I recently decided to give the iRacing Tour Modified Series a try. The cars are fast and they drive great. It’s C class so that brings long races with caution flags, so pit stops are possible. It sounds pretty good. The only downside is a lack of participation in the series.
One reason for the lack of active racers is there is not much glamour in the Tour Modified Series. Let’s face it, part of the reason the trucks and the A and B class series get so many drivers is because of the glamour. You see these vehicles on television quite a bit. They’re the premier NASCAR racing series, and they get all the glory. NASCAR is where the money is, so iRacing does it’s part in taking advantage of that by promoting those series more than they do some others. Most iRacers join so they can race those trucks, class B and class A cars. So, to those drivers, Tour Modified has little appeal.
But that doesn’t explain it all. After all, take a look at Late Model and SK Modified participation. Those classes don’t make real world racing headlines on a national scale either, but their participation numbers are pretty good.
After I started driving in the Tour Modified Series, I quickly learned why it is so unpopular. It’s because of some of the drivers who are regulars in the series. First of all, I’m not talking about all of the drivers, I’m talking about some of them, so don’t get the wrong idea.
The number of downright rude drivers in this series is amazing. The percentages must be astoundingly high. When I say rude drivers, I mean drivers who do things like drive a race with a poor connection, blinking and so forth, and knowingly race in traffic with those conditions. Others tell them that they’re blinking badly, yet they continue to race as if they don’t hear. Then when they wreck you, they never apologize or say anything at all. There is no respect for other drivers in the iRacing Tour Modified Series unless you’re a member of the unnamed team (see below).
Then you have the cheaters. These are drivers who intentionally block on the race track. Blocking is cheating. Cheaters may cross the finish line first sometimes, but what’s the point if you’re cheating? If you block in a race, you might as well be running an iRacing grip hack or weight hack or any other cheat. It’s all the same, and a cheater is a cheater and no better than a low-down dog.
There is an entire racing team (unnamed) who competes regularly in the iRacing Tour Modified Series whose strategy is to cheat by blocking. They do it in such a way that it’s practically impossible to report them for it. I had one of these cheaters block me two races in a row at Dover International Speedway, then pout and cry like a little baby when I called him on it. After that, I started spectating a few of his races. That’s when I noticed that he and his teammates all drive lines that are not fast, but that only have one objective: to block other drivers. They really like tracks where they can drive on the apron, below the blend line, and they drive on the apron as much as possible despite the fact that they run slower laps by doing so. Their cheating strategy is blatantly obvious.
So rudeness, lack of respect and cheating are killing the iRacing Tour Modified Series, and rather than make an attempt to police it, iRacing chooses to rely on their phony protest system instead. It’s cheaper that way. One employee can handle the protests, but it would take more than one to actually police a racing division temporarily. When it comes to iRacing, you can always follow the money.