RACE encoding is a method for encoding foreign languages that use non-English characters (Chinese, Japanese, etc.) in ASCII characters for storage in domain name system servers. All names without non-English characters are unchanged. RACE codes are made up of digits, letters and dashes.
RACE encoding is part of the larger scheme of the Universal Character Set specifically the ISO/IEC 10646. The assignment of characters also coincides with Unicode.
Today, it is mostly abandoned in favor of punycode.
Nomenclature
RACE is an acronym for its main purpose.
References
RACE encoding Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA