ACC GT3 Sprint Series Season 3

SwannyUK · Aug 24, 2021

Welcome to the RaceDepartment GT3 Sprint series

This is a series for drivers who want quality door to door racing, a friendly atmosphere with people willing to help and no pressure of a championship. Check it out here

Missed a couple of events? No worries! The final scores at the end of the series use your 4 best results and if you aren't bothered about scoring points that's fine too, just turn up and have fun.

Each event starts at 18:45 UTC / 19:45 BST / 20:45 CEST / 21:45 EEST

Practice: 30mins

Quali: 15mins

Race: 30mins (special event 60mins with mandatory pit stop for tyre change)

Schedule
31/08 - Nurburgring 30mins
Race start in game 20:00
Time multiplier x2
Weather forecast = Dry

07/09 - Zolder 30mins
Race start in game 14:00
Time multiplier x1
Weather forecast = Overcast

14/09 - Kyalami 1 Hour with Pit Stop
Race start in game 17:00
Time multiplier x2
Weather forecast = Dry

21/09 - Donington 30mins
Race start in game 14:00
Time multiplier x1
Weather forecast = Dry

28/09 - Paul Ricard 30mins
Race start in game 21:00
Time multiplier x1
Weather forecast = Med Rain

05/10 - Spa 1 Hour with Pit Stop
Race start in game 18:00
Time multiplier x2
Weather forecast = Variable....it's Spa!

Scoring
1st = 24 Points > 24th = 1 point
Best 4 finishes will be used to determine final results at the end of the series

Rules
Normal racing club rules apply which can be found here

The golden rule is wait somewhere safe if you spin someone out and let them back past. There is also no chat allowed during qualifying or the race - please wait for the last car to finish before chatting.

manu68 · Sep 1, 2021

7 pilots registered on simracing.gp, two on track yesterday.
Where have been the missing ones ?

A little disappointing, but we had a nice evening yesterday with Lars.
Not really a race, but a nice fight between us !

Of course, if this happens again, I think that the serie is already dead

SwannyUK · Sep 1, 2021

I couldn't make it last minute and forgot to take myself off the event list. Looking forward to next week.

Sk3ptik0n · Sep 7, 2021

I would have loved to participate, but between Real Life and other commitments I didn't even take step one.
I think some people are intimidated a bit, I know I am. Mostly I am not sure what to expect.

Apologies in advance if all or any of the following steps have been taken, but for me what would make me more likely to participate would be the following:

1) Detailed, step by step instructions on how to join. By this I mean something written for a 5 years old. Not because anyone here is an idiot, but because we are busy and distracted. I am a programmer, so I am familiar with web interfaces. till, when I simrace, my mind is in a different space and the last thing I want to do is learn yet another Operating System, interface or anything that takes more than 2% of my brain power.
2) Discord server for practice and chat - that's where we build a community and where drop ins are going to find a reason to come back.
3) List of practice and race times for the major Time zones (EU, USA East, USA West, Pacific, etc.) and an effort to make it as easy as possible to participate for those of us in "dead zones".
4) Volunteer greeters. People that makes new racers feel welcome. So many times I joined a league only to find the people involved to be self absorbed and outright rude, for absolutely no reason (conversely, we had new racers joining and expecting white glove service, a compromise would be nice).
5) No smartasses in the forums when someone asks a question. I saw this multiple times, a new guy asks a question in the forum and he's treated like a slow child by at least one other member.
5) Are there open servers for practice? Say what you want about iRacing, but their practice servers are key to getting people to race.
6) back to point 1 above, help should be a click away at all times in the forms of links, text tips and actual people
7) Is there a way for you guys to send TXT messages or reminders? I can't tell you how many times I joined a race weeks in advance only to completely forget on the day of the race. I didn't forget there was a race, I forgot what day it was.

In other words, building a thriving league is hard, but not impossible. Eventually, it should run itself, but it takes effort at the beginning.

Anyway, I'd love to race the next time around. I didn't so far because I stopped Simracing 5 years ago and I wanted to fine tune my rig, get used to the new sims and make sure I wasn't a liability on track (and trust me, the first couple of weeks I was.

Good luck.

EDIT: another small suggestion: Print the dates as YY-MM-DD. I am Italian but I live in the USA. I honestly have no clue who puts the month before the day or vice versa, but I can interpret a race on "07/09" as September 7 or July 9, but if written as 21-09-07 then I have no doubt what I am looking at.
Again, treat me like a somewhat slow and distracted 5 year old. Can't go wrong.

Herlev · Sep 7, 2021

Sk3ptik0n said:
I would have loved to participate, but between Real Life and other commitments I didn't even take step one.
I think some people are intimidated a bit, I know I am. Mostly I am not sure what to expect.

Apologies in advance if all or any of the following steps have been taken, but for me what would make me more likely to participate would be the following:

1) Detailed, step by step instructions on how to join. By this I mean something written for a 5 years old. Not because anyone here is an idiot, but because we are busy and distracted. I am a programmer, so I am familiar with web interfaces. till, when I simrace, my mind is in a different space and the last thing I want to do is learn yet another Operating System, interface or anything that takes more than 2% of my brain power.
2) Discord server for practice and chat - that's where we build a community and where drop ins are going to find a reason to come back.
3) List of practice and race times for the major Time zones (EU, USA East, USA West, Pacific, etc.) and an effort to make it as easy as possible to participate for those of us in "dead zones".
4) Volunteer greeters. People that makes new racers feel welcome. So many times I joined a league only to find the people involved to be self absorbed and outright rude, for absolutely no reason (conversely, we had new racers joining and expecting white glove service, a compromise would be nice).
5) No smartasses in the forums when someone asks a question. I saw this multiple times, a new guy asks a question in the forum and he's treated like a slow child by at least one other member.
5) Are there open servers for practice? Say what you want about iRacing, but their practice servers are key to getting people to race.
6) back to point 1 above, help should be a click away at all times in the forms of links, text tips and actual people
7) Is there a way for you guys to send TXT messages or reminders? I can't tell you how many times I joined a race weeks in advance only to completely forget on the day of the race. I didn't forget there was a race, I forgot what day it was.

In other words, building a thriving league is hard, but not impossible. Eventually, it should run itself, but it takes effort at the beginning.

Anyway, I'd love to race the next time around. I didn't so far because I stopped Simracing 5 years ago and I wanted to fine tune my rig, get used to the new sims and make sure I wasn't a liability on track (and trust me, the first couple of weeks I was.

Good luck.

EDIT: another small suggestion: Print the dates as YY-MM-DD. I am Italian but I live in the USA. I honestly have no clue who puts the month before the day or vice versa, but I can interpret a race on "07/09" as September 7 or July 9, but if written as 21-09-07 then I have no doubt what I am looking at.
Again, treat me like a somewhat slow and distracted 5 year old. Can't go wrong.

Can't help you with item 1 as I write like a 5yo

But there is a Discord voice channel for all RD club races and for the races I've done (mostly RF2) there is a lot of jokes and friendly people. So no smartassses

Like you, I have absolutely no brain capacity left by the end of the day, but spending those 2 minutes getting familiar with the signup is worth it

SwannyUK · Sep 7, 2021

Sk3ptik0n said:
I would have loved to participate, but between Real Life and other commitments I didn't even take step one.
I think some people are intimidated a bit, I know I am. Mostly I am not sure what to expect.

Hi there, I'll hopefully answer some of your questions. First off, welcome! Nice to see different people posting in our club forums.

We did have quite a good number of regular racers but with the hot weather, covid, football etc etc numbers have dropped off and usually pick back up when the weather starts to cool. We did open the last series up to all on simracing.gp but accidents and bad driving started to creep in so we made it premium only again, we'll see how it goes.

Being a volunteer and the only one setting up the races I don't have the capacity to meet all of your points unfortunately. You mentioned not wanting anything to take up more than 2% of brain power and needing clear instructions like a 5 year old - I actually have a 5 year old (I know, hellllppp!!!) but also a 9 month old, a full time job and day to day life to juggle so we rely on people to give things a go and then if you have any issues just give us a message and we'll help where we can.

To join is very simple:

You are already a premium member so that's job 1 out of the way.
The second thing is to register over at https://beta.simracing.gp/ if you haven't already. Just click the "new user register here" bit and sign up.
Once you have signed up and logged in to the simracing.gp site join the RaceDepartment community which can be found here
All of the upcoming events we have are listed. To sign up to a race in the GT3 series click on the series tab, click the GT3 series then events to see all of the GT3 events in the series.
Click on one to sign up. The password to sign up is here you can then pick a car and job done.
On race day the server will go live at the start of practice ready to join on ACC. All the details you need to join the server are on the events page.

The server password, times, config etc are all listed on the event page.

Time zones - You could use google to work out what time the event starts in your time zone. To make life easier here are a couple you mentioned.

EST: 2:45pm
PDT/PST: 11:45AM

As for the date format have a look at the events in simracing.gp and see if they automatically default to your time zone (not sure if they do). As we are mainly based in Europe we use the day/month/year.

If you wanted to practice you could do a single player practice using the race settings which can be found on the simracing.gp event page.

We haven't got a reminder service but you could sign up to an event then set a reminder on your phone.

I haven't come across any smartasses in our ACC club yet. We are a friendly bunch and are here mainly to have good fair races and a chat afterwards on the forums. This isn't a league as such, just a friendly group who get together once a week for a sprint race. Points are scored but if you aren't bothered about points then it doesn't matter.

Any issues signing up just let us know here and we'll be happy to help. Hopefully see you on track soon

SwannyUK · Sep 7, 2021

You no longer need premium to join the GT3 races on the RD simracing.gp

The numbers just aren't there to keep it premium only. Being a 1 man outfit you'll just need to report anyone that is misbehaving along with a replay to me if I'm not racing.