New Formula XR League, 3rd attempt...

[joshdifabio]

This is my 3rd attempt at making this thread... hopefully i don't mess up the poll again.

I am planning on starting a Formula XR league soon but so far haven't planned much. I want to know peoples' ideas and preferences to race length, race dates, race frequency, number of races, tracks to be raced and how many people are interested!

I am putting up a poll to see how interested people are in all of the standard race tracks in LFS with a wr of more than 1 minute in the FoX as of now and depending on how popular each track is we can decide on how many to include.

Please vote for all the tracks you would like to see, but if you only want for example, a 5 race series, don't vote for 10 tracks :). The poll will close in a week.

Races will be held on the 20 person spdoRacing server which should be up and running tomorrow.

[RacingSimFan]

I voted for:

SO Town Course
FE Gold
KY GP Long
WE Int'l
AS Club

Also (and I know it goes against your wr > 1min rule) I'd like to submit a 'write-in' vote for SO Classic because it is a good rythm circuit and would make a great season finale with Town Course beginning the series.

[joshdifabio]

I wanted to put SO classic in there since i have the wr and its probably my fastest track, but i don't think with 20 cars it's long enough really :/. Any accidents in the chicane are a real nightmare with a lot of cars too. If a lot of people agree with you though maybe it will be different.

[Tweaker]

I chose (if it is ok):

Blackwood GP
South City Long (REV config is cooler imo actually... and good for T1 starts)
South City Town
Fern Bay Gold
Kyoto National
Westhill International
Aston Historic or Aston Grand Prix

I mostly picked tracks better suited for this car. Tracks like AS National are great, but don't have enough turns in it to make it exciting. The ones I chose there are a good combination of speed, turns, and pass opportunities by way of straights or accidents from the challenge it presents :). Gold is questionable, but still fun for that car.

Good luck with the league Josh :up: ;)

[Chris_Kerry]

I voted for:

Blackwood
SO Town
FE Gold
KY National
Westhill
AS Club
AS National

Good luck josh!

[joshdifabio]

What days are best for people? I need to know that too. Does anyone know if there is some sort of calendar or something showing dates of races from most of the leagues run for LFS? Would be useful to avoid too many clashes.

[LawVS]

It'd be good to have it on a Saturday evening as it's the best time for most people I think.

[joshdifabio]

I'm gonna go through all the popular leagues and see what days they have events, and then when we have decided what tracks to race in 6 days when the poll ends, i will make a schedule up and people can say how good it is for them.

[Chris_Kerry]

Remember the OWRL run's on Saturday late afternoons/early evening. I would race after however. Or even look at setting it alternate weeks to this event.

[joshdifabio]

Was just having a small brainwave about racing on the shorter tracks. What do people think about having a couple of sprint races (10 racers in each race for example) with each racer racing in one of the sprint races, and having the sprint races on the short tracks. So on one evening we could have two sprint races on SO Classic followed by a main race with everyone at SO Town. That way people who specialise at the shorter tracks or just prefer them wouldn't get left out.

[RacingSimFan]

If there is a really large turnout have 2 heat races with the top 10 from each moving on to the Main Event.

Mondays!!!!

It seems that leagues are always fixated on weekends yet if you run this league on Monday nights there will be hardly any conflicts.

Set the server to the designated track for the week leading up to the race then hold qualifying and the race back to back.

[joshdifabio]

Yeah, I will definately have the server on the next track to be raced that way people can practice together. I'm not sure about heats though because I think it will be hard to find 40 people dedicated to doing a league. With the UKLFS FoX league i think even just with 20 we had the odd person turning up to races not having done any practice on that circuit.

[Chris_Kerry]

I'd suggest mid-week josh. With a qualification where the drivers have to come within a percentage time. Also maybe a short sprint-race followed by a longer race.

[markredden]

Qualification would be a good idea, like Chris said, with a percentage time.

[joshdifabio]

I was thinking about using percentages for qualification the other day but then say if we use two qualification tracks and you have to submit times for them, you may be slow on them but really quick on others. Unless we said something like you have to be within 104% of the sum of the quickest person's hotlaps to get into the league, and then maybe do a hotlap for each race to make it into the online, pre-race quali for the race... which sorts positions, if you get me.

Dunno if that was hard to follow.

[joshdifabio]

Hmm or maybe we could have two sprint races with half the drivers in each (presuming we have more than 20 sign up) and have 20 from those two heats qualify for the main race which could follow.

[Chris_Kerry]

I think the figure you suggested of 104% is cutting down the field too much tbh. I think rules and regulations really need to be thought through, then as a league it needs to be advertised around the LFS community professionally and try to attract some of the best racers avaliable.

[joshdifabio]

I filled in the calendar (http://s13.invisionfree.com/speedo/index.php?act=calendar) on the Speedo Racing forum with all the league races i could find, and it seems that mondays, tuesdays and thursdays are the most seldom used days. Please if you are interested in joining the league can you post your preferred day and time for the races. eg Mondays 20:00 GMT.

[joshdifabio]

...advertised around the LFS community professionally...

Sorry don't know any profesional advertising people :p. I'll have to do.

[Chris_Kerry]

Yes, you know what I mean. :razz:

My preferred date/time would be tuesday evenings at say 8 o'clock. What you have to understand though is people will often have things spring up out of the blue in the week so you will have to devise a system that cater's for this assumption.

[joshdifabio]

Yes, you know what I mean. :razz:

My preferred date/time would be tuesday evenings at say 8 o'clock. What you have to understand though is people will often have things spring up out of the blue in the week so you will have to devise a system that cater's for this assumption.

What like a reserve list? Can't move the race or something cause 1 person cant make it...

[Chris_Kerry]

Yeah a reserve list maybe. What I meant was like you can't really implement say a 1 race ban for missing races rule etc etc.

[tristancliffe]

I voted for various tracks, including, Blackwood, Fernbay (Gold/Green), South City (Town), Kyoto (National), Aston (Club and Historic).

I would love to do this league, and to be honest I don't REALLY mind what day of the week. I think if I had to choose I'd say Thursdays, around 7pm (8pm race start). Mondays and Wednesdays would be a bit more inconvenient for me, but I guess I could rearrange around it :D

It seems my uni social life will be something like this:
Mondays: Pubs!
Tuesdays: Pub Quiz :D
Wednesdays: Pub/Club (Cheese night, gotta love 80's cheesey music!)
Thursdays: Asian Fight Night (Not my scene!)
Fridays: Nothing to do on a regular basis

So yeah, Thursday or Friday best for me!

[SkyNet]

I'm interested in participating in this league. Would just like to know where can i singup?

[joshdifabio]

Next time I see tuusita on msn (probably later today) i will ask him if he can make some sort of PHP signup page which shouldn't be a problem for him.

[CMU]

I'm interested in racing, if you can put up my my mediocre pace. I guess every race needs midfielders :)

I haven't voted for tracks. I don't know their names well enough. If you have a good mix, with none of the monster long ones I'll be happy. Shorter tracks make for interesting if intense racing, as the leaders are always mingling with the backmarkers. There's skill in safely dealing with intermingling with slower traffic, and it can add an interesting element to racing.

I like the idea of qualifying to cut out the drivers that don't practice before an event, then crash into everyone at the first corner. Perhaps you should have a qualifying cutoff period say a day before the event. Anyone who hasn't put in an online PB below a cutoff gets swapped out for a reserve. Or, you have (say) 30 people in the league, but only the fastest 20 PBs get into the main race. I've only just thought of this stuff, so it might need some further thought yet...

In any online league, people will miss races for perfectly legit reasons. This should be planned for - you can't predict that your car is going to break down and stop you getting home for the race, say. Suppose the league is 10 races long, you could say that only your best 8 results count. That immediately chucks out the problem of missing the odd race, whilst still penalising missing lots. It can make it closer at the top too, when the end of the season comes. Ie, it's harder to run away with a league if you're the quickest. I ran a couple of GPL seasons like this a while back, and it was well received by the entrants.

In UKLFS, it seemed there was a problem with the slower guys not having appropriate setups or setup skills. How about making a reference setup from one of the quicker guys available at each track. You woulnd't be restricted to using it if you didn't want to, but it would be there if the only alternative you had was the default setup prodded at randomly. Lots of drivers couldn't care less about aquiring setup skills. Lots don't have time to fiddle much. If there was a setup made available that could do within a reasonable percentage of the WR time in the hands of the quick guys, the league becomes a proper driver test with no excuses about who has the best wing settings etc. It also might keep the chat channel clearer of comments like "Can I try UR set plz" during practice and qualifying.

No apologies made for length of post :)

EDIT: Preferred race times: Weekday evenings, 8pm or later. Earlier makes it hard for me to get back from work and make dinner in time for the start. Can't race on an empty stomach!

[joshdifabio]

Thanks for the constructive post and good ideas, more ideas people they are needed!

[TheJAG]

I liked the UKLFS rules actually, even the schedule and times were pretty good. So tuesdays around 7 or 8 GMT would be the best for me. Mondays, wednesdays and fridays are my rl sport evenings (soccer/swimming) and at thursdays I'm participating in the LFS.NL.1 league (tho that's every other week, so this could be planned around it).

Thanks for your effort Josh trying to make this league work, I hope it does! :)

cheers,

[kidzer]

Tuesday sounds good to me :)

[alexoxol]

I'd like to participate this league. All days nearly 20:00 GMT are good for me, except Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

[FlintFredstone]

Hi Josh,

Im not sure about anyone else but i would like to see where we have a 'sprint race' of say 10-15 laps and an 'main event' of say - 35+ laps (adjust for lenth of track) i hate the compulsary pits too, just make it so that not pitting would be difficult.

Best times for me are after 8pm weekdays or after 9 pm sundays

Im hoping that we are staying fox/fo8/gtr's

Maybe split the points into 3 leagues:

1) Sprint race championship
2) Long Race Championship
3) Combined Race Chamionship

That way people who just like sprint racing can have fun and people who like endurace can have fun and those who are addicted can get some relief :)

TroyMclure

[Chris_Kerry]

Compulsary pit should definatly be there for the feature race imo.

[joshdifabio]

No I think I will just make it so that it should be impossible not to pit since FoX carries barely any fuel anyway, then if ppl wanna go slow and use 0.5% less fuel/lap good on 'em! :)

[joshdifabio]

Hi Josh,
Maybe split the points into 3 leagues:

1) Sprint race championship
2) Long Race Championship
3) Combined Race Chamionship

Good idea! And a team champ too...

[th84]

hey josh!! i would also like to race in this, but with me being on the other side of the pond it may be hard. will u be considering the people from the us and canada(among others over here) when u decide the race days and times? if u do, count me in:) i work mon-friday until around 6pm us eastern time, so anytime on the weekend or after 6pm during the week would be great. then again i know there arent many people on this side of the pond that are replying to this post, so whatever u work out ill see what i can do. cya mates (well mostly mates)

[joshdifabio]

I have made a forum on the spdoRacing forums for the league and within you will find several polls regarding the format of the league! Pop on over and register*, vote in the polls, say hello etc.

Tuusita will make a signup form for the league soon and when that is available I will post here to say so.

*you can only vote in polls on our forum if you are a registered user so you need to register really. It only takes a minute anyway since I have disabled activation.

EDIT: lol forgot a link to the forum. Here it is (http://s13.invisionfree.com/speedo/index.php?showforum=89).

[gishuk]

i voted for bw gp, kyoto national and westhill, all awesome tracks in the fox

i would probably be interested in this league, depending on skill requirements (lol) and race length/time

[RacingSimFan]

I'm another guy from the 'New World' so unfortunately my only day available for this would be Monday @ preferrably 21:00 GMT.

[Qurpiz]

I voted for:

BL GP
SO Long
FE Black
KY Long
WE International
AS Historic

[TagForce]

Count me in :)
Day of the week doesn't really matter at the moment, but there's the odd chance I'll have other commitments in the weekend.

As for tracks I like the longer tracks.

[eFX]

Thurs->Saturday Evenings would be the best for my schedule, and like Tag Force I like the longer tracks.

[joshdifabio]

Sign up is now ready http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=21803#post21803

[nikimere]

sorry but i'm going to have to pull out, too much work and other league commitments. best of luck with the league though, hopefully i can make another season.

[Tweaker]

I recently raced the FOX on Kyoto GP Long, and man is it boring. That track is WAY too big for the FOX and all you have is just long periods between times you can actually catch up to someone. In other words, there are only a few turns that you could actually catch up, and the straights just leave you sitting there with no good battles with anyone. Really boring.

The FOX does well on tracks that aren't as big as Kyoto or Aston I think. Not saying you should cancel them out, but it is worth knowing how boring those tracks can be :). (The FOX just feels too darn small and slow on the track to me).

South City, Westhill, Blackwood, and Fernbay are the good tracks for FOX. :thumb:

[tristancliffe]

If anyone wants to heck Josh's PC and give me all his setups I'd be most grateful...

[joshdifabio]

lol i share my setups anyway :P since mostly they aren't mine. Everyone on the spdoRacing server pretty much has my blackwood gp setup since i think darkone and Troy still use it

[tristancliffe]

Not just the BLGP one, but all of your setups for all of your cars :P

[joshdifabio]

I only drive the FoX now! I only actually have a few sets too but you can have them if you like :p

[Tweaker]

lol Troy gave me the BLGP setup and said it was from Josh, I later realized all it was was Phlos' AS GP setup with low wing settings iirc :p

[joshdifabio]

Ye i dont actually make any sets. All i can change is wings, tyres and brakes :)

[tristancliffe]

Cool!!! You have my email address, feel free to zip them up and zap them too me :D:D:D:D:D:D Not that I'll get with half a second of most/all of your times!

[joshdifabio]

Ok i'll just send all my setups then.

[tristancliffe]

Big Yayness!!!! You coming to the Karting meet? If so, I'll buy you a drinky ;)

[joshdifabio]

Don't think so. Thanks for the offer though.

[tristancliffe]

Well I'm coming back to Norwich on Friday night, so I could come and shake your hand on Saturday :P