Week after week we are bringing you a complete overview of the variety offered by the communities hosting events at SimGrid. In today’s article, we are exploring the world of Odyssey Racing League – a familiar environment which has been active for almost two years on our platform.

Odyssey Racing League’s roots

Odyssey Racing League was founded in January 2022, with the first races hosted on F1 2021. The original founders were Ramy, Abdul, James, and Tyler, who talked with us about the community. “Me and the other admins were doing open lobbies on F1 2021 and we would always have the same people in there racing with us, so we decided to start a league,” he recalled.

The community was originally named Full Throttle Racing League and became Odyssey Racing League only in April. After the organisation of a championship on the newly-released F1 2022, the admins felt like it was time to change. They started hosting races on Assetto Corsa Competizione and have yet to look back.

Behind the work put in by Odyssey Racing League there is a large admin group. “We have an extensive list of staff that do a lot of work behind the scenes,” Tyler explained. “League Admins, Americas Admins, EU Admins, Stewards/Live Stewards, Community Managers, and Broadcasters. Without these people and their hard work, our league would go nowhere so I’ll take the time in this article to personally thank each and every one of them for their hard work and dedication to this league.”

A familiar place to race

One of the keys to ORL’s success has been the warm environment created by Tyler and the other admins since the early days of the community. “I feel like the vital importance of building a good community is a sense of understanding within the community. Making it feel like a sort of “family atmosphere” is what is most important to me. There are people within ORL that have created lifelong friendships. I have people in this league that I would call some of my best friends”.

Thanks to Odyssey Racing League a lot of sim racers have met up in real life and have gone to the 24 Hours of Spa or have been karting together, marking a sim racing community that has gone beyond its original purpose of just being a place where people unite to race against each other. This factor can also have a good impact on the future of ORL, as it becomes easier to welcome new members into an environment with such strong bonds.

Present and future plans

Aside from the community values, Odyssey Racing League obviously has a competitive side as well. The community is currently hosting an endurance league, which is now coming to its climax with just two races left on the calendar.  “We currently run 2 feature races, our Americas GT3 series and our EU GT3 series, along with 2 support races, 1 for EU and 1 for Americas, which change from season to season. The 2 feature races are live stewarded and streamed as well. This makes it a lot more realistic and exciting for the drivers on track”.

What about future plans? Well, Tyler did not say too much about them, but at the same time he gave an interesting anticipation: “I guess people will have to join ORL to find out, but I can give a hint: collaboration with another big league”.