iRacing Season 2 Skippy - Silverstone (International) - Mar 16

[popabawa]

I'm with Don to some degree, and it's not just a matter of protests...

There were a lot of spins and yellow flags in qually, if someone self-spins a few seconds ahead then it's not really protestable but it *is* off-putting, at least, it is to me, maybe you faster guys don't notice it as much?

I saw a couple of occasions during the race when guys put themselves in bad positions due to being overly aggressive (imho), one ended in disaster for two of the drivers, the other, they escaped unscathed.

I dunno, seems like guys are still pushing a bit too hard tbh Once again, I only had a 'fastest lap' faster than 3 other drivers but I still finished in the top half.

[Don]

Yeah, I don't feel that protesting is helping things too much How many turn out to be racing incidents. Don't get me wrong I think the Mods do the best job they can. I don't know what the answer is.
Maybe I have just been guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? but it's been 3 out of the last 4 Skippy races where I have come a cropper. It might just be my outright lack of pace thats getting me in trouble, I won't force a move on anyone till I'm 100% sure I can make it stick and the other way round if someone has me clean I'll let them go. So I don't really get what all this contact stuff is about? Especially in the Skippy where one small tap can mean game over.
Freetime is valuable and maybe I should look for a more rewarding hobby, like collecting stamps

[Kerr]

I tried to stress before the race to ignore all these charts going up about fastest laps. There is too much focus being placed on them.

It's good to have a target to achieve but little point spending hours trying to make that one big lap stick.

Fastest laps really mean little in the scale of things as both Pops and myself(4th fastest best lap) show if you race wisely results happen.

Last night for some strange reason I found my car to be faster in practice with 4.5g over the lighter 1.7g which is highly unusual. The best time I did with qualifying setup was 1.34.9 but my race setup had 1.34.7 and a few .8s too.

However I knew that T3 into T4 was a real pain for me and it was not worth pushing too hard. Easing off a bit earlier and sacrifice maybe 0.2 per lap was more than worth a big off.

I always felt at ease knowing if I had to up the pace I probably could do a little more but was aware of the risks.

I guess everyone enters the race thinking they are going to be sensible but as soon as you see that car just ahead, you feel you have to go that little bit harder.

Also if a car is chasing you unless you make a mistake he is not likely to get past if you drive well and hold the racing line.

[Simon Gymer]

I don't mean to sound rude, but how you can judge the "protest" system as not working when there have only been 6 reports in total for the 5 races this season? 6 reports for many laps of racing with decent sized grids (well in the Skippies anyway). Those stats don't highlight any issue at all and that's the point. This system needs incidents to be reported and if you want a working system you have to contribute to it. It's like moaning about the government but when it comes around to election time you don't even bother voting. The Brands Hatch race had ONE incident report for it, but I think from what I've read there were a lot of incidents, why weren't they reported?

Seems like you guys aren't giving the system that was put in place to sort this kind of thing out a chance to work. People don't like to get reported so even if they don't get a penalty, reporting an incident does help because it's a socially bad thing to have been involved in and makes people think harder about what their doing.

I would also like to voice my loathe for the overly used "I was the victim but don't want the other person penalised" option on incident reports. I've hated it ever since it was implemented. It's utterly ludicrous and we should get rid of it. I know it can be disregarded by a moderator, but it should be the job of the moderator alone to decide one way or the other and his decision should not be swayed by some silly checkbox. If we don't penalise people no one will learn. At the very least, if it's a team mate involved then the option shouldn't be available at all to select because of how it can be used to bias the outcome to the benefit of that team.

If you really want to crack down and the system we have in place has been used properly and it hasn't worked then you have to REALLY crack down. Hand out harsh punishments for car-to-car contact. 2 place penalty for any car to contact for the person responsible for example. There is nothing wrong with a bit of draconian, dictatorial leadership and don't be afraid to use it for fear of upsetting all the wet blankets.

[Paul968]

Couldn't agree more with the comment re the 'I was the victim but...' checkbox. The problem is though that the system has another way to get the same effect - don't report. While you rely only on incidents reported you will always get this problem imo as there is a culture of not reporting unless the offender is someone new or known to be a problem. If you want the incident system to work properly then mods need to find the incidents themselves and not let mates decide amongst themselves who gets punished.

Having said all that I still don't think it is that bad. The skippies are much harder to control than GTR cars and are very fragile. Most of the incidents we are seeing would just have the GTR cars bumping off each other and carrying on unaffected. The majority of the contact last night was also unintentional and caused by drivers missing braking points or not anticipating a car ahead slowing.

[Don]

I don't mean to sound rude, but how you can judge the "protest" system as not working

I agree with some of your sentiment Shark.
I can only judge that the protest system hasn't been working in as far as the 3 personal incidents I was referring to have all been logged, but the damage has already been done and a 2 position penalty for a possible wreckless move is neither here nor there imo....
Plus there are always 2 sides to any accident so having your name socially dragged up if you are free of blame isn't always giving out the right message either.
As I said in my previous post, I think the mods do the best job they can and that reviewing accidents is the way to go and maybe in some cases it will get people to re-think how they are driving, but I just feel Personally at this time that filling out an protest form each week isn't getting anything changed out on track... and as I mentioned earlier it could be my style of driving that keeps getting me in trouble.

I don't really want to go on anymore and seem like more of a jerk or bad loser so that's all I will say on the subject.

[Truetom]

The skippies are much harder to control than GTR cars and are very fragile. Most of the incidents we are seeing would just have the GTR cars bumping off each other and carrying on unaffected.

For me that is the core of the problem. I drive the Skip just as I do GTR cars. But my conclusion is a bit different: I'm not sure I want to drive these cars that so fragile - I certainly don't enjoy it.
Like I said on a Legends forum - I'd probably react the same in the situation between me and Burtoner in the next race, as my (GTR2) feeling dictates to do it - I would make the corner and there would still be enough space for Burtoner to come out of the corner side by side. Sadly, I can't see this kind of close racing is possible in iR - at least I don't seem to be able to do it.  

Two reports on me this time. I collected Don after mising my brake point - pure guilt with no plausible reason to justify the event. Sorry Don.
The other - with Burtoner - is the one I talked about. I was positive the outcome would be safe for both and side by side action, with me on the inside in the next corner.  
Well, the outcome was different and after seeing the replay it seems to be my fault - it lookd different to me in the fray. Sorry, Robert.

The development in this series gives my instinct a suggestion to quit out. Things might be different if we had 107% rule.

[Simon Gymer]

I don't really want to go on anymore and seem like more of a jerk or bad loser so that's all I will say on the subject.

Not at all Don. There is nothing worse than putting in lots of effort practicing and then not actually have the opporuntunity to use all that practice.

I agree about the 2 place penalty being a bit of damp squib when it comes to actually being a penalty cause it's only a penalty for the people that get it and finish. A lot of the time when an incident occurs, especially in iRacing, it's game over for both parties so dropping from 17th to 19th is neither here or there. I believe actually having it reported at all will make the parties far more uncomfortable than a place penalty though, so reporting it at all is the important bit because people will want to avoid that bit more than anything else.

I think we also have to remember that this is new to a lot of people still and getting a real feel for the limits of themselves, the cars and so on takes time when the game is this hard. GPL took me a very long time to be competant enough to race with others and iRacing is quite similar in how hard it is. We also have to remember than nearly everyone here feels the same way and that there are very few "get out of my way" type drivers and intentional accidents so maybe we just have to accept a bit of learner driving whilst we grow.

I'm as guilty as anyone in qually sessions and practice sessions, but I do know that when it comes to the race you have to be a lot more reserved and I prove that week in week out. My excuse for so many incident points in pre-race sessions is that I do no practice at all, so they are my practice, which is no excuse at all and something I personally will reflect on.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Couldn't agree more with the comment re the 'I was the victim but...' checkbox. The problem is though that the system has another way to get the same effect - don't report.

It doesn't have quite the same effect - something that's been reported as a "but..." where the drivers have privately kissed and made up can still be reviewed and others can learn from the report before they make the same mistakes.

While you rely only on incidents reported you will always get this problem imo as there is a culture of not reporting unless the offender is someone new or known to be a problem. If you want the incident system to work properly then mods need to find the incidents themselves and not let mates decide amongst themselves who gets punished.

Which is all very well, but as you well know we (and UKGPL) struggle to get mod reports done at the current level - when we used to try and review the races more completely we frequently didn't get them done at all.

There's no reason the iRacing races can't be reviewed more completely with the aid of the lap charts (there's a link to the iRacing page in the title bar above the race results) but it's so labour intensive I can't see it being done...

[Paul968]

Yes, you are right on both counts, but I still prefer the old system and always have done, even if it is more work. The effect of the odd reported incident being reviewed and reported by a mod is negligible imo - people see it, see no penalty and move on. I think the newer sims also make it easier to find the incidents. iRacing tells you all the laps that a driver has contact on, which is a big help. The replay controls also help a lot.

A mod doesn't have to guarantee they will punish every incident anyway, but the drivers should know that there is a good chance they will be dealt with if they transgress. At the moment I think the culture of the league is that the odd slip will be ignored, which is fine in GTR land but perhaps less appropriate in skippy races.

One other thing that used to happen but I don't think does any more is yellow card points (correct me if I'm wrong). The principle makes sense to me but only really works if most if not all of the incidents are modded.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

One other thing that used to happen but I don't think does any more is yellow card points (correct me if I'm wrong). The principle makes sense to me but only really works if most if not all of the incidents are modded.

The system is still there - 1 'point' for a warning and 2 for a 'penalty'. It's been a while since I've noticed anyone rack up enough to start getting extra positions lost though.

[Noel Kellett]

I'd have to say last night I found the level of racing way better than what I was used to in the iRacing skippy series, which I gave up on in January this year (after huring my headphones across the room and cursing solidly for about 3 minutes), and I've moved to the Radicals, which seem to attract a more careful bunch of drivers. I thought the general level of ettique was pretty good last night.

If it comes to it, I'd be happy to do some modding on races I'm not involved with, I did in in the UKGPL for a few seasons many moons ago. Yes it takes time, but if you'd 4 people to review a series (4 people who were not in that series), each would only have 4 or 5 drivers to watch for a race, pass the incident points to the "marshal of the course", and they'd make the final call. Spread the load, a number of people finding the incidents, one senior mod calling the punishments.

Noel

[ross.mcw]

Just one suggestion - why not make it mandatory that any car to car contacts during qualy or the race must be reported as incidents otherwise all parties involved are struck out of the results.

Cheers, Ross.

[Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer]

Just one suggestion - why not make it mandatory that any car to car contacts during qualy or the race must be reported as incidents otherwise all parties involved are struck out of the results.

For one thing, somebody might simply forget. For another - and more importantly - it would be as labour intensive as simply reviewing all cars for the whole race.

I'll reiterate - we struggle to get enough reviewers to moderate reported incidents. Any notion that we can review more is, to mix metaphors, up there in cloud cuckoo land with the flying pigs.

[Paul968]

I'm not sure I agree with that. It took about 30 minutes to get a pretty good picture of the main incidents by looking at the replay and the results data. If this work was shared out it wouldn't be that onerous. I have no problem reviewing more incidents - I have hardly done any so far because there haven't really been enough to do.