Welcome to SNAIL
Our mission is to provide our members with the cleanest and most competitive racing experience possible with minimal prep time required. No matter what your skill level is, we will provide you with a full grid of similarly-skilled drivers to compete against. It's our belief that close racing is not only exciting, but is also the best way to improve your skill and refine your racecraft! Our official league night is Sunday at 9:30pm Eastern / 6:30pm Pacific, but we also have a
a wide variety of other events held on other nights of the week as well. If this sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, please keep reading to learn more about our league and how to join us.
What Makes Us Different
There are five key features of SNAIL that you won't find elsewhere. First of all, we provide you with
evenly-matched competition regardless of your skill level. In fact, the intense level of competition that we produce has established S.N.A.I.L. as the ideal place to
prepare for GT Academy. And if you want to keep track of your improvement along the way, you'll be glad to know that we keep the most
comprehensive race data available on GTPlanet. We also feature an
interactive process that allows all of our members to have a say in which cars and tracks we race. And last but not least, we're the only league that awards our members with
valuable prizes just for racing with us!!
Evenly-Matched Competition
Have you ever watched a professional race where drivers with completely different skill levels were competing on the same track? Of course not! That wouldn't be fun to watch, let alone fun to participate in. Unfortunately, that disparity of pace is something you'll often find in organized online racing. When this happens, you'll be lucky to have just a few drivers that you're truly competitive with. Everyone else will usually either be faster or slower than you. We prevent that from happening in S.N.A.I.L. by dividing our drivers into separate divisions based on speed and skill. This results in full grids of evenly-matched competition and creates the closest and most intense sim racing experience around!
Prepare for GT Academy
If you'd like to compete in GT Academy, there's no better place than SNAIL to hone your skills to the elite levels necessary to make it to the finals. You need to be the best of the best to make it to Silverstone, and that's exactly what the drivers in our top division are. Half of last year's and half of this year's Silverstone Finalists have raced in SNAIL. And since our race format (which features multiple sprint races) is almost identical to the format used at the GT Academy national finals, they were able to use their SNAIL experience to help them advance to Silverstone. Click
here if you want to advice from last year's eventual champion and click
here if you want advice from last year's runner-up.
Valuable Prizes
Have you ever wished you could win free stuff just for having fun? If so, then you might want to know that our members win valuable real-world prizes just for racing with us! These prize are based on participation and
not on race results. Some examples of prizes our members have won include a
GranStand Cockpit, a
ButtKicker Gamer2, a
GranStand Wheel Stand, and a
Wireless ButtKicker Kit. And if you want to help organize our league, you can join
TEAM S.N.A.I.L. and earn even more prizes such as shirts (e.g.
S.N.A.I.L. shirt,
F1 shirt,
GT Academy shirt), electronic/gaming hardware (e.g.
Hauppauge PVR), sim racing equipment (e.g.
Playseat Evolution), and other Gran Turismo related items (e.g.
GTPEDIA).
Spec Racing
S.N.A.I.L. was the first GTPlanet league to prohibit tuning in all of our races. This combined with the fact that we race in the same cars produces a type of racing called "spec" racing. Spec racing ensures that success is determined solely by driving skill and not by differences in car power, gearing, suspension, weight, or aerodynamics. Because variables in the car are eliminated, spec racing is the truest measure of driver skill! It also produces intense battles for position because all of the cars are equally strong or weak in the same areas of the track. Another benefit of spec racing is that you'll never spend time tuning cars or wondering if someone is truly faster than you or if they just have a better tune.
Race Format
Our league night lasts for two hours and is split into three rounds. Each round consists of two races that last
10 to 12 minutes on a predetermined car and track combo. At the beginning of each round, a
brief qualifying session determines the order of the starting grid. The first race is set to 'Fastest First' to reward the best qualifiers and the second race is set to 'Reverse Grid' in order to promote on-track action. Points are awarded based on our
"perfect" points system. After a round is completed, we move on to the next round and repeat the same process with the next car and track combination. Once all three rounds are complete, we tally up the points and then let our interactive format kick in.
Interactive Process
Our unique format allows everyone to have a say on which cars and tracks we race. It is also used to strike a balance between
familiarity and
variety of cars and tracks. In other words, the progression of cars and tracks that we race is slow enough for us to learn them well, but fast enough that they don't get "old". At the end of every league night, we ask everyone to vote on which car and track combo they enjoyed the least. The combo that receives the most "elimination votes" is dropped from the next week's
lineup entirely. The combo that receives the second most votes is also dropped, but only partially. This is where our prizes play an important role in our interactive format.
Prizes
A prize is awarded to the divisions winners with the three highest scores
*. The division winner with the highest score gets Prize A. The division winner with the second highest score gets Prize B. The division winner with the third highest score gets Prize C: (NOTE: We now have a
new process for breaking ties in the elimination vote)
Prize A: The right to select the new car and track combo to replace the combo that was voted off
Prize B: The right to replace either the car or the track of the combo that received the second most votes
Prize C: The right to "
freeze" either the car or the track of the combo that received the second most votes
Promotion and Relegation
Although we split our drivers into separate divisions based on performance and skill level, we realize that our drivers are constantly improving and deserve a chance to climb the ladder of success. That's why we promote and relegate drivers before every season based on the results and data compiled during the previous season. This is also done to ensure that our races are as competitive as possible for all of our league members, top to bottom. Regardless of which division you're in, you will almost always be fighting to gain or defend a position on the track. Simply put, no other Gran Turismo league in the world can offer this much competitive racing to so many different skill levels.
Comprehensive Race Data
It's not always accurate to promote and relegate drivers based on championship points alone. That's why the massive amounts of data we track are invaluable to our league. You'd be hard-pressed to find a sim racing league anywhere in the world that tracks driver data and race results more comprehensively than we do. In fact, our
S.N.A.I.L. Results document contains so much information that we have to archive old data to avoid exceeding the GoogleDoc's maximum capacity! You can use this data to track the points championship for each season and compare yourself to other drivers in categories such as fast laps, total race pace, total points, average points per race, and
power rankings.
Rules
We expect all drivers to follow our
OLR Rules and pursue
good racecraft at all times. If you're not sure what good racecraft is, watch
this video. It can be summed up in one simple '
Golden Rule' of motorsports:
It is the responsibility of the overtaking driver, meaning the car that is attempting to execute the pass, to make sure that the pass is made cleanly and incident free. If you don't agree with this rule or don't think it applies to you, this is not the league for you. If you ever feel like a driver is not following the rules, please
wait until league night is over, then file a
Racing Incident Report. Our Stewards will review the incident and enforce the appropriate
penalty on the driver in question.
Settings
All league Race Settings are default unless noted below (Course Settings are listed
here)
Boost: Off
Penalty: Weak (and Effective for Free Run) for Division 7 and 8 only. (Penalties
OFF for
D1,
D2/D3,
D4/D5, and
D6)
Race Finish Delay: 90sec
Visible Damage: Off
Mechanical Damage: Light
Slipstream Strength: Real
Tire Wear/Fuel Consumption: Normal
Grip Reduction: Real
Vehicle Tuning: Prohibited
Driving Aids: Only ABS allowed in all divisions except for the lowest division, in which (
ABS, TCS, and Driving Line are allowed as well)
Tire Restrictions (based on Dealership PP):
Street Cars
below 350 PP -> Comfort Mediums (NEW!)
350-399 PP ---> Comfort Softs (NEW!)
400-449 PP ---> Sports Hards (was previously used for any street car below 449 PP)
450-499 PP ---> Sports Mediums
500 PP & up --> Sports Softs
Race Cars
below 600 PP -> Racing Hards
600 PP & up --> Racing Mediums
Tuner Cars
Classified as either Street or Race cars based on this list
How To Join Us
Step 1: Post a request to join (do not PM me, just post your request on this thread)
Step 2: Watch the thread for a reply to your post (it will include detailed Time Trial instructions)
Step 3: Purchase the three cars listed in the latest
lineup below
Step 4: Get an oil change on each car, but do not do anything else to the car (e.g. add parts or reduce weight)
Step 5: Wait to be assigned to a division and then send Friend Requests to the hosts of your division. Then join your division host's room on Sunday night and race!
If you are not sure which division you are assigned to, please check the
Offical Driver List
For a list of helpful links and FAQ's, please click here.
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My kids made it to midnight for the first time so that was pretty awesome. Hope everybody has had a good time.
