Quote from Joe_Keaveney :

FYI, from the WTCC website via Google:

'The imposition of success ballast remains based on different criteria: championship points and race results.

a) according to the Championship points: 1 kg per every point scored

b) according to the sum of points obtained in the two races of each event, according to the following scale:

1st + 30 kg
2nd + 25 kg
3rd + 20 kg
4th + 15 kg
5th + 10 kg
6th + 5 kg

These ballasts will be scrapped and recalculated after each championship event.

Handicap weights a) and b) are cumulative up to a maximum of 70 kg (previously 60 kg).'

Thanks Darryn, yes we're definitely going down the route of success ballast. We've yet to test the amounts of ballast required on the FXR but I'm pretty confident they will be similar to the amounts that the WTCC use.

The WTCC also use a 30 Kg ballast for any driver's first-time entry into the championship, for the driver's first race only - do you think we should use this rule too? I'm currently undecided, so any feedback would be welcome!

... the only thing to argue with: WTCC doesn't use it anylonger but... ok...

to be serious I think it could work and make the races more attractive

please put me on the signup list,

Real Name : James Taylor
In-Game Name: [W00T] James
LFSW UserName: pacesetter
Team: [W00T] Motorsport

Hi guys,

Well, development continues on the series - with your co-operation, a 'driver profile' page will be added to the website.

This will serve two purposes:

1) It will allow spectators of the series to find out about the participating drivers - the characters in the show! After all, you are the stars (in the cars), and we need to show you off

2) It gives us some information about you for our commentary.

The sort of information we'd like is:

Name
Age
Location
How long you've been sim-racing
Your wheel
What you do (student/doctor/workman/etc)
What you do away from sim-racing
Any info you want to give!

Of course, as I say, this part of the 'show' really depends on your co-operation. So it's completely up to you - if you don't want to give any info, then I understand.

Let me know if you think this is a good or idea or not. I think it adds something to the series, obviously that's just my opinion. So please feel free to make your own point of view heard

Excellent idea IMO.

How about having a teams championship too?

Sorry for the long post and not getting back to this thread earlier...

Ginettas are sports cars, so XRG would be a bit strange given its not powerful enough/too heavy I think, plus its a road car.

Regards the supports, in an ideal world we'd have Porsches, Clios, Formula Renault, SEATs, plus Legends (UF1 or UF-BR) and the Ginettas (XRG or RAC) - yes we can dream!!!

Tracks: Going by the WTCC, most tracks are 3-5km in length, while BTCC tracks are all 2-4km. Touring car racing tends not to lend itself to the big long tracks, but smaller more exciting ones (obviously not too small )

Tracks I'd say you have to choose from (+ the reversed tracks): BL1, S04, S05, FE2, FE3, KY2, WE1, AS2, AS3, AS7 - plenty of choice! Gotta have some short and some long IMHO.

On the setup issue MP brought up, don't think you can use insim to check that, but doing random spot checks on people would work as it's just like scrutineering in real life - and since everyone knows the rules heavy penalties would be issued to deter people!

Race format: I think 3 races of equal length would be the best way to do it. Having a 3rd feature just complicates matters, and lengthens the whole event. Have you thought about how long each race should be? I would be going for the amount of laps to equal 20 minutes - just under what the BTCC aim for in terms of time per race.

EDIT: Just looked at your website for the rules, saw the race format. Using the CTRA FXR-GT2 (well really GT3 IMHO ) I worked out that the race @ AS GT (and other tracks as above) would last 11-12 minutes (feature being double of course :tilt. That seems a little short, so if you made the race 1.5x longer (45km) you'd only add 5 minutes onto the timetable if you ran 3 races. Food for thought anyway

Or if you really want pit stops then I suggest going back to the Super Touring sprint/feature race format - 2 races - sprint/feature.

Ballast: The BTCC ballast system seems easier than the WTCC one (like most things the WTCC copies from the BTCC :P) - nice and simple, 45/36/27/18/9 for the top 5. I think this is easy to control using Lapper, just put the usernames in the system and they'll have to have it right before they race?

A few other issues:
Safety Car?
Points - why not just use the BTCC system?
Teams/Independents championship?

I had to LOL @ "Leave the ‘dodgem-style’ of driving in the fairground" in your rules - if we're imitating the BTCC then you need to remove that rule!

I'll probably think up other things at a later date!

Quote from J@tko :

How about having a teams championship too?

So I could mess everyhing up for you? Sweet!

I iz interested. That's T.Hynninen of NDR for you. Please don't misspell it.

Quote from hyntty :

So I could mess everyhing up for you? Sweet!

I iz interested. That's T.Hynninen of NDR for you. Please don't misspell it.

Quote from TFalke55 :

some [NDR] team action as racing team ?


I'm interested at taking part, as the FXR is one of my favorite cars, and the date is during my x-mas holydays this BTCC style sounds interesting

^ I'm taken thanks timo

You can be in our non-point scoring B-team

Oh. May I in that case have an AI drive as my teammate since that and Jack amount about the same?

Quote from hyntty :

Oh. May I in that case have an AI drive as my teammate since that and Jack amount about the same?

:sadbanana

Wat? Normally when I say you're a useless clot I get fifteen thousand smileys as a reply. Is it that time of the month for you now? Or did I stop being funny?

Quote from hyntty :

Wat? Normally when I say you're a useless clot I get fifteen thousand smileys as a reply. Is it that time of the month for you now? Or did I stop being funny?

The latter

Back on topic now please.

Mr. K. O'Keefe is up for it. Sounds like a lot of fun. Is the 21st a Sunday?

(your such a lameass when it comes to blatant ot)

I personally don't think a support series would be a good idea. It'd take a lot of effort to find people with enough time in tehir hands to organize multiple races. Besides, normally when youtake signups for a league, half the people are either no-shows from the first race on, or disappear during the season. With a support series you'd have to do double the work to get your competitors actually show up.

Quote from racer hero :

Is the 21st a Sunday?

Yes.

Quote from boothy :

Tracks: Going by the WTCC, most tracks are 3-5km in length, while BTCC tracks are all 2-4km. Touring car racing tends not to lend itself to the big long tracks, but smaller more exciting ones (obviously not too small )

Tracks I'd say you have to choose from (+ the reversed tracks): BL1, S04, S05, FE2, FE3, KY2, WE1, AS2, AS3, AS7 - plenty of choice! Gotta have some short and some long IMHO.

Yeah good point, we'd rather err on the side of slightly too large than too small. Too small IMO would result in too many crashes which whilst spectacular is not good racing. So 4-5km is going to be the benchmark (although I know -AS GT is 8km:shrug

Quote from boothy :

On the setup issue MP brought up, don't think you can use insim to check that, but doing random spot checks on people would work as it's just like scrutineering in real life - and since everyone knows the rules heavy penalties would be issued to deter people!

We could do random spot checks but we haven't yet tested the FXR in it's FWD/RWD 5%/95% configuration, and to be honest we haven't time to test it, and neither have the racers to work on setups. Besides it's easier to drive (and more inclusive - and fun) which will hopefully attract a good field of racers.

Quote from boothy :

Race format: I think 3 races of equal length would be the best way to do it. Having a 3rd feature just complicates matters, and lengthens the whole event. Have you thought about how long each race should be? I would be going for the amount of laps to equal 20 minutes - just under what the BTCC aim for in terms of time per race.

I think that's a brilliant idea and (pending discussion with teammates) we'll be implementing that. We will probably shorten qualifying and practice, and produce 3 equal length races, with 10 minutes break between each race. Thankyou!

Quote from boothy :

Ballast: The BTCC ballast system seems easier than the WTCC one (like most things the WTCC copies from the BTCC :P) - nice and simple, 45/36/27/18/9 for the top 5. I think this is easy to control using Lapper, just put the usernames in the system and they'll have to have it right before they race?

Or we could press F11 to check during the race? Yeah, another good success ballast system there. Not relevant for the warm-up event, however for the 2nd round of the full championship we will need to have it sorted.

Quote from boothy :

A few other issues:
Safety Car?
Points - why not just use the BTCC system?
Teams/Independents championship?

Safety Car - Mr T. Madl (ICON TOM) will be the Safety Car driver.
Points - Well with 3 equal length races, we'd score the races equally and may well use the BTCC system. Jury is out on that - will confirm when we've made a decision on race length.
Yes! Again something to be considered for the iTCC Championship. What I propose is to have 2-driver teams (the Works Teams) and to also allow privateers (as lone entries). So what we will have in effect is three championship tables - Drivers, Team, Privateers.

Quote from boothy :

I had to LOL @ "Leave the ‘dodgem-style’ of driving in the fairground" in your rules - if we're imitating the BTCC then you need to remove that rule!

Well that statement stands for the values we started ICON with so I hope you understand that we have that statment there for the best of reasons. We think of ourselves as clean racers and nice guys, and any racing we organize should reflect that. Although obviously I understand we're going to be seeing very close racing, so I'm not expecting to see no incidents at all! Anyway you get my point I hope.

hi im from australia. was wondering if its too late to sign up? hopefully not cos its my fav car lol.

lfs username: lopino12
team: FBI

Interest from me for both the FXR and FXO class

Joe u impress me with all the ideas, could do with someone like u in my real team here in SA

I definitely think the ballast idea is a good one. It seemed to work incredibly well in the beginners cup. I dont think we had one repeat winner all season.

I also really like the idea of ballast to a newcomer. One of the slight issues i had is that a driver that joined midseason was almost "untouchable" for at least 3 races before he gained ballast, so im all votes in for the idea!

Something we did in SA production cars which i never picked up from your quote was the "reduction" of ballast on poor results, or "unsuccsseful" results. This could be granted from positions 6- 10 for example in the reverse order of the "sucsess" ballast perhaps.

I think this is gonna be an awesome series, im trying to get my fellow SA guys to join up as well!

Quote from Dizzydarryn :

Something we did in SA production cars which i never picked up from your quote was the "reduction" of ballast on poor results, or "unsuccsseful" results. This could be granted from positions 6- 10 for example in the reverse order of the "sucsess" ballast perhaps.

Thanks Darryn for your comments....this idea intrigues me. On thinking about the old WTCC rules (posted earlier by me in this thread), the ballasts are scrapped and recalculated after every round. So in effect, a poor result from an otherwise well-performing driver will result in a reduction of ballast.

So, for example, let's take a driver who has competed in 3 rounds of the championship (9 races overall) and has 30 points.

In the last (3rd) round, he finished 5th, 5th, and 8th in the three races. The sum of his points in the round made him 6th overall for that round. Therefore, he would take 5kg into the next (4th) round plus 1kg for every championship point he has scored in the whole championship - 35kg in total. The effect of underperforming on a round by round basis therefore is to lower your ballast.

What I would say is that the scoring of championship points using this system is going to 'saturate' at certain point. Once you have reached 70 championship points, you're stuck on 70kgs ballast no matter how well or how badly you perform. This is a weakness that I need to think about and address. Either we award 1kg of ballast for every 2 or 3 championship points scored, or we award less championship points to each driver. Different ways to achieve the same result.

Quote from Dizzydarryn :

I think this is gonna be an awesome series, im trying to get my fellow SA guys to join up as well!

Thanks mate, I think so too! We have such good drivers in the LFS leagues, I'm confident we'll have a great season

Further to my earlier post regarding 'Driver Profiles' - I forgot to say - I would like with your permission, drivers, to include a profile photo of you both on the website and on the after-race highlights video.

This looks both more professional (on the website), and also, it means i can include your faces on video clips such as the grid line-up , driver gaps, championship tables, that sort of thing.

ALSO, team logos would be nice, for the same reason - championship tables.

I'll PM the interested parties soon for the information. Like I say guys, it's up to you what information you wish to give, if any. But I do think this will make a better show both for you the drivers, and for people watching the highlights videos.

Quote from Joe_Keaveney :

Further to my earlier post regarding 'Driver Profiles' - I forgot to say - I would like with your permission, drivers, to include a profile photo of you both on the website and on the after-race highlights video.

This looks both more professional (on the website), and also, it means i can include your faces on video clips such as the grid line-up , driver gaps, championship tables, that sort of thing.

ALSO, team logos would be nice, for the same reason - championship tables.

I'll PM the interested parties soon for the information. Like I say guys, it's up to you what information you wish to give, if any. But I do think this will make a better show both for you the drivers, and for people watching the highlights videos.

will this be madentory for this test event, or are these things just plans for the season.

Quote from TFalke55 :

will this be madentory for this test event, or are these things just plans for the season.

None of it is mandatory - the info you choose to give is up to you, however the after-race videos, along with the broadcast commentary, will benefit so much more IMO by having this information available. Particularly the driver photos, presenting the grid line-up with driver photos next to the name just adds that extra bit of sparkle.

I'll be PM-ing people very soon (either tonight or Sunday - not here Saturday) to ask if they'd like to provide this information.

What's your opinion, TFalke55, will you be interested in providing this sort of info?

Quote from Joe_Keaveney :

None of it is mandatory - the info you choose to give is up to you, however the after-race videos, along with the broadcast commentary, will benefit so much more IMO by having this information available. Particularly the driver photos, presenting the grid line-up with driver photos next to the name just adds that extra bit of sparkle.

I'll be PM-ing people very soon (either tonight or Sunday - not here Saturday) to ask if they'd like to provide this information.

What's your opinion, TFalke55, will you be interested in providing this sort of info?

photo is a bit problematic at the moment, cause I don't have an acutell one of me (only some two years ago or some lying drunken in a dark corner )... about other information: well if deko does commentary, real name shouldn't be too hard for him to be serious. Real name, contry, age and things like that, but also I could think of something like this: http://www.speedsport-magazine ... aphy/Jordi-Gene-,284.html
some notable thinks I reached in LFS and some of my (poor) CTRA stats That'd be quiet something I'd share

Quote from TFalke55 :

photo is a bit problematic at the moment, cause I don't have an acutell one of me (only some two years ago or some lying drunken in a dark corner )... about other information: well if deko does commentary, real name shouldn't be too hard for him to be serious. Real name, contry, age and things like that, but also I could think of something like this: http://www.speedsport-magazine ... aphy/Jordi-Gene-,284.html
some notable thinks I reached in LFS and some of my (poor) CTRA stats That'd be quiet something I'd share

Yes that's a good idea, and certainly the sort of information a commentator will want to have to describe a person's 'racing history'.

It will be no problem at all to display this information on the iTCC website.

At the moment we need a commentator for the pre-season race, I can do it but I'd rather leave it to an experienced person, I'm busy enough..

Well whenever you can provide a photo will be enough, haven't you got a mobile phone with a camera though?

Anyway, thanks for the info, of course we should definitely have the racing careers of the drivers displayed. Good one mate!

Yep sign up me up also, I'm from Australia just like Matt Lopino.

In-Game Name: GRA1NG3R
LFSW UserName: N23
Team: FBI Racing