THIS WEEK: iRacing Indy 8 Hour presented by PC’s by THOMAS | Special Event
October 12th, 2026 by Justin Melillo
iRacing’s Special Event calendar features a selection of the world’s most compelling races across numerous disciplines. Whether you’re interested in stock cars or sports cars, open-wheel formula cars or sprint cars, sticking to pavement or playing in the dirt, running solo or racing with a team of your closest friends, our Special Events have something for everyone!
This week, the iRacing Indy 8 Hour presented by PC’s by THOMAS takes the spotlight with the GT3 class on display for eight hours of team racing at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Here’s everything you need to know about participating in this iRacing Special Event.
TRACK: INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY – ROAD COURSE
CARS COMPETING: GT3 Class
- Acura NSX GT3 EVO 22
- Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO
- Audi R8 LMS EVO II GT3
- BMW M4 GT3 EVO
- Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R
- Ferrari 296 GT3
- Ford Mustang GT3
- Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO
- McLaren 720S GT3 EVO
- Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020
- Porsche 911 GT3 R (992)
BROADCAST DETAILS
There will be a broadcast of the Top Split broadcast for the third time slot, the Saturday 12:00 GMT, or Saturday 8 a.m. ET event. RACESPOT will be handling the call of the action. The show will be available at iRacing.com/live.
TIMES TO RACE
- Timeslot #1: Friday at 22:00 GMT (6:00 p.m. ET)
- Timeslot #2: Saturday at 7:00 GMT (3:00 a.m. ET)
- Timeslot #3: Saturday at 12:00 GMT (8:00 a.m. ET) <- BROADCASTED SPLIT
- Timeslot #4: Saturday at 16:00 GMT (12:00 p.m. ET)
- Timeslot #5: Sunday at 00:00 GMT (8:00 p.m. ET Saturday)
ABOUT THE 2026 iRACING INDY 8 HR
This event is based on the Indianapolis 8 Hour, part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
This weekend, from October 16th to the 18th, iRacing members can sign up with a team to take on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Road Course for an eight-hour endurance that utilizes the iRacing team racing format. This race is an open setup event and will be scheduled in the sim for October 10th at 10:50 AM. Dynamic weather is enabled as well. Please plan accordingly with your team for the eight hour day ahead!
Participating teams are required to declare their drivers at registration. A team is officially eligible at a minimum of two drivers, and up to a maximum of 16 drivers. With fair share enabled, all declared drivers will have to meet a threshold of laps in conjunction with the team’s total laps for the entry to be legal by the end of the event. Registration opens 60 minutes prior, and sessions will include both a 30 minute warmup and an eight minute, two lap qualifying session. Splits are determined by iRating.
This event is open to iRacing members that have a Sports Car license at Class C or higher, or at Class D with a 4.0 Safety Rating. Splits can have up to 60 teams, and a disqualification limit has been set at 120 incident points, or 120X per team. Stop and Go penalties will be administered after 40 incidents, or 40X, and every 20 incidents (20X) afterward until the limit is reached and disqualification occurs. More details are available on the iRacing Forum post here.
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ABOUT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
The first motorsports competition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway took place in 1909 in the form of motorcycle races and automobile races soon followed. When the track’s original surface of crushed stone and tar proved problematic, the owners paved the track with more than 3 million bricks, giving rise to the nickname: “The Brickyard.”
It wasn’t until Memorial Day of 1911, however, that the first 500 mile race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and won by Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp. What was destined to be known as the Indianapolis 500 quickly became one of the nation’s leading sports events in the 1920s and ’30s. To win the “Indy 500″ was to achieve instant notoriety, and the names of early winners like Tommy Milton, Louis Meyer and Wilbur Shaw are indelibly etched in the annals of American motorsports.
A nationwide ban on motorsports during World War II, however nearly spelled the end for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which lay in virtual ruin when a consortium headed by Indiana businessman Tony Hulman purchased the facility in 1945. Hulman and his partners invested heavily in the facility and expanded the spectator capacity to the point where IMS became the world’s largest sporting arena (in terms of permanent seats) and the Indy 500 the world’s largest single-day sports event with crowds regularly topping 350,000. The march of progress also included the gradual replacement of paving over the bricks, and by 1961 the resurfacing had been completed – all but the famous “yard of bricks” at the start/finish line as a tribute to the tradition of “The Brickyard.”
The 1990s saw major changes to the speedway. In 1994, IMS president Tony George (grandson of Tony Hulman) consummated an agreement with NASCAR to stage a stock car race – the Brickyard 400 – at the Speedway. Then in 2000, George brought Formula One racing back to the USA after a nine-year absence, staging the U.S. Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
To do so, however, required a massive renovation of the facility, including the construction of a road course that combined a portion of the oval with a twisting infield section. Although the F1 race would only last through 2007, the road course has since played host to MotoGP and sports car races as well as a stand-alone IndyCar race in early May. Together with the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400, this remarkable variety of events underscores the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s moniker as “The Racing Capital of the World.”
To learn more about the event and join in on the discussion, visit our Special Events page and head over to the iRacing Forums.
For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit iRacing.com.
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