Will PCA Sim Racing continue in 2021?

PCA Sim Racing will not only continue in 2021, there will be new programs, new series, and many new opportunities to race against fellow PCA members across North America.

What are the 2021 Series and Events?

PCA Sim Racing will continue with the Spring and Fall live broadcasted race series (Spring Series 6 and Fall Series 7). As with last year, there will also be several “one-off” special events. The International Sim Racing Challenge will return with even more international Porsche clubs joining the competition.

New for 2021, there will be a year-long Endurance Series as well as PCA Zone Racing that will culminate in a special series for the best of each PCA Zone to race against the best drivers from other Zones.

Is there a calendar available for the announced 2021 national events?

Yes, there is.

What is the Endurance Racing Series?

Many sim racers have found multi-driver endurance racing to be an exciting addition to their sim racing experiences. Unlike the previous one-racer PCA Sim Racing events, PCA Endurance Racing will include teams with two drivers each. While one driver is racing, the other “spots” and part way through the race, the duo switches driver/spotter. The team aspect of endurance racing encourages teamwork, camaraderie, and allows more drivers to compete within a single race.

In 2021 the Endurance Series will race the iRacing Porsche 911 RSR and includes Daytona (January), Sebring (March), Le Mans (June), Suzuka (August), and Road Atlanta (October).

For those of you who already run the iRacing Special Event Series, the Endurance Racing Series will run just prior to the iRacing events so you can use them as test and practice events. The exact dates for the 2021 events will be announced soon as iRacing announces their 2021 Special Event schedule, but the first race in the PCA Sim Racing Endurance Series is already set for January 15th, 2021.

How do we join the PCA Sim Racing Endurance Racing Series?

Instruction on how to get involved, how to organize a team, as well as techniques and strategies used during endurance racing, will be shared within the PCA Sim Racing eDE Driver Education program.

What’s different in 2021 with the live broadcast Friday night races?

The basic format for the regular Friday night national Spring and Fall Series will return once again. Spring Series 6 will again feature the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car and the Fall Series 7 car will be determined from the Spring 2021 PCA Sim Racing driver survey results provided at the conclusion of Series 6.

Series 6 and 7 will continue in iRacing and include six races with Podium eSports again announcing the live broadcast Friday races. Spring Series 6 will run from late April through May and Fall Series 7 from mid-September through mid-October. During both Series 6 and 7, PCA Sim Racing will again include weekly eDE sessions and mid-week Prelude practice races, just like in 2020.

Who is eligible to run Series 6 and Series 7?

Series 6 and 7 will be open to all registered and validated PCA sim racers (meaning have been given a classification of either PCA Challenge, PCA Sport, PCA Club, or PCA Pro class through the eDE Driver Education program) and on a first-to-join the Friday night race server basis.

What is Zone Group Racing?

There has been a huge growth in registered racers from across all North American time zones. The goal of PCA Zone Racing is to create more racing opportunities and more new racer on-boarding opportunities that will provide the bandwidth for PCA Sim Racing to continue to grow. To provide more sim racing opportunities, the PCA Sim Racing Steering Committee created the Zone Challenge and Zone Championship racing program.

How is it different than the regular Friday night series?

PCA Zones have been grouped into five Zone Groups and each has a group of coordinators. These coordinators will be setting up evening eDE instructional sessions, practice sessions, and races all in your time zone.

What is the structure of the new Zone Group Racing events, and how will champions be determined?

First, the Zone Group racing program kicks off in November 2020 and runs through late February 2021 (“Zone Group Events”).

Each Zone Group will host its own competitive Events and award each participant finishing points for each driver’s respective Zone at each Zone Group Event. Drivers will accumulate points towards their own Zone totals, where in effect the drivers will be competing only against drivers from his/her own Zone (not Zone Group).

At the end of February, the podium (top three) plus the 4th-place finisher in each Zone in each Class will advance to the two-race Zone Group Challenge Championship in April.

As an alternative to qualifying for the Zone Group Challenge Championship by the above means, starting in March, all registered PCA sim racers can compete in the Zone Group Challenge, which will consist of races at Watkins Glen, Sonoma, Road America, and Sebring.

Podium finishers from each class from this Zone Group Challenge will earn the tickets to compete in Zone Group Challenge Championship.

Those Zone drivers who qualify by either competing at their respective Zone Group Events or as a result of competing in the four-race Zone Group Challenge will earn the tickets to compete in the two-race Zone Group Challenge Championship held in April.

As there have been questions raised about this new-to-everyone process, a summary of the basic definitions and structure is shown below.

Definitions:

  • Zone Group Events:  Zone Group races November > February
  • Zone Group Challenge:  4-race series in March – April (National; Not Zone-dependent)
  • Zone Group Challenge Championship:  2-race final championship in April

There are 2 paths to Qualify for Zone Group Challenge Championship:

Path 1 – Zone Group Events: (For each class) Podium finishers and P4 driver for each Zone (NOT by Zone Group).

OR

Path 2 – Zone Group Challenge: Podium finishers in each class for the 4-race series. (Open to all PCA Sim Racing League members.)

Drivers who already qualified for Zone Group Challenge from the Zone Group Event will not earn points towards the Zone Group Challenge Championship but are welcome to drive in the Zone Group Challenge.

The Zone Group racing events, Challenge races, and Challenge Championship are separate and independent of the Spring National Series 6 and Fall National Series 7.

What Special Events can we look forward to in 2021?

PCA Sim racers enjoyed participating in the Virtual California Festival of Speed and International Sim Racing Challenge in 2020. 2021 plans include more of both as well as additional special sim racing events that will be announced in early 2021.

Plans for the coming year include more of both these as well as additional special sim racing events that will be announced in early 2021. All registered PCA Sim racers will have an opportunity to participate in the one-off special events. The goal of the 2021 International Sim Racing Challenge is to encourage more international Porsche Clubs to join the competition and the top racers from the PCA Zone Group racing program and PCA Series 6 will be invited to participate and represent PCA and the PCA Sim Racing program.

What resources do Zone Coordinators have?

The PCA Sim Racing Steering Committee is here to help your Zone Group get things going. Feel free to contact us for advisement or suggestions. Contact the following Steering Committee members for each area. All can be contacted on our Discord server.

Discord – Liam Rudzitis

eDE Driver Education – James Huth

iRacing Server Setup – Doug Atkinson

Prelude – Mike Nyden

Social Media – Liam Rudzitis, Mike Nyden, Doug Atkinson

Timing & Scoring – Chuck Parrish

Webpages – Doug Atkinson