While the main event of the 24 Hours of Spa endurance race in iRacing was rather spectacular, behind the scenes, a large number of users had a much less enjoyable time.
In one of the splits of the race, specifically Split 22, one of the teams (the #20 car belonging to 00r0 Motorsport) decided to go rogue.
Incidentally, if you’re wondering, “splits” are the way iRacing matches drivers when there is a large number of participants registered to a single race, depending on a number of factors, including iRating, latency, and the friend list.
00r0 Motorsport’s #20 team was purportedly composed of professional real-life racing drivers, Ethan Welsh, Zack Scoular, and James Swindless, albeit the actual presence at the wheel of Scoular is a point of contention, as you’ll see below.
Things started to go wrong several hours into the race, following what appears to be a fairly mediocre performance with multiple mishaps that required time in the pits.
After lap 150, with Welsh at the wheel, the #20 started actively hindering other drivers, driving erratically and slowly, blocking overtakes by teams that were ahead in the rankings, and causing several contacts.
It’s worth mentioning that in endurance racing, it’s good form to allow drivers who are lapping you and generally faster than you to overtake you without opposition.
The behavior at the wheel was arguably even worse after the driver changed to Scoular, and did not improve with Swindless, who was finally disqualified only on lap 184.
The black flag was apparently not issued by a human race steward, but by an automated system that detected that Swindless refused to serve a drive-through penalty.
If you want to watch the frankly painful proceedings, you can check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube user Basic Ollie.
Of course, this is a very serious issue. An endurance race like this is extremely taxing, and many prepare for it for a long time, giving their best through one of virtual racing’s most grueling genres.
To have a whole race ruined by this kind of behavior is obviously unacceptable, especially for a hardcore simulator like iRacing with ambitions of bordering on professional racing and long-established as an Esport.
The developers of iRacing responded to the issue with a rather muted statement on X (formerly Twitter), adding that due to the service’s sporting code, any action taken against members won’t be publicly announced.
iRacing takes on-track conduct during our events as seriously as our members do. Our team of devoted stewards thoroughly reviews all protests submitted to them every day and takes action when appropriate.
Please remember that, under the iRacing Sporting Code, any actions taken to penalize a member are between iRacing and the member in question. While our policy is not to comment publicly on specific incidents or sanctions, this does not mean that no action has been taken. We would also like to remind the community that the targeted harassment of other iRacing members is against our Sporting Code as well.
While a number of commenters appeared content with the response, part of the community saw it as particularly weak and inconclusive, or lacking transparency, as you can see on this dedicated Reddit thread.
Many are taking issue with the fact that penalties are not publicly announced, leaving the community basically in the dark about whether perpetrators of unsportmanlike conduct are punished appropriately or not.
In real-world racing, penalties and disqualifications are announced very publicly, and the absence of such transparency in a service like iRacing, which aims to imitate real racing, is questionable at best.
Many online games also announce bans of users found breaking the rules within public posts, so it’s certainly feasible. Those who wonder why iRacing opts to protect the privacy of members who have engaged in egregious behavior certainly can’t be blamed.
If the iRacing’s sporting code does not afford public disclosure and transparency, there’s certainly an argument for demanding it to be changed or amended to enhance accountability.
Another obvious issue is the fact that the splits don’t appear to be handled by human race stewards. The fact that this obviously disruptive behavior was stopped only by an unrelated automated action over 30 laps afterward is problematic.
Had Swindless served the drive-through penalty, it’s very possible that their team’s disruptive behavior could have been allowed to continue until the end of the race.
It might be understandable that having human stewards for every split would be very onerous for iRacing (although it would be ideal), but it can certainly be argued that having a team of stewards spot-checking all the splits with the ability for drivers to call their attention expeditiously when needed, would be the bare minimum requirement a paid, professional-leaning simulation service like iRacing should include.
Incidentally, 00r0 Motorsport issued a public apology, which you can see below. Among other things, the team alleges that Scoular was not at the wheel, but he had shared his account with a “colleague” who was the one racing in their stead.
Deciding whether you believe this convenient excuse or not is, of course, your prerogative.
Simulation Daily has reached out to iRacing to ask whether any action is planned to mitigate this kind of issue and prevent similar situations from happening again. We’ll keep you updated if we hear anything relevant from the developers.
If you’re unfamiliar with iRacing, it’s a subscription-based, esports-focused racing simulation platform on PC considered by many to be one of the most realistic in the industry. It features precisely simulated cars and LIDAR-scanned tracks that reproduce their real counterparts, making it popular among many real racing drivers who use it for training.
It’s also an attractive esports platform as it features racing regulations closely related to the ones used in real motorsports to create an online esports environment that feels as professional as possible, encouraging clean racing, racecraft, and fair play over winning or placing high in the rankings (albeit the events described in this article cast some shadow on these ideals).
iRacing partners with several real-world racing series and organizations, including Nascar, IMSA, the FIA, and many more. It has just been updated to Season 3 for 2025.
The company behind iRacing is also publishing the next Nascar game, Nascar 25, which will be released this fall for PC and consoles.
