RDRC Season 4 - General discussion

[Graham Bridgett]

An Idea popped into my head when i was at work tonight about the WRC/Group A cars which I thought was good on paper...............turns out it wasn't that good in comparison to what has been but on here

 

[Warren Dawes]

Sorry to be damping any enthusiasm here for the Group A Cars, but they won't really work. Pity, I love these cars too.

A8_1 and A8_2 Cars in RSRBR vary hugely in performance and physics. Ranging from Lancia Delta Integrale (very fast) to a BMW M3 which is only RWD (as examples).
Also, the Group A8_1 Evo's are notoriously fragile as we found by using them in some Club Rallys.

As much as I love these cars, they are a widely varying mixture which just wouldn't fit a Championship with other Classes.

EDIT: Unless we restrict the choice to only a couple of Group A Cars, but that will need a lot of testing to find the right balance with other cars.

 

[Warren Dawes]

FWD cars aren't that easy to drive. Or very enjoyable. Except RWD ones.
Endless understeer and no traction. Or is it just me?

Actually Senad, I have found some of the FWD cars quite good (and easy) to drive. It often depends on which surface you are on, the more slippery the surface, the more tricky some can become (compared to 4WD cars). Some are good, some are horrible.
Also, many of the FWD cars have horrid default setups. After some adjustments, they can be made quite nice to drive.
There is such a huge range of FWD cars available in RSRBR, it's never easy finding the good ones, but I think we are getting better experience now.

 

[Troy Ament]

Yup, feel free to jump in at any point and at any round.
You won't be scoring any points without signing up and choosing a car, but anyone can join and drive for fun.

Welcome back Troy, good to see you again.
As Senad has said, feel free to join whenever suits you. Don't forget, we still have Rally Club Events too if you want more fun.

Thanks guys, I'll try to make a round or two this summer now that school is over and when work allows.

 

[Rick Bamford]

BTW, Welcome back Troy. Hope you can make it for the last few rounds.

The A8 cars fit between the WRC's and S2000. They are faster then S2000 and match some of the older WRC's so they really don't fit the extra class idea. We might be able to use them in place of the 2WD cup and not allow them to score outright points but not as a step between N4 and S2000.

As for 2WD, last season we had them as the introduction/Grade 4 class and I got alot of complaints about using them. While they are good for someone that has played them game for a while, for someone starting out they are not "fun" to drive.

Viesturs, I had the idea about factory teams like you mentioned. It could be a way to get around this problem of having 242345 Citroën C4s running, lol. Maybe we can look at this in more detail.

But anyway, we are going around in circles a little now, so lets let the car classes debate rest for now. Is there anything else drivers want what to look at for improvements?

 

[Jack Hintz]

do we have proper power stages this season? we could implement that. the factory teams thing is a great idea also, would be excellent for variation. only other thing I think we could do is the stages, but thats a whole other story.

 

[John Cunningham]

beer tent at the finish?

 

[Fernando Agapito]

If there would be a factory team then old WRC's should be banned and just use A8W 11-12 with Citroen, Ford & Mini. I would also love to see a Power Stage in RDRC

 

[Jack Hintz]

Sounds like a great idea ^^

 

[Viesturs Priede]

If there would be a factory team then old WRC's should be banned and just use A8W 11-12 with Citroen, Ford & Mini. I would also love to see a Power Stage in RDRC

Why ban them? They can still be there And yeah, the Power Stage might be a good idea

 

[Fernando Agapito]

Why ban them? They can still be there

I mean like in WRC, they ban the old ones and give way to new generation of cars. But that's just an opinion if factory team would be implemented.

 

[Viesturs Priede]

Well, I just think that we dont have to take over everything from the real WRC. The old WRC`s are great fun and I believe that there are still guys who enjoy driving them, including me

 

[Alasdair Beck]

The power stage idea intrigues me. In the Scottish Rally Championship we ( my dad's the coordinator ) do a thing where one of the stages is chosen at random to be called the Red Bull challenge stage. The fastest drivers in each class get given prizes like vouchers for brake pads, tyres, test days etc. Everybody who wins something got their names put in a hat and the person who got drawn at random got to spend a day at the Red Bull owners private playground messing about in all his toys. The part I think is relevant to what we do is that the competitors were not told which stage was the Red Bull stage so they had the encouragement to try on every stage which bred some really good competition, especially in the lower classes down the field. I think on one event we had 3 drivers tied on the same time in the 1600 class.

The benefit of making it a random stage and not just the last stage for us is that it would encourage guys to keep going and attempt all the stages rather than giving up and skipping through to just do the last stage. You could give bonus points to the fastest 3 in each class.

Again apologies for rambling but I thought this idea might interest you.

 

[Senad Subasic]

I like that one

And we can keep it random, so not even the organizers could know which one it is, until the rally is over.
For example, power stage number = sum of all the digits in the winner's time (mod 14), or anything like that.

 

[Alasdair Beck]

I like that one

And we can keep it random, so not even the organizers could know which one it is, until the rally is over.
For example, power stage number = sum of all the digits in the winner's time (mod 14), or anything like that.

exactly, it would encourage guys to try on all the stages because they wouldn't know what stage was being awarded. Plus if you retire on a stage you would try the next one in the hope of possibly salvaging some points.

 

[Warren Dawes]

I like any suggestion that encourages drivers to keep trying their best even though they have a DNF (or two, three, ....).

 

[Viesturs Priede]

..sounds familiar.. well, not quite actually. But this could help me

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

That was a good idea!
I'm not too sure regarding factory teams, how should that be done? top 6 drivers getting pick? winner first, etc. ?

 

[Jack Hintz]

Just a quick question that isnt related to car classes etc
To get to grade 2 next season, what do I need to do?
In the rules it says score an outright point to get there, does that include any of my points ive earned over the past few rounds or? just want to know for future purposes

 

[Warren Dawes]

To get to grade 2 next season, what do I need to do?

This is my interpretation of the current Rules, Jack:

"To qualify for Grade 2 a driver must have:-

Scored an outright point in the Previous RDRC season,
Or set a grade 2 qualifying time in an RDRC Qualifying event."

That means you need to score a point in the outright results sometime during the S4 season. ie. You need to finish at least one Round inside the top 10 placings. You haven't achieved that yet.

Or,

of course, achieve a re-grading via a Qualy Event.