Start Time Poll

[Arrow.]

What is the best Start time for you to race in Battle Of The Nations

Day: Friday or Saturday

Help to convert UTC to your own time
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html
or
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

[Arrow.]

3 days to go!

[Droemel]

Hi,

for me the best start time would be 20:00 UTC(22:00 CET) in case of Friday, or 8:00 UTC(10:00 CET) on Saturday. :thumb:
Voted for 20:00 UTC as there is no way I could do Friday morning. :shrug:

[AstroBoy]

Looks like you have a tie here Arrow, so what now a flip of a coin? or another poll with just these 2 options?

Im pulling with the flip of a coin :D

[speedway]

Looks like you have a tie here Arrow, so what now a flip of a coin? or another poll with just these 2 options?

Im pulling with the flip of a coin :D

i think the only reasonable thing to do now is start at 20utc...since 10utc is in the middle of the night for everybody west of the atlantic

[Gizmo_007]

i think the only reasonable thing to do now is start at 20utc...since 10utc is in the middle of the night for everybody west of the atlantic

That's only half the world. What about the other half?

[Arrow.]

Hmmm :scratchch

What if we rotate the starting time 10UTC and 20UTC
example:
Round 1 - 20utc
Round 2 - 10utc
Round 3 - 20utc

[Gizmo_007]

To be honest i don't mind. As long as people like speedway reliase that they arn't the only one's wanting to race in this championship.

With the vast time differences between the pacific and europe i really do think it's going to be to difficult to get a time that suits everyone. The most senisable thing to do seems to run each round at a different time favouring a differnt nation each time.

[speedway]

To be honest i don't mind. As long as people like speedway reliase that they arn't the only one's wanting to race in this championship.

With the vast time differences between the pacific and europe i really do think it's going to be to difficult to get a time that suits everyone. The most senisable thing to do seems to run each round at a different time favouring a differnt nation each time.

really funny...first of all,i do not want to race in this championship anyway, or rather i wouldnt get to race in this championship since im not fast enough anyway (im really interested to see how an entire nation is going to sort out who is going to drive)

so why do i still bother even though i shouldnt? of course its not possible to hit a perfect time for everybody, but you could at least be reasonable enough to start at a time that suits most nations...so you basically have 2 choices, you either make australia (and new zealand) stand up early or canada, usa, mexico, brazil, argentinia etc

[Jonas8431]

I prefer races for start between 19:00-22:00 (UTC) on saturday, but It coulb be frexible for sunday at 15:00-17:00 (UTC)
THANK U THANK U THANK U

[Unforgiven]

What about 0400 UTC. That way its 9PM in California, 2PM in Australia and 6AM or there abouts in EUROPE.

That would not be too bad would it?

[Motörhead V8]

i prefer 22:00 UTC

[Nobo]

When you give like 20 Choices. It would be better to vote again with the best 2 or 3 or so. Since you want the time which can do most of the nations.

[niall09]

What about 0400 UTC. That way its 9PM in California, 2PM in Australia and 6AM or there abouts in EUROPE.

That would not be too bad would it?

If i was driving, i wouldn't want to wake up at 4am :shrug:

[duke_toaster]

What about 0400 UTC. That way its 9PM in California, 2PM in Australia and 6AM or there abouts in EUROPE.

That would not be too bad would it?

6AM in Europe? I'd say 8pm (London) myself. Remember, it seems like most of the teams will be in Europe, it would give a collosal disadvantage to many teams as they will have to get up at 5AM ish. Yeah, someone has to but making the majority do that seems a little ... odd.

Any decision on who will be picking the teams? I'd go for the non driving captains route, then again it's because i'd volunteer for that because I'm too slow to drive :p

[AstroBoy]

This will most likely be the combos. and start time for each
Combos are set to "Main Hotlap rank" Tracks/Cars so Nations can battle it out offline as well in the LFS World "Main Hotlap Nations Rank"

UF1 - AS cadet 20utc
XFR - SO town 10utc
XRT - BL gp 20utc
LX6 - FE black rev 10utc
FO8 - WE interntl 20utc
FOX - Aston Club 10utc
FXR - historic 20utc
FZR - KY gp long 10utc

As you can see the time alternates from round to round so every second round you will be up early every other you wont, its the same for each nation so dont think that ur special everyones equal on bad times, except maybe a few.

[PaulC2K]

I know im a little late on this but....

As you see, most of Europe & all of the America's wouldnt bother turning up for week 2, 4..... :razz:
10utc is between 4am & 7am in the states IIRC

If you looked at the license pie chart, Europe probably accounts for 60-75% of them. In terms of nations, Europe will account for probably more than half of the competing teams.

Lets be honest, if it wasnt being organised by Aussies, then you wouldnt get a bloody look in in regards to what time it started. Im not saying thats right/fair but its true, everyone would be told the races start at XXutc, who's up for it. Because its Aussie based, and your on the other side of the planet from the majority of people you want to compete against, your kinda forced into catering for everyone because otherwise nobody would turn up because its inconvenient.
I'll say it again, cos people will ignore it, im not saying any of thats fair, but lets be honest it is the reality of it. Nobody will stop the series taking place at an inconvenient time for the majority, but only those its convenient to will be taking part.
If its inconvenient for Europe, you lose over half your entrants, the Americas you'd lose 1/4, the Oceana region another 1/4 and then middle east & remaining areas probably wont have anyone or not enough to cater towards.

Also, dont forget that a 20utc start is Saturday night in Europe, its 8pm-10 to 10pm-midnight depending where you are, so European entrants would be giving up their Saturday nights, its not exactly perfect for Europe either.

[Arrow.]

Ok then, What about 10UTC Saturday?

It seems to be fine for Europeans and Americas in MOE...

[banshee56]

10UTC is *cough* acceptable for MOE for North America, since the races are at least 6 hours long.

We don't have the case here, so I think a compromise may be in order. How about 13UTC? Early-afternoon for EU, early-morning for NA, midnight for AU.

[PaulC2K]

I think for EU it might work, its not a great time but i dont there are any decent times for it.

1pm (12pm a few races in thanks to summertime ) on a Sat wont go down well with the drivers missus, not sure how people would feel about that, but might go down better than 10pm-midnight to a few. If push comes to shove though, i'll be at the match, dunno bout everyone else.
United > Everything else :razz:

[ElvisArg]

10UTC is *cough* acceptable for MOE for North America, since the races are at least 6 hours long.

We don't have the case here, so I think a compromise may be in order. How about 13UTC? Early-afternoon for EU, early-morning for NA, midnight for AU.

Thats 10 AM for Argentina. It would work for us.

[Tweaker]

10UTC here = 2AM, and races are 6 hours long? Count me out for racing then, but I'd like to help my nation.

[chanoman315]

1 AM here, ... and 13 UTC if in Argentina is 10 AM, it will be like 6 AM, Mexico, 7 US

[Arrow.]

11UTC would work for us Australians :shrug:
Yanks?

[duke_toaster]

11PM UCT would be antisocial/difficult for Western Europe (11pm, I couldn't make that myself) and basically midnight for UK/ROI/Portugal if it were to be in summer time.

I suggest 8pm London, with daylight savings time used. That would be 8pm Western Europe (that's just the UK until Portugal or ROI join), 9pm Central Europe (France, Germany etc), 10pm Eastern Europe (e.g. Finland, Estonia and Russia), 5PM in Argentina, 3PM in New York, Noon in LA. 7 AM in Sydney. Although it does mean 5 AM in Perth, if any of you guys are based in WA. Sounds like the nearest thing to a perfect time myself.

[chanoman315]

11UTC would work for us Australians :shrug:
Yanks?
so what we need is groups? to make the timezones of each group

[PaulC2K]

Theres roughly a 20hr time difference between Europe, Australia & the Americas, which means it'll have to start at a very early AM for one region, and very late PM for another.

Going from left to right, AM to PM, and including international date/time lines too, these are the 3 options:
Americas -> Europe -> Australia (-8hr to +12 = 20hr spread)
Europe -> Australia - Americas (0 to +12 & -12 to -4 = 20hr spread)
Australia -> Americas -> Europe (+8 to +12 & -12 to +3 = 19hr spread)

Also taking into account that the average event will be ~2hrs long, the window is down to a maximum of 3hrs over 24hrs, so going by the Australia -> Europe method, if Western Australians start racing at 5am then Eastern Europe would be finishing at 2am. Thats the gap were working with.

Incidently, the 1hr time difference between the spread on those 3 timelines comes down to which has the biggest 'empty zone' where nobody in those timezones would be interested, The 3 being the Atlantic ocean, Middle east & Asia, and the Pacific ocean, and thats basically where your 'sleep zone' or 'extreme inconvenience zone' would be, either side of that would be your extremely late or extremely early in the day for those areas, inside them is pretty much unthinkable, but luckily those 3 have zero interest (or near enough).
By my calculations ignoring the middle east/asia region and having Eastern Europe up late and Australia up early, you have the largest 'sleep zone' (smaller means someone goes to bed 1hr later or gets up 1hr earlier).


To be honest theres absolutely no point in people discussing what's good for them, personal opinion wont solve this, it needs to be looked at on a wider angle, and the odd person chipping in with 'XXutc is good' doesnt do that. Even public voting wouldnt work, a time needs to be found which basically takes into account of the various nations, and it suits the largest number of people while not harming a considerable number of people too. Basically, a time thats in the best interest of the competition.


Its going to be impossible to please everyone, it simply cant be done, its the biggest issue in trying to organise an event where people are spread evenly around the world, and the event actively seeks that as its aim.


I've tried keeping it short, but to keep an already long post from being an extremely long post, i failed :razz::shrug:
The above is the scenario, and im not convinced continued discussion will really create a miricle solution, there surely cant be one for a 'world' series. Hopefully that outlines the problems with the timezones, if people can see a solution then we're all happy to listern, but i think a tough decision needs to be made.


Tweakypie:
6hrs? Its ~2hrs all in all. 20min qual, 50 lap race.

Dukey:
I *think* with the current dates summer time wont come into effect on the earlier rounds, meaning it'd take place between 4-6am in Aus, or 3:30am to get up & ready to go etc. Not exactly sociable hours for them im sure you'll agree. Also, not sure anyone has suggested '11PM UTC' just 11utc, that being am as its a 24hr clock used for UTC, but i dont think many in Europe would find 23UTC suitable thats for sure, certainly not the +3hr Eastern European lot.

Chano:
Groups would work, up until they all met in a 'grand final' type event, and then the same issues come back around again.
3 issues:
Getting those seperated zones back together for a final at a suitable time (hardly any different to the current situation)
Organising each zone, and having an official available to do multiple regions (pretty much double or more of the number of races).
Nations making the final having drivers who were okay with 7pm races but dont want to drive at 3am when all teams race for in a final.

The problem is that its spread over an approx 20hr time difference, whether you deal with it from the offset or at a later stage, the problem is always there, it has to be dealt with somehow.

[Tweaker]

Tweakypie:
6hrs? Its ~2hrs all in all. 20min qual, 50 lap race.
Regardless, I am not going to be able to race at that time. 2am start, +2 hours of racing? It is very rare that I'll be up racing at that time of night.

Gonna be a pain for Forbin too now I bet, as we are both in PST timezone :(

[duke_toaster]

Also taking into account that the average event will be ~2hrs long, the window is down to a maximum of 3hrs over 24hrs, so going by the Australia -> Europe method, if Western Australians start racing at 5am then Eastern Europe would be finishing at 2am. Thats the gap were working with.

I suggest that one possibility is to shorter the meetings. I suggest 20 mins quali, 5 mins for the server change and a one hour race. Sound sensible?


Its going to be impossible to please everyone, it simply cant be done, its the biggest issue in trying to organise an event where people are spread evenly around the world, and the event actively seeks that as its aim.

Of course it's impossible, although what suits the majority (central and east Europe) of the teams is better.



Dukey:
I *think* with the current dates summer time wont come into effect on the earlier rounds, meaning it'd take place between 4-6am in Aus, or 3:30am to get up & ready to go etc. Not exactly sociable hours for them im sure you'll agree. Also, not sure anyone has suggested '11PM UTC' just 11utc, that being am as its a 24hr clock used for UTC, but i dont think many in Europe would find 23UTC suitable thats for sure, certainly not the +3hr Eastern European lot.


Nah, that's why I suggested 8pm London, or we could possibly say 7pm London or 7:30 London.

Chano:
Groups would work, up until they all met in a 'grand final' type event, and then the same issues come back around again.

Of course we would get the same problems coming up. There is another issue.

Ignoring if they have had any drivers report for national service yet or not, here is the entry list, sorted by continent/region.

AMERICAS (Six teams)

Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Ecuador
Mexico
USA

PACIFIC RIM (Two teams)

Australia
New Zealand

EUROPE (Eighteen teams)

Austria
Czech
Denmark
England
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Republic of Ireland
Latvia
The Netherlands
Poland
Russian Federation
Scotland
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Wales

This would probably mean having eight Americas/Pacific rim (PacAm) teams and 18 European teams.

As the European teams would have nine team qualification groups, surely they would have an unfair disadvantage unless the system was weighted as there would be nine teams instead of eight competing for the same number of places. That's why a groups system wouldn't really work.