Tokens discussion

[Simon Gymer]

Do you ever stop moaning Simon?

Just helping to keep it's status as one of Britain's national past-times.

[Paul968]

Can I please make a few things clear as I get the impression you have missed the point a bit Simon:

- We are not using tokens to allow everyone to win the championship in the car of their choice. This was the way that UKGPL used it, but is not the priority here.
 
- what we do want is to continue the idea of the clubman concept, i.e. that we all drive a car that is in relation to our ability, so that most drivers have a chance to compete near the front at least some of the time. This has proved popular with those driving PnG, both fast and slow.

-  The first part of the season (pre tokens) was hugely successful and very popular. I think I'm right in saying that it was the most successful series in SRou this season, and this is for a mod which even those running the series were quite anti 6 months ago.

- We could not continue with the old formula - it was way too much work and we still got people complaining that the car choices were not fair to them.

- Tokens offers the same basic idea, but lets the drivers work out what is quickest and what works for them. Sorry if you haven't got time to work out the car's strengths Simon, but neither have I, and I had to do it for many more cars than you.

I realise that there are compromises (like the issue of discos), but every system has them. If you had your way everyone would have a car at the same level. This is a massive compromise for many here as it means the same old thing - no chance of competing for a win and often a lonely race. For me it is different but the same thing applies - I don't want to race out front all the time because it is often boring. Mixing it up in the midfield is fun, and this championship is meant to be just that. We asked everyone what they wanted and it was overwhelmingly to stick with the clubman concept. Given that you didn't race in most of the previous races, please just give it a chance over a number of races to see how it pans out, If it it unpopular then I will be the first one to suggest pulling the plug, but I really think it will be quite the opposite.

[Simon Gymer]

Socialism in racing. Awesome. This is just like the exam results where everyone "deserves" to get an A! Some people are simply better at somethings than others. So what? Why do we need to give everyone a chance to win something they're not as good at? Be happy with the talent you have as long as you enjoy what you're doing!

The overriding factor when people want a clubmans type environment should be close and safe racing, not sharing the spoils.  

Especially where there are full grids, there can easily be close racing for everyone with the people around them. If you just let the talent sort out the order, the gaps between each person will be minimal. The best way found so far to allow for close racing is to restrict the car choice. If there is a better way to do it then great, but I'm yet to hear it. Tokens will do nothing but annoy people, thin out the racing and create bizarre results rather than the correct results.

GTL and PnG isn't like GPL where the cars are relatively close in performance, the cars here have extremely different characteristics as well as performance which means racing them safely and competitively together should be avoided.

Personally I'm just going to pick the cars I get the most enjoyment with and if I run out of tokens well I'll either not turn up or drive the zero token car. I like to do well, but I'm more fussed about actually having someone to race who won't knock me off. That's what SRou has a habit of doing best and I believe that tokens are taking that away.

My personal opinion is that UKPnG drivers would be best served by providing a championship in a similar vein to UKGTL. After all it's basically the same game so what works in UKGTL should work just as well in UKPnG. I see PnG eventually replacing GTL btw (when more cars are available).

P.S. The number of people turning up to races is not the be all and end all of judging success.

[Paul968]

I know you think that (driver balancing is bad) but when we asked, less that 14% said that they agreed with you. This was after 6 official races and several fun races to test the concept. Now I'd say this is as good a measure of success as you are ever likely to get, and hardly a mandate to scrap what had been an excellent series up to then.

I think PnG is different to GTL, because it is more realistic and harder to drive. This increases the gaps between the drivers and so reduces the racing. The top guys still end up near the front a lot of the time in the clubmans and certainly get good racing, which as you say is the main goal.

I raced in the MARA league this year, which alternated 2 series: The first was +2L GTs with drivers nominally taking a car in proportion to their ability. The 2nd was a spec series - everyone had the same car in each race. Which do you think had the closest racing?

[Simon Gymer]

The first was +2L GTs with drivers nominally taking a car in proportion to their ability.

+2Litre GTs means restricted car choice. I don't know what cars that counts in or out, but it is car restrictions none-the-less because allowing the less than 2 litre cars to race the more than 2 litre cars isn't going to work. This shows that other leagues where driver "ballasting" is done, they still need to restrict car choice.

[Paul968]

I think that is one aspect that we will have to see what happens. We have already raced here with cars from different groups, and although it isn't perfect it does provide a wider choice of car performance and more variety for the drivers. I've said more than once before that it may be worth setting minimum and maximum token budgets for some or all of the races to avoid too wide a spread, but I think it is worth a try to see how it works without interfering.

[BillThomas]

I would hope that judgement could be defered until the end of this trial season.

Yes let's get on with it despite any our own reservations about the system and see how it all looks "in the round" at the end of the season.  For better or worse it was the majority decision to go this way.

Although I was disqualified at Lime Rock for using a non listed car it was a fantastic experience to lead from start to the last corner - this is what we're trying to do, allow the lesser drivers a faster car to give us all a chance of close racing and a chance of getting onto the podium

Bill

[Legzy]

Simon, I've read the same points you're making repeatedly & understand what you are saying. Thank you for making them, they have registered.

UKPnG Season One will now continue as it has from the start, to be a bit of a testing season. Please keep the faith that if it's not working I'll tweak as required. I am not a total idiot & am well aware of the difference in performance levels between the GT40 Gulf (19 Tokens) & the Healey mk2 (0 Tokens). Daytona was just a race that we had to get out of the way, people should now have a better grasp of spending tokens. The next race is at Birmingham which is a far better/more normal track & again there will be no restriction on car choice (if it's on the same fortnightly list & you can afford the tokens, you can have it).
I want our drivers to have the chance to prove it can work totally unrestricted. If that appears not to be working as well as I'd hoped, then I have a couple of measures up my sleeve that have already been mentioned by myself previously. So try to keep the faith that Dave put in Tony & myself to look after SROUK's Historic racing .

[Simon Gymer]

Hey, it's just my opinion and don't forget Paul and I like a good argument.

[Legzy]

Hey, it's just my opinion and don't forget Paul and I like a good argument.

I think we established that