Nurburgring Endurance Championship - 2016 Season
| iRacing VLN Endurance Championship | |
| |
Season
| |
| Races | 8 |
|---|---|
| Start date | May 15, 2016 |
| End date | October 23, 2016 |
Season Information
On the 9th May 2016, Kevin Bobbitt announced in the, now old, forum a new Championship - The iRacing VLN Endurance Championship. Additionally to the forum announcement iRacing also made a trailer for the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owfS1ghXv9w
The car roster for the first season consist of 5 cars in 3 classes.
In the GT3 class, the BMW Z4 GT3, Audi R8 LMS and the Mercedes-AMG GT3. The other two classes consists of each the Kia Optima and the Global Mazda MX-5 Cup.
The maximum field size was set to 60 and teams could consist of 1-4 drivers with the Fair Share Rule not in effect. That would mean that drivers could drive the races solo, without getting Disqualified after the race.
Qualifying was a solo qualifying during the whole week in separate qualification sessions, with 45 minute sessions ending on the Saturday prior to the race. The set qualifying time would determine the Splits and Grids for the Sunday race.
Race session were only on Sunday 14:00 GMT at first. After 15 minutes of warm up and time to join the session the gridding for the race was opened for a rolling start from the Döttinger Höhe, near the Touristfahrten Entry. Green Flag was waved for every class at the same time.
After the first round iRacing added a second time slot; Sunday 06:00 GMT.
Two drop-weeks were set for this championship, meaning that the 2 worst championship results would not count in the final result and one fast repair allowed per race, that would fix up the car again without loosing time.
Reaction from the Community
A lot of people were looking forward to the series, but quite a lot still complained about the lack of the RUF as a counterpart to the Porsche and that only 5 cars were selected.
The other discussion point was the lack of different time slots for the race. With only having one time slot on Sunday, people from Australia, New Zealand and Asia couldn't take part of the VLN, because the race would start Monday Midnight. But changing it to a Saturday time slot would conflict with the Blancpain Endurance Series (BES) and the real VLN race.
Calendar
For the first round, there was only the 14:00 GMT time slot. Only after the community demanded more time slots to also cater to the AUS/NZ and Asia time zones, a second time slot was introduced for the second round onwards.
Saturday: 14:00 GMT
Sunday: 06:00 GMT
| Round | Circuit | Duration | Date | Broadcast |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
4 hours | May 15, 2016 | 
|
| 2 | Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
4 hours | June 26, 2016 |
|
| 3 | Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
4 hours | July 17, 2016 |
|
| 4 | Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
4 hours | August 21, 2016 |
|
| 5 | Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
6 hours | September 4, 2016 |
|
| 6 | Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
4 hours | September 25, 2016 |
|
| 7 | Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
4 hours | October 9, 2016 |
|
| 8 | Nürburgring Gesamtstrecke VLN
|
4 hours | October 23, 2016 |
|
Car Classes
| Class | Cars |
|---|---|
| GT3 | BMW Z4 GT3 |
| Kia Optima | Kia Optima |
| Global Mazda MX-5 Cup | Global Mazda MX-5 Cup |
Winners
The class winners of the first iRacing VLN Endurance Championship:
| Class | Driver |
|---|---|
| GT3 | Kay Kaschube
|
| Kia Optima | Marc Elkemann
|
| Global Mazda MX-5 Cup | Tobias Czerny
|
Trivia
Although the series only had 8 rounds, in the API there are actually 12 rounds with the 9th being at [Legacy] Silverstone Circuit - 2008 - Grand Prix, 10th round at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, 11th at Nürburgring Combined Gesamtstrecke 24h and the 12th round at Phillip Island Circuit.
Because of the renaming from iRacing VLN Endurance Championship to Nurburgring Endurance Championship for the 2018 Season, the season stats for the 2016 and 2017 are not longer available. Neither on the Website, UI nor API.