European Time Group 4 Racing (ETG4R) Bathurst Monday 27th November 8:30pm GMT - SPACES

  • Thread starter andrew1990
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RealJaySee
Lol, okay, sorry to whatever the other jimmy's name is on the forum then :P
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I was in the black vantage. I didn’t mind last night ended up more of a joke race for me than anything. One of my favourite tracks that I barely crash on and I reckon I spent more time in the gravel than anything else! Last night was fun but certainly not good racing on my part! I was hoping to actually be competitive but fell short of the mark. Maybe had something to do with those 5/6 beers before the race!
 
andrew1990
Thank you very much to everyone who turned up and raced cleanly, fairly and in good spirit. Having a grid is what helps to make the series!

Points are attached and as you'll see, @BigJimmy trashed us all in the Audi. The BoP is messed up a bit but he'd have no doubt been at the front in anything he drove! He also took victory in the FF class, not to anyone's surprise.

Well done to @TheLordDobber for taking the FR title - decent, consistent results each week meant that he took over from JC right near the end.

@Nick_h took a convincing win in the MR/RR class - some good performances there.

I took the 4WD class win. Had @Mythaga been there for the first week it'd have certainly been a lot closer!

I'll let you digest the points and reflect on the season before I post about some of the proposed ideas for Season 2 tomorrow. A sneak peak looks at possibly multi-class racing, along with no FF or 4WD cars as options. But all shall be discussed and worked out for a new season in the New Year.

Thanks again everyone! :)
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Thanks Andrew for the series, shame I missed the first round but I was a bit late to the party...

Glad to get rid of the 'big red bus' Mazda though (although what's the betting there will now be a BOP change that makes it competitive lol)
 
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I'm also liking the nixed class/team idea with Group 3 and 4 cars. I can make some investigations and work out a potential draft for the next season? My thought is only rear wheel drive cars, possibly only FR cars as they were the most popular this season. Half the grid last night were FR and we had 12 different entries in the class throughout the season. 2nd most popular class was MR! The FR cars also seem to be fairly well balanced, but this is something we'd check and make adjustments where it's felt appropriate.
 
I think if your having mixed classes, GR3&4 you need to balance it so that the car’s performance gap is larger to help prevent issues with lapping slower cars.

Also could incorporate mandatory decals so it was easy to tell one from another.



Only other thing I’d suggest is having two races with two quali sessions seems a bit pointless, if you want to do two races, race two should use some sort of reverse grid, maybe not full reverse but maybe swap around the top 10 or something? Mix up race two a bit so that it gives more people a crack at scoring good points even if they might not be the fastest that day. :)
 
20 minutes wont be enough time for a GR.3 car to lap the GR.4 field.

As for the schedule, please no reverse tracks, except for tokyo east outter/inner loop
 
Earth
20 minutes wont be enough time for a GR.3 car to lap the GR.4 field.

As for the schedule, please no reverse tracks, except for tokyo east outter/inner loop
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To be fair, that's probably a good thing to not have the GR.3 lap any GR.4 cars; skill level depending...

As it is, if one really poor driver in GR.4 lags behind that much (due to mistakes and whatnot), they're likely going to ruin someone's GR.3 race sooner or later.
 
Storm_SP17
To be fair, that's probably a good thing to not have the GR.3 lap any GR.4 cars; skill level depending...

As it is, if one really poor driver in GR.4 lags behind that much (due to mistakes and whatnot), they're likely going to ruin someone's GR.3 race sooner or later.
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Maybe this isn’t the league for me, I mean I’ve only been in one race :lol: but even if the slower lapped cars get in the way to some extent, it just adds to the racing, like it does in actual racing. Tho I guess if the races are only 20mins you wouldn’t be lapping anyone lol
 
baldgye
Maybe this isn’t the league for me, I mean I’ve only been in one race :lol: but even if the slower lapped cars get in the way to some extent, it just adds to the racing, like it does in actual racing. Tho I guess if the races are only 20mins you wouldn’t be lapping anyone lol
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Dont get it twisted; I spent years of doing multiclass racing, lapping cars IS SUCH A GREAT ELEMENT.... WHEN you have to do it for 2-3 hours.

I was implying the race length of 20 mins is too short to make lapping cars a thing, unless its going to happen 2 or 3 times...

Disclaimer:
A - not implying 20 mins is too short
B - not implying the series needs lapping cars.
 
Storm_SP17
Dont get it twisted; I spent years of doing multiclass racing, lapping cars IS SUCH A GREAT ELEMENT.... WHEN you have to do it for 2-3 hours.

I was implying the race length of 20 mins is too short to make lapping cars a thing, unless its going to happen 2 or 3 times...

Disclaimer:
A - not implying 20 mins is too short
B - not implying the series needs lapping cars.
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Yeah that’s fair enough, the 2x 20min race thing seems odd from an outsiders pov with two quali sessions too.. so I guess I was thinking if those two races where combined for one 40min race...

Also at Suzuka there was no need to refuel, so what was the point of fuel going down? I thought they would be one stop races lol
 
baldgye
Also at Suzuka there was no need to refuel, so what was the point of fuel going down? I thought they would be one stop races lol
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Wait! We have 20 minute races, an option to select starting fuel load, and fuel mapping options.... hmmmm... I sense an idea forming in my head.

Forgive my best Rolf Harris impression, but can you tell what it is yet?
 
Storm_SP17
Wait! We have 20 minute races, an option to select starting fuel load, and fuel mapping options.... hmmmm... I sense an idea forming in my head.

Forgive my best Rolf Harris impression, but can you tell what it is yet?
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I thought we could only start will full tanks?

Unless you mean for next season haha
 
There's fuel and tyre wear on so it isn't the default GT no-wear levels of super grip and zero litres of fuel by comparison.

Reverse grid doesn't work when people leave the room and come back as it just defaults them to the front of the grid. Organising a partial reverse grid is something that can be very time consuming and hard to get right - I've tried it then never done it again (too frustrating).

Part of the multi-class element is having that overtaking, or at least the chance of it. A 30m race would allow that.

We could lower the starting fuel so you have enough to do the race and a little more, but I don't want to make it all about strategy - an element of sprint racing that you can turn up to and not plan out a strategy is what I'm currently aiming for. We could have a longer, single final round where strategy would be needed.

Still many things that can be decided.
 
If sprint racing is the goal, why not remove deg and fuel usage and just let the cars run to the max on hards?

I don’t have a problem with either longer races or sprint races but the last race seemed to be a compromise that didn’t really do justice to either philosophy
 
Have to say that I’ve not paid any attention to either fuel or tyre wear at all, nor did I notice any significant degradation in the races, so as far as I’m concerned it was a sprint race series, but maybe I just wasn’t quick enough to notice!
 
Regarding on ways to tell the 2 classes apart it wouldnt be too hard to customise liveries to make it easy to tell each class apart. For example the Gr3 cars could run with a white front window banner and on the rear a yellow box with a black circle in it. As for Gr4 they could use black banners and a yellow box with a black X for example.

Regarding tyres at the moment the current wear settings were having no effect for me personally as more times than not i was setting quicker times later on and didnt need to worry about preserving tyres. From my view theres only 2 options, either increase tyre wear so you do have to be cautious but that could take some of the fun factor out of it for some people or remove it altogether.
 
I’d be happy with the multi class but how about this for a twist... instead of 1 driver being Gr3 and the other gr4... they switch for each race so both drivers every week drive both cars. For race 2, both gr’s revers the grid in the respective places so say car number 1/2/3 are gr3 and qualify 1/2/4 And gr4 4/5/6 qualify 3/5/6 then the grid would stay the same in terms of gr positions but the cars would move around. Does that make sense? That avoids all the gr4 cars going to the front

Also, fuel can be an included factor but I feel throwing a fuel top up in would be a total pain in the backside, I absolutely hate it! I don’t mind, however, adding in a tyre change! The fuel takes way too long! It can add to strategy but it’s just not for me!
 
Different headlight colors is another way to help differentiate the classes.

How would BOP work for multiclass racing? Just trust the drivers to enter the proper power and weight upgrades to their car?
 
I like the sprint/main race idea.

We'd use different headlights for each class. A very fast approaching car behind that looks like a Group 3 will also be a way to tell apart what's behind you in a Group 4 car.

A manual reverse grid/variation of is a pain to organise from what I've tried before. The shorter qualifying session for the 2nd race means everyone has warmed up and should be able to put in a time a bit easier.

Regarding fuel/tyres, we could maybe do a mandatory stop during the main race. I like having tyre/fuel usage on so that there's some burn, which will show more in a longer main race.
 
I don't think the team idea would work, because as we know, only half of the people who signed show up for each race. Also having to agree with a teammate on a livery won't be something i would enjoy... ;)
And since there are new people each race, how can we make sure that nobody tunes their cars since BoP can't be turned on for multi class races...?
 
BoP can be checked in the menu in the room.

There is the issue of people not turning up, but that means that we could just not have a set teams championship.

Still able to do multi-class which is a nice target to aim for.
 
The 'Host Choose Grid Order' option will work to make a reverse grid for each class for a second race of the night. There'll be a similar length break to allow people comfort breaks and for me to get the grids re-arranged. So that makes reverse grid with multi-class very viable.
 

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