Season 20 - Early Preview & a message from PitChief!

Hello Everyone and welcome to 2024!

As a community and platform, we've grown from a small community running one league a week back in 2019, to what is without a shadow of a doubt one of the largest independent platforms in Assetto Corsa Competizione, with over 10,000 drivers signed up to our platform and over 400 active drivers in the last month and it's notwithstanding that none of this would be possible without your patronage as everything you use on PitSkill has no alternative funding source other than your patronage!

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you members who have consistently renewed or taken out yearly memberships with us and continued your support through all of 2023 and into  2024; our goal will always remain the same, to provide a community and space where everyone can experience close, clean, competitive sim-racing to drivers of all skill levels.

About 2023

In 2023, we decided to launch a brand new version of our racing platform PitSkill.io to everyone; due to constraints using "out of the box" platforms provided when trying to build something simple for usage by all drivers as well as highly configurable for our management team to handle the growing community of which we had fostered, and in May of 2023 PitSkill was launched fully self-hosted and self managed, with this came additional costs and for a few months, we were running at a major deficit with most of the cost coming from my pocket.

With the growing patronage, we have managed to keep that cost reduced and build on the success of the launch of the platform to provide more and more races and build more features into the platform, however, at this time, our "main" development team has also shrunk to just 1 developer, with help from some members in the community; this does pose a challenge as, at the end of 2023, I welcomed my firstborn daughter into the world, reducing the time available to spread across work, life and PitSkill itself, which is still a hobby project!

Looking forward to 2024

2024 will be a critical year for PitSkill; with ACC being on its last announced DLCs and the knowledge that AC2 is on the way, 2024 will be the year where we look to grow to a point where we are self-sustainable and can aim to bring more sims onto the platform.

To do this, we need your help to spread the word and increase attendance and driver count across the platform, in turn allowing us to continue to grow the platform; we have made a massive and outstanding growth in 2023 to be able to continue to sustain the platform and we are looking forwards to seeing what 2024 brings!

However, implementing and producing new features is very much still a "when we have time" basis and our goal is to continue to grow into THE community that's open to all skill levels, however, has the features in place to ensure that you grow up through the ranks, you know that racing will get closer, and cleaner!

Season 20

Our focus now that we have hit the milestone of 10,000 is to buckle down and provide a path of progression through the platform, with the ultimate end goal of having at least 1 daily series running 24/7 around the clock and the final step on the ladder being the "Trophy Challenge" as that is what the platform was initially built for; with a path of progression into our series calendars; to do this, we locked off all non-daily activities in Season 19.5 once 10,000 members were reached so that any new rookie drivers had to go through the daily races unless they were running on the America time zone; this will continue until the Americas events are starting to fill as the EU timezone events are.

Season 20 Tracks

Week 0 - Zolder

Week 1 - Suzuka

Week 2 -Silverstone

Week 3 -Nürburgring

Week 4 - Bathurst

Week 5 - CotA

Week 6 - Monza

Week 7 -Hungaroring

Week 8 -Misano

Week 9 -Spa

Week 10 - Imola

Week 11 - Brands Hatch

Daily Series

With Season 19.5 being so successful with the multiclass events and our PitBOP (Balance of Performance) implementation, we have decided to add the GT4 car class to the GO Setups Daily Series; which will now be named:

GO Setups GT Daily Series (GO Setups GT)

GO Setups is once again providing sponsorship for our Season 20 Daily Series; however this time there will be a slight change from Season 19 (Season 19.5 had a change due to it being the holiday period).

Changes:

- 30-minute races!
- GT3 & GT4 cars selectable every day!

Double Dash GT3 Series

The most popular format Double Dash is here to stay for Season 20 and we will be monitoring and watching its growth throughout all of Season 20 as this should be where all drivers "start their journey" with PitSkill!

No Changes.

Weekly Series

We are aware of the fact that a lot of our weekly series do overlap the GT Daily Series; and our goal is to ensure that no matter what licence class, drivers have something to drive through at least "Peak Times", and we have looked at ways we can change the scheduling however in the end, we have to accept that some series will over-run others and hope that the growth of the platform encourages more series to run parallel!

To achieve this; all non-daily series in the European timezone have moved to C Class series; encouraging rookies to make their way through dailies to race in the non-daily events.

PitSkill.io Weekend Warrior - Saturdays

The PitSkill.io Weekend Warrior format remains the same as Season 19.5; with GT3 and GT4 in the mix for the 60-minute races; however, points can only be scored by the top 15 in each class; so it may be worth switching from GT3 -> GT4 to get some points in the series!

Changes from Season 19

- C Class Required
- GT3 & GT4 Allowed
- Top 15 in class score points.

Porsche Cup / M2 Multiclass - Mondays

The massively popular Porsche Cup sponsored by SimQuips is back from Season 19, however, as was with 19.5, it has now gone MULTICLASS due to a vote held in Discord, with both Porsche Cup and M2s being able to be used across the season.

Changes from Season 19

- C Class Required
- Porsche Cup & TCX score points
- Once you select Porsche Cup/TCX you cannot swap and change throughout the series.
- TOP 30 in each class score points!

[NEW] Americas GT4 Series - Mondays

A specific series just for GT4s for the American time zones with 30-minute races every Monday!

Championships / Leagues

Americas Challenge

The America's Challenge is back; with some slight changes from last season but still the great format from Season 19!

Changes

- Rookies are allowed to sign up pre-season!
- Fixed CAR Series instead of Championship!
- Patrons can sign up for all rounds in one go!

GO Setups Trophy Challenge

As previously announced; the GO Setups Trophy Challenge has changed from being a VIP Only event, to instead having a PitSkill requirement of 1750 as well as the previously set C Class licence requirement; this change has been made so that drivers are aware it is a "competitive" series; however also allows for the ability of growth in a competitive atmosphere as the change from a championship to a series would mean that we can implement per-event splits; allowing for us to split based on the attending drivers rather than at the start of the season!

Changes

- Open to all (NON-VIP)
- C Class Required
- 1750+ PitSkill Required
- Trophy for overall victor
- Unlimited Sizing of Series entries but splits at 50 drivers with 2x "Big Grid" events.
- Live Stewarding and Commentary for Split 1

2024 Special Events

As previously communicated; the 2024 Special Events are here; with something for everyone and some big events across the year already planned out; with plenty of notice for everyone to get involved!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/2024-special-95318619

Monthly Multiclass -> Monthly Royal Rumble

The monthly multiclass will continue; however renamed and rebranded to the "Monthly Royal Rumble" in an effort to give a "special" monthly event where we try and pack as many different cars and skill levels onto a track and see who comes out on top; however with no ranking/rep on the line, a once a month; blow off steam event.

Don't worry if the Monthly Royal Rumble isn't your thing as there's the special events, daily races and weekly series which may contain multiclass coming up as well; plenty of choice for every driver type!

Feedback

We welcome any feedback in the comments section and hope to see you on track, thank you again for your support and in return, we will continue to provide our support for this platform in the future; our goal is to always provide close, clean, competitive racing for every level and give every driver an opportunity to grow and improve!