Clubmans

[Paul968]

You shouldn't have to test all the cars though. Just look at cars which a) suit your style, b) suits the track and d) fits your budget. Seems simple enough to me.

[Mark J]

not sure i like the idea of being able to pick cars to suit a track  The whole idea of a racing driver is to be able to get the best he can from a car at a variety of tracks. The flipside is i wouldnt want to be stuck in a Cobra at a twisty circuit but if someone uses that for fast tracks then they should also suffer it elsewhere !
I am worried that very quickly, half the field of available cars will become redundant/unwanted and we end up with grids of identical cars. :'(
Fine for the odd event but wouldnt want to see it every week.

[Paul968]

Mark, everyone would have a different budget, so a lot of the drivers will have to choose cheaper cars. With the current system we get to choose from a range of cars, so I can't see how this is any different?

[Mark J]

okay, its all fine with me, look forward to seeing what pans out. Well done and Good luck ! 

[Alex vV]

Even if you've not joined us for a single event, tell me why not 

Purely time constraints. I can't make Tuesdays, otherwise I'd be here.

Same here 

Can't we also use the rule to throuw out the most popular car for the next x races (like in the GTL Endurance rounds).

[spanner]

My random thoughts...

The whole point of this is to even out the field, so the faster dont take the fastest cars and the slower ones are allowed to pick slightly easier cars, right? But it seems people are getting a bit annoyed that the car choice is pretty limited and its something i've notice in GTL where we used to have races using the whole class, rather than just a select few cars allowing us to have a varied mix of cars which helped to even out the various abilities.

You've been putting people in groups, the cars in groups and setting target times which to me feels as though your trying too hard to restrict things and so are having to constantly adjust things every race. Clearly a slightly free-er, less constrained way be better.

Trying to classify the cars based on a few typical tracks might work generally but then I think you'd have to do some fine tuning on a race-by -race basis and also people suit different cars.

I'm not sure where you car choices have come from, but havent they all been put into classes in-game? Could you not use that? Would it not allow a greater car choice? Your kinda loosing the main point wth historic racing and thats the car variety seen so much.

Why not just stick with the use of an ideal lap time as thats the only way you have of being able to gauge how quick you are against others. Surely its what your using to put cars/ people into groups anyway? This should allow you to relax the car classes surely?

[Legzy]

Why not just stick with the use of an ideal lap time as thats the only way you have of being able to gauge how quick you are against others. Surely its what your using to put cars/ people into groups anyway? This should allow you to relax the car classes surely?

That's the ideal system Spanner!
Sadly people turned up & knocked a couple of seconds of the target laptimes. So at the next race other people don't want to be left behind this time etc etc..... It's human nature mate.

[Burtoner]

Only thing I know about Clubmans, is what we do in UKGPL, start season any car and depending on where you are in the league table, You have to take certain car, ie top 2 drivers take 2 of slowest cars etc. That way no pitstops needed, more close racing, Only need pitstops if you take faster car than your allowed?

[Wiltshire Tony]

I believe that the Clubmans approach is the racing equivalent of Nirvana. A seemingly easy to achieve ideal, but is actually almost never possible. It is time consuming and can often become unraveled on race day.

I think it was a good idea to try it but now is the time to say enough is enough, time to move on.

As someone who constantly enjoys the thrill of being lapped you would perhaps think that being able to take a faster car than my "betters" would be an attractive propostion. Alas it's not. If I did ever win in a Clubmans event it would feel like a very hollow success. I'd rather try to do better against guy's who aren't hamstringed with inferior cars thanks.

There are many, many different challenges that can be arranged all of which will involve substantially less management time than this current regime. Some fine examples have been mentioned above. My personal favourite remains the concept of "here are 12 circuits and here are 12 cars, race one car at each track, Go".

[Legzy]

Any more thoughts & opinions guys?

[phspok]

One more option. I used to run in a GPL league centuries ago, where the cars were points handicapped
granted there were only 7 cars, but a win in a Honda got you a lot more points than a win a  Lotus
The handcap was set at the begining of the season. and you had to use each car at least once.
Not sure having to use each car would be required here with so many to choose from
but points per car means people can drive anything they want, but if they want to score big points
they have to compromise.

How many preset performance groups are there? 3? so 20 points for a win with a group 3 car
15 in a group 2 and 10 in a group 1. Same scale down to whatever placing gets 1 point, so no points
for 6th in a group 1 car, no points for  9th in a group 2 no points for 11th in a group 3 (something like that)
Would need some thinking about to work out some proper numbers, but would be only once before the
season. If there are any glaring exceptions in the car groupings during the season these could be
"promoted".

[Tim Robey]

Legzy, I can understand that the current clubmans system is unworkable in the long term. I must say I find it annoying when the cars I've been practicing with gets bumped out of my group. 

I feel that Paul's system is a bit too complex, and people will abuse it by deliberately taking v slow cars in a couple of races and then blasting the opposition by taking a v fast car in the next race.

I quite like Wiltshire Tony's idea of taking a different car for each race, but will it satisfy the guys who want to stay in the same car?

Even if you decide to ditch the clubmans concept I will keep racing PnG as I enjoy driving the cars more than GTL, at the moment I just can't get motivated to practice for the GTL races.

Hope you find this useful.....

[mr_oily]

Just my two penneth - personally I'm all for simplicity. I think it's been great fun and also fairly brave to test the Clubmans concept out but I would be happy to use the tried and tested pick a car from a pre-selected group and then race approach that works so well in GTL.

Some really innovative alternative suggestions but I'm just not convinced it's necessary.

[Mark J]

i'd say maybe give Pauls method a try out for a few races and see how it pans out, just as we have the current clubmens approach. It is only season 1 after all, and a learning curve for all with this great mod. It may work out all right or give us more pointers to tweak the intended system further. 

[Wiltshire Tony]

So who's going to be driving 56 cars over the same circuit to give them all a value?