LIVE Available on the public NCM Online server.

Racing

For players

Where races come from. Organised races on NCM Online are Paddock races: the NPC league's own calendar, with places for humans on mixed grids. They run on a schedule through Night City's streets, highways and authored ovals. Each race has a discipline (point-to-point, circuit or oval), a route, a field size, an entry fee, a payout, regulations about which cars may enter, and the weather at its start.

The flow of a race:

1. Browse the Race Guide (F6) or PADDOCK → RACES. Mark one Interested to track it and route to the venue.
2. Enter at the venue. The entry fee is charged then. Entry is open until shortly before the start.
3. Qualify at the venue if the event has a session. Qualifying helps set the grid order. Entering without setting a time is still an entry.
4. Grid up. Your slot is assigned; F7 snaps you to it. Corrections are allowed until green, and the snap checks there is clearance. A driver who is not on the grid at green is DNS.
5. Race. F8 toggles the live race graph. The on-screen running order is the real one.
6. The flag. Penalties (jump starts, incidents, cuts) are applied in a ceremony after the flag. NPCs are judged by the same rules as humans.
7. Settlement. Paid events write an itemised receipt: solo completion, contested placement and field bonuses are separate figures. Race Tags and a capped clean-driving bounty come from the facts of your run.

Leaving a race: Withdraw at the venue before it starts; Forfeit (/ncm.forfeit, confirm twice) after it starts, recorded as a DNF.

Ineligible? Regulations can restrict an event to a class or a specific model (a MaiMai cup admits MaiMais). Flying machines are never street cars: no ground race admits one unless its rules ask for it. The Race Guide shows whether your car can enter before you travel.

Other formats:

• Time trials: a field of one against the clock, even with nobody else on the road.
• Custom street races (F5): choose a start, a finish and a start time; anyone can join at the line. No fee, no prize; one call per driver every 15 minutes, at most two open at once.
• Lap ghosts: your personal-best lap replays as an unhittable car in practice and time trials only.

Records. Best times are kept per route. /ncm.results lists your last five results and /ncm.best your best per route.

Limits and known rough edges

• Some checkpointed routes have been withdrawn while their racing lines are rebuilt; the calendar only posts routes that pass its checks.
• The interaction card shows only the keyboard key; on a pad, hold X.
• See Known Issues for current race problems.

For developers

• League, calendar, sessions, results, penalties and settlement: ncm/online/resources/ncm_league/server/ (calendar.lua, race.lua, guide.lua, economy.lua, records.lua).
• The Paddock's races and the physical "bubble" that puts NPC cars on the road: ncm/online/resources/ncm_paddock/.
• Pure rules (scoring, eligibility, penalties) live in ncm/core/ and are unit-tested under Lua 5.4 and LuaJIT.
• The race HUD, grid snap and venue panel: ncm/online/resources/ncm_world/client/ and ncm_world/web/race.html, venue.html.
• Design record: docs/ncm-online/DECISION_RECORD.md L228-L296 (Paddock racing, grids, qualifying, ovals, the flag).