Contracts

Contracts are the system that turns a driver relationship into something the platform can actually use.

A contract does more than say that a driver is signed. It also defines:

• what series the deal applies to
• how the driver is paid
• how much purse money the driver keeps
• whether specific races are guaranteed
• whether the deal is full-time, part-time, or temporary
• whether the contract is active now or scheduled for later

If the contract setup is wrong, the rest of the weekly workflow starts to drift. Race assignments become harder to manage, finances look confusing, and the wrong expectations form around what a driver is actually committed to.

What the Contracts Page Is For

The Contracts area is meant to answer three questions:

1. What contract offers still need action?
2. What deals has my organization sent out?
3. What contracts are currently active or scheduled?

There are two ways users usually interact with contracts:

• Dashboard > Contracts for review and response work
• Dashboard > Organization > Contracts for team-side contract management

The team-side page is where organizations build new deals. The general Contracts page is where drivers review offers and where users can monitor current contract activity.

Where Contract Work Happens

Driver-side Contracts workspace

The general Contracts page is the personal contract workspace.

That page is mainly for:

• reviewing offers that need your approval
• opening offers that arrived through the mailbox
• countering eligible offers
• monitoring your current and scheduled contract list

If you are the driver receiving an offer, this is usually the cleanest place to review what is waiting on you.

Organization-side Contracts workspace

The organization version of the Contracts page is where management work happens.

That page includes:

• the contract builder
• sent offer activity
• active contract tracking
• the contract inspector
• amendment and extension actions

If you are signing drivers for a team, this is the page you will work from most often.

Mailbox actions

Contract offers also appear in the mailbox.

The mailbox is not a separate contract system. It is another entry point into the same contract workflow. When a contract offer arrives, the mailbox lets the receiving side:

• approve the offer
• reject the offer
• counter the offer when the workflow allows it

That means a contract may start in the builder, move through the mailbox, and then return to the Contracts page as an active or scheduled deal.

Before You Build a Contract

Before creating an offer, make sure the following are true:

1. You are in the correct organization.
2. You have permission to manage contracts for that organization.
3. The driver exists in the system.
4. You know which series the contract is for.
5. You know whether the contract should be tied to a specific car or stay organization-wide for now.

If you already know which car the driver is intended for, it is usually cleaner to attach the contract to that car from the beginning. If you are still working out car placement, the contract can stay unassigned until race assignments are set later.

Building a Contract Offer

The contract builder allows an organization to define the major terms of a deal before it is sent to the driver.

In practice, you are setting:

• Organization
• Car
• Series
• Driver
• Contract Type
• End Date
• Race Amount
• Purse Winnings Percentage
• Buyout Amount
• Guaranteed Races
• Bonuses
• Terms

Some of these fields matter all the time. Others only matter for certain contract types.

Understanding the Main Contract Fields

Organization

This is the team sending the deal.

If you can manage more than one organization, make sure you are building the contract under the right one before doing anything else.

Car

Contracts can be created in two ways:

• tied to a specific car
• organization-wide / unassigned

A car-linked contract is already pointed at a specific entry. An organization-wide contract is still valid, but it will need race assignments later before it becomes operational on the schedule.

Series

Contracts are series-aware.

The selected series drives several other parts of the system:

• salary benchmarking
• event count used for per-event salary display
• contract eligibility rules
• which cars can use the contract

If the series is wrong, the rest of the deal becomes harder to use correctly.

Driver

The selected driver is the person the contract belongs to.

This matters for salary benchmarking, eligibility checks, and who receives the contract for approval.

End Date

The end date is one of the main term controls on the contract.

A contract cannot end in the past. Once the end date has passed, the contract is no longer valid for active weekly use.

Purse Winnings Percentage

This controls how much race purse money the driver receives through the contract.

It also affects guaranteed salary. Higher winnings share reduces guaranteed salary.

Current behavior in the live system:

• 0% winnings share keeps salary at the full benchmark level
• 100% winnings share reduces salary to 75% of the benchmark level

This is important because the winnings split is not just a bonus setting. It is part of the compensation model.

Buyout Amount

The buyout amount is a contract term that can be included in the deal.

It gives the contract a defined monetary exit term instead of relying only on the general written terms.

Terms

The terms field is where custom written language goes.

Use this for the plain-English details that should travel with the offer. If a user needs to understand the deal without guessing, the terms field should say it directly.

Contract Types

The system currently supports three contract types.

Full-Time

A full-time contract is the standard long-form driver deal.

This is the cleanest option when a driver is meant to be the main driver for that series.

Important behavior:

• the contract is series-specific
• race amount is not used the same way as part-time deals
• the driver can only hold one full-time contract across all series at a time
• a full-time driver cannot sign another full-time contract in a different series
• a full-time driver cannot sign another full-time or part-time deal in the same points-paying series

This is the default contract type for long-term team planning.

Part-Time

A part-time contract is used when the driver is only covering a limited number of races.

Current rules:

• part-time deals must specify between 1 and 8 races
• guaranteed races cannot exceed the race amount
• once the race amount is fully consumed, the contract is no longer usable

This type works well for partial schedules, relief drives, or shared-car programs.

Temporary

A temporary contract is the most limited contract type.

Current rules:

• temporary contracts are always limited to 1 race
• they must be tied to exactly 1 guaranteed race

This is the correct type when you know the deal is for one specific event and nothing else.

Salary, Benchmarking, and Per-Event Pay

The builder shows a salary preview while the contract is being created.

That preview includes:

• System Salary Benchmark
• Adjusted Annual Salary
• Per-Event Payment

System Salary Benchmark

The benchmark is generated from the driver's perceived profile inside the system.

In practical terms, the benchmark is based on the driver's current hidden valuation model, including things like:

• perceived driver rating
• national fanbase
• marketability

Users do not type the salary in manually. The contract system generates the base number for the selected driver and series.

Adjusted Annual Salary

The annual salary then adjusts from the winnings split.

More winnings share means lower guaranteed salary. Less winnings share means higher guaranteed salary.

Per-Event Payment

The system also shows the per-event payment based on the annual salary and the event count for that series.

This is the number that matters most when you are trying to understand what a driver will actually cost race to race.

Guaranteed Races

Guaranteed races are optional, but they are important.

They let you lock specific events into the offer instead of leaving race usage completely open.

This is most useful when:

• a part-time driver is being hired for specific dates
• a temporary driver is being hired for one known event
• a team wants to remove ambiguity from the agreement

Important live rules:

• guaranteed races require the contract to be tied to a car
• guaranteed races cannot exceed the contract race amount
• temporary contracts must stay tied to exactly one guaranteed race
• amendments can only guarantee races that still fall inside the existing contract term

If you want to guarantee races, do not leave the contract organization-wide.

Bonuses and Incentives

Contracts can include bonus rows.

These are structured incentives that attach extra payments to defined performance conditions.

In the live builder, you can configure multiple bonus rows and include them as part of the offer. The mailbox summary and contract inspector both surface how many incentives are included.

This allows contracts to contain more than just salary and purse share.

Sending, Reviewing, and Responding to Offers

Once an offer is sent, it becomes part of the contract workflow.

The receiving side can review it from:

• the mailbox
• the Contracts workspace

From there, the offer can usually be:

• approved
• rejected
• countered

Amendments are an exception. Amendments can be approved or rejected, but they are not handled as open-ended counter workflows in the same way as standard offers.

What Happens When a Contract Is Accepted

Once a contract is accepted, it becomes part of the active contract system.

From that point forward, the deal can affect:

• current contract lists
• scheduled contract lists
• race assignments
• driver salary posting
• winnings share behavior
• contract inspector details

This does not automatically finish your setup for race week.

A contract can be valid and accepted, but still not be placed on the correct car schedule. That is why Race Assignments still matter after the contract is signed.

Active vs Scheduled Contracts

The system distinguishes between contracts that are active now and contracts that are scheduled for later.

Active

An active contract is already in force for the current date window.

Scheduled

A scheduled contract exists, but its start date is still in the future.

This is most common with contract extensions. The system creates the extension so it begins after the current contract ends instead of overlapping it immediately.

When the scheduled start date arrives, the contract becomes active automatically.

Amendments and Extensions

Organizations can manage existing deals in two different ways.

Amendments

An amendment changes an existing contract without replacing the basic term of the deal.

The live system uses amendments to revise items like:

• bonuses
• terms text
• buyout language
• guaranteed races

Amendments keep the current salary and current term intact.

Use an amendment when the contract itself still makes sense, but some of the attached terms need to change.

Extensions

An extension creates the next full-time contract after the current one ends.

Important current behavior:

• only active full-time contracts can be extended
• extensions create the next deal starting the day after the current contract expires
• the extension salary uses the driver's benchmark at the time the extension is created
• the extension becomes a scheduled contract until its start date arrives

Use an extension when you want continuity beyond the current contract term without manually waiting for the existing deal to finish first.

How Contracts Connect to Race Assignments

A contract is not the same thing as a race assignment.

The contract answers:

• is this driver signed?
• under what terms?
• for which series?
• for how long?

The race assignment answers:

• what car is this driver actually racing?
• which races is this driver covering?

That is why a signed contract is necessary, but not sufficient, for a clean weekly setup.

If you sign the deal and never place it correctly on the car schedule, the organization is not fully prepared.

How Contracts Connect to Finances

Contracts directly feed the finance system.

Depending on the deal, that can include:

• driver salary posting
• per-event contract cost
• winnings-share behavior
• guaranteed event expectations

If a contract appears to exist but the financial outcome looks wrong, the problem is often one of these:

1. the contract expired
2. the contract is scheduled, not active
3. the contract is tied to the wrong series or car
4. the driver was never assigned to the correct race

Recommended Workflow

For most organizations, this is the cleanest contract workflow:

1. Decide which driver, series, and car the deal is meant to cover.
2. Build the contract from Organization > Contracts.
3. Set the correct contract type.
4. Review the salary preview and winnings share carefully.
5. Add guaranteed races when the deal needs specific event protection.
6. Send the offer.
7. Wait for the driver to review it through the mailbox or Contracts page.
8. Once accepted, confirm the contract appears in the current or scheduled contract list.
9. Move to Race Assignments and place the driver on the correct races.
10. Review finances and sponsorship context after the assignment is correct.

This keeps the contract system connected cleanly to the rest of the team workflow.

Common Issues

I do not see the driver I want in the builder

Make sure the driver actually exists in the system and that you are building the deal from an organization you can manage.

I cannot guarantee races on the offer

Guaranteed races require a car-linked contract.

If the contract is still organization-wide / unassigned, the system will not allow guaranteed race coverage to be used that way.

I expected a driver to be ready after signing the contract

Signing the contract only creates the legal/financial agreement.

You still need to assign the contract to the correct car and races from the race assignment workflow.

The contract is visible, but salary or race use looks wrong

Check:

1. whether the contract is active or scheduled
2. whether the contract already expired
3. whether a part-time or temporary contract has already consumed its allowed races
4. whether the correct car and race assignments were made

I cannot create the contract type I expected

The contract system enforces eligibility rules. Depending on the driver's current full-time status and the series involved, the system may block overlapping deals that break the live contract rules.

Final Reminder

Contracts are one of the core control systems in the plugin.

They are not just for signing drivers. They define the terms that the rest of the platform will follow.

If you want clean assignments, clean finances, and clean weekly operations, the contract setup needs to be correct first.

Related Guides

• Race Assignments
• Organizations
• Mailbox
• Finances