iTested Event: Season 4 Content and Series Updates

August has been a month of preparation for the iRacing staff regarding to the new developments and new build to be deployed this week. Greg Hill published a long post with many series and content changes for the new season, including an iTested Event this weekend.

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Hello all!

Following up on Greg Hill’s Development Update yesterday, I’m here to give you the what, where, when, and how’s of the upcoming season. This will serve to give some additional information on all of the changes you can expect to see come September.

First of all, I’d like to discuss our  “pseudo special” 13th Week iTested Event. This event will utilize our new enhanced multi-manufacturer and multi-class splitting algorithm. This event will be an official ranked race featuring the GT3 and GT4 classes at the Charlotte Roval. It will be a 3 hour race and will be open to solo or team entries. Our goal is to have as many splits as possible to showcase the update while making sure everything is working as intended. We hope everyone comes out and enjoys a fun car/track combo while helping us continue to improve iRacing. Everyone that participates in the 13th Week iTested Event and completes at least 50% of the laps will receive the rarely offered iTested Award.

Date: September 6-8th

• Timeslot #1 – Friday 22:00 GMT
• Timeslot #2 – Saturday 7:00 GMT
• Timeslot #3 – Saturday 12:00 GMT
• Timeslot #4 – Saturday 16:00 GMT
• Timeslot #5 – Sunday 00:00

Now for the big questions. Where does all of the new content end up and what does that mean for anything it replaces???

The BMW M4 GT4 Evo joins the service in all of our GT4 series, replacing the previous gen F82 variant. This includes the GT4 Falken Tyre Challenge – Fixed, Falken Tyre Sports Car Challenge, IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series, Nurburgring Endurance Championship, and Creventic Endurance Series.

It will also be featured in a reformatted series concept with the help of our friends at BMW. The BMW M Power Tour – Fixed will move to the D license level and will utilize our 15 minute sprint race format. This series will share a schedule with the Ferrari GT3 Challenge – Fixed to minimize the track purchase burden for those members that enjoy these types of series.

Regarding the previous generation BMW M4 GT4 F82, it is not going away. It has found a new home in the Production Car Sim-Lab Challenge. If you go to any club racing or track day event across the globe, odds are you will see something similar to this car. For that reason, we have made this change to add to the authentic look of this “track day” style series. It will replace the Ford Mustang FR500S which will still race in the single make Mustang Skip Barber Challenge – Fixed.

Lastly for the BMW M4 GT4 F82, we will be offering credits to those that have recently purchased it following this schedule:

• 0-90 days: full credit
• 91-180 days: 75%
• 181-365 days: 50%

For the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, it will of course replace the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 in all of the GT3 series in which that car runs. It will also make it’s debut in our multiple IMSA branded series as we have upped our car counts once again to accommodate another vehicle!

It’s series include:

• GT3 Fanatec Challenge – Fixed
• GT Sprint Simucube Series
• GT Endurance Simucube Series
• Rain Master – Fixed
• IMSA iRacing Series – Fixed
• IMSA iRacing Series
• IMSA Endurance Series
• Global Endurance CONSPIT Tour (note this goes back to it’s regular 6 hour race format)

Similarly to the BMW credits, we will be offering the same credit schedule for the McLaren MP4-12C GT3: 

• 0-90 days: full credit
• 91-180 days: 75%
• 181-365 days: 50%

Speaking of car counts going up and adding vehicles, with this tech improvement, we will see the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO join the Nurburgring Endurance Championship with the build as well.

And while we are discussing all things GT3, we are adjusting the Rain Master series to include the entire GT3 class for next season.

Switching gears over to the oval side and the much anticipated Mini Stock. Both the pavement and dirt versions will be racing in our rookie license level and will be running 30 minutes offset from the Street Stocks for each of them.

Moving on to rain and the plethora of new content that have had rain tires implemented for this build. With the TCR class (Audi RS3, Honda Civic Type R, Hyundai Elantra, and Hyundai Veloster), Renault Clio, and Ford Mustang FR500S getting rain tires, we can now enable rain in the following series on top of the current offering:

• TCR Virtual Challenge
• TCR Virtual Challenge – Fixed
• Nurburgring Endurance Championship
• Production Car Sim-Lab Challenge
• Clio Cup – Fixed
• Mustang Skip Barber Challenge – Fixed
• IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series

We’ve also got a couple other new series making their debuts outside of the new content.

JR Open Wheel Oval Challenge – Fixed joins us at the D level. With us consolidating all of the Indycar series at the B license level, there was no other place to exclusively run a lower power single seater on ovals. This addresses that and will us the Indy Pro 2000 PM-18 (it made for a much more fun experience on some of the big tracks than the USF2000). We will use a good number of base package short ovals for the first season to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible.

We also are introducing the Legends Road Cup – Fixed at the D license level. This will bring the Legends cars back to the road racing side of things. Like the JR Open Wheel Oval Challenge, we will be using a lot of base package tracks to get people on the track easier.

We are also piloting a program at the rookie open wheel series which will see the Formula Vee SIMAGIC Series and Formula 1600 Rookie Sim-Motion Series – Fixed switch to running every 30 minutes instead of every hour. We are staggering the start times so there will be a race going off every 15 minutes to see the impact on participation.

Similarly we will be doing something similar with the FIA F4 Esports Regional Tour series by moving them to run every hour instead of every 2 hours. We will also be pairing up the Global Series with a Regional Tour schedule every week and will alternate throughout the season.

Lastly we have adjusted timeslots for the Pro 2 Off-Road Racing Series – Fixed and Pro 4 Off-Road Racing Series – Fixed along with changing race distances in multiple off road series including the rookie series to allow drivers to back to back races more often. Chris Leone will provide more context on this next week.

As you can see from Greg Hill’s blog yesterday and this follow up, there is a lot going on at iRacing. It is an incredibly exciting time to be part of the iRacing community and we are looking forward to seeing everyone on the track in all of our series soon!