Today, September 18, 2007, is the one year anniversary of the LOTA domain registration, marking the official start of the League Of The Americas. One year ago, we (members from CoRe Racing, Land Of The Free Racing, CHOPS Racing Canada, and BlackSheep SimRacing) concluded our league planning conversation after having run two mini-leagues to test out our ideas. LOTA was started out of the need for quality racing in North America, which turned into a focus on serving the entire Western Hemisphere.

Back on May 19, 2006, we began what was to become an extensive conversation, including 614 forum posts in 62 different threads. We chose to start out slow and talk about things first, laying a good foundation for the league we envisioned: initial ideas, race & championship format, car/track choices, rules & points, governing of the league, logistics (including LFS servers, web presence, etc.), and finally two separate, 4-race invite-only mini-leagues to test our ideas. Throughout this conversation, we fielded many ideas from several people. As human nature and interaction goes, there were some good ideas, and some not so good ideas that were argued over, but we eventually worked out what we wanted to do.

LOTA officially started one year ago, and since we've presented some fun series that has produced some great racing action:

• Formula V8 Challenge (Fall 2006 & Winter 2007) - our first and will always be our signature premeir series. Look for it to return in the future. Two seasons of WR quality laps from some of the best in LFS. Congratulations to our two champions: Tweaker (Fall 2006), CoRe.rcpilot (Winter 2007)
  
• Formula XR Challenge (winter 2007) - Great racing in the premeir FOX series proved that open wheel racing can be close. Congratulations to CoRe.BigTime (Winter 2007)
  
• RallyCross Championship - Racing in the dirt, side by side. Close racing was seen throughout the season in this first of the mini-leagues, for individuals, and for the first time, squads. Congratulations to the Winter 2007 champions: CoRe.Viruz (individual), and CoRe.Viruz/CoRe.Banshee56 (squad).
  
• Micro-GTR Shootout (Spring 2007) - Our second, and most popular mini-series to date, was the first test of the expanded grid sizes in LFS, and saw two great championships crowned: 1ST»A.Terrahe (individual) and CoRe.BigTime/CoRe.DeadWolfBones (squad).
  
• MRT Custom Course Cup (Summer 2007 onging) - The S1 most popular car, custom courses, and a unique format has become a popular series. A HUGE thanks to LFS veteran David "Le Kid" Sirois for the tracks, and that great video! Good luck to the MRT C3 competitors for the remaining of the season!
  
• Grand Touring Cup (Fall 2007 ongoing)- GTR's, field balancing, squads, touring style racing in the tin-tops!
  
• Special Events: The 2006 Christmas Clash - reverse grids, the winter texure mod, and some great racing action to celebrate the holidays.
  
• Thursday Night Thunder - Random combos voted on by the drivers, reverse grids, lot's of fun in this non-championship series.
  

Our mode of operation has evolved, as has our website and our governing group, as we move forward and continue developing our league idea. It's taken some time to get it where we are now, and we are not yet finished, with several new racing & championship ideas, along with more web refinements, coming in the future. We appreciate the strong following that you, the LOTA membership, have shown over the last year and during our early development.

Thanks to the League and Series Officials (ZoltUSA, CoRe.Banshee56, |||bdshan, lambchop44, sweetchop17, |||MARSH, 1ST»A.Terrahe, David "Le Kid" Sirois) for keeping things going. Thanks to those that have served as server admins in a pinch: CoRe.BigTime, 1ST»A.Terrahe, CoRe.DWB, CoRe.Forbin, elderchop29). A huge thanks also goes out to the many people that have donated to help keep LOTA online. Thank you to 500Servers.com, for partially sponsoring LOTA with great U.S.-based LFS Servers!

Lastly, but certainly the most important, we would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of our racers that have shown great loyalty, respect in racing, and wonderful friendship throughout this past year. You make what LOTA is today, and will continue to do so as we head down that front stretch into tomorrow!

Congratulations guys!

Coming from Europe and thus being able to compare, this platform (LOTA is more than just a league) is certainly one of the best well organized platforms I've been working with and a great meeting place for all LFS fans (both starters and experienced racers).

Thx guys, and Happy Anniversary!!! I am glad you guys are still around and providing this hemisphere with great racing in our timezones, nothing else matches up to LOTA for North America.

It has been a while since I've last driven competitively (LOTA, then 24h MOE race)... and I do feel like I want to make a comeback, but I am really waiting for LFS to change in any way shape or form, just so it can invite me back with ease, rather than knowing I'll be coming back to age old stuff . Because it would be fun to have newer tracks to compete on, you know? Just getting old for me I guess. But I do have hopes to come back!!!

Just not right away. Keep it up, and hopefully you can find some new stars from North America!

Thanks Tweak!

I think we've all been getting a little tired of some of the stale content, so LOTA has been trying to change up the racing style a bit to add some variety. Like doing the touring style format of 2 pits and standings-based ballasts, and the MRT Custom Course Cup, where you don't know what you are racing on until the day of the race. We're also considering a random combo series, similar to the MRT series, where you don't know the car or track until the day of the race.

At any rate, it's been fun, and we too hope to see some new LFS content to spice up the LOTA racing!

This is the second LOTA league race I'm participating in and it is definitely a very good job done.

congrats guys its not an easy thing to do. well done