How to play
Everything below explains exactly how Overcrest works, system by system. Numbers shown are the current live settings, so this stays accurate even if they get tuned over time.
Contents
The weekly cycle
Teams & leagues
Rallies & stages
Strategy: tires & risk
Driver & co-driver stats
Roster: your full squad
Weekly testing sessions
Scouting
The garage & mechanics
Transfer market
Finances
Sponsors
Championship & standings
Seasons & the off-season break
The weekly cycle
Overcrest runs on a real weekly calendar, not a countdown you have to babysit. A typical week looks like this:
| Monday | Weekly testing signups open — pick one driver or co-driver stat to work on. |
| Tuesday | Test results land. Check your dashboard for the outcome. |
| Any day | Set your tire/risk strategy for the next rally, right up until it locks. |
| Saturday, 9:00 | The rally runs automatically. Results, points, and prize money post immediately. |
Times above are the general rule, in the server's own time zone. Your dashboard's countdown and every specific date/time you see elsewhere are automatically converted to your own local time zone.
Nothing requires you to be online at a specific moment — sign up for testing whenever your Monday is, set your strategy whenever's convenient, and check back after the rally for results.
This weekly rhythm runs for 8 rounds, then the season ends — see Seasons & the off-season break below for what happens next.
Teams & leagues
When you register, you create one team: a name, a badge (pick a shape and colors — no file uploads needed), and a starter driver, co-driver, and car. You're placed into an open league with up to 30 other teams; once a league fills up, a new one opens automatically.
Every team starts with identical, deliberately low driver/co-driver stats (5 out of a 99 cap) so nobody gets a random head start. Your car starts a bit stronger, at 5. From here, everything comes down to how you play: developing your starting duo through weekly testing, scouting a replacement, or building a better car once you can afford it.
You'll end up owning more than one driver, co-driver, and car over time — only one of each actually races at a time. See Roster below for how that works.
You can change your badge any time from the dashboard, and set your country from your profile — it shows as a flag next to your team's name wherever it appears.
Your team also carries a reputation tier — Amateur, Established, Competitive, Elite, or Legendary — based on career points earned across your team's whole history. Unlike season standings, this never resets: it's a permanent record of everything your team has ever achieved, shown as a badge next to your name on every team page. It's not just for show, either — the better established your team is, the better the sponsor offers you'll attract.
If a team goes untouched for a full season with nobody logging in, it may be archived to free up the league slot for someone else — roster and history stay completely intact, and logging back in any time gives you the option to reactivate. Just log in occasionally and this never applies to you.
Rallies & stages
Every rally has between 3 and 6 stages, generated fresh each week. A whole rally is either gravel or asphalt — decided once and applied to every stage in it — but weather is rolled independently per stage, so a rally can easily swing from dry to wet and back:
| Dry | 55% chance per stage |
| Mixed | 27% chance per stage |
| Wet | 18% chance per stage |
Each stage also has a length (8-22 km) and a technicality rating (25-80) — more technical stages are slower and riskier for everyone.
Your finishing time depends on your driver's skill, your co-driver's notes, your car, your tire choice, and how much risk you carry — see Strategy below. A crash always ends your rally early (a DNF). A mechanical failure depends on whether you brought mechanics along — see The garage & mechanics below.
Once a rally finishes, results don't just appear all at once — a live commentary feed reveals what happened stage by stage over the next several minutes, team names linked so you can jump straight to anyone mentioned. Your own dashboard holds back your finishing position until that feed catches up, so you can't accidentally spoil your own result by checking too early.
Once results are fully revealed, the standings table on a rally's page isn't fixed to the finish order — click any stage column (or Total Time) to re-sort by that stage instead, so you can see exactly where you gained or lost ground during the rally, not just where you ended up.
Strategy: tires & risk
Before each rally, set your tire compound and risk level for every stage individually — real teams change setup at each service park, and so can you.
Tire compounds: soft (fastest in the dry, wears more), medium (balanced), hard (safe and steady), and wet (built for rain — a big penalty if you're caught on the wrong compound when the weather turns).
Risk level (1-5, Cautious to Flat out): higher risk means a faster stage time, but a real chance of a costly mistake — especially if it pushes your driver beyond what they're naturally comfortable with. A driver with low risk-taking pushed to "Flat out" is a genuine gamble.
You can change your strategy any day of the week, right up until 1 hour(s) before the rally starts — then it locks automatically so nobody can react to results as they come in.
You'll also choose how many mechanics travel with you on this same page — see The garage & mechanics below for what that changes.
Driver & co-driver stats
Driver: Pace, Car control, Tire management (all trainable), plus Risk taking (fixed — it's their natural comfort with risk, not a skill).
Co-driver: Notes accuracy and Calmness (both trainable).
Every driver and co-driver also has a hidden potential stat you never see directly — it quietly skews the odds of every testing session succeeding. Instead of a number, you get an age label that hints at it:
| ≤23 | Rising Talent | Highest average potential — could become a star, could bust. You won't know until you invest. |
| 24-33 | Prime | Good average potential, still plenty of room to grow. |
| 34-39 | Veteran | Solid, but improvement is getting harder to find. |
| ≥40 | Experienced | A known, stable quantity — lowest average potential, but reliable. |
These are averages, not guarantees — a "Rising Talent" can still have surprisingly low potential, and an "Experienced" driver can still surprise you. That uncertainty is the point.
Roster: your full squad
Signing a new driver, co-driver, or car — whether from scouting or the market — doesn't automatically replace whoever's currently racing. It joins your roster as a bench member instead. Only one of each type is active at a time (that's who races your next rally), but you can own several.
Head to the Roster page anytime to see everyone and everything you own, including wages for each driver/co-driver, and switch which one is active with one click. There's no cost to switching and no cooldown. If you're already entered in an upcoming rally, switching updates that entry too — whoever's active when the rally actually runs is who races, right up until the strategy lock (see above).
Bench members aren't just sitting idle, either — you can send any of them (not just your active driver/co-driver) to a weekly testing session. See below.
Don't want a bench driver, co-driver, or car anymore? Two options, both on the Roster page: Sell lists them on the market at whatever asking price you set (a suggested figure based on their stats is pre-filled, but you can change it), for other managers to buy. Release lets them go outright instead — free, instant, no market listing — for someone you don't expect anyone to buy. Either way, you can't sell or release your active one of each; switch to someone else first.
Weekly testing sessions
This is the only way to improve driver/co-driver stats — there's no other training available. Every Monday, sign up for one paid session focused on a single stat, on any driver or co-driver on your roster — active or bench. Results land Tuesday.
Cost rises the closer a stat gets to the 99 cap — early gains are cheap, polishing an already-strong stat is expensive. You're charged whether or not it succeeds.
Success chance depends on the stat's current value and that driver/co-driver's hidden potential — a high-potential prospect trains reliably even early on, while a low-potential one is a gamble even with plenty of room left to improve.
Only one signup per team per week. If you miss Monday, you'll have to wait for the next one.
Scouting
The only way to acquire a driver or co-driver other than developing your current one through testing. Pick a target (driver or co-driver) and an investment tier — better tiers roll a better stat range:
| Budget | $5,000 | stats roughly 15-50 |
| Standard | $25,000 | stats roughly 30-70 |
| Premium | $50,000 | stats roughly 45-90 |
The investment is charged right away. Your scout returns in 7 days with one prospect — a normal age and hidden potential just like anyone else on your roster. From there you choose:
Hire — joins your roster as a bench member, free beyond the scouting investment. Switch to them on the Roster page whenever you're ready.
List on market — puts them up for sale to other managers instead, at whatever price you set (a suggested figure is pre-filled, but it's yours to change). One of two ways a driver/co-driver ends up on the market — the other is selling one you already own from the Roster page — nothing restocks automatically.
Discard — let them go, no further effect.
Only one scouting assignment at a time — you can't send scouts out again until the current one is resolved and you've made a decision about the prospect.
The garage & mechanics
Your car has a condition rating (starts at 100). It only drops when a mechanical failure happens during a rally — ordinary racing doesn't wear it down. A damaged car is more likely to break down again until repaired.
Repairs: restore condition to 100 for $500 per point of damage, no cooldown.
Performance upgrades: permanent improvements to your car's Performance and Reliability, same cost curve as driver testing, on their own daily cooldown.
Hiring a mechanic crew
Separately, hire up to 7 mechanics for $150/day each, charged like any other wage. Every mechanic you've hired is either assigned to your next rally, or free to help build a new car — never both at once.
Mechanics at a rally
On the strategy page, choose how many of your free mechanics travel with you (0 up to however many aren't committed to a car build). This changes what happens if your car suffers a mechanical failure mid-rally:
0 mechanics (nobody assigned): a mechanical failure ends your rally outright — a DNF, same as if you'd never touched this system at all.
1 or more mechanics: the failure gets serviced instead of ending your rally. Real rally teams get 30 minutes at the service park to fix the car between stages — more mechanics repair faster. Beat the clock and there's no cost beyond limping cautiously to the stage finish; run over and the overflow becomes a time penalty, and the damage lingers into later stages (raising the odds of another failure). Either way, you keep racing.
Bringing more mechanics to a rally is a straightforward trade-off against the car-building option below — you can't do both with the same crew member at once.
Building a new car
Whichever mechanics aren't assigned to this week's rally can build a brand new car instead. Pick a budget tier and how many mechanics to put on it — fewer mechanics stretches the timeline:
| $200,000 | 6 weeks at 6 mechanics | stats roughly 40-65 |
| $400,000 | 4 weeks at 6 mechanics | stats roughly 55-80 |
| $1,000,000 | 2 weeks at 6 mechanics | stats roughly 70-95 |
The budget is charged immediately, and those mechanics are unavailable for a rally until the build finishes. Only one build at a time; the finished car joins your roster as a bench member, ready to activate whenever you like.
Transfer market
Nothing here restocks automatically. Every listing was put there by another manager — a scouted driver/co-driver they chose to sell rather than hire, or anything from their own roster (driver, co-driver, or car) they no longer wanted. What's available comes and goes with other teams' decisions, not a system timer.
Sellers set their own asking price — there's no fixed formula, so a listing might be a bargain or overpriced depending on how the seller valued it. Listings still show stats and an age label just like your own roster, so you can judge for yourself whether the price is worth it.
Buying a listing joins your roster as a bench member, same as scouting a prospect yourself — it doesn't touch whoever's currently active.
Changed your mind about something you listed? As long as nobody's bought it yet, you can pull it back at any time from the Market page — a driver or co-driver returns straight to your roster, a scouted prospect goes back to pending so you can hire, discard, or relist it instead.
Finances
Every dollar in and out is logged to your statement (Finances page). The main flows:
| Entry fee | $5,000 | Charged when you're entered into a rally. Can't afford it? You sit that round out. |
| Prize money | Up to $50,000 | Paid by finishing position the moment a rally completes. DNFs earn nothing. |
| Wages | Varies | Your active driver's and co-driver's wages, plus $150/day per mechanic hired -- all charged daily. |
| Sponsor income | Varies | See Sponsors below — paid per rally, not daily. |
Budgets can go negative — it's flagged in red so it's never a silent surprise, but it's not a dead end. Wages still apply, but your rally entry fee is waived while you're in the red, so you're never locked out of the one thing that can actually earn you a way back out: racing. Everything else still costs the usual amount, so it's worth holding off on non-essential spending until you're back in the black.
Sponsors
After your first-ever completed rally, a sponsor approaches you with an offer: a flat amount per rally, plus a bonus per championship point you score. Review it on the Finances page and accept or decline.
Once signed, they pay out automatically the moment each rally finishes — no daily payments, it's tied directly to your results. Starting offers scale up with your career points, so a stronger team attracts a better first deal too.
As you improve, you have two options:
Renegotiate with your current sponsor — always an improvement on your existing terms, same sponsor, free.
Find a new sponsor — an independent fresh offer from someone else, which could be better or worse than what you have. Costs a small scouting fee ($2,000) and doesn't touch your current deal unless you accept.
Both options share a daily cooldown, so you can't spam-reroll for a jackpot offer.
Championship & standings
Points are awarded by finishing position each rally:
1: 25 · 2: 18 · 3: 15 · 4: 12 · 5: 10 · 6: 8 · 7: 6 · 8: 4 · 9: 2 · 10: 1
(1st place scores 25, 2nd scores 18, and so on down to 1 for 10th place. Anyone below that, or a DNF, scores zero.)
The Standings page tracks total points, rallies entered, wins, and podiums across your whole season, for every team in your league. A dropdown at the top lets you browse any other league too, not just your own — see how the competition looks elsewhere.
Seasons & the off-season break
A season runs for 8 rounds. Once the final one completes, that league's standings are finalized, and everyone in it gets a real break — 2 weeks with no rally to enter before the next season's Round 1 begins.
Nothing else pauses during the break — training, scouting, the market, and car building all keep working exactly as normal. It's specifically the absence of a rally that makes it feel like an off-season, a chance to regroup before the next one starts.
Every season's Champion, Runner-up, and 3rd place get permanently recorded — visit the Season History page (linked from Standings) to see every past season for your league, "Season 1, Season 2..." onward, visible to everyone racing in it. Unlike the live standings, this record never resets.