SNAIL Holiday Event Discussion

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DesertPenguin09

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DesertPenguin09
The Labor Day event went really well. The communication, organization and general consensus of the event were all fairly positive. We started discussing how to set up these holiday races in that thread and I decided to make a dedicated thread. We can bring up cars, tracks, regulations, concepts, etc. that we want to experiment with and try for a holiday race.

But here's the other thing, we only have so many holiday weekends and the next one is Christmas Eve/New Year's Eve. This means we have a lot of time to test and get things right.

So this thread is now open for discussion. Let's keep all of it here instead of the Labor Day thread. Carry on.
 
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The title has been changed and the thread unlocked.

Please use this thread to discuss any possible events to be run on Sunday nights when SNAIL is off due to holidays or major events. There are four a year and the next one is the Christmas/New Years off week.
 
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If we run something on a schedule of any kind it becomes a series and then it needs approval by Zer05ive. That takes more time and effort. Trust me, I know.
 
I like that @Rednose58 is brainstorming on the handicap front. I think with some tweaking we'll land on something that will yield a result that better matches the intent.
 
I like the idea of it being like Thursday practice. This will keep the really fast guys together and the not-so-fast guys together. I was thinking instead of the gap being 20 HP it should be 10. So the last race was 425-445-465. I think it shoulda been 445-455-465. This would keep everyone closer.
 
I know Pack Racing tried using ballast for the faster drivers but it didn't matter. They learned how to drive with the added weight and were still faster lol. Ballast is useless unless used to even out different cars.

I think the D1-D3 and D5-D7 rooms with D4 going where they want is great. But it's great because D4 gets to choose: do I want to race with similarly paced drivers and be able to have guaranteed close racing OR do I want to race with faster drivers and really challenge myself. I prefer the former and would like to race with similarly paced drivers.

Then I thought, that's not fair that only D4 gets this option. We should open it to everybody. Let's call the former Choice A and the latter Choice B. We can make a Google Document poll asking people if they want Choice A or Choice B. That way we can get a general figure for how many want to be in the Upper Division Room vs. the Lower Division Room. Everyone should be given the opportunity to race the upper divisions and challenge themselves. I prefer not to because I don't want the added pressure but it's up to you!

Maybe 90 minutes is just too long though. Even in real life races that amount of time causes everyone to spread out. The only way to stay near another driver is have a similar pit strategy. If we use only one tire compound that will help keep us together better.

All that off the top of my head. Man I love racing...
 
I know Pack Racing tried using ballast for the faster drivers but it didn't matter. They learned how to drive with the added weight and were still faster lol. Ballast is useless unless used to even out different cars.

I think the D1-D3 and D5-D7 rooms with D4 going where they want is great. But it's great because D4 gets to choose: do I want to race with similarly paced drivers and be able to have guaranteed close racing OR do I want to race with faster drivers and really challenge myself. I prefer the former and would like to race with similarly paced drivers.

Then I thought, that's not fair that only D4 gets this option. We should open it to everybody. Let's call the former Choice A and the latter Choice B. We can make a Google Document poll asking people if they want Choice A or Choice B. That way we can get a general figure for how many want to be in the Upper Division Room vs. the Lower Division Room. Everyone should be given the opportunity to race the upper divisions and challenge themselves. I prefer not to because I don't want the added pressure but it's up to you!

Maybe 90 minutes is just too long though. Even in real life races that amount of time causes everyone to spread out. The only way to stay near another driver is have a similar pit strategy. If we use only one tire compound that will help keep us together better.

All that off the top of my head. Man I love racing...

Tell WEC or Blancpain Endurance drivers that 90 minutes is too long to spread the field out. 90 minutes is a good length. It's short enough to keep battles going on through the field, yet long enough to test patience, consistency, and strategy.
 
We are not at that level though. I think something between 60 and 90 would be a good middle ground.

I'd also like to get two races in one night. Last time when people couldn't connect it was over. This way they can get sorted out for Race 2
 
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Sounds an awful lot like the Wednesday RCS races.

You are out of your mind if you think 90min is short enough to keep everyone together when all the drivers are not equally as fast. The Wednesday night races are 40min each and, while there are some good battles to had, the field generally gets spread out enough to where a couple guys get lapped.
 
I'm trying everything I can to be different from the RCS. If you can give me any advice on that I would greatly appreciate it.

And yea, even in 40 minute races the field will spread out, so maybe the time is arbitrary?
 
Three or four 20-25 minute races. Long enough to hopefully eliminate the Sunday Sprint Race a-holes from causing problems and short enough that people won't have to drive by themselves all night if they make a few mistakes.

The problem isn't that D1-2 guys are that much faster...it's that they are extremely consistent. I can run a nice hot lap and stay with Vovik one or two laps but that's all. All it takes is to run a little wide, miss a brake point etc...one or two times a lap and that D1-2 guy is already 4 secs ahead...per lap. By the end they are 20 secs ahead.
 
20 minute races are used by Pack Racing and 25 minute races used to be used by the Touring Car Series. We were also looking at the merits of using two tire compounds but then it's exactly like the TCS.

How about 25 minutes but only one tire compound. When it's that short pitting seems silly though. It's not really an endurance race at that point.

What's wrong with two 60 minute races with one tire compound? These holiday races are just for fun and adding another tire compound is a lot of calculations added. Not worth it. The simpler the better.
 
No tire compound changes. TCS is no longer running btw. Using the same amount of time per race as another series isn't actually copying that series ;)

Longer races tend to make it less fun for people who aren't used to longer races...like almost everyone in Sunday Snail. Once they are 10 secs back they tend to get discouraged and quit.
 
A lot of Sunday drivers are around for Pack Racing which is 20 minute races. They're starting to warm up to it because it's constantly racing against other drivers for 20 solid minutes. If we can do that but for a longer race I'd be happy.

If you don't think using the same time per race is copying then I would like to use 40 or maybe 50 minutes. I think it was Rednose that said he was basing his model on Formula 1 with the pit stops. I like that. But I also like Pirelli World Challenge where they go for 50 minutes straight with no pits. Constant battles. Food for thought.
 
I just did some quick testing. GT-R GT500 at Nurburgring GP/F for 50 minutes. Normal Tire/Fuel wear.

Racing Hard tires went to 9 in front at around 20 minutes in. At the half-way point I had a little over half a tank left. I think Racing Hard tires would last the entire 50 minutes but as they wear they would become really slippery. Then I switched to Racing Soft tires to see if they would wear a lot quicker. I need to do more testing on that, but I think that is promising. Fuel in a GT-500 will last 50 minutes no matter how hard you push (60 minutes would be risking it). Let's test out Racing Soft tires for 50 minutes with no pitting for fuel, only tires. When you pit you have to select 0 liters.

Anyone wanna test this tonight?
 
A lot of Sunday drivers are around for Pack Racing which is 20 minute races. They're starting to warm up to it because it's constantly racing against other drivers for 20 solid minutes. If we can do that but for a longer race I'd be happy.

MNM is a fantastic event, but it is a very different animal compared to ANYTHING else that SNAIL does. It does exactly what it is intended to do, but that intent is NOT the same theory that endurance racing revolves around. I think you really just have to accept the fact that you're not going to get the same type of close finishes after 90 minutes (hell, even 60) as you would in a 12 minute Sunday race or twenty minute boost race. That's not what endurance is all about. At the end of the day, it needs to be an endurance race, not some makeshift patchwork of regulations that over-influences the actual racing.
 
I just did more testing with the Racing Soft tires. At half-way they are at 8-8/9-9 and somewhat driveable, but a full second off my fastest lap. Definitely going to want to pit, but do you do it early or hold out a bit longer? That's the strategy there. No fuel is ever needed for 50 minutes or less. This is all on normal tire/fuel wear by the way.
 
It's not worthless what are you talking about? Why? This is a discussion thread. Discuss.
 
All you have managed to determine is how long tires and fuel will last for you while running by yourself. That doesn't do anything to start to figure out how to balance a field of drivers with varying skill levels.

There really isn't a lot that can be done to balance the same car for varying skill levels of drivers without opening up the pandora's box that is allowing tuning. An alternative to this would be multi model racing within the same class. Use a better performing car for the lower division drivers and an less capable car for the upper divisions and race them together. I'm not talking about different enough to make two classes but different enough to more closely level the playing field between the skill levels.

This would, obviously, take a lot of testing to determine suitable cars and it would take multiple drivers testing each of the cars. There would also have to be some type of standardized test to insure that you get usable results. There isn't going to be a "one size fits all" solution either. Each track will have it's own solution and each set of cars that could be used will have it's own solution.

Honestly, you guys are a long way away from doing any meaningful testing.
 
One guy running laps by himself wouldn't really be considered a test. You need multiple people from multiple divisions testing to see how the tires and going to hold up when actually racing with someone not just doing a time trial. D1 guys aren't going to see a fall off in lap times they will take care of their tires and possibly get faster with less fuel load. The D3 guys are going to run very consistent lap times and may be able to have some battles on track with the D1 guys until they make a mistake. D6 guys will be able to put down some good lap times but not near consistent enough to to allow for them to be racing up front. The D6 guys will be forced to pit due to the tires falling off while D1&3 run away.
 
I was just going for rough timing before even thinking about balancing the field.

Of course group testing will be different. I think we should try to make a race model that can be applied to any car or track. That will be tough but once we do we can use that for every holiday event and just work on testing car/track combos. This should all be done before we even consider looking at how to balance the field.


If we don't want to use pit stops, we can easily do a 30-40 minute race on RH Tires with normal wear without fear of them dropping off. If we do want pit stops, then it's a lot harder to figure out.
 
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I'm not looking to get in to a circular discussion with you so I will end by saying, again, that there is no "one size fits all" approach that would apply to every car, track, and distribution of driver skill.

These are one-off events and they are hosted months apart with different drivers. You can't expect to work it like a series and get good results. You need to create an event in steps and then work the issues that present themselves while being flexible and willing to change things up as you go. To try and force the same settings on every event going forward would be bordering on foolish and would take any variety out of the equation.
 
The title has been changed and the thread unlocked.

Please use this thread to discuss any possible events to be run on Sunday nights when SNAIL is off due to holidays or major events. There are four a year and the next one is the Christmas/New Years off week.
We are now within two months of this potential event. Does anyone have any ideas?
 
Let's get the ball rolling on this.

Different race cars on track together, evenly matched, with a pit stop or two. It can be done. Let's make it happen.
 
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