The Bad Racing Standard of the NIS series
The quality of racing has declined noticeably, and steps need to be taken to address and improve the situation
I’ve been racing in the NIS for a few years, but I’ve completely lost interest due to the ridiculous number of cautions in the series lately. It’s just not enjoyable anymore and feels like a public console lobby. I kept hoping the situation would eventually improve on its own, but unfortunately, it’s only getting worse. It’s time to find solution to improve the racing standard.
The reckless driving is the issue, not the car.
After each race, I watch replays of the wrecks, and I’ve noticed something very interesting. Despite being a difficult car to drive, that’s not the reason for the high number of wrecks, nor is it due to racing incidents. It’s simply people driving recklessly about 70-75% of the time in most races.
The cautions
Short track racing has been a mess for a while now, but 1.5-mile ovals and larger tracks used to offer decent racing, with some green flag pit stop strategy and reasonably good racing standard. Unfortunately, things have changed, and not for the better. In the last three years, I think I’ve only experienced one or maybe two races on 1.5-mile tracks or larger with a green flag pit stop. As for short tracks, I can’t even recall the last time that happened. Let’s look at some examples to understand where I’m coming from.
Richmond:
Indianapolis:
Pocono:
I could go on with the examples, but it’s clear there’s a downward trend in racing quality. Most races are 50% length, while others, like the Indianapolis, are 100%. While chaotic races can occasionally happen, it’s not normal to see them occur so often that they become the norm. In such long races, I would expect better racing than this.
What's the point of having such a long race if 40-50% of it is spent under caution? I love NASCAR, and I was drawn to iRacing because it offered the chance to join organized races without needing to commit to a league. It let me race whenever I wanted with people who took it seriously. This situation completely defeats the purpose of why iRacing was created in the first place.
Some things just don’t work anymore.
The safety rating:
In the real world, the consequences of crashing include losing money (a lot of it), injuries, and even death—three things we don’t face in iRacing. To address this, Safety was introduced to create some form of consequences for repeated crashes. If you race well, you get promoted in license class; otherwise, you lose your license and get demoted, which used to have a significant psychological impact. Early on, there was no fast track, and the system was stricter, making it harder to keep a license. To maintain an A or B license, you had to race cleanly. Unfortunately, Safety Rating has become too easy to gain and too hard to lose, removing any real consequences for racing poorly.
Another underlying issue is that the NIS series is a C Class car, while the “regular” series requires an A Class (B 4.0). This means anyone, after completing just a few races or time trials, can quickly jump into one of the most challenging series without having learned even the basics of racecraft.
These two factors have led to a decline in racing quality. But honestly, it’s not going to change anytime soon. So, we need to explore other ways to improve the situation.
The potential solutions
The purpose behind these proposed solutions is to bring consequences to bad actions, just like it used to be. Some will work, while others might not, but if no solution is tried, we will never know if it could be effective or not.
Reducing the incident limit:
The current incident limit is as follows: 17x = drive-through; 25x = DQ. At the moment, this limit is far too high to be truly effective and fails to encourage racers to compete with respect for other competitors. Let’s examine a result to understand better.
In this result, despite 17 cautions covering 68 out of 200 laps, only one driver was disqualified with 27 incidents! And some races have even more cautions. To accumulate 25 incidents, a single driver would need to be involved in at least seven crashes, each resulting in 4X. That's a massive amount of crashing!
I propose reducing the limit to the following: 10x = drive-through; 13x = DQ.
It might seem harsh at first, but it's not as bad as it looks. In that same scenario, 10 drivers would have been disqualified. Out of 36 cars, that's not too bad, and as people become more cautious, I expect this number to decrease even further.
Being involved in a crash means falling to the back:
No matter how or why you're involved in a crash, you should go to the back of the line if a caution is triggered. Too many times, I've seen people overdrive recklessly, dump the guy in front of them, and get away with it. This is often a major reason why accidents happen nowadays. With this solution, the same person would be placed at the end of the line for causing the yellow.
Tire damage from flatspotting:
We have a limit on tire allocation, so if you end up using too many sets of tires due to spinning, you might run out of tires. However, with the lack of tire wear and degradation, I don't think this solution will be very effective in the current situation. Still, it's an important feature to have.
Stricter damage rules for race endings:
I feel like the damage model for this car is too forgiving at the moment. In open-wheel racing, a damaged suspension usually means “too much damage, we’re done.” However, with the Next Gen, that doesn’t really apply. I’d prefer a stricter damage model in this regard.
Green flag racing and strategy should be the standard.
In the current state of the NIS, I don’t think it’s fun to run half the race under caution. The most important part of racing isn’t just about winning but enjoying it in the first place. Even if I win a NIS, I won’t feel satisfied if I didn’t have fun. I hope things improve, but that won’t happen without action being taken.
Sure, it's easy to say, "Just race something else if you're not happy," but that's an oversimplified answer since I'm already doing that. However, NIS is where I want to race and I want to keep loving it. I want long green-flag racing, green-flag pit stops, and strategy to become the norm.