After hosting many seasons of mixed-content tournaments on tuesday evenings, Gathering of Tweakers is now introducing a new format for our weekly tournament races:
GoT McLaren Challenge S1 2013
As the name implies, the McLaren Challenge tournament will be a 12-week tournament driven with the McLaren MP4-12C. It will be a challenging and fun combination of different tracks, most of which do not occur in the official GT Challenge or Grand-Am series. There is also a mix between standing vs rolling starts, as well as some races with limited fuel to keep things interesting. Finally, on top of that we also decided to run a few of the races in a double-heat system: the first (slightly shorter) heat result determines the starting grid (in reverse order) for the second heat.
As always, the tournaments we host are all about having fun, but at the same time feature loads of hard racing. Each race will be preceded by an hour of practice in which we will share setups (and setup tips) and try to get the most out of the cars to prepare ourselves as best as possible for the race.
Short summary
The GoT McLaren Challenge tournament consists of 12 race weeks, featuring the McLaren MP4-12C on a great variety of tracks, with a mix between standing and rolling starts as well as single and double heat reverse grid races.
When?
Every monday evening (19:00 GMT) in Season 1, 2013. Please note: we switched from our usual tuesday to monday!
What does an evening look like?
Each monday evening at 19:00 GMT the session starts with an hour long practice.
The practice session is followed by a 15 minute qualification session which will determine the starting grid.
Finally, a 45-minute race concludes the session.
In some weeks, the race will be split between two heats. In that case, the first heat is 20 minutes long with the starting grid by qualification. The second heat starting grid will consist of the reverse of the heat 1 finishing positions – the entire grid is reversed! To facilitate clean passes, this heat is slightly longer at 25 minutes.
(Note: the second heat will be in a separate (tournament) session, we have to leave the session after heat 1)
For details of each session please see the next post, or our tournament website.
Rules and points
Rules
While we do not have a strict set of rules, we expect everyone to behave appropriately. Normal racing rules (especially the Sporting Code) apply and penalties may be given after a race in case of severe or intentional misconduct. We host these races for fun, please make sure they stay fun!
Points
Points will be scored for finishing position as well as possible bonus points. There will be 4 drop-weeks at the end of the 12-week tournament.
The points for finishing positions in a single-heat race are as follows (in order of finish position):
25, 20, 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, …
In case of a double-heat race, the first heat results in slightly higher points. This should prevent people intentionally losing heat 1 to start in front in heat 2.
Heat 1: 15, 12, 9, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, …
Heat 2: 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, …
You are only eligible for points if you completed at least 80% of the race distance.
Bonus points
Finally, bonus points can be earned for several situations:
– Pole position (1 point)
– Fastest lap time (1 point)
– Least amount of incidents: (2 points) (only if 80% of race distance completed)
Please note: since the iRacing league functionality does not support two-heat races, the points will be kept at our own custom tournament website (see below).
Awesome! How do I sign up?
The sessions will be hosted under our Gathering of Tweakers league. You must register for our league to be able to join the sessions. Note that the two-heat race sessions must be hosted as a tournament and as such cannot be found under the league sessions (however you must still be a league member to join!).
Besides joining our league, you are invited to join our own Tournament Website. You can view the details and register for each race here. Please consider registering for the races you want to attend so that we can see how many people will join.
The tournament standings will be kept in a completely automated way by the website and can be found here:
The point standings can only be viewed if you have an account so please consider signing up via our website!
Program
Please note: times presented here are in GMT (UTC) timezone.
The times presented on our Tournament Website are converted to your local timezone as well.
Race 1 – Monday, January 28, 2013
Track: Lime Rock Park – Chicane
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Standing start
Fast repairs: 1
Limited fuel: No
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race (Heat 1): 20:15 – 20:35 GMT (20 min)
Race (Heat 2): 20:45 – 21:10 GMT (25 min)
Race 2 – Monday, February 04, 2013
Track: Pocono Raceway International Course
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: Yes – 50%
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race: 20:15 – 21:00 GMT (45 min)
Race 3 – Monday, February 11, 2013
Track: Barber Motorsports Park – Full Course
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: No
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race (Heat 1): 20:15 – 20:35 GMT (20 min)
Race (Heat 2): 20:45 – 21:10 GMT (25 min)
Race 4 – Monday, February 18, 2013
Track: Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca – Full Course
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Standing start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: No
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race (Heat 1): 20:15 – 20:35 GMT (20 min)
Race (Heat 2): 20:45 – 21:10 GMT (25 min)
Race 5 – Monday, February 25, 2013
Track: Autódrome José Carlos Pace – Grand Prix (Interlagos)
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Standing start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: Yes – 50%
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race: 20:15 – 21:00 GMT (45 min)
Race 6 – Monday, March 04, 2013
Track: Road Atlanta – Full Course
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: No
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race (Heat 1): 20:15 – 20:35 GMT (20 min)
Race (Heat 2): 20:45 – 21:10 GMT (25 min)
Race 7 – Monday, March 11, 2013
Track: New Hampshire Motor Speedway – Road course with south oval
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: Yes – 50%
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race: 20:15 – 21:00 GMT (45 min)
Race 8 – Monday, March 18, 2013
Track: Summit Point Raceway
Car: McLaren MP4-12
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: No
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race (Heat 1): 20:15 – 20:35 GMT (20 min)
Race (Heat 2): 20:45 – 21:10 GMT (25 min)
Race 9 – Monday, March 25, 2013
Track: Sonoma – Cup
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: Yes – 50%
Practice: 19:00 – 20:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 20:00 – 20:15 GMT (15 min)
Race: 20:15 – 21:00 GMT (45 min)
Note: race times shifted 1 hour due to daylight savings time
Local times will remain the same for most people since GMT does not do daylight savings time!
Race 10 – Monday, April 01, 2013
Track: Charlotte Motor Speedway – Road course (Night)
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: Yes – 50%
Practice: 18:00 – 19:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 19:00 – 19:15 GMT (15 min)
Race: 19:15 – 20:00 GMT (45 min)
Race 11 – Monday, April 08, 2013
Track: Twin Ring Motegi – East (Night)
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Rolling start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: No
Practice: 18:00 – 19:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 19:00 – 19:15 GMT (15 min)
Race (Heat 1): 19:15 – 19:35 GMT (20 min)
Race (Heat 2): 19:45 – 20:10 GMT (25 min)
Race 12 – Monday, April 15, 2013
Track: Virginia International Raceway – Full
Car: McLaren MP4-12C
Start type: Standing start
Fast repairs: 2
Limited fuel: Yes – 50%
Practice: 18:00 – 19:00 GMT (60 min)
Qualification: 19:00 – 19:15 GMT (15 min)
Race: 19:15 – 20:00 GMT (45 min)