I find 75 minutes spot on for leagues... It's only over 45 minutes strategy kicks in, so anything under that is pretty useless for a league... As for public racing, 10-15 minutes would be my ideal length, as that is longer than most WR-setups last (again, strategy)...

I voted for 45mins, although it does really depend on the cars. To me it is important to bring tyre choice and pit stops into it when it comes to tournaments/leagues. Having a good endurance setup can make all the difference even if you are not the fastest.

In the SHAC we did 30min Sprint race and then 90min Main race which was pretty good although it didn't really leave much of a pit strategie with the GTR class as the FXR had to pit exactly half way through the race to be competetive with the tyre choice, so no margain for error there.

For public servers of course anything more than 10-20 minutes is a waste of time unless it's a good server.

So to sum this up from my point of view:
Long enough to allow for different tyre/pit stop strategies

Quote from The Very End :

5 laps, I like those fast races, I can`t stand longer races.
CTRA is too long for me, but there is no other good servers for me so it`s the only choise for me.

I disagree. I think, the ctra races should be at least 50 percent longer, as I hope that would give single races more value. As it is now most people drive as if they don't care if they crash.

I tend to prefer several short races, or a 45 minute race. However I do like endurance racing and races of about 2 hours, but its a lot of hard work in the faster cars for me using a ps2 pad. I would find it easier using a ffb wheel, because the inputs are so tiny on my gamepad it takes a lot of concentration to drive smoothly.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

I tend to prefer several short races, or a 45 minute race. However I do like endurance racing and races of about 2 hours, but its a lot of hard work in the faster cars for me using a ps2 pad. I would find it easier using a ffb wheel, because the inputs are so tiny on my gamepad it takes a lot of concentration to drive smoothly.

same.... well, except for the gamepad bit

I prefer a couple of sprints, say 15 laps/20 minutes or so. An Aussie league does this, and does a reverse-finishing order for the second race.... good fun, although T1 is pretty interesting :yikes:
I do enjoy an enduro though, it just seems to take more time to get prepared.

I said 30mins but prefer any length longer. Any race that involves the need for the pits etc

45 minutes. If Iraq decides to deploy its weapons of mass destruction and directly threaten the UK, I want to spend the whole time racing.

Usually, for pick-up races I prefer around 15 minutes, and for league races, I prefer 75 to 90 minutes.

DBP came up with a format I found great for their MRT cup, though. Quali was similar to F1's a few years back, where each driver ran an out-lap, a flying lap, and an in-lap (and only two of them were on track at the same time, one on his out-lap while the other was on his in-lap). Then, there were five 5 laps races and one 30 laps race. The total time depended on the length of the track and was often more than two hours. But it was so much fun that it always felt too short.

I find it comical that Niko put 2 hour+ races as his preference, but in this past weeks BOTT race, he retired after 2 laps, a stunning 4 minutes of driving (in last place!).

I love the races that are 1hour and over.. they arnt really endurences, they are more proper races. I get much more better feeling of, say, accomplishment doing long races rather then small 5min races..

I love to try endurance races when I can, me and 3 teammates really need to get used to racing for one or two hours at a time, since we are going to participate in a 16 hour race next month.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

I disagree. I think, the ctra races should be at least 50 percent longer, as I hope that would give single races more value. As it is now most people drive as if they don't care if they crash.

Nah, I find it borring to drive races that is over 10 minutes, like fern bay 12 laps, I mean come on that is too long with the slowest cars :/
But again, thats my oppinion.

As long as the server is full, you can have a fun race for as many laps as possible, because there is always someone to "race", also watching the gap decrease slowly over time is a real incentive to push hard.

I mean, come on, who hasn't got to the end of a race and thought, DAMN, I wish I had a few more laps, I do it all the time, I even did it in the BOTT race, which was 1.5 hours!!!

I voted 90 min. although I begin to lose concentration in about 20 min I really like to run tired, soaked in sweat, and committing errors by lack of concentration.
5-10-15 lap races are funny with people without training and you can run a lot of races in a day. But I prefer a long race with experimented racers running in similar times. 45 min. is the minimum for serious races IMO. 60-75 min. is not bad, but I'd prefer 90 min.

I have driven longer races before, but problem is that it`s getting damn borring. After going for about 15 mins in a race I start to get borred, lose consentration and crash horrible in a corner, and can`t make ot to the pit.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I'm not thinking so much about public servers as league races.

People really like to respond and vote in polls without reading, don't they. Vote 5 laps for league races?

I voted 60 minutes. I haven't done longer since you can't get enough on one side of the US for a league. To accommendate everyone, we have to run leagues over here so east coast is up too late, and west coast is running too early right after dinner. 45-60 minutes for leagues allow the use of pit stop strategy. Pitstops are useless in anything under 45 minutes, especially the ridiculous forced pit in 10 lap public races. It's great to see the early pitting folks trying to run hard to take advantage over the later pitting guys.

I agree with those who state 15 minutes for public racing. But the OP did specify he was thinking on terms of league racing.

Quote from The Very End :

I have driven longer races before, but problem is that it`s getting damn borring. After going for about 15 mins in a race I start to get borred, lose consentration and crash horrible in a corner, and can`t make ot to the pit.

Surely that part of the challenge. It doesn't just come down to driving skills but mental skills as well.
Without wanting to sound like an old fart, the youth of today seem to have the concentration span of an easily distracted goldfish.

Mental skills indeed.. I have some skill behind a wheel, i cant say im the awesome because im normally 1-3sec behind wr, sometimes closer or further which is no good, but i can keep highly consistant..


i can often tend to crack under pressure trying to beat a laptime or in qualifying, but in a race, i wont crack 10 laps in, 20 laps, 30,40 or further, jus a natural mental skill..

im not that fast, but i enjoy the enduros..

Quote from The Moose :

Surely that part of the challenge. It doesn't just come down to driving skills but mental skills as well.
Without wanting to sound like an old fart, the youth of today seem to have the concentration span of an easily distracted goldfish.

It`s probally very true what you are saying, and I do not deny that

But I like these more action filled races, close racing and such, that last 5-10 mins. If they get longer you end up racing along for about 30 mins, and that sucks :/

Quote from The Very End :

But I like these more action filled races, close racing and such, that last 5-10 mins. If they get longer you end up racing along for about 30 mins, and that sucks :/

Well that depends, really. Like someone said earlier, as long as there are people to race against it shouldn't get boring as you constantly have a reason to keep pushing. I agree that if you're driving around with a 20 second gap in front and behind you it does get lonely, but that's racing. And you can have that in shorter races as well if you had an accident early in the race. Only difference is it will just be a few minutes before another race starts

i love short races. 5 laps is the optimum .

if there are many racers on the track 10 laps is better, but most of the time 5 laps is perfect.

league examples XRT-Addicts, EIRC and RXC

Quote from Kid222 :

And +1 to Very End: CTRA races are too long for me, maybe Becky could add some feature, which changes race lenght from race to race, e.g. race 1@BL will have 5 laps and race 2 at the same track will have 8 laps.

Already does, but it seems that her idea of short is just not short enough for you

Sprints make massive rushes not really suitable for public servers OR leagues.

Quote from The Very End :

One of the best things with short races is that if you get wrecked, it isn`t like waiting 20 min again to race.

This is a league we are talking about here guys.

Quote from Jakg :

Sprints make massive rushes not really suitable for public servers OR leagues.

That's true, although when you luckily meet some good racers, then you can have fun for hours.

Well, I think first 20minutes are warmup on most tracks and vehicles, so 30mins is quite nice, you get some of actual racing and still you don't need to be athletic to maintain consistency over that period of time.

Race is too short if you don't need to think about tires

Also I think that for public servers there should be not possible to set races below 20 minutes, that would tech people not to crash in first place.

Racing is not hotlapping

I voted for 75 minutes, but it very much depends on the combo. I like it when races are long enough for pit strategies to come into play.