Stopping Before The Yard of Bricks

When racing at the very highest level, either in the real world or in the virtual, the barest minimum expectation that should be held of the competitors is that they know the rules of engagement better than those putting on the competition. They have to; in an attempt to try and get the maximum out of what's possible and to try and be near the front and chase a peak only one can be a top of, so they can be the one to reach the very peak come the end of any given race. If things get weird and a race falls apart outside of the realm of normalcy, drivers and engineers alike have to be ready to adapt, and ideally overcome the challenge. But what if they can't overcome the challenge, and the faculties that are the ties that bind force them into a spot that nobody knows what is the right thing to do? What if not even the people who put the event together know what to do, or do anything at all?

The eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series needed a break from the races that fall apart in the closing stages. It needed a race that simply came and went without too much strife for the drivers that aren't making nearly enough money for the time and effort they put into one of iRacing's pinnacle oval racing series. The forty drivers that earned the right to race in the Coke Series have to deal with the reality that the NASCAR Next-Gen Cup Series car will always put them in an ugly spot with the amount of wake it produces punching through the air; restricting overtaking possibilities while the relative lack of power and lateral grip making it impossible to break through that barrier. At a track like the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, if the race didn't get off-script early it could be argued that most of the field's fate had already been sealed after they qualified. The over-emphasis on recreating reality on a car that has always had fundamental flaws in terms of how it races gets exposed come the virtual world, but a processional race and getting beyond the chaos of races past would have been what the doctor ordered if the scheduled race distance was only 58 laps long.

But The Coke Series race at Indy was a scheduled 60 laps long, and would run an additional twelve after that caution in those final laps prompted a first attempt at a green–white–checker finish, and then a second, and then a decisive third as was decided by race officials. The race had fallen apart after clumsy driving in the rare attempt to try and gain positions on track that this car and track pairing was able to give. It would be fine if the third attempt at a GWC was decisive in the fact that the race ended as intended with a race to the flag, but that wasn't going to be in the cards either. The field wrecked immediately in turn 1, the caution was thrown, and the laps to wrap up the affair had to be done at pacing speed; or at least that's how it suppose to go if the drivers and crews weren't redlining their fuel to try and have that vital track position. For a better explanation about what happened next, check out this video from https://www.youtube.com/@DJYeeJay.

The systems that dictate how pacing operates, where drivers should be in the queue, how the safety car deploys, and how long the procedure actually takes place is fully automated in iRacing. It's one of the many benefits of racing in the virtual world, but at the very highest level there still needs to be human officials and stewards making sure that the rules of engagement are kept in place with overrides and workarounds in place in case things go so far beyond the realm of the rational. The drivers who gambled the biggest on fuel, including Ryan Luza, by the letter of the automated systems were still maintaining technical pace speed, but never caught the pace car to adequately maintain their position. It put a vast majority of the field that had cut their losses, came for fuel and tires prior, and could maintain true pace speed directly behind the safety car in a spot to where they still had to abide by the rules of the automated system and not pass the yard of bricks until Luza did himself, or get a penalty in the game. This would all be fine if the race officials were in control of the situation and understood why the automated systems that work as intended for 99.99% of all iRacing events fell apart in this 0.01% instance that happened, but the series officials led by former series champion Tyler Hudson failed to live up to the moment.

Blake Reynolds stormed across the line having weaved through the slowing cars to technically finish the race first, Parker White paced across the line directly behind the safety car next, and then a wall of cars waited without knowing what was the right thing to do. Eventually, the call was put through to the field to "just go" after the field was harping on race control over voice chat about the unfolding situation and decided that the results would be finalized after the race. Ryan Luza officially finished thirtieth after the safety car's immediate redeployment put him in a spot where he could never catch up to it again having run out of fuel, Reynolds would be scored eighth, and Parker White having dominated the race before it fell apart was declared the winner. None of the tools at the disposal of THud and his team were used to restore decorum when there was a chance to do so, as if a hockey referee refused to break up a fight. The drivers and crews knew something was wrong and it should have been resolved, but instead were put into a spot of another farcical result where nobody looked good. This is suppose to be the biggest esports oval racing series in the world, what are we doing here?

Every series on the planet that prides itself as being the pinnacle one way or another will have weekends and races it will want to forget. NASCAR and Formula 1 alike have had nightmare moments in their history at Indianapolis in 2008 and 2005 respectively; there's just something that has to happen when series that aren't IndyCar try to make something bigger at Indy for their own benefit, though things are a little different for the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series. This wasn't a case of a series trying to build a marquee event off of the back of the biggest race in the world backfiring, but rather of complacency that finally caught up to the series at a moment it didn't need it.

The drivers and setup engineers that work themselves to the bone to race at the perceived peak of the sport in the virtual world deserve better than this. If there is such a pressure put onto them by the powers that be to race at this pinnacle of virtual racing, then something needs to be done to ensure that this doesn't happen again and that those who do race and set up the cars get their fair share. It's hard when the car forces drivers to race with a level of desperation that they shouldn't be, but that's the nature of a car and virtual world that demands metronomic-type performance to succeed with driving style variances getting grounded down as we get closer to the fastest possible lap time. To an extent, this would be fine if the powers that be actually cared about what the product they're putting out on track actually is.

I find it hard to believe that the powers that be do care, because it remains to be seen if anything will actually change for the better after the field ground to a halt meters from crossing the yard of bricks to finish the race. If it is clear that things won't change, I must ask again what's the point of putting such pressure on one's self if the reward is effectively nothing unless you're crowned champion?

The drivers and teams of the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series have tremendous power at their disposal, but it's up to them to unite over a common goal to actually make that possible. But even then if they do harness that, do iRacing and NASCAR even care, or is half a million dollars from Coca-Cola and an additional marketing venture all they ever wanted?

Perhaps the fact that drivers and spotters who were trying to bring up the issue as it was happening have been given chat bans with one being banned from being a part of the race lobbies tells us everything we need to know.