RD Formula Pro Series S3 (GTR Evolution)

Eric. K · Dec 30, 2008

All,

I know we have discussed that in the past, but since the cat is out of the bag I would like to hear more feedback. The format will be a little more official than discussed originally (we will be using all the GPCOS rules and scoring) and it won't start for another couple of months (until we finalize everything). The league will be opened to everyone, but priority will be given first to North American members then PanAmerican drivers finally everyone else. I am not sure which cars to use yet. I would prefer not to drive WTCC nor GT cars. There are a lot of WTCC events and a GT league will just end in Feb. Let's be a little more original. I would love to use cars that are not raced very often (F3000, Caterham, Radicals, WTCC 87, WTCC eXtreme, etc).

I want to hear from anyone who is interested in participating:
Driver name:
Race type: sprint/endurance
Car preferences (can list several):
Best day/time #1:
Alternative day/time #2:
Alternative day/time #3:
Should we somehow use weight penalties?:
Favorite track:
Remarks/comments:

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Drivers:

Eric Kaczmarek
Yves Larose
Timothy Miller
Corey Theman
Mitch Philipi
Niklas Vesterinen
Luis Carlos
Sean Vohs
Ian Landry
Jan Wikström
Keith Barrick
Gaynall Hudgins
Dave Stephenson
Jean-Michel Rucheton
Rhys Gardiner
Marty Pierce
Marcel vd Aa
Leandro Lage
Edenilson Penco
Bob Luneski
Bill Kaiser
Péter Bártfai
Chris Vick
Rafael Barbosa
Matt Alpeter
Aritan Maia
Nico Major
Pascal Malenfant Tremblay

Cars:

F3000: 14x
WTCC 87: 9x
SR3/4: 11x
Caterhams: 12x
WTCC Extreme: 4x
WTCC/STCC: 7x
Camero: 3x
Mini: 2x
Production class: 2x (Audi R8)
FBMW: 3x
GTs: 7x

Tracks:

Barcelona GP
SPA 2003
Mid Ohio Chicane
Miller
Ledenon
Suzuka
Brno
Interlagos
Brandshatch
Nurburgring GP
Rouen
Mosport
Kaylami
Road One
Estoril
Valencia Street
Donnington
Cadwell Park
Sepang
Imola
Monte-Carlo
Ledenon
Zander
Valencia
Curitiba
Limerock Mountain
Hungaroring

Weight penalties:

14x yes
4x no (moved a no to a yes after some testing and chatting with Niklas)
maybe? 3x
2x dont care

Martin Bulgin · May 31, 2010

Konrad makes some good points about the points

how about we change it so all cars score points like Nascar ?

Konrad Stanczak · May 31, 2010

The questions on making changes of our "racing platform" are important.
But the decisions there have to be made based on a deep survey. From my view i can tell that i love the niche of F1 racing on the Race series (where the simracing world is full of F1 rfactor leagues) and don't mind the fact the pitstops are so long (as everything else is nearly perfect for the mod). Its the same thing for everyone and you get the chance to cool yourself with a drink, fix your station and recap you race progress and objective - something that would be hard within 8-10 seconds and impossible with 4-5 like it should be at this moment!
Also i am dedicated to this league to a point that i would follow it if we would switch to rfactor.
But the main discussion here as i understood is not how many people will continue on if such change would come (i bet for each person that would drop out a new one would sigh in) but:
"How to keep the people racing and going through the whole season once the grids are decided?"

Konrad Stanczak · May 31, 2010

Giorgos Davakos said:
On Nurburgrind I hope that we will have a much longer battle.

Unless you will be near the TOP 5 i hope not! :wink:

Ivo Simons · May 31, 2010

Is that a need Skateboard move the Nurburgrind?

Konrad Stanczak · May 31, 2010

Ivo Simons said:
Is that a need Skateboard move the Nurburgrind?

Nothing easier:

ufunacaoenn · May 31, 2010

Konrad Stanczak said:
Nothing easier:

Thats pure skills, I wonder whats his sicret.

Martin Bulgin · May 31, 2010

Ha Ha thats a great pic

Peter Duivelaar · May 31, 2010

You are 4th with the penalty Reik.

My race went excellent.
After the fast time Jamie set in Q1, I didn't expect to get pole in Q2, so I was very happy with my pole position.
From the beginning until the end of the race I was in first place. Until about halfway Chris was constantly very close behind me, most of the time the gap was not more than 3 seconds.
Before the 2nd pitstop Chris made a mistake, and the gap was now more than 10 seconds.
From that point on I didn't push very hard, and just made sure Chris didn't come closer.
In the final 10 laps I was hoping I wouldn't get a screen freeze like at Barcelona. Luckily everything went well until the finish line, and I was very happy with my first pole and win of the season.

I hope to get another good result at Nurburgring, hoping that we can claim the team championship.
Thanks to everyone for this good race.

Eric. K · May 31, 2010

@Arno. The time slot was announced before the season started and should not be a surprise to anyone. Most likely it will remain the same in the future as it is convenient for the majority of people around the World. (BTW, I know many of the faster drivers want to race with FSR and they also race on Sat and Sun).

The time slot is the not the issue. Nico, Reik, Peter, Ventis, Jamie, etc. faced the same problem, but were always on the grid (I wont mention 2/3 of the semi-pro guys). It has more to do with showing respect towards other drivers on the grid, respect for race organizers work, and respect for the league in general. The funny thing about respect is that it always runs both ways. Many in this league have earned a huge amount of respect with me (most of you know who you are). I'll go to great length to always listen to their opinions and suggestions. I would even bend the rules to accommodate their needs. Others.... well it is work in progress...

Peter Duivelaar · May 31, 2010

I personally have no idea why the Pro division has less drivers each race than the Semi-Pro.
I personally think this championship has been organized very well once again.
It is a pity though that there are so few drivers that join the Pro division races, I personally enjoy the races even more when the grid is full.
I think it has to do with some persons that sign up for this league and think: "Nice prizes can be won, maybe I can win" and then they realize that they can't, they lose their motivation and don't bother anymore to join the races. Or they at first think that it would be nice to join a F1 championship and then lose their motivation later.
The only solution I can think of is to charge a small entry fee and then persons would think twice before they sign up.
But I don't know if this would be the right solution.

Bruno Sousa Ferreira · May 31, 2010

Nice it made my day

Konrad Stanczak · May 31, 2010

Ok, continuing on with my toughs.

And my idea would be to combine overall ladder like in Brams system so that everyone could race against each other and strive for the ultimate glory but yet keeping up the STC team spirit.
How about deciding on who should go up or down in a certain divsion basing on the teams result like ie. 2 top teams go up and 2 bottom teams go down.
How about dividing teams score and individual driver score. A this moment team points = driver 1 + driver 2 points. That means a 1+2 finish give the leading team a big points haul over the second potential team 3+4 (45 vs 29 points exactly).We know that the higher points difference for top finisher is to encourage fights for top places but is it good for team result? If this would be evened out slightly while keeping the top places differences maybe it could encourage more team effort. such calculation came in to my mind: 1+2 finish = 45 points = 1st in team standings = 8 points for the team. now 3+4 finish would = 7 points and then top 2 team are only at 1 point to each other. Imagine on the enxt round team 1 finishes 1st and 6th while team 2 is 2nd and 3rd. 1st + 6th = 35 points while 2nd + 3rd = 26 points. Team 2 is 1st and scores 8 to team team score and team 1 gets 7. We have a TIE in round 2 in team championship 15 to 15 while with the current scoring system team 1 would still lead a massive 80 vs 65 points.
This is just a given example of how the scoring can be played with to both reward and even the grid to encourage fighting (it is in a good state at this moment already!). Now Marin mentioned about NASCAR scoring system. I dont like the idea of inheriting real life designs as those are mostly rubbish (they dont make them for fun as behind racing thers ALOT of money involved - (FIA)). But long time ago in NASCAR they had no scoring system and had a crazy idea:
To define the champion each race had a money prizes (different stakes at each race depending). They've earned their prizes that later were multiplied by the number of races theyve qualified for and the divided by 1000. The system had a flaw as the top driver that cashed in the most , in the ending races was scoring more points by finishing 26th than the winner thanks to the races multiplier. What a terrible idea back then but it made me think: what better encouragement would there be than getting points by getting in to the race itself? Maybe there is something to explore there but it would require an excellent mathematical design not to go nonsense at some points (yeees Master Eric, yeeeeees).
Why am i leaning towards the "Team championship" so much? If people organize themselves in to teams with idea to race together there will be people relying on each other and failing to race will affect not only the single person but also others. In ideal world there will always be a backup driver on even 2 of them with good communication can take a seat even minutes before hand in case of a last moment hardware fail. And i see the winds are blowing in to good direction taking just RD FPRO part as an example so i think it needs to be encouraged with all means.
Bashes and penalties for anyone that does not show up. Maybe with a small credit give to each team.
The prizes - are not something its about (at least for me) and sorry but their practical value at this moment seems little for me. Everyone that needs a wheel already bought one. Winning a CPU makes sense if you have the cash in your hand to buy everything else (and its time for upgrade). Cash is the enemy of any good sporting event. In terms of prizes i would opt for a cheaper option available for more. Custom T-shirts with "formula pro championship" were first thing that came in to my mind. A shirt with "FPRO world champion 2020" now that would be so awesome i would never wear it , but kept hanged behind a fireproof glass :wink:

Ok i am going a little off here. Referring back to a point of the prestige and tradition of STC. I do think that thanks to the community that gathered here and the whole achievement of organizing it FPRO has already earned quite a lot of prestige and bonds with its racers, and it will grow in each season eventually rising up to a level when it will get through the worst times and crazy decision of its organizers (at lest for a while

.
There are many ways to explore and even now with all the support i do think anything can be done.

Ivan Mills · Jun 1, 2010

i dont wanna sound off the beat here ,but(next season) if we limit testing and preparation for each event then perhaps more people will be able to challenge the "mothers"(if you get my drift),as more mistakes will be commited and more miscalculations might(i say might) occur,therefore more drivers will stay motivated as the races will become a bit more unpredictable ,due to mistakes, due to not enough prep and people that finished mid pack this season might do better in that scenario in 2011....right now you have unlimited testing(2 weeks..thats too much)..u have drivers using all sorts of motec hardware and plenty of time to fine tune a perfect set up and strategy and get comfy driving every cuircut...guys no pun itended here ...its just a suggestion ok...one way this could be done is if we are given 20tracks prior to the season...then out of those 20 only 10 or 12 are used and each track is announced 2 or 3 days before the actual race(so ur guessing all the time..unless you are a prodigy and you master them all)....the effect will be a scramble of driving and tunning in the last two days and errors will happen...

eace:

another thing: if the Pacific league is too run 1week ahead of the others i think they shouldnt run the same track as the other devisions ,since it will help the rest of the drivers to keep notes

Reik Major · Jun 1, 2010

Nice thought Ivan, but how to prevent anyone from testing?

I think the main thought from the organizers is to have a (high?) quality league here, where guys come prepared to the races, because this is the main reason why we have so less incidents here. If you want to join a Pro Division (and you know about that before joining), you have to take it into accound though.

But the thought about unpredictable things is realy nice. I think it's appreciated the best way by having random weather, which is announced at the beginning of the free practice on the race day, let's say one hour before qualy. This way you can practice the standard conditions all days to get used to the track, but in the last hour with the announced weather, you have to make your final tests on setup, strategy and wether to test more for race or for qualy.

I mean after all the time most of us know the car itself, so this way the true talent about handling a new situation would be more important than learning pure hot lapping.

Of course this would add one more hour to the whole event, but it would be very interesting and the servers would be full from the first minutes of free practice. But maybe i'm going to far on that?

Joshua Wilson · Jun 1, 2010

OK, i'm going to jump into the discussion. I think that charging just a sign up fee may be the way to go, and using the money for the broadcast, servers, psrtv etc. and using what left to arrange a well thought out prize. I don't think the expensive prizes we have at the moment are completely necessary, and i'm sure this year's contenders, Peter, Jamie, Ventis don't even really think about them (sorry i i'm being ignorant though)...

It's all about the racing, and when the field is full, the racing is great. Up front this year we've had some great battles right up at the sharp end of the field, but even better battles further down. The guys not contending for the win seem to be having even more fun with respectful battles throughout the race with 3 or more people, separated by a little over a second.

I don't think much needs to change in regards to the time-slot and time between races. Having a week between the races allows people to work around the races to make sure they can make it. Because it's not a weekly thing, people are able to work, go to social events, play sport etc. every second weekend. For the guys who race in Australia (Anthony, Tim, David, Jonathan and Myself), it's a little tough, with Q1 starting at 4:00am on a Sunday morning, but we all seem to make the races (Istanbul aside :frown

and I think that's because we know not only is there a high level of competition, but more importantly a great deal of respect for each other out on the tack.

I'm sure the majority of people will agree with me, in saying that the races are something we really look forward to on the weekend, and not something we dread at all...

Ivan Mills · Jun 1, 2010

Well said Joshua...it seems my comment was almost like one of Mark McGuire's homeruns ...juiced and outta the park....im sure you guys will figure it out for the next season and attendance will be like it should

Tim McIver · Jun 1, 2010

I better throw my 2 cents worth in...

I like the idea of prizes, but I must admit, I had completely forgotten that we have prizes til this thread started. I'm quite sure no one had raced any differently because of them, but its nice to know there is some symbolic recognition at the end for the champion. How far down the list get prizes? Is there something nice worked out for 5th place...

Secondly I want to speak as someone who has finished every single event. I think the reason is simple and is in fact the opposite of what a few people have been saying (though I do of course disagree with respect). These world races have been conducted at the most inconvenient time possible for me. It's an outrageous time. I'm busy almost every Saturday night, get to bed at 1 or 2am then get up at 3:30am to race. Then I go to work all Sunday and arrive home at around 10pm.

The fact that the time slot is awful means I can and do make every race. I am also committed to the league and keen to play my part in the community, but in the end, if the races where at a more convenient time, I couldn't have made them all. I'm more than prepared to sacrifice my sleep for the sake of racing! I don't feel like I am in a position to say no to a friends wedding or a parents birthday party. Important as sim racing is, there's always going to be a few things that win head to head against it. It seems to me that the only sports that people play on Saturday nights (in Australia at least) are professional sports. If your getting paid, you spend your Saturday nights on it.

My point is that I have much sympathy for those who have not been able to attend all the races. That shouldn't however account for the reduction in numbers through the season. If we race on Saturday nights, then you can hope to assemble the most committed group of racers, but I suspect not the best.

I've enjoyed the season very much and am looking forward to the final race. Thanks must go to Eric for organising a league that does make me want to miss other important stuff I've got on so that I can race. Luckily for me, that dilemma just doesn't happen in this time slot.

Eric. K · Jun 1, 2010

Tim (and many of other Aussi friends) you are a true hero to me

!!

Thank you!!

Nicolai Nicholson · Jun 1, 2010

If I may add a few thoughts, although I'm not part of this division:

I do not think there is one simple answer to the question as you are dealing with a lot of different people, ages between 15 and 60, located around the world (which means that the race time is at different times for different participants). First and foremost it is just a fact of sim-life that only a fraction of those who "find us" and wants to join a league are serious, commited and respectful enough to become a long time member and participant. After about 900 days of PrestoGP we've had maybe 150-200 people being part of the league at some stage, but we are left with a core of about 35-40 drivers.

Now, peeling away the riff-raff (those who join and then disappear again without notice after a few races) we are left with a bunch of people that could become core drivers (serious, commited and respectful).

Out of these you'll find different explanations, but I am guessing that a fair bit of the guys missing lose motivation because they have to put in a lot of practice laps in order to become competitive, and when they have done this, they are still 1-3 seconds behind the best. This in turn makes them turn to the setup, thinking that the faster guys have a superior setup and knows something they do not know. To make things worse the setup of the f1-mod does not make much sense relative to real life. Also they might feel that a handful of guys get setups from the more superior guys while they are left with whatever rubbish they are able to put together themselves, because they do not "know the right people".

In reality the setup might have little to do with the pace, but the uncertainty that you might be practicing on a setup that does not stand a chance to go as fast as those of the faster guys and their protégés is very de-motivating.

I think there is a lot to be gained on having much more openness around the setup, making it an insignificant part of the competition.

These are only my thoughts, and I do not know the inside life of the world division very well, but Eric’s description of the situation corresponds very well with my own experiences.

Arno Hoog · Jun 1, 2010

I agree with Nico that the answer to the questions being raised here is probably more complicated than you think. It's a mix of a whole bunch of things and the setups could be part of it.

So why not take things step by step and see how you can improve each of the possible answers to the question. Im trying to say: try to reach agreement on what aspects are at the base of these problems and find a solution. Scanning through the whole thread I came up with these possible causes:

Teams dont take their job serious when it comes to finding a replacement driver.
The saterday night timeslot will cause problems every now and than for -mainly- the European racers
People are struggling to be competitive and therefor loose motivation

This is what I came up with and think are the 3 main issues responsible for the problems of a small grid. Now pragmatic as I am let me make 3 simple suggestions to each of these possible causes:

Penalise teams / exclude teams from further competition after 1/2/3 races without filling their spots
Race at sunday night GMT
Encourage people more to share setups, open up a forum for this purpose. I for once don't mind sharing my setups.

These are just my suggestions. What do you guys think about the possible causes? Am I forgetting something, should we add something? What about the solutions? These are obviously just my thoughts