The Chicane Podcast
Welcome to the Chicane Podcast, keeping you up to date on everything sim racing. As we venture into this dynamic realm of esports and virtual racing, we'll be exploring a variety of topics, from the cutting-edge gear that's transforming the way we race to the newest games, hardware and software that are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in this virtual sport. We'll also be giving you an inside look into the lives of some of the top virtual racers in the world, through in-depth interviews that will give you a unique perspective on what it's like to compete at the highest level in this rapidly evolving eSport. So, buckle up and get ready for an unforgettable ride as we take you right into the cockpit of this exciting digital racing world.
The Chicane Podcast
Global Racing League: How it Makes Sim Racers Faster
Buckle up for an exhilarating journey into the heart of community-driven sim racing as The Chicane Podcast assembles a crew of passionate racers to celebrate and explore the Global Racing League (GRL).
What makes a racing league truly special? The answer resonates throughout this episode as Jason Rivera hosts Eric Kelly, Jeff Smart, Michael from Sim Racing Den, GRL admin Vlad, and newcomer Neil "Top Shotta" to reflect on GRL's just-completed Season 5. Their enthusiasm is infectious as they contrast the often cold, unpredictable nature of official iRacing sessions with the warm, structured environment GRL provides.
The conversation reveals how GRL transforms the sim racing experience through accountability, community, and genuine connection. When drivers see the same competitors week after week, trust develops, enabling closer, cleaner racing. The detailed stewarding process—where incidents are analyzed frame-by-frame post-race—doesn't just penalize; it educates, creating better racers who understand proper race craft.
We're treated to fascinating insights into GRL's global reach, spanning 34 countries with 217 active drivers, all connected through their passion for virtual motorsport. Vlad unveils the league's sleek new website and details upcoming Season 6 changes, including slightly higher entry requirements designed to ensure quality racing for all participants.
Perhaps most compelling are the personal stories shared by the guests—moments when they experienced breakthrough improvements, forged friendships, or received impromptu coaching from faster drivers. These anecdotes illustrate how GRL isn't merely a racing platform but a community where competitive spirit harmonizes with camaraderie.
Whether you're a lone racer looking for community, a competitive driver seeking consistent improvement, or simply curious about structured league racing, this episode offers an inspiring glimpse into what sim racing can be at its best. Ready to join the grid for Season 6? Visit globalracingleague.com and become part of this thriving racing family!
https://globalracingleague.com/#/
Please e-mail the show for any questions, comments or stories/experiences at thechicanepodcast@gmail.com
Watch the show in video podcast form on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@TGSsimracing
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Affiliates and Discount Codes
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The Hello and welcome to the Chicane Podcast, where we discuss all things in the sim racing world. I'm your host, jason Rivera, and I'm joined here by Mr Eric Kelly, jeff Smart, michael from the Sim Racing Den, vlad, aka V-Lad, a GRL admin, and my boy, neil, the top shot. How's everybody?
Jeff:doing today.
Vlad:Doing well, Doing good man Doing good Dude.
Jeff:look at the party we got going on in here. This is awesome.
Jason:Neil who let you out. Man, what's up? Man? I got Neil on the show. Man, what's good? Man? I've been trying to get you on for a while and you've been ducking and dodging, but this time we got to him, bro. We got him, we got our mitts. She came. Podcast reached out. Peer pressure oh yeah.
Erick:Yeah, welcome man.
Jason:So, yeah, welcome man. So we got a squad here. It's going to be a great episode. We just wrapped up season five of GRL and we're all here to discuss basically how it's been for us and the future of GRL itself. But before we get to that, some announcements. Iracing update is underway and you can definitely ask neil about that one. He's been. He's been bugging out on the, on the lighting and the windows and the reflections, and I almost crashed in the race the other day he was talking about.
Michael:I thought he worked for I racing or something. Are they paying you to say this new?
Neil:no, just I just like to reflect on the reflection. It's so shiny, it's so pretty.
Jason:Yeah, he was flipping out and then I'm trying to race and keep pace and I'm looking down at my dad see if I see what, neil? What are you talking about, bro? Like you're trying to see the dirt and light coming in. It did make sense after a while and we made it through. Yeah, iracing. We are at week 13. Pain that's Jeff's favorite week.
Jeff:Just brutal.
Jason:GRL is a great option for that week. 13 votes Going around the room a little bit. Let's see what's up with Eric. Eric, we missed you the last episode. Man, how you feeling brother.
Erick:Feeling a thousand times better. Man Never felt that bad before in my life. Wouldn't wish it on anybody. I'm happy that it's passed through our house and we're done with it. On the upside, I did want to say that there's a new tool in beta. It's a race engineer for a GT7 that works like crew chief, but we'll talk about that in the next episode, rob Markman oh, interesting, so stay tuned for that one.
Jason:Okay, all right, man. Welcome back, brother Rob Markman. I'm glad you made it through and God bless the fam. Jeff. What's up, jeff?
Jeff:Dude, I got two, I like to think. Big announcements, first things first is we got ourselves a new shiny toy. Look at that. Since I've been doing oval racing and some rally cross, it's way easier to do with this than it is a formula wheel wheel. Uh, that, coupled with the the new shifter, is super nice. Um, and then, honestly, like, as I was walking in to uh hit the recording here, my doorbell rang and I am the new owner of a uh shiny new 3d printer. As I fell, uh to the the peer pressures of my uh fellow co-hosts here, this is is the first time that I was not involved.
Vlad:Oh yeah.
Jeff:Not involved at all.
Erick:I was not involved. This is all, eric Kelly.
Jason:Kelly Eric Eric Kelly.
Erick:I haven't been doing nothing, man. Nothing, at all Nothing.
Jeff:It's probably just paused while we're recording. Then it's going to hit play when we're done.
Jason:Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. Okay, so I would like to take the time to, and, of course, f1 started. If you're watching this, I hope you. Yes, let's go. Yes, we're all. We're in our proud supporting teams here, even though the Mercedes Black is not black. There you go. We got the Louis Hamilton, we got the.
Erick:Louis Hamilton, we got Hammer Time.
Jason:It's Hammer Time, so I do want to take the opportunity to introduce Neil, aka the Top Shotta. He has been an amazing he's just been an amazing friend. Every time I go in there and neil's there, it's always a good time, and I was like man, neil, you got a great sense of humor. He's a smart guy, smarter than I thought, and, uh, I would like to welcome him to the show and tell us a bit about yourself, neil. What's good with neil man, what's? What's going on? What's?
Neil:good with you I'm just like I've been watching a lot of you guys streams and just I'm into the same things you. You guys are right, like the tag, the fun part of it, not really competitive, it's just more fun meeting people. Yeah, driving racing. I met grl league through another friend, through another friend, just talking networking. Same way I talk with you, right. He's like, hey, you like poor p, you got to come to the GRL, leo, come in there. Michael McCloud I'm like, hey, there's Vlad. Jason starts out. I'm like I've heard this voice before.
Erick:Yo that freaked me out.
Jason:I ain't going to lie. That freaked me out. Jason he's like yeah.
Neil:That's how we clicked right away because I was like yo, what's up? Yeah, and then I heard mikey, I'm like, wait a second, that guy's from around here. I know that guy sim red. Yeah, he goes. Yeah, I was like, oh my god, it's just too crazy. Yeah, I had goosebumps small world sim racing man, yeah, it was, it was freaky I just, I just love it. I love sim racing. I love sim, everything like I was telling you before, like trains, planes.
Neil:But oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you like the train sims yeah, but since I set up the rig with the triples, it's mostly racing.
Jason:It's like monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, sometimes on a sunday so get, get I'll try to give us a quick rundown, yeah, how, how you started with sim racing and what gear? What gear did you end up with? Because I'm pretty sure it's an extensive one.
Neil:So yeah, let's go my first sim racing experience was in 1982 with pole position, but damn, damn, bro.
Jason:I wasn't even born, I wasn't even thought of bro, I was programming on my commodore vic 20. My dad was having the time of his life at that time man.
Neil:I like simulation, everything First flight sim everything. But then I got my buddy, got me hooked into iRacing back like 2010. So my number is like five digits, like I see people out there at six, seven, mine's five digits and you know it started off with like a G. What was the old logic?
Jason:Like G25 or something G29 or something. I had like a wooden rig cut out of it. Oh, that's everything.
Neil:Yeah, yeah, grab the bmw e30c like it was rusted. Both fit down race what you got yeah, took like an eraser, like one of those white artists yeah, yeah shoved it, the pedal for like a load style. And then you know, my daughter was born last kid and my boys were into soccer and just got busy, so shut it down for a bit. Covid hit and I was just bored. I said I miss sim racing.
Jason:We back baby COVID hit and we back COVID baby. I had the Xbox, I had the.
Neil:Xbox on the other side of the room. I had the Xbox on the other side of the room and I just downloaded F1, what 2020?
Jason:or 2019 at the time, oh my God Wow.
Neil:F1 again and I'm like you know what? I need a wheel and I had this old Xbox wheel, the one that you used to put on your lap, the gray and white one. I had that one. I dusted that off.
Jason:I'm like no, this is cheesy. Yeah, we got to fix this.
Neil:Moved up to Thrustmaster. I found like online because everything was sold out, yeah Right. And then I bought the what's that company? It's almost like a lawn chair. My cousin's telling me you're racing on a soccer lawn chair. The what's that.
Jason:The Playseat. Playseat no not the Playseat.
Neil:It was that other company.
Jason:Next Level Next Level Racing. Next level Next level.
Neil:It folded out Right, so I I strapped it to there and I was sitting in front of the.
Jason:TV. Yeah, cause you thought you was gonna put that away. That's what you thought.
Neil:Yeah, my wife's like I don't like to see that. In front of the TV I was like that's okay.
Jeff:Don't look at the TV, nope.
Neil:I got two furniture dollies.
Jason:I'll just buy another TV. That's what I'm.
Neil:Well, it almost got to that, so I got two furniture dollies Velcro and I rolled it in the roof. She goes. I still don't like to see it.
Jason:Oh no, I said all right.
Neil:Went out and found an Alienware computer and just started going crazy adding on to it.
Michael:That's where it starts.
Neil:Yeah, one of my good buddies. He's got like a crazy 60 OF rig, so I was always there with him when he was building it too, like he works like with these other companies and he's always trying to. I'm like, I'm not doing it. His name is mike, also like mike, I'm not doing it.
Jason:Don't put me in my. Why is it always michael? Why is it?
Jeff:mike, michael and jason. We yeah, so yeah, right we do everything we make people spend money.
Michael:You do like we do, artsy stuff together.
Neil:I got a back into dj. We do everything together. He's like, I'm like stop, he's like you stop it, come on man, I'm like stop it, hooked it up. Oh, you did it again and then it just blew up from there into this right. So most you know, like when everybody's semi-cube um two pro base who's? That's what you're running a semi-cube yeah, the, the pro right, the middle one, yeah um gsi, gsi. Steering wheel fpv okay, gsi yep um who's in felt ultimate?
Neil:yeah yes, sir, yes sir, good setup sim lab c um it's sim lab base, but same 8020 rigging right and a lot of arduino units. So oh yeah, yeah, fan fan uh module. I got a fuel gauge I built um, got the grid, browse that I saw on Mike's stream One of the guys in the Discord. He told me hey, you need to get these because he knows I like gadgets, right, and then throw a monitor here, Throw another monitor here. I just did the Philips Hue system in here.
Jason:Yeah, Mike has a tendency to just tell you to buy. I've been watching his show. You don't need, but you will buy. As soon as you're done watching one of his videos, it's like damn, mike bye.
Erick:And just put the pros and cons out there.
Michael:You make your decision in the end.
Neil:None of this stuff will actually make you any faster. Well, it can. Immersion, immersion.
Michael:There are tools that can add to help you improve performance. But yeah, it's not a cheat code to faster lap times.
Neil:It's not a grip mod like, I think, five butt kickers, like everything you know, like anybody could be fat.
Jason:You could be fast with the g29.
Neil:Yeah, if you, if you, if you have the muscle memory, you can smoke anybody on that wheel you, you can be on a yoga ball with a controller and beat somebody, like if you're good, like the thing is, I like to feel like I'm like I'm like I'm steering something.
Jason:I think most of us are after immersion as like number one, right.
Michael:Like for me in the beginning was always how can I get this more realistic, more?
Jeff:immersive right.
Michael:Yeah, it was never about trying to get faster, because, trust me, with all this gear, I'm one of the slowest people on the grid.
Jason:Still no, he's not. No, he's not, but that's what I have to blad where the numbers at man I'll show it in a little bit, but that's what's great about the grle too.
Neil:right, because, yeah, like I've gotten a little faster because of people like vlad same, I can never pass Vlad, I'm always one or two cars.
Jason:Vlad, wait a minute. They're helping you out, Vlad. There's something about Vlad. So, Vlad can defend his ass off. Yeah, he's a good defender.
Neil:He will not. Let me pass.
Jason:There was a time that I was clearly faster than him, which is rare. Suzuka In Suzuka.
Jason:That's my baby track, that's my love, that's in my veins, bro. And he knew how to finesse me out of it like nah, you're not passing me, bro, no, no, and it was legal. It was legal, it wasn't blocking. So I learned a lot from racing with him and that's kind of what we're about to get into right. We're about to get into the the, to get into our experience with it. So I'm glad to have you here, neil. Welcome to the show.
Neil:I appreciate it, I really appreciate it.
Jason:Welcome everybody to the show. It's great to have everybody on.
Michael:Mike, you're always you're the man, you're the legend. Thank you for having me back. It's always fun.
Jason:Vlad, I love you. Vlad is always the biggest support that I've ever seen to anybody, and anybody here can attest to that. It doesn't matter who you are. You reach out to Vlad and he does anything that he could do to get you where you need to go right away.
Jason:So we highly appreciate you big time, and I know Eric does too. Yeah, definitely. So with that, welcome everybody, and we're about to go into the main discussion and I'll start it out with the first question, right? So what do you like about GRL League Racing over the regular iRacing official open races? And we'll start with Eric Kelly.
Erick:Start with Eric Kelly Wow. So obviously I have probably the smallest amount of experience with the official league races for iRacing. But for me, obviously, being new, having somebody you can reach out to, having a clear set of rules, having friends that basically aren't going to shit on you while you're trying to learn, while you're trying to improve and the GRL Racing League it's so well structured that it's it's really a learning tool, even if you race in other leagues and if you've been racing for a while. I would argue that anybody can come in and wherever you're at, speed wise or you know experience wise, just being in the GRL, there's something, some aspect of racing that you can learn from somebody. You might be on the track with an alien and somebody who's on their first or second race. To me that's kind of rare with the official leagues, especially with you being matched up by our rating. That's really the biggest thing that I like about the league is just the people and the experience.
Jason:All right, Well said. Next person up is Vlad V-Lad, my man.
Vlad:Oh, talk about my league. The league that I help admin.
Jason:Yeah, man, to be honest we heard it here on the show man, this is Vlad. No, I'm just kidding.
Vlad:I think I mentioned last time that I actually don't do many officials. Uh, last year I did one official all year. So, um, if anything, my my I rating is a lot lower than it probably should be, but that's totally fine with me and, um, I think that kind of leads into why I like the league so much. It's just the, the community, the people, the friends that you make. You know you're not just racing with a bunch of random people and I think you know Neil and Mike can attest to just kind of how nice everybody is. And you know, once you race a few weeks you learn the people, you learn how they drive and you kind of see where you're matched up on the grid. And that's really, you know, the best part of racing with the same people every week, you know is compared to officials.
Jason:Right. So it's kind of like F1, right, everybody knows each other. They've been racing since they were kids, even though we weren't doing that. But it's kind of like the same camaraderie of sim racers now together and you have that. You know those characters, right? You know those people. Like my boy, neil, I'm always looking out, trying to make sure I finish in front of him, because when I do, I love it, man, I love it. I called him out. I called him out of two episodes ago. I think he got one time time, I know, but that one time, that's all I needed. All right, well said, blad, and I know jeff hasn't had the pleasure yet, but we'll get you there soon, brother. Um, I know there's some formula racing because jeff is well, I guess I'll let you. I'll let you speak on behalf right of yourself, sir um you know, yeah, I'll get there.
Jeff:I just, I mean I it's not that I don't want to, because, to eric's point those open officials in, I racing can be, uh, they can be ruthless sometimes. Um, it's a, it's a tough crowd. Everybody's looking out for the, you know, me myself and I um, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it's rough, so it is nice, it would be nice to jump in there, it just is. I have a lot of stuff going on right now. You know work's becoming incredibly demanding and, uh, you know, I got a year and a half old and a seven year old, um, so I'll get in there eventually, just trying to get some stuff figured out. Let the kid get, you know, a little bit more, a little older, uh, a little less demanding on the parental side and time zones too, they don't time zones are probably the hardest one, uh, with I never, just never know when I'm going to get out of work and stuff like that.
Jeff:But all in all, those are all excuses and I will adapt and overcome. You'll get there. You'll get there you'll get there.
Jason:Yeah, all right. So moving over to mike from the sim racing.
Michael:Then welcome back, sir yeah, thanks for having me back.
Jason:Yeah, man, I think, uh, I think it's awesome to to be able to race, uh shoulder to shoulder with you. I can't wait to hear your words, so have at it, yeah, likewise.
Michael:No, I mean, I think for me, um, you know, and more recently, since I started the channel, it's funny, I mean I do a lot of sim racing but a lot of times I'm just in test drive mode by myself so that I can film, and, you know, stop and go and take notes and, as I'm doing, harbor reviews and I kind of stopped doing a lot of competitive racing, funny enough, um, just because I wanted to be able to maximize the time.
Michael:I think everybody knows here, like when you go into an official race, you know, just roll the dice and let's see what's going to happen, right, um, I think the biggest thing in the official races and I think everyone can attest to this is that, unfortunately, you, you find a lot of selfish sort of racers. I call them, you know, as soon as they go off the track, they're quick to get back on the track. They're not making safe entries. I think a lot of people are just in a rush to kind of have that race for themselves. The difference with the league that I found is like it's the accountability right, everybody right, we're all racing with the same people every week, which is amazing because you kind of form, these friendships, like you know here I am talking to neil and become regulars in the league and it's it's kind of fun. You look forward to kind of seeing and talking with your friends that you've catching up catch up last week right, but I think
Michael:there's this, so there's this competitiveness too. So what I would tell anyone who was thinking about joining the league is that whatever you're looking for, whether you're looking for casual racing, you're trying to get faster, you're still learning, you can find it there and people will support you, people will help you. People are not going to put you down. You know, as long as you're you're respectful of the rules and you're trying your best to abide by them, everyone's going to support you. And then, if you're looking to be super competitive, like there's I mean I was super humbled when I went into the league because I'm in the bottom of the grid, guys Like I am not super fast, but I've been definitely been getting better because I noticed when I would go back into an official race, I was like getting podiums because I'm now racing with faster people in the league. So, whatever you're looking for, competitiveness, you know some fun banter to learn.
Michael:The other thing that I love is the variety. So you get we get different formats, know every week whether it be classic, heats, endurance, so you're constantly switching up your strategy. Like, I haven't done a lot of racing where I've had to pit do pit stops. To be honest, I don't do very many long races. If I jump in an official, I've got 30 minutes. Um, kind of learning how to do pit stops again and thinking about fuel management and all those things and tires has been a lot of fun.
Michael:So, yeah, there's so many pros to joining the league and there's a lot of leagues out there and I was kind of overwhelmed if thinking about joining one. And then I heard you know, flat, come on the podcast, that first episode and literally I texted I think I texted jason after I'm said I'm joining the league. You know I was sold on it. So, bro, I wanted to cry, bro, yeah, so I'm, I'm said I'm joining the league you know I was sold on it so, but I wanted to cry, bro, yeah so I'm, I'm, I I'm enjoying it and, uh, it's been fun for me too, because I'm meeting people from the community.
Michael:I go in and people recognize me, which is super cool, and people ask me about hardware and stuff when we're in the chat yes, they do so we try to squeeze mike for the info.
Michael:Yeah, I mean I, I love it for that because for me, I think it brings me closer with the community to be in there racing with people door to door. So, yeah, I'm loving it and I can't wait for the next season. Now that I've sort of got a bit of a season under my belt, I know exactly what to expect going into the new season. So, and yeah, the amends. Like vlad, like I mean, this is a highly organized league. When you talk about professionalism, the way this is organized, you think you're in a Formula One level organization. There's spreadsheets.
Jason:Like FIA. If you like spreadsheets there's spreadsheets.
Michael:You get updates through Discord an hour before the race about the weather, about the track conditions.
Jason:We never read the updates though, don't we, mike? Some people don't read the updates, and then you need to read it they forget to put fuel in their car. Yeah, so they changed the race from endurance to to, to, whatever it was, the heat or the other way around, and like did you? Did you read the post? I'm like, uh, I saw it, and I'll end with this.
Michael:the last thing I look forward to the most honestly is when we do the steward review after so, we all jump out of the race and someone like Vlad or one of the other men will stream their screen on Discord and we all watch and we laugh about the incidents together. But not only do we just have fun with it, but they actually really take it seriously and everybody takes accountability and we all learn from watching the incidents and there hasn't been really a single person that hasn't owned up and said hey guys, you know what Glad you guys showed me this, broke it down for me. Sorry, I made the mistake, sorry, I ruined your race. It's so polite, it's impressive, it really is, and it's a blast and it's something that is. It's contagious, yeah, I'd say.
Jason:And it's because you join the league and you might not be that person, but because everybody's following suit, it kind of. You kind of fall into that community and it's like man, this is, this is great. Like we don't, you can't, you don't have this nowhere, I haven't seen this anywhere. But yeah, yeah, it's the culture. That was probably the best answer I've heard yet, so let's, let's hear from the top shutter.
Neil:My boy Neil. You guys know all the thunder about. I know, right, I'm thinking about I'm stalling.
Jason:I'm like, I'm just here, what am I going?
Neil:to say, yeah, I can't say anything. It's been said already. Honestly, between like racing versus officials, officials can get intimidating because you're worried about your SR, you're worried about your IR rating and all that, and it's like you don't know what this. This guy going to Gran Turismo me? No offense, eric, oh he went there.
Jason:This is the highlight.
Neil:This is the highlight for a real GT fan Damn this guy's going to slide and Gran Turismo me right off the track. This is the highlight. This is the highlight for a real GT fan. Damn man, this guy's going to slide and grab somebody right off the track.
Jason:See, neil, you're all right man.
Erick:I'm not blind. There's a reason why that's a word. What's Jason paying you?
Neil:The other great part, though, is that, with this league too, it's like there's guys in here that are like 9K, right, 8k, 6k, 7k, yeah, racers, and they're helping you out. You can follow them. I know I've improved a little bit, since I'm just being modest. I felt myself getting faster, and the other league I'm with they were my main squeeze league. I used to call this league my side chick league, the main squeeze.
Jason:Now it's like both, of these are my main squeeze Shout out to my OTA boys.
Neil:But they noticed in one of the races I was doing like we're doing the P-Cups and I was just flying and the guy's, like you know, neil's driving a lot more P-Cup lately, right? And it's like I felt myself getting better. I still have a lot more to improve. And there's guys in this league like, for example and there's guys in this league like, for example I forget his name, but you know he will you know, per hour charge or whatever there's a Dalton right.
Neil:If you win part of the league like, he'll do like an hour train and everybody who's done his training is up there in the top like five, 10 drivers, Wow, like yeah. And every time I'm trying, some there's guys out there like that are like yo, try do this a little less and try do this a little more when we're practicing, and I'm like, oh my gosh right, yeah, that was the other day, get in there more through the door.
Jason:Yeah, yeah, yeah we a simple tip, a simple tip, literally half a lap, and I think mike went down like a whole second jason and I were following this uh, one of the guys out of the just like that who's?
Michael:who's one of the best in the league and he got he. You know, he kind of saw us driving goes. Okay, guys, follow me and just do what I do, right, and it was incredible like we were me and jason were getting like a free coaching session in the practice before the race yeah, that was awesome and, yeah, I think I gained like a second or something on that practice lap. It was wild. I was like oh, that's what you do.
Neil:I'm hoping one day, like all of us, can be like within a half second a second of each other. That will make for some like last Tuesday was some tightness.
Jason:Neil, you wait Season six coming bro. I'm gunning for you, bro, Don't you worry.
Neil:I'm getting dizzy. Vlad's not giving me a spot.
Jason:Yo Neil's funny too on camera.
Neil:Jason behind. Oh my gosh, it's great.
Jason:All right.
Neil:I like it man.
Jason:All right, so I should have went first, man, I mean yeah, so I'll break it down for you. This is the first time ever that I've joined any sort of group like this and it's been something that I look forward to. It's like Sunday comes around and I'm like, damn, I got two more days until the race. I need to get in and practice just a little bit, just to have that little bit of control on the track or the car or whatever. And you jump in the practice session. This is before the racing and everybody's engaging with each other.
Jason:It's not just the quality of the race. You jump into an official race. There's nobody on track, nobody's talking, other than some random person saying something weird. No offense to those, um, but I jump in the chat and then I see Mike come on and kneels there and then Vlad jumps in and he's like, yeah, we're doing this, we're doing that. Um, make sure you have fuel in the car, make sure your tires are. Um, make sure you, your tires are unchecked, because we're we're big on not replacing tires. The races are too short for that. I think the longest race format is 50 minutes, if I had that correct. Uh, vlad, yes, so it's not really your tires go, but they don't go to a point where you desperately need, uh, a switch.
Jason:So you know, to me, again, it's the community, that's what separates the two Officials. It's like you jump in and you want to go bumper to bumper, you want to go door to door, but you don't know what this guy is going to do. Where's his breaking point? Is he consistent into somebody? It's very rare that something would happen, and when it does happen that stewarding review that Michael mentioned they slow it down to the frame by frame to see who turned in, why, what space was available to, the very inch centimeters, literally tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little gaps.
Jason:And you can kind of learn, you're like, well, in this situation, the blue car, for example, should have backed off, or the yellow car should have left a little more space, and those are things, those are exercises that go through your brain and it becomes a repetition model, and when you do that long enough, you develop a discipline on track, and that's why I think that, um, that is just a great place. It's a great place to to do your racing on, and it's a great place to learn and it's a great place to, um, you know, uh, not show off, but you know, uh, you know, compete against the other top tier because we have a division, there is an AM division and there's a pro division. So it's not like you're intimidated by that 9,000, that you'll never be a P1 or you'll never get a P2 podium. You have the amateur group for that, which is genius. So those are my thoughts on the league.
Michael:Well said, well said.
Jason:Yeah, yeah. True, there's so many different aspects that we can pull from this, but collectively it's just a great thing. The Chicane Podcast is here hosting a show dedicated to Global Racing League, because it's welcomed us in open arms and we want to return that favor. So, speaking of GRL, this is a question for Vlad. We have Vlad as a direct representative.
Vlad:I think he's the CEO, the president, you know the head honcho, top dog, the top dog. I'm one of the worker beasts. No, we already got a top shot.
Jason:All right, well, vlad. So tell us man, yeah, yeah, what's up, eric, what you got, what you got for Vlad.
Erick:Well, I was going to say, you know, just with everything we've mentioned here all the structure, everybody's kind of hinted at just how impressive it is, how well put together the league is, and we just want to know a little bit more about what goes into creating a league like this, because you got to start from somewhere. Obviously there are other leagues that might have some aspects of what you guys are doing, but it just seems like there have been so many iterations and so much refinement on where you guys are at now, so just want to know a little more about what goes into that what goes into that.
Vlad:So, um, I think I neglected to say last time that, um, you know, we, we talk about that, the series that I'm at, I am an admin in uh is in its fifth season. But the league itself, uh, is going into its 12th season. So that's three full years. So it's been pretty iterative I think, um, I've been around for, I think, six or seven of those seasons now. So, um, I I've seen a lot of growth, a lot of changes.
Vlad:Um, sometimes it's just small things throughout the season, sometimes it's small changes from season to season and, um, you know, 12 seasons in it's, it's uh pretty pretty, you know smooth running. But you know, I'm just like I said, I'm one of the worker bees, I'm just kind of I'm one of the admins. So we have the four series, as I said, we kind of specialize in the P cup. We have a North American and a European series for different time slots, different days. We have the one that I admin, mx5 and M two. So that's a multi-class series. And then we also have the F four, uh, which you know um, caters to the people that like open wheel, you know, like Jeff. So hopefully one day, uh, you know, we'll be glad to have you when, when, time allows.
Jeff:Um yeah.
Vlad:So we we try to cater to different styles. Obviously we, you, obviously there's so many different other cars out there, but that's what we try to specialize in and for those of you that participated in the MX-5 M2 series, you can see, just within this season alone, there was a lot of growth. You know, multi-class is pretty new to the league. This is the second season we've done multi-class and we do rolling starts and it was a learning experience.
Vlad:You know, we did not expect the league to kind of, or this series to blow up so fast. I think within the second or third week, we hit like 55 cars on grid. That's wild, it's crazy, it's awesome, it's fun. But you know it's. It's crazy, it's awesome, it's fun, but you know you, you do need some structure, you need some rules to kind of uh, abide by during the rolling starts in order to kind of make it safe and fun for everybody.
Vlad:And you know, we, we would see little issues kind of pop up, um, every week and we try to kind of modify our rules a little bit. And and you heard me throughout the season, I got on the mic more prior to the rolling starts and I kind of announced to everybody you know what the rules are. Just remember you, you want to start when your, your group, starts and not not when the green lights start. So it's it's, it's a learning experience for us admins as well. You know, not not just the people participating, but, um, yeah, and, and we try to keep it open. We, we have a feedback channel and and everyone always tries to kind of leave us feedback, uh, whether it's during the race, during, um, you know, just on discord, uh, jason just gave us a really good suggestion Um a few days ago he he wanted to see if we could export the league schedules into your personal calendar iCalendar yeah.
Vlad:Yeah, and we've got that already kind of set up and it will get updated with next season once the schedules are finalized.
Michael:I already got it in my calendar. It's already in my iCal.
Jason:So that way you can.
Michael:It's on my wife and I's shared calendar, so she knows when I'm racing.
Vlad:Yeah, so it's, it's uh, you know, we, we, we try to be open and and we, we take all suggestions. So, um, yeah, we, we, we try to just kind of cater to what what the people in the league want. You know, if there's an audience for it, maybe we'll expand for some or with some other series. But as of now, you know, I think you can see that we're pretty, pretty well well-oiled machine for now.
Jason:Well said man, Well said All right, Jeff, I think you have the next question, yeah.
Jeff:I'm curious. So you just said the season wrapped up or is wrapping up. I'm just curious to see everybody's opinion on their, you know, turning point for the season or, like their high point, you know, their most memorable moment from the last season. So, mike, why don't we start with you?
Michael:Why don't you knock out, share your favorite moment why don't you knock out, tell, share your your favorite moment? Yeah, I think for me. I mean, I joined the season, kind of what mid season or near the end, I guess, right, um, and I think I joined every race except one in both P cup and multi-class. Um, yeah, I think for me, like the biggest turning point was just sort of once I kind of got used to the format, because I felt a little clunky on track, just kind of getting used to the flow of things. But as soon as I got used to what we were doing, you know I knew what to expect going in.
Michael:But I think the turning point for me was when I realized that when I was going back in official races, like I was getting faster just because I was pushing myself, I was improving my race craft, because I was learning things from watching incidents and having my own incidents and just kind of becoming a better sim racer as a whole.
Michael:Um, so I think that was the turning point. And I think too was like the part where when I first joined, I wasn't really sure if I was gonna have the time or make the time to do it every every race, but then I I had started having so much fun. Like jason said, I started looking forward to that just being able to chat with the guys too, it was. It was kind of a nice um release after a long day just to kind of come in and race in that format versus going into an official and just kind of kind of feeling like you're on your own right. So, yeah, I really started looking forward to it near the end of the season and and um looking forward to the new season, now that I have a little bit more races under my belt in the league cool, awesome, neil.
Jeff:What about you?
Neil:uh, no real turning points, kind of like mike said. I just like it's that point where you see yourself getting faster, driving the same cars over and over, like I do the same on the porsche cup. And then the multi-class with the m2. I recently started trying the f4s so I'm like we gotta get jeff but he's, he's the last one.
Jason:Yeah, we got him. We got him to get a printer. You got a 3d printer.
Neil:Now the biggest turning point is just baby steps, baby steps the race that jason passed me. I was like no, I gotta get better. Man, I gotta get better. No, he was like I was we were fighting too.
Jason:Remember what was the? What was that? Charlotte right.
Neil:Yeah, you're driving pretty good. I was like okay, jason and I had some good battles too.
Michael:I love going door to door with him because that's the thing when you race with people you know and you see every week. I kind of have this trust with Jason. I know he's gonna try to be as clean, but I know he's gonna. He's gonna race hard too, so it it makes us both better. Like you, just don't get that when you're racing, get strangers no, I mean you do some people on track.
Michael:You get a feel for them after you've done a few laps, but when you know it's jason or you know it's neil, there's a hundred percent trust in a lot of the people we race with.
Jeff:We are not taking each other out I came out, came back to my phone after that race and I think I had like I don't know 33 text messages about the race, door-to-door with you, mike yeah that was good.
Jason:Yeah, I was excited, I was like yeah first of all, I, you know, before mike reached out before we, before we became friends, like like you know, like now, um, I've always been a fan of the sim racing den and to look to my left and see the skin, the deep decals of his car is surreal, bro. It's like there's mike, he's there's mike, and it's awesome because mike's like yeah, I got this new wheel and he's he's testing hardware and racing at the same time, I switch my wheels.
Michael:Every week, every league race, I'm switching wheels.
Jason:There's nobody more legit. That's wild. That's legitimate.
Neil:That's when you see Mike, he's like why is he like a half a second behind or a second behind, Like, oh, he's testing some new hardware. That's why I give him a break.
Jeff:And then he warrants me to. All right, I'm gonna leave you for last, so eric what you got uh, for me.
Erick:Um, I didn't get a chance to do a lot of races. I'm gonna have to take mike's advice and put them on the calendar yeah that way is the wifey knows like okay, it's coming you want to notice um yeah, yeah, yeah, you get a 15 minute warning and then you get the five minute. Yeah, I mean I gotta, I gotta do a, I gotta do a day in advance like hey, tomorrow night that's it.
Michael:I'll be honest, there's been a couple of nights where I was like tired and I'm like I don't know if I'm, I don't know the track I convinced him bro and I'm like I just don't know if I should jump in right.
Michael:And then jason will say, hey, you racing tonight. And then I feel like guilty to say no, like, because I'm like, oh, he's gonna. He's gonna say, oh, come on, man, and then I'm like all right, and then he kind of just it gets me in there. And then once I'm there, I start having fun he came alive, bro.
Erick:He was like after a couple laps, you learn the track pretty quickly.
Jeff:Oh, yeah, yeah, man but the all right what you got for the, for your high point of the last season.
Vlad:So, or my, my turning point I was thinking about was, um, actually, when I last spoke to you guys on the last episode, I had, uh, my race at Long Beach where I finished P six. So, um, what I realized that week was, um, between the M two, which I'm driving on Tuesdays in the multi-class, uh, the M two and the porsche cup, um, they're pretty similar, at least in terms of braking. So my brain transitioned really easily between the two cars and I think this season, like my, my braking really clicked and, um, I've been very consistent. I've had like just maybe a couple toes all season, like two toes.
Vlad:You're a pro now and you stayed pro and I mentioned last time we we had like 42 cars on sakuba multi-class and I finished that whole race with uh, zero x after yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Michael:So, dude, that's something to be proud of yeah, yeah, 50 minute race, that's uh, that's an achievement that was the one we just did, right, I remember you saying that on the comms.
Jason:Yeah, yeah, man my race was a little different. That was no fault of your own, though I know it wasn't.
Michael:It was one of those things that just sometimes it'd be like that sometimes it happens yeah, so I guess I'll go last um, yeah
Jason:send it dude. Um well, everybody it sucks going last man because because everything everybody said is kind of related to me, but I think I mentioned it. I think it's racing door to door with your friends and knowing that they're improving and we're all improving together. When we were practicing, with the free coaching that Mike and I received, that was when it clicked in my head that I would never get something like this ever again. I'm not saying it won't happen in a different league or in a different group, but I'm saying for it to be unplanned, live, unscheduled nothing. We're just doing laps around the track and here comes I forget his name.
Michael:I think it's Adam, or.
Jason:Tom, it was Adam. Adam pulls up in front of us and he's like follow me. And he's like, yeah, stop here, do this Trail here. You think you're going slow, but you're not. And that was the one that freaked us out. I was like, dude, this is way too much breaking. But then you realize that your exit speeds are way higher than what you thought they were going to be. So I think that was the highlight for me. And then, of course, I'll add an extra one, vlad again being super helpful, the drop point system. I understood how points work with the league a little better Thanks to him, so, and the structure again is amazing, which will lead us into the next question here. I know that GRL just had a huge makeover brand new website, so I would ask Vlad to show us that, show us that. And and some bits of data, if you don't mind?
Vlad:um, yeah, so uh, as you can see on my monitors behind me, we had a little bit of a rebrand, if, if, anything, more kind of just uh, bro, it's like the thanos league.
Jason:Now I feel like it's the thanos league at that purple.
Vlad:Yeah, it's a lot of people are saying it looks like either the lakers or the minnesota vikings or crown royal.
Jason:So okay, crown royal, we can get down with.
Vlad:Yeah, so it's it's similar colors to what we had before, but we did a little bit of a tweet to kind of modernize the logo a little bit so it still pops on on your discord and and the iRacing browser. So we wanted to stick with something, something eye-catching. But, yeah, so my, my co-admin in my series, his name is Tom, and just kind of behind the scenes, I guess, throughout the whole season he's been slowly building a website for us. We have, like, the domain, but we haven't really had anything kind of to use with it, so he just, you know, made it live a couple of weeks ago and I can share it right now. Yeah, let's take a look, man, give me one sec, all right. So this is our hey Dang, that does look like some Lakers stuff man.
Michael:Yeah, new website. We didn't ask him. I like the branding, I like it, it's clean, I like it.
Vlad:Thank, you, yeah, so yeah, that was kind of a discussion between a bunch of the admins, kind of back and forth. We talked about the colors, talked about the fonts, and this is kind of what we settled on. So it was easy enough for Tom to kind of update the website and it's a lot of the same information we have on our Discord, kind of more at high level. You know, if you want all the nitty gritty, we've got a Discord invite right here. Once you click that, you'll, you know, shoot over to the Discord, and I showed that on the last episode. So, you know, not shoot over to the discord, and I showed that on the last episode. So, um, you know, not too much to be said about that. But the website is kind of a new thing. Um, that we've got and we're going to use that to promote the league as well.
Vlad:So, you know, we've got the mission statement up here, we've got the different formats, as you guys have already seen on the previous episode that I was on, and we also talked about the category, so the pro and am divisions, and we talked about a little bit about our stewarding process. So I'm going to scroll down and then we've got, actually, you know all of our standings here for this past season. That just completed, so I'm going to actually start with the multi-class league. I just wanted to show. So you know, if you look at it really quickly here, it kind of defaults to just the top five per class and then if you click show more, it will expand to the top 10. And then if you click show all, it will show everyone by class. So you can see this is how the season Look at that guy in number 11.
Jeff:I noticed that that's how the season ended up.
Michael:Oh, wow.
Jason:So you can see the full standings you know, irrespective of class, it's clean dude. It looks very modern.
Vlad:I like it and then at the bottom I just clicked on full standings you can see the breakdown between pro and am.
Jeff:So you know Jason's flexing over here.
Jason:I did want to show.
Vlad:Oh yeah, bro finished P1 in the amateur division. Congrats, did a great job. He was consistent. So that's really the main thing. You just want to show up as often as you can and just have consistent results. Even if you're not finishing top 10 in the race, if you're always 11th, that could be enough to get you on the podium. That's what's cool.
Michael:There's races within the race, right, that's what's really. There's races within the race, right, that's what's really.
Jason:And if you race three clean races you, you lose the penalty points, right, they get waved, yeah, which is something awesome that I noticed earlier sim racing.
Jeff:Den's up there in the top six.
Jason:Okay, yeah, he's not bad for first season.
Michael:Okay, p6, yeah, and you didn't race all the races either.
Jason:So we're gonna see you next next season go to pro.
Neil:I heard, I don't know you sound about, right, I'm coming for you, neil.
Michael:Yeah, that's right.
Vlad:Uh, I'm the equivalent p6 here on on the pro side.
Neil:Oh, there he is okay yeah on the pro side okay, I'm always behind, yeah, so um I mentioned that tom.
Vlad:Tom is my co-admin and we were a team together and I think on the last race, or the last two races, he just passed me for P5 for the season. But all good, just a lot of clean racing.
Jason:Look at my boy Neil. Look at my boy Neil down there. Look at that.
Vlad:And Neil, we got some freaking racers here, Vlad. And this column here, this column here actually shows um you know, class win, class podium.
Jason:So, um, neil, I think the last race, or a couple races ago, I believe, you got your first pro podium, so that's what that one is so good stuff just wanted to show that um kind of as a result of the, the multi I'm very proud of this, I'm very proud of this and, and michael, I'm pretty sure michael was gonna probably he's gonna be up there, trust me yep, I'm gonna keep practicing.
Michael:It's so cool seeing all the countries too, like you know, and it's yeah, oh big big mix of canadian rep representing there yeah, meal and meal representing canada.
Jason:We even got North Korea. Is that North Korea up there?
Michael:Yeah we talked about that. Oh yeah, that's not real.
Jeff:He's got that firewall exemption Exactly.
Vlad:Yeah, so we've got the Porsche.
Jeff:Cup results they got that new AI.
Vlad:I don't think any of us are fast enough yet to be in the pro. Oh no, let's just ignore.
Michael:ignore this left side right now, all these guys are there's some serious aliens in peak up like yeah that multiverse?
Neil:they don't exist, man, yeah okay, vlad holding it down yeah.
Vlad:So I I got a p2 for the season. Um, it's funny, p1, 2 and 3 we all missed the last race of the season and um, you know, our standings didn't change. But um, yeah, like, like I said, that was my turning point. After the long beach race, I I started off the season really poorly and then after that race I was really consistent to kind of close out the last you know six, seven races and, um, yeah, it got me up to p2 for the season. So I'm pretty, pretty proud about that nice man.
Jeff:Congrats, bro. Michael got him.
Jason:Michael got jason on this michael got me jason, he got me on the porsche bro, that's his car.
Vlad:That's his car 10, mike, p9 and neil.
Neil:Oh damn that's my favorite car and I race yeah, neil's quick in the porsche, he's good.
Michael:No, no man, I just I just love the car.
Neil:I'm trying to get quicker, but it's my favorite car.
Jeff:Oh dude, neil, you are one point off.
Michael:Fourth huh oh man.
Neil:Damn.
Erick:That's hard to take in. Rip the band-aid off again.
Neil:It's okay, it's always next season, right?
Vlad:Next season. Let's actually go back. So, yeah, we've got the standings for each of our series. Look at this. Uh, we've got a little section here. Oh for my, my first appearance here on the podcast. Uh, so we've got that here and, um, you know we'll, we'll add this episode once once we're we're done with it. But, uh, you know, wanted to help promote our league as well, that's how you sign up, guys.
Jason:If you want a detailed, guide sobs.
Jeff:Check out this video guy.
Jason:The league racing that's the sign up. Change has not changed, but I see that down below we have a sign-up link right there. I'm going to let that continue If you keep scrolling down you'll get the same sign-up sheet that I showed last time.
Vlad:I'm not going to scroll down all the way, because I'm trying to save Jason some work from blurring my email. Yeah, his personal email got you yeah but um same same exact forum from last time. So, no, no change there, so that that's one of the biggest changes is is our website that is awesome awesome, yeah, yeah, it's official.
Jason:Yeah, yeah, so looks looks very good the only problem is all those m-5s up there. That's the only thing I'm three cylinders and shit.
Vlad:Maybe, we'll get that rotating with the different cars we use. Oh, it does. Okay, my bad. Oh, not yet, not yet, but maybe we can work on it.
Jason:We need to make this happen ASAP.
Neil:He just does not like MX-5s.
Jason:I can't get behind it, I can't do it.
Neil:They're fun, they're fun.
Michael:It's a different discipline. For sure, it is there you go, there you go.
Jason:That's the adult answer right there.
Michael:Yeah, but the BMW is challenging too.
Neil:They need to fix that mid-corner exit problem.
Jason:Hey Vlad, so just a follow-up question real quick, sure, you know. Just a follow-up question real quick. You mentioned that, like we're seeing a lot of countries around the world in the list of the standings, do you have any data that you can share with us? Oh, you do.
Vlad:Oh, awesome, let me get to that right now. Let's check that out, man.
Erick:I mean we got North Korea up in there. I mean, I'm telling you.
Jason:They got some high-speed internet over there.
Vlad:I threw together a quick PowerPoint, so this is maybe a little too official here.
Michael:Look at this it's clean, it's nice.
Vlad:Yeah, just wanted to show. We just finished the 2025 season one and, as I mentioned, our Porsche Cup leagues finished their 11th season, going into the 12th. So you know this league is going into its third full year. The Multiclass Cup Season 5 will go into Season 6 in a couple of weeks here, and we've got the F4 as well that just finished their Season 4. So these are our series. So you know, if you're interested in driving one of these cars, uh, feel free to join the league. Um, you know every, every one is is very competitive, so, um, should be and you could join at any time.
Jason:Yeah, you can join mid season the last race, you know, but we're we're trying to get this the word out today because we're about to go into season six, I think. What is that a week from now?
Vlad:Yeah, the Porsche Cup starts next Thursday and then the following Tuesday. After that we start the multi-class on that following Tuesday again.
Jason:So that Thursday would be.
Vlad:A week from.
Jason:March. Let me see that. Is that March 20th? I believe March 20th, guys, mark your calendars. And then you said the Tuesday after, right, the 25th of March. Yes, and if you watch our video, it takes five seconds to sign up. Five seconds. No, no, no, it takes five seconds to sign up Five seconds. No, no, no, not five seconds, but you know what I mean.
Jeff:It's pretty quick, it's wild 34 countries.
Vlad:Yeah, so I put this slide together just for Jeff. He brought up that question last I appreciate that. Damn bro. Yeah, and I wanted to know also, so I threw this together. I literally just shared this with the admin group today. Um so, uh, just for the season itself, we had 252 people sign up. Um, obviously, not all of them joined in, so we had 217 that participated in at least one race, and of those 217, we had 34 different countries represented and then I kind of just showed a little bit of a trend here.
Vlad:So you can kind of see like, yeah, you know, not everyone will do a full season, um, you know what? As jason mentioned the drop weeks, uh, we dropped the your three lowest scores. So if, if you can't show up for three weeks, um, obviously you score zero, so those will be your lowest. But if you show up every week, it's just your three lowest scores get dropped and we count your best nine to kind of dictate the points you get for the championship for the season. So just kind of want to show that. And then finally, one last slide. This is the Jeff slide, but I just wanted to put a quick pie chart. And of the 217 active drivers we had this past season, you can see 105 or 48%. Pretty much half the league is in the US. Second biggest country here is Canada. We've got the UK. Second biggest country here is Canada. We've got the UK. Represented Costa Rica, germany, so we've got everybody.
Neil:Where's that? North Korea one. Puerto Rico is like a slither bro. I think we had two people sign up under North Korea?
Vlad:Yeah, of course.
Jeff:That's wild, though. You've got Hong Kong, China, Ukraine.
Jason:North Korea.
Jeff:Belgium.
Jason:You mean Pyongyang. They, they, they racing out of pyongyang, porto rico that's cool man yeah it
Vlad:truly is the global racing yep, so uh, yeah, I just just wanted to share that so it really does deserve the name Global Racing League.
Jason:It's not just a name that they thought of. This is legit. I mean, we got people from all over the globe that you can meet and race with at different time zones, I mean, and it's free we keep saying that from racing with us. If you want to race with the chicane podcast, if you're a fan of the, the the sim racing, then he's there, you can. You can meet him and race shoulder to shoulder. You got the top shot of dog. Do you know? You got Neil. He may be up in the. You know up in the. You know. Far from the, from the field Now you see his, I see a Star Wars figure on his car.
Jason:Follow his line.
Erick:Follow his line. Two, three good lines.
Michael:I like it.
Jason:You know he might spin out, so you might get lucky.
Erick:Like it happened.
Jason:I think it's amazing. I think the job that you guys are doing and it's all just out of the good faith, you know there's nobody, there's no payroll here. You know, here to gather this much data and put this all together, the many masterminds behind it, it's just impressive. It's just impressive. There's no other word for it. It makes my iRacing worth it. Every month, my iRacing pledge, my iRacing subscription, itracing subscription.
Jeff:it makes it worth it just crazy, yeah, it's crazy to think there's no paywall for this yeah like I really wish I had joined earlier.
Michael:I really, actually regret it not finding this earlier, but I'm glad I found it now, you know, yeah and the thing with the admins is everyone kind of contributes in a different way.
Vlad:You know, like I'm here helping promote it on the website, um, you know, talking with all of you, we've got, um, obviously, as I mentioned, tom he, he created the website. We've got guys that are good with spreadsheets, that that put together the whole standings and penalty spreadsheets that you guys have seen. We have guys that are good at Photoshop that will put together the promotional material that we'll be posting on Reddit shortly, everything that you could kind of ask for there. There's someone in the league that's, you know, kind of specializes in that and and you know it's very collaborative and you know it's, it's it's a fun, fun team. Yeah, it's free. Uh, we definitely spend a lot of time but, uh, as I said, we kind of do it, you know, because we we enjoy it and I think we we take some enjoyment out of seeing everybody having a good time as well. That's awesome.
Erick:That's awesome man. You can see the passion. Yeah, Thanks for everything that the admins do.
Michael:Yeah, man, yeah.
Neil:I just don't want the energy to stop. I don't see it, my biggest fear is if the energy stops, because I can't handle it. I need.
Jason:Well, this is why we need to voice it right, we need to tell people about this to keep it healthy, to keep those grids healthy Because a 55-car grid that is a nightmare on a console or on any other platform to keep that group together and make everybody fall in line, let alone be on time for the race and everything else. I mean it's just great. You know it's great. Yep, I agree. All right, eric, you got the next one. We're about reaching the end here.
Jason:Yeah, man Kind of don't want an end, yeah that's kind of always a problem.
Erick:We have right. We always think, you know, oh, do we have enough?
Jason:But then we get in here and we see, I know I eat my own words every time I think we're good.
Erick:But, vlad, you mentioned the Stewart reviews and things like that. Not that you know, crashing and stuff like that is something that we want to do a lot of in the league, but it does happen, and so if you, if you have any, do you have some of like the, the nasties from this past season that you can share with?
Jason:the nasties. That's right we gotta put we gotta put in one of those mozart songs behind it and slow motion.
Vlad:I think, uh, yeah, you should do a reel for next season like some music in slow motion they'll be like I ain't joining this look at this yeah so, eric, I've got here yeah, I've got a clip to share, but um, I think uh the deal I'll make is, uh, I'll share a good clip to kind of offset that afterwards.
Jason:Oh, okay, there you go, that works. I like the balance, so yeah.
Vlad:So I'm going to share a clip. When you guys asked me to think of an incident to share after 30 seconds, I think there was one incident that kind of came to mind right away and it was kind of….
Michael:Freshening your mind bro I don't think any of us were involved, but um, it happened on lime rock, is it neil is?
Jeff:it neil no, no, you said lime rock, that alone I feel like I'm the only one that's like comfortable wait lime rock lime rock was, I think, the first, one of the first races I joined yeah, lime rock was.
Michael:Yeah, it was tight with all those cars on track 40 cars on the track oh yeah yeah, yeah so look, they have it on youtube.
Jason:Bro, look at this all right, so they're unpublished. Right, these are unpublished, though, but we can find them, yeah these are unlisted.
Vlad:But um, it's. It's all linked in our penalty spreadshe. So before I played yeah, every week we review all the lap one incidents automatically. Anything after lap one has to be submitted through a form that we have and that's all linked on Discord. So we then kind of aggregate all the incidents, we put it into the spreadsheet, I send it out to all the different stewards we have for each series and then, pretty much there that's where the discussion starts Everyone watches the clip. We all kind of take a very similar approach in recording the incidents and from there we discuss to see, you know, was it someone's fault? Was it just a racing incident? Is it serious enough that we need to do like a one race ban? So it kind of runs the gamut. So I'm going to play this incident right here and let's let her get your feedback.
Neil:Yeah, oh boy, charity slide.
Jason:Oh man. Yeah, who was that?
Jeff:Oh, there's like a whole mess of cars out there.
Erick:They got a whole little parade, a little off-road section there.
Jeff:Oh no, oh wow, oh wow. Oh, was that Mikey?
Michael:What did I say?
Jason:Sorry, I locked up.
Michael:So I was having my own incident outside of this, clearly Off camera.
Jason:That was on the top of your turn. It happens, though it happens.
Jeff:Like these poor people. It just sucks when this happens. Minds his own business.
Michael:This was hard on this track. Happens Minds his own business. This was hard on this track, though.
Erick:Sorry lockdown.
Neil:Those MX-5s are like little feathers on the BMWs.
Jason:You see what I mean. That's why I can't they get in.
Vlad:So yeah, we kind of do a third person view and then we do a cockpit view to kind of show you know what you're doing with the steering wheel and then we hear mike again I love it I love
Michael:it they're gonna. You know what they're gonna do. They're gonna put that on the soundboard. That's what they're going to do. Sorry, I'm locked up.
Jeff:It's going to be the new the new no Mikey, no Mikey, no Monica.
Michael:Yeah, there was a couple of unsafe rejoins, it looks like from that replay. Yeah, yeah, so what?
Vlad:happens there is. Now we kind of discuss it amongst the stewards. You know, was there kind of one person that started it all? Because the way we way, the way we steward, is, um, you know, the the result doesn't dictate, like the the severity of the penalty. So, you know, one person could make like just a stupid mistake and take out half the field. Um, this was probably the biggest incident that we've had all season, Um, but just because a lot of cars were involved doesn't necessarily mean it's it's that first person's fault.
Jason:Yeah, we're not bashing nobody with this, yeah. So if you were that white, car man don't hate me for this, don't?
Vlad:Super tight track.
Jason:Somebody did lock up, as we heard three times, so context with that was that was lap one right, so all the M2s start first.
Vlad:Who? That guy was and if you're the, if you're the m2 that crashes on on that first lap, you're gonna have the whole field of mx5s just coming for you and that first group. You know, those are the, the pros yeah, and they're the ones that are, like you know, four, five, six, seven k plus, and it's scary you know it's scary to kind of know they're what 10 seconds back and if you make a mistake.
Jason:They're breathing down your neck, they're there.
Vlad:Yeah, they're like there.
Erick:Look reminiscent of GT7.
Jason:So I mean before the final question, right? Thanks for sharing that. By the way, has there been any changes for license requirements or safety requirements for? Well, we're talking primarily PCUP and the multi-class. I know there's others, but for those two, which is the majority of people, I think. No offense to Jeff with formula or anybody that likes formula, but has there been any change or is it all the same from the last time we spoke?
Vlad:So on the pickup side, I believe it's the same, I believe it's a C2.0 minimum in order to join that. So initially for the multi-class league we were going with a minimum of D 2.0 for either car and, as I mentioned earlier, you know, it's kind of a learning experience. We have a lot of not just new people to the service, we have new people to the car, because the M2 was a brand new car this season.
Jason:And it's not an easy car. No, I'll tell you now, it's no yeah it's much harder than the mx5.
Vlad:Um, you know it, both understeers and oversteers, depending on how you drive it.
Vlad:So, um, it is hard for you gotta dance with it, bro, yeah so we, we did increase the the minimum requirement for that um in this next season. So you'll need to have a C 2.0 license and we're actually also requiring a minimum 1200 I rating. I don't think we've done an I rating minimum before, but we we did have a few drivers that you know came in for a week or two and they just had poor showings, you know not, not not cause they're like reckless, but I think they're still just very new.
Jason:So I think this is a good move because, um, it's great to have new drivers come into the league, but we don't want to ruin the. We don't want to ruin someone's race right with with someone that literally just got the license and having a C license, there's a little more weight to that license and Jeff can always tell you about C license when he races in the C he's like well, when he raced in the C he was very impressed.
Jeff:Yeah, I mean, it's night and day difference between you know your season B's versus you know the D's and the F4s, and F4s especially, but it's like the wild wild west.
Michael:right, it's just track time it shows track time.
Jason:You've commitment?
Vlad:Yes, yeah, so it shows that you've put a little bit more time in the service, so you're not that new. And then um, you, you and then um, you know, just to be fair to the mx5 class, the m2s are are much faster, they're a little bit harder to control, they're, they're heavy.
Vlad:So we just want a little bit of a higher or a lower um, higher, uh requirement yes, sir for this car class, uh, going forward and we're hoping that'll clean it up a little bit because, um, as you'll you'll see, you know, with with the first couple of weeks of the new season, we'll have a lot of new drivers, um and uh, you know they may not have read the rules as you saw, like, how clean it got towards the end of the season. Uh, a lot of those were regulars. A lot of people had been racing three, four times plus in the series.
Jason:It's a good move. Yeah, everyone kind of learns.
Vlad:With new people coming in, we kind of want to have a little better driving standards for the M2.
Jason:Okay.
Vlad:All right.
Jeff:Vlad, I think the last question here. You kind of started to answer it, but what can we expect with season six or the new season?
Vlad:So season six, pretty much I it's very similar to what we just finished with, uh, just a little bit uh more you know um direction in in the rolling starts with the multi-class league okay, um, you know some tightening up yeah.
Vlad:The other series, the, the P cups, they're, they're you know, 12 seasons in. They don't do rolling starts, so that's pretty, you know sets. Everyone kind of understands it. It's, it's very similar to the officials. Multi-classes is new to a lot of people Sometimes, you know, it's new to to people not just in the league but to iRacing. So we kind of learned a lot of lessons throughout the season and we'll have better rules, better communication with the drivers and you know we just kind of you know you want to give them the structure and then, you know, not just hope for the best, but you kind of just want cleaner racing yeah.
Jason:And then you have the new requirements. You have the new website that you will. All the links will be in the description below. Of course. I think it's a great place to start racing. I mean, I think I can't wait for season six.
Jason:Week 13 is the dreaded week that nothing's going on. So you know, I think it's time to sign up, but I just want to say thank you everybody for joining. It's been a great. It's always hard to break these off, man, especially when I have Mike here. Now I got my boy, neil sitting down, eric's back from the trauma, from the hospital the bed, not the hospital, the trauma bed and Vlad and Jeff.
Jason:I'm excited. I'm excited because this whole group of people right here happened because of sim racing. The league happened. Because of sim racing. You become friends and you, you were sharing cultures from all over the world, 34 countries. That's insane and it's just. It's just exciting. It's an exciting time. I wanted to do this. I spoke to Vlad. I said we need to do this. We need to do this for season six to get you guys a head start, so that way you can give this a try. It's free, all you need to, or? You just heard the requirements and now we have a whole clean, beautiful, uh, modern website that you can visit and check out. And, um, yeah, I'm just ecstatic. So I'll go around the room for a round table and this is the first time I'll include the guests on the round table. Is there anything we left out? Is there anything you want to put out? Say it now. And I'll start with Eric Kelly, the tech gentleman.
Erick:I don't have much, but just one more time for everybody. Vlad, when you do yours, could you give us that website address?
Vlad:Yes, so it's a global racing leaguecom and it should perfect, send you right there pretty easy, pretty self-explanatory we had a little bit of uh, inconsistencies with global racing league, global I racing league, but simply just global racing leaguecom that's the better name, for that'll get you to the website that'll get you our the website That'll get you our Discord link. You'll see these Chicane episodes at the bottom. We've got a link to your podcast as well.
Jason:Which is highly appreciated. Thank you so much for all the admins and, on behalf of the show, thank you.
Erick:Yes, definitely.
Jason:So who we got next? Round table, round table. I'll give it a go.
Jeff:I just wanted to say this has been pretty cool to be like. It feels like we're inside Drive to Survive here as we're talking to other racers yeah, bro, it's like the recap of the year.
Michael:Yeah, I'm the rookie.
Jason:I'm a rookie Me and Mike were rookies and we're like nah man, we need to be.
Jeff:As we've been just crushing. Drive to Survive. I want to drive that. I want Neil's seat.
Michael:I want to drive that.
Jason:So okay. So if there's anything else again.
Vlad:I have something to share. Yes, I didn't get to share my good clip after showing the good crash. So I've got two.
Jason:So we had an ass thing I love you, you got to end on a positive note.
Michael:Right there you go.
Vlad:I just wanted to share.
Jason:Not my brakes locked up. It doesn't say that. Right, I'm just kidding Mikey.
Michael:Mikey, he's never going to let that go.
Vlad:Yeah, I wanted to share a short clip of some multi-class racing, some clean racing that we saw a few weeks ago at Charlotte Roval.
Neil:At.
Michael:Charlotte Roval. Yeah, I'm focusing on one of the MX-5s.
Vlad:You'll see the field of M2s come by and how clean it gets into the chicane and into T1. I think you'll see one spin, but it's not because of contact, it's just kind of, I think they just they locked up, they locked up, they locked up oh, that's that jurassic jurassic park.
Michael:Every time I see him, I think of the speed on the m2 dang yeah that straight is like what I love, too, is everyone kind of comes with their personal livery right. It's kind of a fun thing to see what they're rocking every race Three wide. Look, look how clean that is.
Jeff:That ain't going to happen in an official.
Jason:Look at that Four wide.
Jeff:Look at that.
Jason:Oh, there's Vlad right there. Oh, yeah, see, I know Vlad, I know his skin, it's like you see.
Erick:Three wide rewired it right away bro.
Neil:I say this thousand ms, this is racecraft right here. Yes, yeah, I need some new pants everybody knows, trading some paint.
Michael:That was, that was cool, that was awesome.
Jason:Thank you, so much, uh, for that, uh, um lad, I really appreciate it. Um and again, um again. Guys, thanks for giving us the time. We're all in different time zones and I really appreciate you Time for bed.
Jason:Yeah, it's time for bed, For us it's time for dinner or something, and for some it's time for racing. So please check out Global Racing League Link's in the description. Hit us up, you can race beside us. Any one of usff will be there soon. I'll get there, he'll get. He'll get there at least at one time. I'm just trying to get him just one if jeff joins, I'll jump in the formula.
Jeff:I promise I'll be there jeff you kept telling me about I racing and eventually I got on there and I was like man, why did I wait so long? And I feel like this is going to be the same thing.
Michael:Yeah, don't do it. The league. Don't do what I did. Don't wait too long. Join season six at the beginning. You'll regret it, trust me. Yeah.
Jason:You got your, we got our orders. That's our mics from the sim racing Then that's it. Turn two. All right gentlemen, love you guys. Thank you so much.
Michael:Good to see you all.
Jason:Vlad, thank you so much for maintaining this wonderful, wonderful league. Thank you so much for putting the time dude, because I know what it takes. Everybody's having fun watching the replay and you're on the computer banging out the data, because I know that's what you're doing.
Vlad:No, we appreciate you all Um. You know if, if not for you guys and the other guys in the league um for making it so fun, I don't think a lot of us would be putting in as much effort as we do um, on the admin side. So really it's kind of uh, you know, just the partnership both ways. So we love it Nice.
Jason:All right. So the the question is will I see any of you viewers and listeners out there in season six? Let me know in the comments, email us at the chicane podcast at gmailcom and, if you do sign up, send me proof and I will send you that free chicane podcast livery. That's roman, the that's taking over the grid, that people think it's me and it's not me.
Jason:That's hilarious yeah and I'm telling you, there's some. I'm telling you, man, so hey, shout out, you know who you are. Again, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. And with that, everybody have a great star view week. Hey, hey, and wait a minute, I can't end the show.
Michael:I can't end the show.
Jason:And Jeff already knows.
Jeff:Oh dude, how did I miss it? See, we're out of the routine. We're out of the routine. I apologize, I won't let it ever happen again. Everybody drive fast and break late.
Jason:And with that, really catch it on. I guess I'm telling you, man, this is becoming an issue. We're going to have to have a sit down after this. Yes, sir, have a great start of your week. Thank you.
