iRacing S3 - car discussion V2 - Lower series

[Fred Basset]

I'm with Ken, one car for a season.

Gary

[Legzy]

so I shall cease urinating into the breeze on this one

Dito.

[Fred Basset]

Maybe you shouldn't Chris.

As I've stated I am very firmly against the idea of a long term 3x2 format, the format does not appeal in the least.

I'm in two minds in terms of an experiment, on the one hand I can see the benefit in trying to get people to try a few cars and then reach a common consensus on what works and having packed grids for the future. We would all like that.

On the other I can see a few problems, I doubt we would reach a consensus and any discussions could be potentially more heated over the longer term, second just because we collectively decided we liked a car this time around we might not in six months time so its not gained us much. Finally there is an outside influence that could scupper any format, when iRacing make physics changes to a car it can change it beyond all recognition (the DP and Indy car are examples), overnight this can render any of our car selections to be wrong.

Despite my misgivings, having thought it through I am actually open to try it for one six week half season.

Gary

[Blunder]

Good Summary Gary!

Might be worth a try guys!?

Personally I hate the skippy so have missed the whole season.
2/3rd's or 1/3 of a season is better than none! 

( I do like the Indy so have done all those!  )

I'm basically up for any suggestion that means I can race with your guys in iRacing more!
I'm having good experiences with the public races, but I miss you guys! 
Group hug anyone! 

[Truetom]

Well, of all the cars I tried I like C6R, Mazda and Indy - others are inferior, afaik. Can we have those?

[Ken Murray]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never been under the impression we are looking to choose cars that we we will use for ever more, only for the next season coming up. It may well be Mazda and DP this time but I'd have thought we'd all be keen and willing to try a different selection come S4. As well as the physics changes new cars will come along such as the V8 and F1 and hopefully more in the future. It's just that I've never been good at jumping around from car to car. Even going from Skip to Dallara week in week out is a struggle for me. I mean I can drive them each after a few laps but to get fully comfortable and get down to improving my times takes much more time.

[Burtoner]

Even going from Skip to Dallara week in week out is a struggle for me. I mean I can drive them each after a few laps but to get fully comfortable and get down to improving my times takes much more time.

Agree there Ken, im same, but then I never ran a "Official" race in the Dallara yet.

[popabawa]

There's obviously lots of opinions on the way we should go and it's great people are so passionate about expressing them

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a 'universal' car that eveyone enjoys driving. Maybe that car will come in the V8 Supercar, Ford GT etc. but we don't have one for S3.

Ken is correct, these decisions are only for one season. I hope people are looking at this longer term, most of us have spent quite a bit of cash on iRacing and hopefully some of the value for that expenditure comes from our league races.

Things change in iRacing fairly quickly so we need to take account of that. We're learning somethinng about league racing in iRacing with every new build. As TT said, if the damage model was suddenly improved, maybe we'd all be happy to go with the Skip Barber for example.

To be clear... S3 will be the same format as S2 but possibly with different cars. However, I'm happy to look at different formats for S4.

One idea I did have was instead of two 6 week seasons, maybe we could have one 12 week season with three cars, e.g. 4 weeks in the Skip, 4 in the Mazda and 4 in the Indycar. Personally I think that would be cool.

[Paul Thurston]

Seems to me that we should know the characteristics of the different cars by now.  Test races aren't going to tell us a lot we don't already know, especially as the track chosen will have a big impact.

We're still not going to agree on one car as it's a very personal choice.  I for instance can't understand why people say the Skippy's difficult to drive, it's easy.  On the other hand I don't get the fascination with the Late Model on road courses though I like it on ovals.  I've given it a good go in the past and IMO it's horrible.  A test race isn't going to change my view.

Other people have different cars they don't want to race.  Look at how many people didn't race the Skippy all season or only did a couple of races.

The Mazda won the vote.  Why not just just drive that.

Alternatively, the Radical was second.  It's difficult to find a decent Radical race on the main league.

[popabawa]

You're right to some degree Paul but there's quite a few guys (me included) who have never tried the Late Model on a road course so that's what we're running in week 13.

If the Mazda gets more votes than anything else, that's what we're racing. I'm not sure why that's not been clear throughout the process, I've said that from the start.

[picnic]

I for instance can't understand why people say the Skippy's difficult to drive, it's easy.

Because unlike me you have talent. If I push in the Skippy and enter a corner too fast I'm a goner 100% guaranteed. If I lift it falls off, if I brake it falls off, if I add more steering lock it falls off. I'd expect a beginner car to be easier to drive than something like an Indycar or the Riley but I can drive these so much more safely, even at the same relative performance to those with talent.

I enjoy the LM on the road simply because I can make minor mistakes and get away with them, well most of the time. The skippy is like Russian Roulette to me, except there is a round in the chamber almost every lap.

As you say each to their own. I'll try the Mazda again as it seems to have won the poll but if it's as numb as before I'll probably only do the one race. Looking forward to the DP though even though I've only used it very little due to trying the C6R this season.

[Brendan]

I think this is going to be a recurring issue each season, which can only be compounded by the regular release of new content and I don't envy Pops position in all of this as no matter what the outcome there will always be people who are miffed at the final decision.

I can't say I'm a fan of the 3x2 idea, but the 4x3 over a 12 week season sounds promising and may be workable as the effort required to learn a different car carries more merit.

Whatever happens, I'm still looking forward to next season as I think the league environment offers the best overall experience.

[Blunder]

I'm sure everybody agrees but just for the record I think Pops is doing a great job!
Seems like we all have an opinion on iRacing, good and bad!
Makes for good discussion. 

Keep up the good work Pops! 

[popabawa]

Cheers Martiin

Thanks for writing what everyone else was thinking

[Paul Thurston]

Because unlike me you have talent. If I push in the Skippy and enter a corner too fast I'm a goner 100% guaranteed. If I lift it falls off, if I brake it falls off, if I add more steering lock it falls off. I'd expect a beginner car to be easier to drive than something like an Indycar or the Riley but I can drive these so much more safely, even at the same relative performance to those with talent.

Then you're almost certainly running the sort of setups posted on the forums.  In my experience they make the Skippy a knife edge car which it isn't.  I've been running fairly competitive times all season on a setup based around the iRacing baseline.  It sits high at the front so doesn't bottom under braking and has no rear bar giving it a basic understeer characteristic which enables you to steer round corners under power without worrying it will snap on you all the time.  After a while I tweaked the brake balance back and lowered the tyre pressures; 19F/23R +/- 1psi each end seems to work nicely everywhere.  At Road America I found that increasing the rear bar worked in the medium speed stuff but that's the only place I've used anything but 1.

The difference is that you can feel the car moving around under you, feel the tyre walls flexing and the suspension move.  I've driven (not raced) a Formula Ford and a Formula Renault in real life and that's how they they felt.  I also have a kit car.  It's 650Kg ish, 50:50 distributed on road tyres.  It runs on 18PSI on the road, on a track 15 or even lower.  The Skippy is lighter but has downforce so I'd expect the pressures to be higher, not by much though.  The weight distribution is rearward though so the front should be lower than the rear.

The setups I've downloaded from the forums all have a low grip, high turn ratio characteristic.  Mostly they have higher pressures at the front which reduces the grip and induces understeer which is then balanced by a high rear bar which reduces the grip at the rear.  They feel and drive like go karts, they have no steering feel because the front tyres are like balloons.  I admire the drivers who can keep them on the track for a race distance, I can't.  Give me grip both ends any day.

I also suspect that come the new tyre model revolution Brother, my setups will still work...