Hello drivers!
First of all, I'd like to congratulate everyone for a great race yesterday. And special congratulations to the podium finishers for running very consistent races. I think that, on the whole, the entire field showed a great improvement both in pace and in consistency in this race. The driving was largely considerate and respectful, and there were very few silly accidents. Well done.
From what I and the other marshals were able to see, the blue flag situations were handled much more smoothly than last time. Nearly every pass I saw on a lapped car was trouble-free, and I want to thank both the lappers and the lapped cars for doing their part to make this happen. Appreciation and awareness of the rules seemed to be much higher in general, and it really reflected in the on-track action.
This is not to say that the race was trouble-free, of course.
On the admin side, we had tracker issues that we should certainly have figured out by Round 3. The switch to Starblue's self-hosted version was a last-minute thing due to the sudden absence of the server admin for the server we were to be using. The tracker never appeared to go down for Starblue, so every time it did for everyone else, I had to alert him so he could restart the webserver. Not an ideal situation, but we made do. We had further issues with a few situations not really covered by the existing rules. #14 My3id's lag issue took us some time to come to a decision on, and that may have cost some teams time and in one case prevented a driver change from occurring. This was something that should not have happened, and in the future we will do everything possible to resolve it more quickly.
On the on-track side there were a few glitches. The start procedure obviously still needs to be worked on, as discussed by Benji in another thread. There is sometimes a vast difference between the speeds of drivers mid-pack, which can lead to accordion-effect crashes. Having re-watched the replay of the start, this is in no way the fault of the leaders, who did their part to accelerate gradually toward the green. The cause was mainly lag and partly some drivers with a lead foot. The lag can't reliably be fixed, so we need to work on maintaining a proper speed and leaving more of a gap. It's an over-used phrase, but the race can't be won in the first turn.
We also saw quite a few instances of cutting the pit exit. KY2 has an unusually long exit blend line, but that's no excuse when you've been given plenty of time to become accustomed to it. We will continue to monitor blend line infractions, and you will continue to be penalized for cutting it.
Chatting was another issue. Though it was somewhat done to death in the other thread, here is the official admin team response to the issue: the chat messages that went unpunished in last night's event were all directed to the admins in regard to a vital issue--they were not accidents, angry explosions, argumentative attacks, and were not, generally speaking, "chatty"... they were necessary communications and were treated as such. This sort of chatting can be excused, though we DO ask that if there is any other way of communicating, you attempt that way first. We understand that sometimes there is not, and this is why we allow some messages. Ultimately, the marshals will make the call as to whether a chat message is deserving of a penalty, so it's in your best interest to avoid chatting if at all possible. Finally, the IGTC Admins are giving an official recommendation to clear your binds before participating in league events as this will remove a large part of the possibility of an accidental penalty.
Again, in all this was a very good race and a massive improvement over Round 1. We're looking forward eagerly to Round 3 at Fern Bay Gold. Last year, Gold was perhaps the most difficult race on the calendar, both for the admins and the drivers. We ask that everyone practice as much as possible before the event, and to focus on stability over the high curbs, etc. There are many, many places to have a serious accident at Fern Bay, so we are not expecting a SC-free race. That doesn't mean we can't hope for one, though.
Thanks!
IGTC Admin Team
First of all, I'd like to congratulate everyone for a great race yesterday. And special congratulations to the podium finishers for running very consistent races. I think that, on the whole, the entire field showed a great improvement both in pace and in consistency in this race. The driving was largely considerate and respectful, and there were very few silly accidents. Well done.
From what I and the other marshals were able to see, the blue flag situations were handled much more smoothly than last time. Nearly every pass I saw on a lapped car was trouble-free, and I want to thank both the lappers and the lapped cars for doing their part to make this happen. Appreciation and awareness of the rules seemed to be much higher in general, and it really reflected in the on-track action.
This is not to say that the race was trouble-free, of course.
On the admin side, we had tracker issues that we should certainly have figured out by Round 3. The switch to Starblue's self-hosted version was a last-minute thing due to the sudden absence of the server admin for the server we were to be using. The tracker never appeared to go down for Starblue, so every time it did for everyone else, I had to alert him so he could restart the webserver. Not an ideal situation, but we made do. We had further issues with a few situations not really covered by the existing rules. #14 My3id's lag issue took us some time to come to a decision on, and that may have cost some teams time and in one case prevented a driver change from occurring. This was something that should not have happened, and in the future we will do everything possible to resolve it more quickly.
On the on-track side there were a few glitches. The start procedure obviously still needs to be worked on, as discussed by Benji in another thread. There is sometimes a vast difference between the speeds of drivers mid-pack, which can lead to accordion-effect crashes. Having re-watched the replay of the start, this is in no way the fault of the leaders, who did their part to accelerate gradually toward the green. The cause was mainly lag and partly some drivers with a lead foot. The lag can't reliably be fixed, so we need to work on maintaining a proper speed and leaving more of a gap. It's an over-used phrase, but the race can't be won in the first turn.
We also saw quite a few instances of cutting the pit exit. KY2 has an unusually long exit blend line, but that's no excuse when you've been given plenty of time to become accustomed to it. We will continue to monitor blend line infractions, and you will continue to be penalized for cutting it.
Chatting was another issue. Though it was somewhat done to death in the other thread, here is the official admin team response to the issue: the chat messages that went unpunished in last night's event were all directed to the admins in regard to a vital issue--they were not accidents, angry explosions, argumentative attacks, and were not, generally speaking, "chatty"... they were necessary communications and were treated as such. This sort of chatting can be excused, though we DO ask that if there is any other way of communicating, you attempt that way first. We understand that sometimes there is not, and this is why we allow some messages. Ultimately, the marshals will make the call as to whether a chat message is deserving of a penalty, so it's in your best interest to avoid chatting if at all possible. Finally, the IGTC Admins are giving an official recommendation to clear your binds before participating in league events as this will remove a large part of the possibility of an accidental penalty.
Again, in all this was a very good race and a massive improvement over Round 1. We're looking forward eagerly to Round 3 at Fern Bay Gold. Last year, Gold was perhaps the most difficult race on the calendar, both for the admins and the drivers. We ask that everyone practice as much as possible before the event, and to focus on stability over the high curbs, etc. There are many, many places to have a serious accident at Fern Bay, so we are not expecting a SC-free race. That doesn't mean we can't hope for one, though.
Thanks!
IGTC Admin Team
. As a result Rudi had to drive the qual and first two hours of the race after I got disconnected during the grid make-up and during our 1st pitstop when I was attempting to take over the car.