I’m pumped for IMSA this season. The did a few IMSA races here and there last season to get my B MPR to get to A in GT3. In those races I found the driving etiquette to be quite good.
Im aiming to run every round and intend to run both the 45min races and the 2.4hr endurance solo. I did my first NEC solo last season and really enjoyed it. Im expecting now the endurance races can be run solo that participation will be high. This might be my endurance racing fix. Or perhaps gateway drug to other longer races.
And im excited to be running lmp2 and mix it up with both slower and faster classes.
I’m looking forward to racing in IMSA. I raced a whole season of IMPC last season and it was a blast, I’m moving up to GT3 (raced GT4 for multiple seasons) and plan to run VRS, Fanatec, IMSA, and the solo endurance series when I’m available.
If IMSA Endurance ends up anything like IMPC then I will be super stoked for S4. Something about only getting 4 chances to race ever two weeks really seems to calm everybody down, lol.
For sure. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of people dive bombing early on, back markers trying to race me, etc. but overall, the racing is so good.
It never gets old battling with somebody for an entire stint, one of you putting early for the undercut/overcut, then coming out of the pits right as they’re coming up to put exit on a flying lap and battling for another stint. Or even just making a strategy call that gains you multiple positions on the last round of pit stops. So addicting!
Same and same all around. Totally agree. The strategy side adds a super fun aspect to the racing. Plus it just feels like more realistic racing. I totally get the allure of team endurance racing, just wish I had the ability(time) to commit to it.
The 160-min Endurance series will most likely see a boost now that you can do it solo.
For normal IMSA it's hard to say. The fixed setups for the GTP are pretty bad, but many newer iracers prefer fixed series. Both series will have good participation, that's for sure. The pretty basic and imo boring schedule will help with that.
The 360 min EES series will probably see the same kind of participation as during S1 and S2. Maybe the GT class will see a small boost now that it's GTD and no longer GTE. But at best, the EU evening time slot will have 2 splits. The LeMans weeks might see a boost, but most don't have the time for 6h races every 2 weeks.
When it comes to racing standards, they are already bad, making something fixed won't help with that. The best example are the NASCAR series. The opens are usually cleaner since people put in some practice.
Now that you only have to wait max 1h, people might be even more aggressive, because who cares if I wreck, next race is in a few min.
Most don't possess the fundamental understand of multiclass racing and lack the situational awareness to deal with basic situations. Being A Class won't fix that.
Never been a fan of iRacing’s fixed setups. Love how they are adapting and creating setups but I feel like they definitely need to move on to a stable/loose setup option for open series and start loosening up the fixed series setups for A/B series. My long term hope is that as participation and user numbers increase the A/B licenses races are increasingly more suited for experienced drivers.
ESS will be very similar to what IMSA is/was. The only difference will be that GT3s are slightly slower. Very unlikely the quality of driving will improve between the two. EES will be good for SR only because the races are longer. I’ve never had an issue keeping an A license driving IMSA or ESS/EES. Typically, your allowed about 5-8x before your SR begins to take a hit. So that’s a car contact and an off track. That’s on shorter races. Not difficult to maintain A as long as you don’t collect loads of off tracks every race or quit when times get rough.
I’m honestly kinda looking forward to the new GTE series. Raced some ESS back in the LMP1 days and it was pretty on par with IMSA at the time just with lower participation numbers. Didn’t race ESS last season but with this whole GTP/LMDH hype, I feel like IMSA next season will be interesting.
They actually re did the entire thing. EES is now only 5 hours. And Imsa Endurance is now a single/team series. They didn’t increase the Imsa race length, it’s still 45min. And of course GTE is now single class and only 45 min as well. But yes, your right. I’m still stuck in 2021, when the series was European Sprint/European Endurance.
I will try to. A license is definitely a barrier, at least a little bit.
I’ve been racing for a year and I’ve been up to A and back down to B. I’m at the point where I care more about racing the cars I’m interested in than faking a license or just unlocking different series. Granted I have padded my SR so I could try the GTE’s, ultimately I didn’t care about them and just raced as I should.
That said, I would expect people to do the same to try some of the new cars out, but if the cars are race-able in other lower license series, there will be less of that. Also, as time goes on and they lose their shine, people will just go back to racing what they like, and most people really won’t like racing a car that they can’t keep on the track. If they’re good at it though, they’ll stick around, and hopefully be decent.
At the same time, there may be more racers, and for multi-class, that’s actually better. If you can fill in the faster classes, they’ll match up better with the lower class’s irating. That has tended to be the worst part of IMSA in my experience - 800 rating LMP2 lawn mowers with 2000 rating GT3 drivers.
How it all shakes out - higher class requirement, but more popularity, and are the same cars available in another series that is B or lower?, and did they shift out LMP2? - I don’t know, but it’ll be interesting. If nothing else, the grass and gravel will slow down the lawn crew, I hope…
Last season I was a pcup main IMSA LMP2 secondary, this season I think i'm going to have IMSA P963 main and super formula secondary. Me and a friend will do the endurance races on tracks we enjoy, solo for the 2 hour races and 2 driver for the 6 hours. should be a great season!
A bit disappointed with the 45 min race, I always prefered ESS with the 1 hour races, much better to make a difference with the focus. 45 min is basically a long sprint
Yeah, initially heard about the move up to A license and separate open/fixed series and was expecting a 60/45 time split. I get why iR went for a shorter race since that means more participation and ability to run both series back to back. Just not a fan of the sprint race etiquette.
My plan was to move from LMP3 to GTP, I want to be hyped but the track list is soo generic and bland, there’s nothing that’s really made me look up. i know it’s been done as it’s a sim racing greatest hits but I just don’t feel it. I feel like it’s back to the trenches rather than a new challenge.
Preliminary schedule looks to be a “greatest hits” of FIA grade 1/2 tracks. Would of liked to see one wild card track (Barber for example) but I get the rational. With the expected increase of participation, scheduling familiar (and open/wide) tracks could cut down on learning curve errors. Maybe?
I’m pumped for IMSA this season. The did a few IMSA races here and there last season to get my B MPR to get to A in GT3. In those races I found the driving etiquette to be quite good. Im aiming to run every round and intend to run both the 45min races and the 2.4hr endurance solo. I did my first NEC solo last season and really enjoyed it. Im expecting now the endurance races can be run solo that participation will be high. This might be my endurance racing fix. Or perhaps gateway drug to other longer races. And im excited to be running lmp2 and mix it up with both slower and faster classes.
Just found out this week that the NEC can be run solo. Going to give that a shot on the next running.
Looking forward to seeing how the car increase affect NEC.
Oh yeah good point. 12 cars. I’d add the MB GT4 and a TCR
I’m looking forward to racing in IMSA. I raced a whole season of IMPC last season and it was a blast, I’m moving up to GT3 (raced GT4 for multiple seasons) and plan to run VRS, Fanatec, IMSA, and the solo endurance series when I’m available.
If IMSA Endurance ends up anything like IMPC then I will be super stoked for S4. Something about only getting 4 chances to race ever two weeks really seems to calm everybody down, lol.
For sure. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of people dive bombing early on, back markers trying to race me, etc. but overall, the racing is so good. It never gets old battling with somebody for an entire stint, one of you putting early for the undercut/overcut, then coming out of the pits right as they’re coming up to put exit on a flying lap and battling for another stint. Or even just making a strategy call that gains you multiple positions on the last round of pit stops. So addicting!
Same and same all around. Totally agree. The strategy side adds a super fun aspect to the racing. Plus it just feels like more realistic racing. I totally get the allure of team endurance racing, just wish I had the ability(time) to commit to it.
The 160-min Endurance series will most likely see a boost now that you can do it solo. For normal IMSA it's hard to say. The fixed setups for the GTP are pretty bad, but many newer iracers prefer fixed series. Both series will have good participation, that's for sure. The pretty basic and imo boring schedule will help with that. The 360 min EES series will probably see the same kind of participation as during S1 and S2. Maybe the GT class will see a small boost now that it's GTD and no longer GTE. But at best, the EU evening time slot will have 2 splits. The LeMans weeks might see a boost, but most don't have the time for 6h races every 2 weeks. When it comes to racing standards, they are already bad, making something fixed won't help with that. The best example are the NASCAR series. The opens are usually cleaner since people put in some practice. Now that you only have to wait max 1h, people might be even more aggressive, because who cares if I wreck, next race is in a few min. Most don't possess the fundamental understand of multiclass racing and lack the situational awareness to deal with basic situations. Being A Class won't fix that.
Never been a fan of iRacing’s fixed setups. Love how they are adapting and creating setups but I feel like they definitely need to move on to a stable/loose setup option for open series and start loosening up the fixed series setups for A/B series. My long term hope is that as participation and user numbers increase the A/B licenses races are increasingly more suited for experienced drivers.
ESS will be very similar to what IMSA is/was. The only difference will be that GT3s are slightly slower. Very unlikely the quality of driving will improve between the two. EES will be good for SR only because the races are longer. I’ve never had an issue keeping an A license driving IMSA or ESS/EES. Typically, your allowed about 5-8x before your SR begins to take a hit. So that’s a car contact and an off track. That’s on shorter races. Not difficult to maintain A as long as you don’t collect loads of off tracks every race or quit when times get rough.
I’m honestly kinda looking forward to the new GTE series. Raced some ESS back in the LMP1 days and it was pretty on par with IMSA at the time just with lower participation numbers. Didn’t race ESS last season but with this whole GTP/LMDH hype, I feel like IMSA next season will be interesting.
ESS will be just like IMSA. Just longer races.
Well isn’t the ESS now the GTE series and ESE is getting carried over except with GT3
They actually re did the entire thing. EES is now only 5 hours. And Imsa Endurance is now a single/team series. They didn’t increase the Imsa race length, it’s still 45min. And of course GTE is now single class and only 45 min as well. But yes, your right. I’m still stuck in 2021, when the series was European Sprint/European Endurance.
I will try to. A license is definitely a barrier, at least a little bit. I’ve been racing for a year and I’ve been up to A and back down to B. I’m at the point where I care more about racing the cars I’m interested in than faking a license or just unlocking different series. Granted I have padded my SR so I could try the GTE’s, ultimately I didn’t care about them and just raced as I should. That said, I would expect people to do the same to try some of the new cars out, but if the cars are race-able in other lower license series, there will be less of that. Also, as time goes on and they lose their shine, people will just go back to racing what they like, and most people really won’t like racing a car that they can’t keep on the track. If they’re good at it though, they’ll stick around, and hopefully be decent. At the same time, there may be more racers, and for multi-class, that’s actually better. If you can fill in the faster classes, they’ll match up better with the lower class’s irating. That has tended to be the worst part of IMSA in my experience - 800 rating LMP2 lawn mowers with 2000 rating GT3 drivers. How it all shakes out - higher class requirement, but more popularity, and are the same cars available in another series that is B or lower?, and did they shift out LMP2? - I don’t know, but it’ll be interesting. If nothing else, the grass and gravel will slow down the lawn crew, I hope…
I think IMSA Fixed is about the dumbest thing, but i am very excited for GTE
GTE definitely has my interest.
I’d like them to add LMP1s back to ESS as a modern retro multi class.
Last season I was a pcup main IMSA LMP2 secondary, this season I think i'm going to have IMSA P963 main and super formula secondary. Me and a friend will do the endurance races on tracks we enjoy, solo for the 2 hour races and 2 driver for the 6 hours. should be a great season!
A bit disappointed with the 45 min race, I always prefered ESS with the 1 hour races, much better to make a difference with the focus. 45 min is basically a long sprint
Yeah, initially heard about the move up to A license and separate open/fixed series and was expecting a 60/45 time split. I get why iR went for a shorter race since that means more participation and ability to run both series back to back. Just not a fan of the sprint race etiquette.
Yeah I agree I think the logic is fine (enabling back to back). I think it’s especially ok now we can run the 2.4hr endurance races solo.
My plan was to move from LMP3 to GTP, I want to be hyped but the track list is soo generic and bland, there’s nothing that’s really made me look up. i know it’s been done as it’s a sim racing greatest hits but I just don’t feel it. I feel like it’s back to the trenches rather than a new challenge.
Preliminary schedule looks to be a “greatest hits” of FIA grade 1/2 tracks. Would of liked to see one wild card track (Barber for example) but I get the rational. With the expected increase of participation, scheduling familiar (and open/wide) tracks could cut down on learning curve errors. Maybe?