Roadmap #9: And Then... Disaster

I thought everything was under control. The web app was running well. The few bugs we found after the release were quickly fixed and we were well underway to implement more feature. Constructive feedback and conversations with the community on the LMU Forums resulted in good insights - I had already found a way to cut costs to reduce the entry fee from €45 to €35 - and I thought we were genuinely building some positive buzz around the series.

But then... a comment on the LMU Forums changed everything. Something so absurd I never thought about verifying that it was actually possible. Because I had already used the very feature in official online races. Because I used that feature a thousand times in LMU's predecessor rFactor 2. Most importantly, because that feature is the very basis of endurance racing.

The official game of the FIA WEC and 24 Hours of Le Mans does NOT have driver swaps enabled outside of their official events and competitions.

Should I have known beforehand? How did I miss such a basic shortcoming of the very platform we were intending to use? How have I never read anything about this before now? All of these questions went through my head at some point during the past 24-ish hours. And the answer I keep coming back to? I would have never thought to research something I consider an absolute basic feature of a game like LMU.

Whichever way we look at it, we need to change plans. Waiting (possibly forever) for LMU to make the feature available is not an option for me. We already committed to the AI tooling subscription I need for the app development, the app hosting and database costs, the domain and email and most importantly, I have mentally committed to starting our first season in October.

So... what's next then? Starting on LMU in October is a no-go.

The funny thing is that the I originally created the concept of the Digital Motorsports Club and the Digital Endurance Championship for iRacing about a year ago. Back then, it remained just a concept.

So after careful consideration, we are now committing to using iRacing as the running platform instead. Over the next few days, we're adjusting the app to be able to run alongside iRacing instead of LMU. We're also building the basics to use the iRacing API and SDK for automation once they make their Client IDs available again for new third party apps.

After that is done, we are announcing the championship to the iRacing community. The scope remains unchanged. Whether it's LMU or iRacing, I believe there is a need for a professional championship like this on any sim racing platform.