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Round styles

A round everyone races can be run three ways. Both the Round Wizard (step 1) and the Add Round dialog call the choice How it's raced; this page holds the full rules for each. For help choosing, see Scoring & Championships.

Schedule Counts toward overall standings? Ends when
Everyone races in every lane Made up front Yes Every heat has run
Balanced Grows as results come in Yes Every car has raced the chosen number of times
Elimination Grows as results come in No — it has its own result One car is left

Everyone races in every lane

The default, and the fairest comparison.

  • Every car takes each lane exactly once per run. Lanes are not equal — small differences in the track make some faster — and this cancels that out.
  • The schedule is one heat per car per run, and every heat is full: no car gets an easier day by racing in half-empty heats.
  • Runs per lane multiplies the whole schedule: at 2, every car takes every lane twice. More runs produce fairer averages and take longer.
  • The whole schedule exists before the first heat, so it can be printed and heats can be reordered.

Balanced

Borrowed from GPRM, which calls it "Dynamic". The goal is that more children win a heat.

  • The first set of heats is drawn at random.
  • Each later set ranks the cars — most heat wins first, then best average points per heat — and races neighbours against neighbours. The winners race the winners, which means the other heats are winnable.
  • You choose how many times each car races. Once per lane is the usual advice and the suggestion offered.
  • Within a heat, each car is given the lane it has used least. The matchups come first, so the lane spread is best-effort rather than exact.
  • Everyone races the same number of times, so times and points count toward the overall standings as usual.
  • New heats appear on their own once the current set has all been run. There is nothing to press. A withdrawal that would leave a heat still to be run with only one car in it skips that heat instead — nobody races alone here either — and the car joins the next set.
  • A racer who checks in late joins the next set. They will have raced fewer heats than everyone else, so in a points race the round is set aside.
  • The Schedule tab and the Race tab both estimate how many heats a Balanced round will run in total, before the last one has been drawn: the number of times you asked each car to race, times how many sets that takes at this track's own lane count — exact, since nobody is added or removed mid-round the way an eliminated car is.

Elimination

The classic "lose too many and you're out" — with no bracket to draw and nothing to reprint when somebody does not show up.

  • A loss is any heat a car does not win. Second of four counts the same as fourth. A car that breaks down mid-heat takes a loss; a skipped heat is neither a win nor a loss.
  • You choose how many losses a car is allowed. Three is a good default.
  • New heats appear on their own once the current set has all been run. Cars are grouped by record — the undefeated race the undefeated — and nobody races alone: a leftover single car joins the nearest group's heat. The same promise holds if a withdrawal leaves one car alone in a heat still to be run — that heat is skipped rather than raced solo, and the car joins the next set instead.
  • A car at the loss limit is out. The last car left wins.
  • Elimination heats stay out of the overall standings — an eliminated car races fewer heats, so no average or total over them is fair. The round's own page on Standings shows the result in losses: cars still racing first, then the eliminated in order of how long they lasted. A race with no other round opens Standings on that page directly, rather than on an "Overall" view that can never hold anything for it — switching back to Overall on purpose says so, instead of asking you to complete heats you already have. The audience display's own "Race complete!" screen and its running standings show the same round for the same reason, labelled in losses rather than a time.
  • A racer who checks in late joins the next set on a clean record — but never a race that is already decided. Checking in after the final heat does not restart it.
  • The Schedule screen's Chart view shows the round set by set — who won, who lost, and who is still in it — for whichever rounds are elimination. It is a record of what has already happened, never a prediction: the set that comes after the one on screen does not exist yet, so it is never drawn.
  • An elimination round cannot also be a championship round. Its survivors can feed one: point a championship round at the elimination round and the last cars standing race a timed final. See Championship rounds.
  • The Schedule tab and the Race tab both estimate how many heats an Elimination round will run, worded "at least": the number of losses it takes to be out and the number of cars racing bound how many losses the whole round will ever hand out, and dividing that by how many losers a full heat produces gives a number that usually undercounts a little rather than overcounting — the real schedule can and does run one or two heats past it, especially in the final few heats on a track with more than two lanes.