Pro Endurance VLN Rules and Regulations

Welcome to the 2014 TORA PRO Endurance VLN - the ultimate test of teamwork on Forza Motorsport 5.

This event will be run on the combined Nordschleife + GP track, also known as the Behemoth, and will take place on the weekend of the 13th and 14th of December 2014.

The race will start at 2PM GMT on the 13th of December 2014 and finish on Sunday the 14th of December 2014 at 2PM GMT.

Teams can consist of up to 4 drivers. Ideally, you want the full four to make the 24 hours less challenging on yourselves and your consoles. Teams must drive in the same car throughout the event. If any team members switch into different cars throughout the race then their session will not be counted in the team's overall distance. Teams must have a minimum of three drivers.

Race Rules

The race will be split up into 12 stints that will last two hours. Each stint will be competed by one driver from each team, so you will not be racing on track with your team mates during the event. Driver changes take place when the stint is over at the 2 hour mark, where we will then go back into the lobby and the drivers and lobby hosts will change over. At this point the host will enter the distances covered by the drivers into the database which will be combined for the final results at the end of the race. The race will be ran distance and a lobby scoring method. To accommodate for the stint changes a 10 minute turnaround will be applied for 'a pit stop with driver change simulation' so in reality the stints only last 1 Hour 45 Minutes. The final stint will be a similar to the previous stints, however the timer will be extended to the full two hours.

There will be one mandatory pit stop per session.

Each stint will begin under a Rolling Start, following standard TORA procedures. The lead car will take the grid around at 60 mph maximum and the cars will line up in single file in their qualifying order. When the drivers go through the final chicane of the GP circuit it is race on, race speed and GO GO GO. Stint two will be a formation of the qualifying results but stint 3 will be a a formation of the results in stint 1, stint 4 will be the results from stint 2, stint 5 the results of stint 3 and so forth.

Safety cars will not factor into the race as the entire event is based upon your total distance. If there is a crash you will have to recover and continue to the end of your stint and deal with any damage that you pick up. This should be incentive enough to stay out of the wall. Damage will be set to simulation to replicate fuel and tyre wear.

Qualification for this event will be held the week before the event to ensure hosts are setup to the host the races throughout the weekend. Each qualification round will last 45 minutes and drivers will not be allowed to use the sessions as a practice. The team will qualify as a whole, so out of the 4 possible times that could be set by the entire team then the best time will be taken. For example, if Driver 3 sets a better time then Driver 1 then Driver 3's time will be taken as the best time. Each driver may only compete in one qualifying session. There will be lobbies hosted throughout the week to accommodate racers in European time zones and American time zones.

Settings
- Collisions will be set to off during all Qualifying sessions.
- Collisions during all races will be on.
- Damage will be set to simulation
- TCS, Driving Line and Normal/Simulation Steering are the only allowed driving aids that may be used. ABS, STM, Auto-brake and Auto-gears are prohibited. Manual gears must be used but it is up to the competitor if they wish to use the clutch or not.

Livery Requirements

- It's not offensive
- It doesn't include any direct tobacco sponsorship
- It has sponsors

There will not be mandatory Numberboxes for this event but you are required to show your team number on the car.

Car Numbers

Each competitor in the team must be registered with TORA and have a TORA Race Number. This is for admin purposes only. The number that is displayed on the car during the 24 hour event must be one of the competitors TORA numbers who is present within the team. Whichever driver's number the team uses is up to you.


If a team does not qualify, they will start at the back of the grid from during the parade lap in class order in the last room, and they will have to make a pit stop on Lap 1, in addition to the mandated pit stop to be taken at some point in the stint.

Lag Outs

NOTE: You must qualify to be eligible for this rule.

In this years event we will be addressing the retention issue when looking at lagouts. Over the last 2-3 years we have seen teams be forced out of the event due to a lag out. We want to change that for this event and offer teams something and give them numbers that give them a fighting chance of finishing amongst the runners. Teams will now be awarded a percentage of their estimated total distance. Let me break it down for you by presenting an example.

Let's say I lag out in the lead with about a half hour left to go and i've already completed my mandatory pit stop. That means I lagged out 1 hour and 20 minutes into the race and for arguments sake, lets assume I've completed 130 miles at this stage. What we will do is take the teams qualifying time (fastest) and calculate - given the time left in the stint - the distance you would have traveled in the remaining time and offer you 75% of that time lost.

Fastest Team Qualifying Time: 8min50sec (this is 8.833333 minutes)

30 mins divided by 8.83333 = 3.396 laps we estimate you'd have completed in 30 minutes.

3.396 laps x .75 = 2.547 laps

2.547 laps is equivalent to 40.7547 miles

Let's go a step further and say you would probably have done 54.336 miles had you not lagged out. In essence, we have taken away 13.5813 miles (84.8% of a lap) but you've just been awarded something right? You're still in the hunt and after all, it's a long race.

So let's consider the above and present the following:

Old format: 130mi completed and lagged out after 1hr20mins is 130mi total.
New format: 130mi completed and lagged out after 1hr20mins is 170.75mi total.
New format: Had you not lagged out and continued - probably 184.336mi total.

Q: What if I hadn't of pitted at this stage you ask?
A: We quite simply take 30 seconds from your time and use the same sequence of calculations.

Q: How will we know their distance and time when they lagged out?!
A: Well that's were the lobby participants come in. We can't be sure that their distance at that time will be recorded in the results so we require people in the lobby to confirm the time when they lagged out and distance covered. I often hear, 'He was about 1-2 miles behind me and lagged out about 48 minutes into the race'.  We've all had to do this and we can all assist each other in establishing where they were. The laggee of course will know this information, we just require the lobby host and/or other to confirm the information.

Things we thought of:

People just quitting out anyway and not bothering to do their stint. We thought 75% of that number was low enough that you'd have to complete the stint in order not to have your teams result badly affected overall. For arguments sake, a half hour is nearly equivalent to a whole lap lost. No team can afford that around this track.
The best lap time from the team will be used so each team HAS to qualify to be eligible for this rule. So what if one driver is really really slow and he's the one who lags out? Well going by our calculations above, the driver would have to be lapping at 11mins 46.680 seconds or slower to achieve any benefit to his team by bending the rules. In essence, this rule helps but we still give you a penalty. Your stint will say, 'Completed 130mi and suffered mechanical difficulty which hindered the rest of their stint'.

Please feel free to offer your thoughts in the general chat section. Do understand that we are trying to offer teams a fighting chance to retain their involvement in the duration of the event.

Our full rule set for 2014 can be found in here -  http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t12061-tora-2013-14-sporting-regulations-19112013