars then they can feel like they can do it and make the leap from iracing to real racing. When you get the real G forces and on track experience you will be hooked.

 

I am not sure how to expand the popularity, someone such as yourself would be the go to person to ask and get feedback on it. I know my limitations, well, some of them at least, and why not get advice from the ones that are in it and know. Maybe look at other popular iracing series and see what is a best practice and identify those, then also look at what they do not do that we might be doing and maybe that is a detractor to eliminate that practice. What are your thoughts on how to improve it?

 

The transition to real teams. Maybe have some teams volunteer to take a new iracing driver under their wing to help them out. Iracing can develop more Champbuck credits. Maybe a little bit for each race and multiple positions and then the final. Hey, if the same guy does not win all the time in the last 4 years then others could benefit also, just saying, hehe.

 

This is a good idea to have the Mentor program expand a little bit and invite new iracing members to come an drive. Have some mentors that have teams and car be willing to accept a new iracing driver, help them along, get them familiar with being on track. I could see the two working together and being successful long term.

 

My personal experience and talking point about iracing is heal and toe. I sucked at it and still not great, but decent. I could not get it down on track enough when trying to drive. Just too many things to think about. I went on my sim at VIR full, for 2 hours, totally focused on heal and toe. A few days later I did the same thing for 2 hours and then a third session of 2 hours. This was a week or two before my VIR event with NASA. I did not give it much thought after as I was focused on a ton of other things. Halfway through Saturday going into turn 1 I noticed I heal toed on my downshift and realized I had been doing it all day and was not thinking about it. The iracing got me to be decent at heal toe and make it into muscle memory and helped improve my skills. I think iracing can be great to race others, but can also be a great tool to really focus on one skill set and help improve your real world driving. I see it as two fold, a tool to make myself a better driver and a fun interaction with others and both have their place.

 

 

[Alex Koffard]

Speaking from my experiences. Joining iRacing was my introduction to many forms of road racing, including amateur endurance racing.

iRacing where I met everyone at Hugh Jass, and I started racing with them virtually. After hearing about CC, I drove from Charlotte to WGI just to meet the team IRL, watch and learn the crewing, and drink beer with the team. Since then I was hooked, only missing the 2020 Covid races HJ has entered.

I've raced semi-regularly in the CCIS (I work evenings, so getting to these races are difficult), and love the community it has built. This has created the desire to rent, and eventually build and own a ChampCar in the future. 

As I've become more comfortable in the sim, I've also felt more ready to make the transition to actual ChampCar racing. This December, I'll be making my racing debut (among others) at VIR-N in the HJ Miata. 

Without iRacing, I doubt I would even have a clue what ChampCar is. I feel very strongly that continuing and expanding the virtual side of CC will only help the real series grow. 

[hotrod]

My iRacing experience is nil. but I can see it as a start then a transition into real ChampCar racing. It certainly helped pass the time when everyone was stuck at home & may have picked up some racers because of that. As Troy said a great way to get involved is volunteer to help at a race weekend. Just as anything to do with ChampCar I would like to see the iRacing grow and be successful. My lack of experience would have me doing some research to see what needs to be done to make some improvement. From what I have seen it wouldn't need much.

Bernie Myers

[Ray Franck]

  I have always endorsed and supported the Champcar iRacing program. I feel we need to peak interest in motorsports for it to grow or even survive in the future. I am glad some have changed their tune and now support it.

  How to better spread the word ?  I believe the series as a whole along with the iRacing league need to do better at reaching out and promotion but advertising cost big money. This is where the two should work together as I think there are opportunities where the iRacers may have an upper hand in some of the social media's, and avenues of low cost ads to promote both.

  The avenue from iRacing to the track already exists but the thing is racing is HARD and a lot of work for everone wanting on track, thats racing. There is no E Z  button, it cost money and effort, lots of effort or lots of money either will get you there.

[sf4018]

Would it be possible for this year's board to approve next year's iracing series instead to give a decent amount of preparation time - Road Atlanta is Feb 5th next year, so the series will need to be up and running in January if we're going to run the races the Wednesday before (which is nice prep for drivers and will have a closer tie in the the real world series).

 

I completely agree with Ray Franck's comments above, I've voted for Ray and I hope next year's board continues to support the iracing series.

[Rapido]

For those concerned, I have spoken with Dana regarding the 2022 ChampCar iRacing Series and he is very encouraging of it and has committed to continue the support. Whilst this doesn't necessarily require board sign-off or approval, we will need board support (or at least awareness) for some of the growth initiatives that I am planning for the 2022 season, which will potentially include sponsor outreach and further Broadcast options and so it's good to know that some of prospective members are similarly supportive.

[Team Infiniti]

While I am not a participant, it is plainly obvious iRacings importance bringing new members in real life.

Edited November 19, 2021 by Team Infiniti

[Chris Huggins]

2 hours ago, Rapido said:

For those concerned, I have spoken with Dana regarding the 2022 ChampCar iRacing Series and he is very encouraging of it and has committed to continue the support. Whilst this doesn't necessarily require board sign-off or approval, we will need board support (or at least awareness) for some of the growth initiatives that I am planning for the 2022 season, which will potentially include sponsor outreach and further Broadcast options and so it's good to know that some of prospective members are similarly supportive.

the current board is all supportive of this as far as I’m aware.  I don’t foresee any issues.

 

we discussed a bit and want the iracing broadcast team to join paulie, Bill, and Tiffany as much as possible as well.

[Rodger Coan-Burningham]

@Hugh Jassand @Rapido as Chris mentioned we discussed this in our last board meeting and the board is very supportive of the iRacing series.  I offered up, as we discussed at Mid O, to be the rep for you guys.  I don't run in the series but I do fully support it and understand what it does for Champcar overall.  You know how to reach me if you need any help and let's keep the information flowing.  If one of the new board members is a regular in iRacing I will gladly hand over being the board rep if we think it works better to do so.

 

Since this is another thing not written down, for full disclosure we discussed some incentives for the iRacing race winners and the overall championship winner.  We did not finalize on amounts, but as soon as we nail that down it will be communicated.  It won't be a "break the bank" amount but something to incentivize iRacing participants to come race in the real deal.