With the continuous growth of sim racing, there are more and more events organized around the internet by various communities, such as the ones hosted on The SimGrid website. With this variety of races and championships, it has become crucial to take care of every detail in order to create a successful esports championship, which can emerge from the mix and draw the attention of the user base.
Starting from scratch – creating the right racing environment
Assetto Corsa Competizione has a huge number of racers and it might be difficult to find an entire grid of people on the same level, both pace-wise and in terms of experience. Since there are many differences within the user base of ACC, a good approach should be to aim for the happy medium. A semi-pro environment could be the meeting point for casual and pro racers. Organizers should always aim to attract the best in the business. Having top-notch racers in a championship is a source of pride and prestige, but a grid entirely formed by them is nearly impossible to have.
The secret here is to set the tone early, pushing fair racers to sign up and complete the entry list. An average Assetto Corsa Competizione driver might be a step behind compared to the so-called “aliens” in terms of pace, but that is not what matters the most. The ideal racer should be able to behave in a large field and show up to every race, regardless of how the championship is going for them.
Finding the right balance between competitiveness and fun
Unfortunately, the ideal racer is not that common to find, but organizers might use some tricks to incentivize participation. An entry fee could improve the fidelity of teams, and give the organizers the chance to hand out a prize pool. The more it is distributed, the better. Giving a reward to just the top finishers at the end of the championship may fail in the attempt to avoid withdrawals within teams that are far from the top of the standings.
Encouraging and developing racers’ professionalism is important in order to improve the quality of the action on track. At the same time, a super-serious environment may discourage someone from signing up. Therefore, there must be some elements to balance things out. Building a more relaxed community mixing competitiveness and friendship is the recipe for success.
Professional stewarding and broadcasting
Creating a competitive environment with close racing is exciting, but may lead to failure if there is not a qualified Race Direction. Experienced stewards are needed, as they are going to handle tough situations. Mistakes may happen, of course, but can be prevented with high preparation and a transparent set of rules. Studying single-case scenarios, analysing professional stewards’ decision-making, can be a good idea to prevent incertitude in the decision-making process. There are differences between real motorsport and simulation, but sometimes they are smaller than we might think.
Broadcasting races on a streaming platform is a nice addition as well. Teams usually run beautiful liveries full of sponsors they want to show to the world. Racers might as well have family and friends who share their passion for sim racing: a broadcasting crew catching all the action live is a dream come true for their supporters.
QLASH Winter Series 2022
The Endurance Cup organized is a perfect example of a successful esports championship: a competitive environment hosting three different splits. But with signups closed, racers left behind might want to look for an alternative. The QLASH Winter Series 2022 has just been launched and could be worth a shot. This championship can be considered a sort of propaedeutic series for the World Cup, as it will be active in the latter’s off-season, with similar race-lengths, format and tracks’ choice.
QLASH is a well-known Italian multi-gaming community founded back in 2017, active in the sim racing world since 2019. They already held multiple championships in 2020 and 2021, with the most recently organized events being a couple of sprint races on ACC. Therefore, stewards and broadcasters have already got that experience to make sure the newly-launched series will be characterized by great levels of professionality, living up to the high expectations they set for themselves.
In fact, QLASH wants to create a competitive environment, hosting high-quality levels of racing.48 teams will battle it out in the 53 hours of racing on four of the most iconic tracks in the world. A guaranteed prize pool of $815 USD will be distributed between the final standings and the single rounds. This means that not only top teams will get rewards, but everyone can have their shot by ending on the podium or setting the fastest lap time of the race. Each entry may have 3 or 4 drivers. Races are held on Saturdays and will be broadcast live on the community’s dedicated Twitch channel. The series will kick off with the 8 Hours of Suzuka on the 29th of January. A challenging 24h of Spa will be the racing venue for round 2. In the second half of the championship, teams will tackle the 9h of Kyalami, before heading to Bathurst for the final 12 hours on the 26th of March.
