Many of our competitors and supporters already know the answer to the question: What is iRace? But sometimes it can be challenging to pinpoint exactly what it is about the Independent Race Series that sets it apart from other forms of racing. Sometimes it's worthwhile being reminded exactly what it is that makes our series great.

Ultimately, what defines us is the things we care about. For iRace, it's a simple list:

• We care about safety.
• We care about each other.
• We care about driver development.
• We care about diversity.
• We care about affordability.
• We care about our supporters.

Read on for a short explanation of each point.

We care about safety.

We strive hard to make our racing as safe as possible. Our marshalls and officials have excellent training, and safety is their number one priority. Our regulations focus on ensuring that racecars are as safe as possible, and we conduct regular checks for compliance.

We care about each other.

Our series is all about mate-against-mate. We encourage hard racing, but insist that drivers put themselves in the other guys shoes, and treat their fellow competitors the way they would like to be treated. We also help each other out if there is work to be done to get a car back on track.

We care about driver development.

Often racing can become a procession. Not in our series. We employ a variety of different race formats (handicap, reverse grid, rolling starts) to ensure that drivers in our series learn as much about racecraft as possible, and practice a variety of techniques that give them a headstart over other drivers.

We care about diversity.

We have many different kinds of cars and drivers in our series. There is a place for all of them. We have carefully designed our categories to cater for as many different cars as possible, and to offer something for the casual racer, and for the driver who has their sights set on the top.

We care about affordability.

Racing costs money. But with the right strategy, the amount of money can be kept to a minimum. Our series has evolved to offer the lowest cost possible. We’ve thought outside the box, and scheduled some of our events on a Friday. All in the interests of keeping our entry fees fixed at $395.

We care about our supporters.

Our supporters help make our series happen. We work hard to make sure series, category and individual team sponsors get as much exposure as possible. Prosperity for our supporters means prosperity for our series. What’s good for them is good for us!

To download a PDF poster of this information, please click here. Please feel free to pass it on to your friends and competitors!

The photo gallery from Round One of the Independent Race Series has now been uploaded, with additional photos to be added shortly.

There are some great shots in the gallery, and photos have been divided into the separate categories that ran at the event. Click here, or the image on the right to view the gallery, or use the individual category links below. The pages are also accessible from the "Multimedia" section of the site, accessible by clicking the appropriate button on the menu to the left.

Formula Tasman & Le Mans Sports

Touring Car Challenge

Production Racing Cars

Muscle Division & Invited Sports

The next round of the Independent Race Series will be held at Queensland's Morgan Park 15-16 November 2008.

The first ever round of the Independent Race Series was held at Sydney's Oran Park over the weekend, with a successful meeting and some very exciting on-track action.

Unofficial practice took place on Friday 10 October, and many of the competitors took the opportunity to get familiar with the flowing Oran Park "South Circuit" layout.

Saturday morning brought the official practice sessions for four separate groups: Touring Car Challenge, Formula Tasman/LeMans Sports (combined), Production Racing Cars and Muscle Division. Drivers had little time to relax, with qualifying held mid-morning.

In the Touring Car Challenge field it was Darren Saillard on pole in his BA Falcon V8 Supercar. In the Formula Tasman ranks, Sam Dale dominated in his Reynard 94D, Mark Laucke was quickest of the LeMans Sports in his WEST. Quickest of the Production Racing Cars was Clark Stott in his Mazda 3 MPS. Muscle Division saw Chris Clearihan take pole in his Future Racer.

Racing got underway just after midday, and the first ever race in the Independent Race Series was Production Racing Car driver Clark Stott, putting in a stunning performance in his Mazda 3 MPS. Racing continued into the afternoon, finishing just before 5pm with a sudden downpour drenching the final race.

Over the course of the day the category results were as follows:

Production Racing Cars was taken out by an envigorated Neil Byers. Byers took his Mitsubishi 380 to two race wins (out of four races), ahead of Anthony Soole (Toyota Celica) and Bryan Fitzpatrick (Renault Clio). Class wins went to Clark Stott (Class A), Neil Byers (Class B) and John Willmington (Class C). As part of a bet made with his team, Neil Byers walked the pitlane (after the circuit was closed of course!) in his checkered boxer shorts to celebrate his wins.

Formula Tasman was won by Sam Dale in his Reynard 94D. Dale won all three races, setting the fastest laptimes in each. It didn't go all his way though - a sticking throttle cable on Dale's car saw Bob Muir take the lead in the final race, but some confusion over the safety car saw Muir excluded from the race. Formula Robertson honours went to Glenn Lynch.

In the LeMans Sports stakes, the overall result went to Aaron Steer in his WEST. Mark Laucke looked strong early on (taking two race wins), but was unable to complete the final race, handing the victory to steer, and relegating Laucke to second. Class honours went to Laucke (Oxygen Class), Scott Bingham (Radon Class) and Rick Otten (Neon Class).

The Touring Car Challenge honours went to Darren Saillard in his BF Falcon V8 Supercar. Saillard beat Mark Telfer (VZ Commodore) and Phil Groeneveld (VS Commodore) for outright honours. The ex-V8 Supercar honours went to Saillard, and the V8 Giants to Telfer.

Muscle Division was taken out by Canberran Chris Clearihan in his Future Racer. Second place went to Glen Austin in his EB Falcon, and third was taken by Steve Wild in another Future Racer.

To access the full results from Round One, please click here.

Round Two of the Independent Race Series will be held at Morgan Park (Queensland) 15-16 November. Keep track of all the latest news and information on www.irace.net.au

The event schedule for Round One of the Independent Race Series is now available to download. The schedule (as well as a range of other administrative documents) is available from the "Admin" page of the site. Or you can access the schedule directly by clicking here.

Round One of the 2008 Independent Race Series will be held at Sydney's Oran Park, Saturday 11 October 2008.

Hot on the heels of the announcement of two events for 2008 for the Independent Race Series, the important documentation and forms are now available.

The Admin section of the Independent Race Series website is the official access point for all documentation. Direct links to the new forms and documents are listed below:

• Entry Form - Round 1 - Oran Park Sat 11 Oct 08
• Entry Form - Round 2 - Morgan Park 15-16 Nov 08
• Supplementary Regulations - Round 1 - Oran Park Sat 11 Oct 08
• Licence Application Form
• Licence Medical Examination Form
• Logbook Application Form
• Driver Profile Submission Form

Please note that many of the forms are in Adobe Acrobat format, and will require the Adobe Acrobat Viewer to view them. The Adobe Acrobat Viewer is a free download, available from THIS SITE.

Following a great deal of anticipation the Independent Race Series will get underway at Sydney's Oran Park, 11 October 2008.

The Independent Race Series caters for a variety of different racing categories, with cars ranging from production-based cars (Production Racing Cars), to ultra-competitive touring cars (Touring Car Challenge), right through to prototype sports cars, and open-wheeler formula cars (LM Sports and Formula Tasman). Mixed in are the pocket rocket racing cars in RocketSports, and perhaps the most diverse sedan-based category around - Muscle Division, catering for everything from HQ Holdens to Japanese turbos.

The Oran Park event will serve as a great introduction for the Independent Race Series, and is planned to be held on the great "South Circuit" configuration of the challenging Oran Park layout. The meeting will take place over one day (Saturday 11 October), and will conclude in time for competitors, officials and crews to sit back and enjoy the Bathurst event the following day (Sunday 12 October).

Details of the second Independent Race Series event have also been released, and the series is set to travel to Warwick (QLD), to the exciting Morgan Park circuit. The Morgan Park event will be held 14-16 November 2008.

Entry forms for each event will be available very soon, and details of the brand new iRace Club will also be released shortly.

The Independent Race Series - Racing for Racers...

The internet is a hectic place. New websites spring up every day, and it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. Most internet users have a collection of sites they visit regularly, but no way of knowing in advance if each of their favourite sites has been updated since they last visited. It can be time consuming to open up all your favourites only to find they haven't changed since the last time you looked.

What if there was a way to have any news items delivered automatically to your computer whenever you connected to the internet? Well, there is a way. And the Independent Race Series website (www.irace.net.au) has incorporated the technology in its design. The technology is called RSS (Really Simple Syndication), and it allows you to subscribe to a News "Feed", either through a program you may already be using (usually an email program or web browser), or through a dedicated program. Each time you connect to the internet, the program checks the status of the feed, and if there is a new article it can be automatically downloaded. For a full rundown on how it all works, and how you can subscribe, click HERE.

If you already know how to subscribe, the link you are looking for is: http://www.irace.net.au/news/files/blogRSS.php

There are a number of other little innovations incorporated in this website, and we'll bring you more information on how to get the most out of it soon.

The Independent Race Series is all about offering a better alternative for competitors, fans and teams. The more people that contribute to make the series great, the greater the series will be. If you have a suggestion, an idea, a proposal, a way we can do things better, we want to hear from you. To that end, we have opened a suggestion box, and hope that if you see something that could be improved you will let us know. Click the box on the right to head straight to the suggestion box.

Production Racing Cars competitor John Willmington has gotten the ball rolling, by suggesting the Suggestion Box. Thank you John. Now, let's hear from the rest of you!

The official website of the Independent Race Series has been officially launched.

The website will be the central point for disseminating information relating to the brand new series, and will contain information on the calendar, each of the categories, as well as news, results, photos and video, plus feature articles, and of course access to all the paperwork and administration for the series.

The site relies on input from the competitors, and you the reader, so if you have anything you would like to see, please head to the Contact Us page, and let us know. We'll be providing some extra information soon on how you can really get involved, but until then we're always open to great ideas and submissions!