SimRacing.org.uk

Season 25 Friday Trophy - Rounds 39 & 40 - The end of season finale is Out of This World

The Friday series has arrived at its final venue, and the final races. Yes! we have had 40 races in this series and I think some great fun along the way. last week we had the reliable F2's and the power and grip of the 69x's.  This week we have the power, but we also have the weight in the GT's and we have the power ( probably too much power!) and less weight in the Can Ams which will give us a different test on this deceptively simple track.

Mathematically there are a couple of contenders still in the running for the first ever Friday Trophy ( virtual, there is no real silverware  :-\ ), so to make the final rounds just a little bit special the races will be just slightly longer. Well as I cannot give double points like Bernie would have, I wanted to do something that would add to the occasion.  ;D

This round is for the GT's and the Can Am's

                                Heavies                                     Lights
Cars for GT           Chap 2F Porsche 910                Mirage M1 and Ford Mk2B
Cars for Can Am     Mclaren M8D and Lola 260         Porsche 917/10 and Ferrari 712M



"Please ensure you are aware of the new in-series penalties for this season. Details are here (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=10879.0). Drivers incurring a penalty will receive a PM informing them of this."

Race list	iGOR
Server	TBA
IP address	TBA
Date	20-12-2013
Race time	Race 1 starts at 21:05 UK time
Qualifying time	minimum 15 minutes, starting no later than 20:45 UK time
Track	the Moon  (http://srmz.net/index.php?showtopic=2718)
Mod	GT and Can Am
Damage model	INT (Each driver is allowed a single Shift-R with no stop and go required)
Race length	22 laps (GT) and 24 laps ( Can Am)
Red Zone	from the START line to the end of the first lap
Replay	Available here (ftp://ukgpl3.dyndns.org/Replays/Archive/Season25/Friday/)

Full(ish) moderation of lap 1 red zone.

JUST A FINAL COMMENT.....
WE WILL HAVE HAD 40 RACES WITH VERY MIXED ABILITIES AND MACHINERY ON THE GRIDS AND, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, VERY FEW INCIDENTS WORTHY OF MODERATION. SO I THINK YOU ALL DESERVE A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR ENJOYING THE FRIDAY FUN SERIES IN THE SPIRIT THAT IT WAS INTENDED TO HAVE...FUN

HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS AND MAYBE WE CAN DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN NEXT SEASON

The top places are between 2  drivers, but because of the ENORMOUS number of races I want to be sure before I announce the winner. G Taber's win in the Can Ams will be disregarded as far as any championship points are concerned just to be certain that everything is fair.

Thanks to Axel who did the clever bit with the server each week ( I could not be trusted with technical stuff! lol )

A big thankyou to all who took part and for making my job as moderator easy with very few incidents other than genuine "racing incidents" that are bound to happen.

It would be nice to know your thoughts on the format that was used just in case there is space to do something similar ( but not necessarily the same) next season.


Have a peaceful Christmas and a New Year that gives you all that you need.   :punk:

Thanks very much for a (mostly) very enjoyable series.

It's true I don't know what I'm doing;   particularly in the 69x & more 'car-like' vehicles (which I didn't intend to drive anyway).

It has been a lot of fun,  I even enjoyed pootling around in the beginner's Porsche & the Lo-la.


Thanks Mr Clive & thanks all.

Cheers,
Dave.

Was fun and I beat Dave hands down in our 'race to last'. Could only do race 1 as I had baking in the oven - really!

Hoot of a series. More in Season 26 please Uncle Evil.

Thanks for letting me in the race. I enjoyed it. The Can Am mod is likely the only cars that I have as much experience as anybody else.

That's one fine driving tank Clive.

I had good fun, and a big hearty thanks to Evil, and Axel, and all the other organisers for running the series.  One suggestion I might make is to open up the choice of cars again.  Getting lumped in the Fezzah each time can be a bit frustrating.  Thanks for the racing!

Thanks for the feedback guys. 

I take on board comments about the limited car choice, but the original intention was to give the slower drivers a chance to hassle the faster boys, by effectively handicapping the aliens to the less favourable cars.  Although it did work to some extent by narrowing the gap and on one or two circuits we even saw some new names on the podium, it still did not bring the whole field together.
The problem with trying to level the field by using car choice, is that some classes do not have a big enough range of cars to make that work, hence Mark was stuck with the Fezza in the Can Ams( although he could have used the Porsche if he wanted a man's car!  lol).

If this series is popular enough to return next season I have a few ideas up my sleeve that might make the racing closer and give the slower drivers a bigger chance of getting onto the podium, at the same time making the aliens really work for their points. But it will depend on which of the mods are left over for the Friday series after all the official championships are chosen.

Keep the feedback coming, especially welcome from the Heavies who had the option of the faster cars, did the format work for you?

I've enjoyed this format, as it allows an average driver to match skills with the best on offer.  I joined mid-Season, as numbers were low, and helped prove Heavy podiums are possible, when tracks continue in the car's direction.  >:(

Important for me, was that this was created as a fun Series.  This should have allowed junior members to venture forth more freely, and a one reset rule fitted in well with this - less friction when mistakes are made.
As Ukgpl has not the capacity to run all the Mods available individually, this still seems a good way to go. 

Without a format to restrain you Devilish Lightweight 'hotshots', there'd be fewer partcipants.  Attract more aspiring youngsters, to some 'low key', fun filled events, and the Series will be a success. ;)

just to reiterate what has been said above. the series was a great idea and works well, maybe choose different cars for next time or even change the available cars from race to race. Grats to all the champions for season 25 :notworthy:

I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year   :thumbup2:

Great series Clive and the most enjoyable by a country mile for me this season. The use of four mods and shorter races worked very well this time round.

I assume that the Friday spot led to the lower numbers than the series deserved because if not I'm confused what exactly put people off. If possible could, would, moving it help?

Good to hear your thinking about further steps to even the playing field. For sure anything that gives everyone a chance to be involved at the sharp end has to be a good thing. Including artificial handicaps for those who keep doing well. Slower cars, starting at the back, pit stops, driving with their monitor switched off (as Sergio tried!) etc.

Whatever you decide I hope the emphasis is still on fun as it would be a shame to see this series become too serious. UKGPL caters for that aspect of racing very well already and this new series of yours complimented that brilliantly. I hope it continues.

Thanks again to yourself and everyone else behind the scenes.

Thanks for the positive comments guys. But please remember that it ws not all my work, Axel helped in the construction of the original concept for this series AND he was the one who made the servers work for 2 races each ( and every) Friday!!! If the servers had been left to me we might not have had a friday series!!!  So my personal thanks to Axel for all of his work on this series.

Keep the comments coming, even negative ones if you think there was something that you did not like? Personally I cannot believe that there could be anything wrong but maybe I overlooked some minor detail?  ::)

Thanks to Axel and Clive for this series.
I would be happy to participate again on season 26.

Only one thing was wrong to me, it was the restriction to 2 cars per mod for the full season. OK to restrict the number of cars per race but not always the same.

Yeah, this is a great series!!!

Thanks to Clive who made it possible ;)
Thanks for the compliments and sorry for some mistakes (grids!) ::)

As a passionate GT driver I had a little advantage in this mix  ;D

For me, the car choice was excellent as it could really balance the "weight" differences .
Maybe, no car restrictions for the heavies would have made it more attractive for them...

It was a good serie that I liked the managers but for next year I would appreciate something different:
1) races longer, at least 1 hour (GT races were endurance races in reality not sprint);
2) separate the GT from CanAm (otherwise this could be in conflic with point 1) );
3) fasters drivers on slower cars and viceversa (this implies a new system to establish who is fast and who is not and also which one could be the faster car and the slower one on a particular track);
4) who causes an incident during the first lap will be forced to jump the next race or start from the last grid place.
5) absolutely each driver must have a drive wheel and pedals to race, no Kb or other strange devices like joypad joystick or others.
6) avoid drivers to come at race with no training on that track, because they are a danger for all the other drivers.

This is not a "shoot them all" arcade game, this is a simulator, so also training time must be taken in consideration and simulated just to have any chance to be competitive and letting each one having fun with the others (at least for me and I spend hours in training during evenings and also with this I am often bad).

The Shadows Team wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014  ;)

Oops...I've almost forgotten to make my congratulations to the Champion of the serie.
Way to go Axel, well done m8 !!!

That rule would have kept me out of the Can Am race. I had run maybe a dozen laps before practice started. I had never used this track prior to Friday. But that's also the same reason I didn't try to get in the Sportscar race. The Ferrari 330 is the only Sportscar I've driven enough that I might have been able to keep on the track under such short notice.

WOW.....I think somebody needs a nap.
Also reduce your caffeine intake and lay off the strong cheese at night.

I'm OK with 1), 2), 3)
why not 4)
but not OK with 6) and 5) : we are not so many GPL players, our number is decreasing year after year (not only on UKGPL, it's the same on the other leagues) and if we add restrictions like that, there will be only 4 or 5 drivers at each start.  

I think, like I've already said, the community is too much spread in a lot of leagues and championships (F1, F2, GT, CANAM, 65, 66, 69  Novice, friday and so on) so if theoretically all drivers of all championships could have joined at only two championships, perhaps we should have been able to full fill the grid of 2 races for each event. I also think the quality of drivers is tending to worst due to lack of application and also lack of  contenders of very high quality (like Huttu, Grandis and so on I'm sorry if I don't remember other names now). I repeat, this is not a simple pc-game, this is a simulator and fortunately for us, some rules are not perfectly copied from the reality otherwise each race would have been finished by 2 or max 3 drivers. I'm sorry for my presumption but I think I'm not so far from reality.

A car is driven by a drive wheel and pedals! Want you drive a car with fingers ? Ok, then organize a championship for guys who like to drive with fingers or for joysticks fans or whatever you want but not for mixed devices because skills are not comparable in such a way.

Some of these rules I've told now were already present in GPFun championship and I remember that I have criticized them when I was a beginner driver of that championship that already had very good drivers and whom told me many many times to practice a lot to have a good skill and not to find a shortcut to achieve things they all had achieved in many years of practice and races. Now I only can say they all were right.

I remember years ago I made a request to join to the RAF squadron (in IL-2). They accepted my application but before to enter the squadron two of them made me a test flying skills. Take off, Landing, carrier landing, formation flight, ability to fly as wing and situational awareness in close air combat.

I really like these races. However, I may have to restrict the number of races that I do each week. At the best, I can register as a reserve driver, and race when my schedule allows me.  :(

As for heavy feedback, I do not mind relaxing the handicaps to encourage some new entrants.

Thank you to the organizers of this seriously fun season!


 

Also this thing has something good and something bad. We always have had experienced drivers that control well their cars and others that we could say is the car that drive them, not viceversa. Then for this kind of drivers, having a car clearly performing better than the others is also a danger, because those drivers are not able to manage such a powerfull car in every situation and this leads to massive heaps. This is why it is not a simple stuff have a balanced grid of drivers in controllable cars and giving the chance to each one to score a win. Once more the main word is...training !

I take the GT's for example:

The Chap F is no doubt the best GT, but you have to know it very well to have fun with it.
For an unexperienced driver the Lola T70 or a Ferrari P3 is way easier to handle ;)

For me the Lola T70 is the best car all around. Sufficiently fast on straights and fast also in corners because it is light !

You should know the ChapF better :P

Both have delicate Chevrolet engines (you should not overrev!)

ChapF  797kg  525hp 500Nm 3 gears high downforce

Lola    821kg  425hp 370Nm  5 gears

The max speed is nearly the same 321 kph <-> 318 kph LM

So the ChapF has nearly all track records in GPL SC  ;D

Me in Lola T70 and Hristo in ChapF at Spa and, I was glued on his rear ! I've found that Lola T70 is a very efficient car also if not clearly the best car around in terms of pure performances.

Talking about car choices I cannot say that having a restricted range of cars to choose from is a bad thing because after all a driver becomes specialized with these few car he should drive and knowing very well these few cars and manage them at best, is one of the keys to be competitive in a championship.

Should be nice introduce the pitstop for refuelling giving a little more juice to competitions. To make this possible for every track of the championship a file (minrace.lp) must be recreated and distributed to all the participants (keeping the original one like backup file but better could be to post the file on the race announcement page and leaving to each driver the downloading and placement in the right directory).

How many drivers were not kicked out of a race, during a pitstop, the last time it was tried?

.. due to a wrong track.ini with displaced pit stalls...

I was happy with the timed pitstops as they made GT racing more realistic and made a wider car choice possible.

Clive, we were discussing the car choice for the heavies as they would have imo preferably taken rather the Lola then the ChapF  ;)

OK - I did not realize that had happened.  Was that 10 incorrect track.ini's, and have they all been fixed? :(

No! There is only the server's .ini needed to have all drivers a grid or pit stall  :P

GPL does not come with a server.ini.  It has only track.ini's which are different at each track.  It also has drivers who do not always stop correctly.  It's important that all are aware of this. 
 

The server track.ini overrides all clients track.ini's

So for pitstops to be used successfully, you will need to post the pit positions being used by the server - make sure all possible servers are the same, and have all drivers paste this information into their own track.ini's, before each race?

It's easy for unfavourable responses at Ukgpl to seem unfriendly.  But we racers are competitive, and how we race is important.  My thanks go to Cookie and all the team for some great racing.  I hope I speak for all out there, scattered about until track time - Merry Christmas, and good racing in the New Year. ;)  

Grats to Axl on the title and Clive for third spot on the championship podium. Thanks again to Clive and Axl and everyone else for a great new series.

Merry Xmas.