DRL North America Championship Season X

Overview

Welcome to Season 10 of the DRL North American Championship! We've hit double digits, and we have our awesome community, drivers, and followers to thank! This season, we're putting American tracks front and center (yes, even Laguna), and mixing in some of your ACC Greatest Hits. We're moving back to single-class, GT3 racing as per the results of our poll. We will also be bringing back same-make teams! See below for more details.

Delta Racing League is a PC-based ACC community that is open to beginners and more advanced racers alike, with an emphasis on developing consistency and sound racecraft over mere outright pace.  We welcome those with a friendly attitude, who like to talk racing with a bit of banter mixed in, those who want to race together, improve together, and most importantly, have fun with a hobby we all share!

You need to be verified on our Discord to be able to participate in this league, so please join the DRL Discord server and make sure you follow instructions in #readme-and-rules to get the correct role. This requires an SA of at least 50.

If the grid is full, we will remove unverified drivers to make space for those on the waitlist who have been verified.

Broadcasts

We expect to bring as many live race broadcasts to the Delta Racing League Youtube Channel as possible this season!

Server Details

Server: [drlna] Delta Racing League NA | Season X

Password: See Discord #race-day-info for the server password on the day of the race. You need to have the driver role to see this channel in discord, see above.

The server will restart an hour before the (first) Quali session. During the week prior to the race, the server will be used as a practice server with settings comparable to those during the race.  We will also publish a forecast of sorts that will give you a good idea of what the Race Weekend weather should look like.

The NA server is located in The Midwest/Chicago area. Anyone is welcome to participate but we do require your ping to be sub-300 to avoid dangerous latency.

Format

This season's championship consists of SEVEN races across some of ACC's latest, but also greatest, tracks. Qualifying starts at 8PM ET / 5PM PT. The server will be restarted one hour before qualifying with a 1 hour practice session. The server is available throughout the week as a practice, with weather and time settings that are used on the race weekend.

The races well be held according to the following formats:

Sprint

• 15-minute Qualifying
• 60-minute Race with a mandatory stop for fuel (variable time) during a 10-minute pit window. Tire change is optional. 
  • This means your pitstop could be as short as three seconds plus .2 seconds/liter of fuel, or the standard 30 seconds for fuel and tire change.

Super Sprint

• 10-minute Qualifying for Race 1
• 30-minute Race 1
• 10-minute Qualifying for Race 2
• 30-minute Race 2

Selecting Your Split

This season, we will once again have both PRO and AM splits, and we will crown both an Overall Champion, as well as an AM Champion. We expect drivers to self-select into the correct split, and reserve the right to move drivers around if they clearly belong in the other split. There is no benefit to attempt a sandbag by selecting AM, and we do not want drivers to be over their head in PRO.

To help you self-select, here are some cut-off times for the PRO split based on previous season performance (in Quali trim):

- Barcelona: sub 1:45

- Imola: sub 1:44

Points are shared across classes (e.g. if top placed AM driver finishes 3rd, they will score points for 3rd place finish, not 1st place).

Koalafying

With a large grid, we will do split qualifying between the Am and Pro classes. AMs will go out first and have 10 minutes to complete their laps. If you start a flying lap before the ten minute mark, you have the right to complete it but then must safely return to pits. Like, please just pull off and teleport. 

PROs will have the second 10 minutes. 

We will put this info in the game chat prior to quali each week, too.

Teams

With the move back to single-class GT3 racing, we are also bringing back Teams! Teams are limited to two drivers per. So, find a friend that will drive the same car and sign up!  Teams can consist of the same class or Pro-Am drivers if you so choose. We don't want to stop you from teaming up with your friends, and we want to encourage Pro-Am teams where the Am driver can benefit from working with a Pro in terms of setups, racecraft, and technique.

About Liveries and Numbers

1. As is now "custom"ary, we will allow the use of external-to-ACC custom liveries. Please submit them here prior to Round 1:
•  The cutoff time for Round 1 submissions is Saturday, July 23rd, at 10pm Eastern. We plan on issuing one updated livery pack between Rounds 4 and 5, and will have more details as we get into the season. If you join after Round 5, your livery will not make it in.
2. Drivers are also free to use custom in-game liveries, as well as IRL liveries.
3. Drivers who are teaming up together must have similar liveries that clearly identify them as being on the same team.
4. Racing numbers are first come, first served.  SimGrid allows for duplicate numbers across classes (even Pro and Am) and we will change numbers as-needed if there are duplicates. To avoid this, just pay attention to the numbers when you are signing up. :)

Off-Weeks

We have 2 off-weeks:

• No race on July 31st because there is the NA Endurance 6 hours of Watkins Glen on July 30, co-organized by DRL, ZRL and ARC. We hope to see you there! Sign-ups are now open.
• No race on September 4th due to Labor Day weekend.

Supporting DRL

If you want to support Delta Racing League, we have a Patreon page. The proceeds are used to cover server costs.