League Rules, Thursday Night Lights

THURSDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, OFFICIAL RULES

Season 3 · Porsche Cup Pro-Am · Fall 2026

🏁 Classes

How you are placed. We use your road iRating as it stands on the morning of Round 1. Under 2,000 races in Am. 2,000 and above races in Pro.

The ringer rule. We will move an obviously quick driver up to Pro whatever their rating says. A new account or a rusty one does not put you in Am. This rule is what keeps the Am title worth winning, and we will use it.

Nobody moves down. Class is set at Round 1 and stays there all season. If we move you up to Pro you stay in Pro. If you improve a lot over six weeks you keep racing Am, because you earned your title in the class you started in.

Joining late. You can enter at any point in the season. We place you by your rating on the day you join, you score from your first race onward, and there are no back points for rounds you were not in. The $20 home entry still covers every remaining round.

🏎️ Race Format

• Car: Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992.2), spec, everyone in the same car
• Setup: fixed. Everyone runs the iRacing baseline setup.
• Night: Thursdays
• Qualifying: opens 7:30 PM ET, open session, your best lap sets the grid
• Green flag: 8:00 PM ET
• Race length: 1 hour
• Rounds: 6, best 5 count
• Broadcast: live by Academy Sim Racing

Fixed setup is deliberate. In this league your disadvantage should be driving, not engineering. Nobody loses a race in the garage before they turn a lap.

If you do not set a qualifying lap you start at the back of the grid and race as normal.

📊 Points

Points are scored within your class. The leading Am driver scores 30 whether they crossed the line 4th overall or 14th. Two classes, the same points table, two championships.

These are the same numbers already loaded into the iRacing league, so the standings you see in iRacing and the standings we publish will not disagree.

17th in class and back scores nothing.

Best 5 of 6. We drop your worst round at the end of the season, including a round you missed. The drop is applied after the finale, so the standings you read during the season are real totals.

Finished, retired, absent:

• Classified finish. Full points for your position in class.
• DNF. You still score the points for the position you were classified in. Being taken out on lap two is not the same as not showing up.
• DNS or no show. No points, and no ticket in the attendance draw.

Ties go to countback. Most wins in class, then most 2nds, then 3rds, and so on. If two drivers are still level, the better finish in the finale takes it.

🏆 Awards

$180 in cash and two free entries.

• 🥇 Pro champion, $60 cash
• 🥈 Pro runner up, free entry to the next Academy league
• 🥇 Am champion, $40 cash
• 🥈 Am runner up, free entry to the next Academy league
• ⚡ Hard Charger, $40 cash
• 🎟️ Attendance drawing, $40 cash

Hard Charger goes to the driver who gains the most positions across the season. We take your starting position minus your finishing position and add it up over every round, across the whole field with Pro and Am counted together. Rounds you did not start do not count. A driver who qualifies badly and races well can win it.

If two drivers finish level on positions gained, it goes to whoever made the biggest gain in a single round. If they are still level after that, they split the $40.

The attendance drawing gives you one ticket for every race you start. Six starts, six tickets. Drawn after the finale.

Pro pays more than Am on purpose. If both titles paid the same, a quick driver would have a reason to hang back and farm the easier class. The gap removes that reason and protects the drivers the Am class was built for.

⚠️ On Track

This league is only worth showing up to if the racing is clean. That needs one thing from everybody. Leave room.

• You are responsible for avoidable contact. If you dive into a gap that is not there, it is on you. If you turn in on a car that is already alongside, it is on you.
• A car with any part of itself alongside you at corner entry is entitled to space. Leave a car's width to the edge of the track. Do not squeeze, and do not defend by moving under braking.
• One defensive move. Pick your line and hold it. Move once, then commit.
• Being lapped is normal here. One grid, two classes, sixty minutes. If a faster car catches you, hold your line, lift where it is safe, and let them past. It costs you about two seconds. Fighting a car that is not racing you for position costs you both far more.
• Lapping someone is your responsibility too. Get past cleanly. The driver you are lapping is racing for their own championship and their result matters as much as yours.
• Rejoining. If you go off, rejoin only when the track is clear, and rejoin gradually. No hard cut back across the racing line. Wait for a gap even if it costs you positions.
• Track limits are iRacing's and iRacing enforces them. Off tracks earn incident points the same way they do in any official session. We do not add anything on top.
• Broadcast conduct. These races are streamed. Keep text chat clean during the session. Take the argument to Discord afterward where we can look at the replay.

⚖️ Penalties and Protests

Most incidents sort themselves out. When they do not:

• Protests go to a league admin in Discord within 48 hours of the race, with the lap number and ideally a replay clip. After 48 hours the result stands.
• We can apply a post race time penalty, a grid drop at the next round, a points deduction, or removal from the league for repeat offenders. We will say publicly what we did and why.
• Admin decisions are final. We would rather run a friendly league with the occasional call you disagree with than argue every race.

🏠 Racing at the Lounge

Running your round from the Tampa lounge instead of home:

• Book your seat for the round at booking.academysim.com. It is $40 per race, with no season commitment, so book only the rounds you want.
• Arrive by 7:15 PM. Your seat is reserved from 7:30 through the end of the race, and we want you belted in and warmed up before qualifying opens rather than during it.
• You do not need an iRacing account. The car, the track and the seat are ready when you walk in.
• League seats are the single monitor rigs, Sport 1, Sport 2, Sport 3 and Club 3. Equal machinery is what makes both titles defensible, so nobody wins a championship on the motion platform.
• Seat changes and cancellations follow our standard booking policy.

📋 The Admin Bit

We can adjust these rules mid season if something is clearly broken or clearly unfair. If we do, we will announce it in Discord and here before it takes effect. We will not apply a change to a race that has already run.

Questions? Drop into our Discord or email info@academysim.com.

🏠 ENTER THE SEASON, $20 from home 🏁 BOOK A LOUNGE SEAT, $40 per race

THURSDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is presented by Academy Sim Racing, Tampa, Florida. Visit academysim.com to learn more about our lounge, custom simulator builds, and upcoming events.