1. General:

1.1) Finnish Grand Prix Legends Championship Season 5 (FGPLC5) is open to everyone living in Finland. This is mainly to guarantee best possible online connections. Note that you don't have to be Finnish to be able to participate.

1.2) You need Grand Prix Legends retail version updated to v1.2.0.1 (patch available at www.papy.com). You should also consider getting the discofix, as it may make disconnects a little less likely.

1.3) If you don't use VROC to join, you will need the correct core.ini settings to join. Click here to get a sample core.ini with the correct settings. These settings should not affect VROC or other online racing. The server name in VROC is v.duck.

1.4) People are required to join our mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnish_gpl_champs/join. Vital information through the course of the season is passed by the list, as well as tips, jokes and other important stuff. So be sure to join! Also, IRC is used for pre- and post-race chats and for exchanging information and files. Please make sure you have an IRC program installed. mIRC is a good program. FGPLC meeting place is at IRCNet servers, channel #gpl. Mika Takala has written a Finnish version of DUN Tweak Guide found at Alison Hine's and VROC pages. Check it out if you're a modem user.

1.5) The season schedule will consist of 14 races. Each race consists of 30 min practice session and about 1 hour of racing for Division 50 (race length 50%) and 2 hours for Division 100 (race length 100%). The practice session will determine the starting grid for the race. The races are run with realistic damage.

1.6) FGPLC5 will consist of two divisions. After the season starts no more sign ups will be allowed except in very special circumstances. This also means that FGPLC5 requires maximum level of commitment from its drivers. Do not sign up if you are unsure about being able to participate in most races. Each division has a maximum of 19 drivers. Drivers are required to form 2 man teams. Help will be available for forming the teams if necessary, the drivers do not have to belong to a team when signing up.

1.7) All races will be run on Sundays (Div50) and Mondays (Div100) as shown on the schedule. Practice starts at 21.00, and race immediately after that, so the race should be over at about 22.40 for Div50 and at 23:40 for Div100. Races are hosted on the FGPLC-server provided by Tiimipeli.NET.

1.8) FGPLC5 is managed by Jussi Lassila. Should there be any questions about these rules, obvious problems with the rules, or should some issues arise that are not in the rules, he will make the final judgement. He does believe in democracy so feel free to express your thoughts to him. Usually all decisions are made on #gpl-channel with the bunch present at the time the problem rises.

2. Sign-up:

2.1) You sign-up by registering to the FGPLC-site (with your real name, no nicknames in FGPLC) and sending email to Jussi Lassila (jussi.lassila at iki.fi) with information on which division you wish to join. If the race times are not suitable but you would be interested in racing at other times, please specify at which times.

3. Car selection:

3.1)Before connecting to the race server at the time of the race, the team decides which car to use in the practise and the race. Both drivers in the team will use the same car. A car can be used only twice during the season. Two races with lotus, two races with ferrari, two races with BRM, etc.

3.2)If neither of the team drivers can make it to the race (most unfortunate, and _should_not_ happen), a random car choice for the team will be selected.

4. Races:

4.1) There may be two appointed race marshalls for each race. Their job is to mainly handle any complaints filed after the race. If there are no appointed marshalls, they will be chosen for each case individually.

4.2) A 30 minute practice session before each race is used to determine the grid.

4.3) Race dates and lengths will be posted on the FGPLC Schedule page as soon as possible.

4.4) Points will be awarded for each race as following to the drivers and teams:

	 1st	15 points
	 2nd	11 points
	 3rd	 9 points
	 4th	 7 points
	 5th	 6 points
	 6th	 5 points
	 7th	 4 points
	 8th	 3 points
	 9th	 2 points
	10th	 1 point

4.5) Only those drivers who complete 90% of the laps driven by the winner score points. This is calculated so that winner's laps are multiplied by 0.9 and then rounded down. So, if the winner completes 65 laps, the required number of laps to be classified will be 65 * 0.9 = 58.

4.6) If a race is stopped for any reason before the leader has completed 33% of the race, no points are given for that race. Possible rescheduling will be considered.

4.7) if a race is stopped for any reason before the leader has completed 66% of the race, only half points are given for that race. There will be no rescheduling.

5. Championship:

5.1) all 14 races count towards the championships.

5.2) The driver with the most points at the end of the season will be the drivers' champion.

5.3) The team with the most points at the end of the season will be the teams' champion.

5.4) If two or more drivers score the same amount of points, the one with the most wins will be placed ahead. If they have equal number of wins, then the number of second places are considered and so on, until there is a difference. The same method is used for teams.

6. Procedures to follow on the track:

6.1) During all sessions drivers are to race safe and avoid crashing with other drivers. It is assumed that all drivers are familiar with normal racing procedures and conventions and abide by them. EVERY DRIVER MUST READ PHILIP MCNELLEY'S EXCELLENT DRIVER BEHAVIOUR PAGE, preferably more than once.

6.2) When exiting the pits during practice, a driver must be very careful not to block anyone starting a fast lap. (At the Nürburgring this is especially important, since the warmup-lap takes over 8 minutes.)

6.3) Whenever exiting the pits during practice or race, a driver is to announce this by a chat message such as "Pit Out" or "PO".

6.4) During practice, a driver on the warm-up lap is to give way to any driver approaching him from behind.

6.5) During practice, after completing the last fast-lap of current outing, driver is adviced to stop his car in a safe place as soon as possible and exit the car. No cool-down laps please as you may end up blocking someone on a flying lap.

6.6) Chatting during the race is to be kept at the absolute minimum. It is ok to announce you're out of the race or leaving the server however, with a message such as "I'm out" or "CYA". If you want to chat with someone, please send a message to the specific driver (example: "/m.hakkinen what was that?", see readme12.txt in you GPL folder for more details).

6.7) Black-flag: Drivers who for some reason are black-flagged are to show in good time their intention to pit (with a chat message such as "Pit In" or "PI"), and if rejoining the track after a stop-n-go send an "Exiting Pits" chat message (see rule 6.3).

7. Penalties:

7.1) When a driver feels he has been a victim of misconduct, he must bring the subject to the attention of the series manager within 7 days from the race day. Although server replays of the races should be available, the driver should save a client replay of the event and make it available to the manager.

7.2) The appointed marshalls will examine the incident, and point out possible offender(s). Punishments are then dealt out by the race marshalls and series manager.

7.3) As most crashes can be classified as "racing accidents" where there is quite hard to find any single driver to blame, you should consider really carefully before filing a complaint. You may yourself be found quilty! This is especially true in online racing, because warping and limited visibility makes it hard to predict what others are doing.

7.4) If some of the marshalls, the series manager or their team-mates are involved in the incident, another person with no connection to the incident will be appointed to replace him.