Team Policies

The league operates a fairly unique team system, whose core tenet is the following:

Drivers choose the team, the teams do not choose the drivers.

The prerogative belongs to the driver.  The driver gets to choose whether or not to affiliate with a team at all, and if so, gets to choose which team.  The reason for this is simple: it helps maintain a friendly atmosphere that doesn't fixate on any driver's ability to improve or contribute to a team, or, conversely, whether any given driver might 'hurt' a team's chances.  If someone wants to be on a particular team, they simply say so, and they're on that team.  The team, and/or its owner cannot reject a driver, nor do they really have any reason to do so, regardless of a driver's capabilities, as will be explained.

Team Championship (TC)

Each season, a points-based Team Championship (TC) is conducted in parallel with the Drivers Championship (DC), allowing the teams to compete as groups, against each other.  The scoring is conducted as follows:

• Every DC point earned by a driver is simultaneously awarded to the team affiliated with that driver.
• If a driver is not officially affiliated with a team, then any DC points earned by that driver are ignored for the purposes of the TC.
• Thus, TC points are earned in an identical fashion to DC points, and adhere to the same rules and algorithms.
• At any given time, the TC standings consist simply of the ordered ranking of the teams according to their current cumulative TC point totals.
• At the end of the season, the team with the highest cumulative TC point total is that season's Team Champion.

Independent Drivers

Any driver who does not declare a team affiliation is considered an independent (indie).  They participate in the league and events just the same as any other driver.  Once the grace period for the current season is over (the first two DC/TC events have been conducted), an independent driver must remain independent for the duration of the season, for the purposes of scoring.  An indie driver may opt to affiliate with a team at any point in the season, but any points earned by that driver will not count towards that team's TC point total.  Similarly, if a driver affiliates with a team for part of the season, but then becomes independent (for whatever reason) any points earned by that driver during the affiliation will not count towards the team's TC point total (i.e. their indie status is applied retroactively).  When a driver first joins the league, they are assigned independent status, and remain independent unless they elect to join a specific team.

Team Formation

Anyone can form a team.  During the transition period between seasons (generally including the last two weeks of the current season), anyone who wishes to form a new team can simply declare their intention to do so.  That person is considered the 'Team Owner' and will be afforded specific permissions and responsibilities for the duration of the team's existence, or until they bequeath team ownership to someone else.   A few requirements must be met for a team to become officially sanctioned:

• A team name must be provided, and it must be unique among the set of existing team names.  The team name can be anything in good taste.
• A team vehicle specification must be provided which establishes default values for every component category available for vehicle customization.  The reason for this is to allow drivers who do not wish to personally customize their vehicle to still be able to immediately and easily join any team, simply by selecting the team's default vehicle (referred to as the team's 'factory vehicle').
• Anyone who wishes to form a team should simply submit the team form.  They should then also submit the vehicle form, providing the specification for the new team's factory vehicle.

Team Vehicle Specifications

The team vehicle specification is the primary means by which a team identity is established.  The league manages vehicle specifications through what are referred to as 'formulas', which are specific to each season.  The league establishes a definition of the construction/component/upgrade options available to vehicle designers, for the season in which the vehicle is going to compete.  The designer then designs a vehicle to suit their tastes, and provides the design in the form of a vehicle specification file, submitting it to the league admins for official inclusion in the season's competitions.  The vehicle must adhere to the formula against which it was designed.

Each team is allowed to submit a single vehicle specification for the season in which the team wishes to compete.  All of the drivers on that team's roster are then required to drive a vehicle that matches the team's specification. There are some options, however, which are held outside of the formula definition, and are allowed to vary from driver to driver within a team.  The distinction is made below, although the formula definition itself, for a given season, should be consulted.

Mandatory Formula Components

• engine design
• engine name
• chassis
• suspension
• aero package
• brakes
• carshape

Optional Components

• livery (skin)
• camera
• drivetrain

Team Technology Special Requests

In addition to the normal customization enabled by the mod manager factory (dyno, etc), a team may request custom parts.  This may be in the form of specific parameter settings in a mod file or simply a description of what the team would like.  The admins will consider the request and either deny it or accept and implement it.  Some historical examples or this are the special request (from Antares) for what became the mk3 brakes or the request (from Ridgefield) for what became the medium diffuser aero package.

Team Support

First, a definition is in order: Setup support consists of providing vehicle setup files for a specific vehicle or group of vehicles, tailored to a specific track, as well as responding to specific performance-related issues and possibly also the needs of certain drivers using the vehicle(s).

One of the primary justifications for the existence of teams within the league is that they provide an opportunity for members who have both the capacity and the inclination for vehicle setup development to define a vehicle that they would like to support and for other drivers to then benefit from that support by simply choosing to affiliate themselves with the person (team) providing the support and using the vehicle on which the support is based.  In fact, initially the TC was pitched as a "Manufacturer's Championship", where the support aspect was strongly prioritized.  However, to avoid undue stress on those members inclined to do setup development, we relaxed the team policies and now simply encourage team vehicle support and leave it as an implicit expectation.  The team environment in the league is therefore like a free market - teams that exhibit strong setup support will develop a reputation as such, and will attract drivers on that basis, whereas teams that don't, won't, which may not matter as far as they're concerned.

In general, however, there exists an expectation that teams will provide their drivers with at least some rudimentary setup support on a consistent basis.  Team owners (especially new team owners or those aspiring to be team owners) need to be aware of this expectation and manage it appropriately.  If a team has no intention of providing consistent setup support, that should be made clear to drivers affiliated with the team or considering it.   It's important that drivers be able to make an informed assessment of the compatibility of their needs and expectations with the team.  Conversely, of course, if a team intends to focus strongly on setup support, they are encouraged to communicate that clearly, though naturally the proof is in the pudding.

Further Team Rules

1. A team may only define one vehicle specification per season.
2. After the grace period is over at the beginning of the season (the completion of the first two consecutive events in the schedule), the vehicle specification cannot change for the remainder of the season (save for unforeseen circumstances at the discretion of the admins).
3. A league member may only own one team at a time.
4. A team owner cannot be affiliated with any team other than their own.
5. A team owner need not participate in the season as a driver.
6. If a team owner participates as a driver, they must drive a vehicle that complies with their team's factory vehicle specification, just the same as any other driver on the team.  The team owner is not, however, required to drive the exact factory spec (i.e. the team's default vehicle).
7. Teams may conduct recruiting efforts, but must do so within the bounds of good sportsmanship and refrain from any activity or attitude that is contrary to general league rules or policies, or detrimental to the league atmosphere.