Championship format discussion

[popabawa]

There's plenty of room for anyone who agree's with me

[Adam Parle]

I'm not seeing any strong desire to move to a longer series so I think I'm leaning towards leaving it as is.

If the season length is staying the same, what's your thinking with regards to a drop week?  Maybe just the one?

[popabawa]

Good question...

Looking at the participation in previus series, there's not that many people who run 5 races, people either dip in for a few or are committed and do all 6.

I think it would stay with no drops.

[Fred Basset]

Whats the problem with a 9 race series with a couple of drops like you proposed though Pops?

Gary

[Paul968]

I lost the chance to win the skippies in the last series because I could not make 1 race.

[Legzy]

I'm not seeing any strong desire to move to a longer series so I think I'm leaning towards leaving it as is.

If the season length is staying the same, what's your thinking with regards to a drop week?  Maybe just the one?

I like that idea, think it helps find the right champion

[Legzy]

THERE WILL BE NO RESETS AVAILABLE!

That appears in each race announcement currently. Can we discuss this again please?

Reset = Repair (which ever way you want to look at it)

I believe there are a two camps. Some people don't want the ability to repair a damaged car & enjoy the rest of the race, some people do want to have that option.

If a repair is aloud... The people that don't want to be able to repair the car, can continue to not repair as they wish. The people who do want to be able to repair & continue, can do so & the anti-repair brigade can not worry about it effecting them.

[popabawa]

My concern with resets was really about the track position of drivers who had used the reset. It often seemed to bring them into the vicinity of other drivers with differing pace and it was causing frustration at times if not actual problems.

There's still a reasonable amount of non-finishers so I think my concern is still valid.

However, part of me wonders if this was largely a Skip Barber problem as we tended to run the smaller tracks. I can see the argument for bringing a reset back.

I'm not 100% convinced we should gave resets in these series I'm afraid. I might be willing to bring them back if there's a lot of support for the idea though. Convince me.

[Paul Thurston]

Whats the problem with a 9 race series with a couple of drops like you proposed though Pops?

That would be my preferred option too Pops.  Gary and I think similarly on this as we have identical commutes and it's easy to miss a race because of trains or having to work late.  I wasted a weekend's practice at Road America because of a problem with the LIFFE exchange.

Drop weeks to me are an essential part of any amateur series in my view and six weeks seems a bit short.

I'd prefer not to swap cars around all the time.  There's always the UKGPL solution of longer pitstops for faster cars in mixed class racing of course...

[Kerr]

I'd prefer longer (up to a dozen) with two drops.

6 is too short where bad luck or real life can end a season right away.

[Simon Gymer]

6 is too short I agree, it doesn't feel like you've got going in the championship when it then ends.

I'm totally in favour of 1 drop week for a 6-9 race series. There must be very few of us that can attend every single week, so a little bit of leeway would be welcome imho.

I don't agree that having a longer championship means drop off occurs earlier. I believe actually with 6 races drop-off occurs earlier cause 3 weeks from the end is only half way through. 3 weeks from the end of 9 races is 6 weeks through so you get more people for a higher percentage of the races.

The real problem though is that the numbers are not high enough from the start to cope with the drop-off at the end. We have to be trying to get 30+ grids in week 1 and to do that maybe SRou should be advertising outside of SRou to increase numbers?

I still can't believe there are drivers are asking for resets. Stop crashing! If you're crashing into other people that happens and if that's the end of the race so be it, but crashing on your own shouldn't be rewarded with another go. Using resets to increase drivers numbers sets a bad precedent. The damage model on this game is incredibly forgiving imho. I've seen people hit the wall at 90mph head on and carry on with no ill-effects. I've seen people drive for 3/4s of a race with bent suspension, including me, so stop whinging about damaging your car and stop damaging it! When they implement aero damage then the damage model will be far less forgiving but until you can't get away with completely ripping off your wings and having no ill-effects you can't say the damage model is too harsh.

I know this is about format of championship, but I'd like to raise again the start procedure. I think the rolling starts have been better than the standing starts because the reduction in lap 1 incidents has been marked. BUT, I think we'd be better off using a standing start, but with a UKGTR style 1 lap single file rolling start to be taken at a higher pace (75mph) behind the leader and not the safety car.

[popabawa]

OK, good to see some direct, positive opinions being expressed

If we run (say) a 9 week season on alternating weeks we have the issue of overlapping the iRacing week 13 where we can't absolutely guarantee hosted sessions will be available.

How do people feel about an (enforced) mid-season break? Does't seem a massive issue to me as we'll still be running the series on alternating weeks.

[popabawa]

With ref. to your other posts Shark...

I've tried a bit of recruitment in the Club England forum but not really had much success, maybe it's time to go a bit more hardcore. I hoped we'd pick up a few more SRouk drivers over time tbh. I'd appreciate some support in recruiting, it's not something I've got a lot of time to pursue.

I think the current rolling starts work fine and having iRacing manage the process is a plus. I don't really see any need to change it at the moment.

[Adam Parle]

9 weeks, 1 drop.  2 seasons per 3 iracing seasons - works for me.

[Simon Gymer]

OK, good to see some direct, positive opinions being expressed

It's first thing in the morning and I'm wide awake so I'd thought I'd get in early before the day nears it's end and the thread suffers from end of day drop-off.

If we run (say) a 9 week season on alternating weeks we have the issue of overlapping the iRacing week 13 where we can't absolutely guarantee hosted sessions will be available. How do people feel about an (enforced) mid-season break? Does't seem a massive issue to me as we'll still be running the series on alternating weeks.

We'll cope.

I'd appreciate some support in recruiting, it's not something I've got a lot of time to pursue.

No point in advertising at this point in the season, but if we have a week or two notice of when the next season will start then we can probably come up with a common post to spam on all the online racing forums we can find to advertise next season.

I think the current rolling starts work fine and having iRacing manage the process is a plus. I don't really see any need to change it at the moment.

I totally understand why sticking with the iRacing doing it is a big plus. Such a shame that you can't set the speed of the pace car or select single file though as that would be really good for us.