I had some give and take with iRacing today to find out what they're working on with what has been called "Private Leagues" and most recently "Hosted Racing."

Here's the scoop. And we're interested in what you think knowing that people disagree all over the place when it comes to most subjects - especially this one. Building consensus is more difficult in sim racing than in American politics.

Caveat: this is just a discussion and what the current thinking is. Development issues will dictate a number of the final features of Organized iRacing and the first season will be different than following seasons. Nothing set in stone here presently.

As we've repeated repeatedly, we are not going to do anything to harm the existing service. We have a couple of things in mind to protect the Official Races of iRacing. However, we want people to be able to do what they want to do here. Therefore it is imperative to try to give the people who want Organized iRacing a strong, broad menu of options.

The plan currently is to implement a service called Organized iRacing. These are unofficial races that do not count in iRacing outside of the Organization you choose to race in.

First, we are considering charging each member who wants to organize races & leagues $9 per season. This will ensure that iRacing is not overrun by organizers who aren't serious about what they are doing.

A member can become an Organizer by purchasing an iRacing Organization ("Org" for short) prior to a season for $9 (an annual iRacing Organizer can purchase an annual iRacing Org for $25). Organizers can purchase as many Orgs as they want.

An iRacing Org is essentially a "league" that can be passworded or not. It is a "hosting" service run by an iRacing Organizer. The Organizer sets his schedule, track, car(s), race length, yellows or no yellows, SR min/max, iRating min/max, set ups (fixed or not). The Organizer can make his races Open (no password) or Closed (password only).

There is no cost for any member who wants to join an Org. The only charge is the $9 per season to become an iRacing Organizer and the Organizer also pays $1 for every race he schedules. This should serve to limit Orgs to Organizers - members who are serious about their Organization(s).

[Note: an Organizer is going to be free to charge anyone anything they want outside of iRacing. So if an Organizer who is popular and good at running an Org puts together an Org and finds 30 people who will pay or contribute $1 per month or whatever he wants to charge them to be a participant in his Org -- that is not our business. We can't be responsible for transactions members may make between themselves.]

An Organizer can create a website for their Org, but iRacing - as part of the Org service - will provide a dedicated Org page including all results and stats for that Org. The dedicated page service will probably not be available until season after next.

The second thing we are going to do to ensure continued participation in our official series is the iRacing Participation Plan. The Participation Plan should increase participation in official races of iRacing because we intend to offer iRacing Credits to members who participate in at least 8 Race Weeks in a particular official iRacing series.

A member who participates in at least 8 Race Weeks in a particular official series (ORGS ARE UNOFFICIAL) next season receives a $7.50 iRacing Credit after the season ends. If a member accomplishes this in two separate series during a season, such member will receive a $15 iRacing Credit after the season ends. $15 is the maximum Credit a member may obtain through this Participation Plan in any season.

If a member takes full advantage of the Participation Plan, he will save an additional $60 per year. Right now an annual subscription is $156. Therefore, the annual cost could become as low as $96. That essentially reduces the cost from $13 per month to $8 per month! But you have to participate in official iRacing series as explained above. The Participation Plan will be evaluated each season.

I doubt the official series will die off with these significant two plans in place to both protect the official series and to increase everyone's ability to get what they want out of iRacing.