B2O Endurance Racing - Is it Dead?

Deb

Moderator
I was disappointed yesterday when I jumped on Discord and found that we were missing 24 Hours of SPA. I hold myself accountable for that because I was thinking it was not on the schedule this year, but that was LeMans, not SPA. But then I thought even if I had put up a thread about it, we probably could not have fielded a team there anyway. Why not? Because some folks only want to drive a certain car, some folks only want to race with people with a certain iRating, etc., etc.. When I came to B2O, I thought it was such an amazing place to learn to race. We had league races every week where we could practice our racecraft without being concerned about losing iRating. I know, you say iRating doesn't matter, but actions speak louder than words, and it clearly does, particularly now that everyone's iRating counts on an endurance team. Several of you have said you don't want to race in the lower splits, which is understandable. So, yes, iRating does matter.

What I loved most was how endurance racing brought us all together. We all got to know each other, learned from each other and I think we all developed an incredible bond. It was not so much about the racing, as the fun we had with so many of us sharing in the same event. If you think about all the hilarious and sometimes painful things we went through during those races. But we aren't encouraging that anymore. I know schedules change, lives change, but if we want to encourage a team spirit, we need to have a place where drivers of all skills feel welcome. But that means we have to be available to race together, mentor each other and laugh at each other. The idea of racing once a week in a iRacing series race doesn't work for being together or for those trying to build their iRating. We end up in different splits and for those working on racecraft, there's the fear of losing iRating. I would propose we go back to Friday night league racing. Can be a simpler format and why would we be concerned if any given week 20 people show up or only 2???? I just think we need to get back to being a B2O team, and can't think of another way to do that.
 
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Daunt

MLG Pro
Was hoping to get into some enduros myself now that I'm starting to turn some laps. Some of my best times were the B2O endurance races, which I have on my youtube channel. I do really want to do some endurance races and that will outweigh my desire to do them in a specific car. That was always one of my issues is that I seem to be in the minority here in preferring to drive mid-engine cars. Not sure if anyone else does still.

I'm all for practice pals, turning laps together and then joining the same races. Obviously we wouldn't be in the same splits sometimes - but I personally still enjoyed the banter or team feeling- even if we weren't in the same split. But I don't think a league makes a lot of sense, at least to me. I can't commit to a specific day/time on a weekly basis and I don't find as much enjoyment out of it with small driver counts.
 

Kenadian

Staff member
Site Admin
Nope, Endurance is very much alive.

There was nobody discussing Spa outside of myself and @Skid_Marc_ so, I at least, assumed there was no interest in it.
 
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Daunt

MLG Pro
The sidebar is great. Great idea. Might I suggest creating a thread for each of them and linking them to the thread? That way for each event it's easy to gauge interest and have some back and forth (even if it is obviously a ways out)
 

Kenadian

Staff member
Site Admin
The sidebar is great. Great idea. Might I suggest creating a thread for each of them and linking them to the thread? That way for each event it's easy to gauge interest and have some back and forth (even if it is obviously a ways out)
Kyle that's a great idea and I'd love to do that but unfortunately it's not possible.

The Widget is manually created, edited and updated so it just becomes something someone has to micromanage.

Unfortunately there is no functionality within XenForo without a paid Calendar Addon linked to Forum Topics.

The only purpose for the Widget is to remind everyone an Endurance Race is coming.

Once a post is made people can choose to "Watch the Topic" which will alert them to updates made.
 
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Skid_Marc_

Staff member
Admin
I, too, will accept a large part of the blame for the assuming that was going on. Ken and I have been in Discord, racing GT3, every Friday night, all season long, and there hadn't been a lot of interest shown. There have been a lot of reasons contributing to that, so I'm not blaming anyone, or taking anyone to task, I just figured there were on-going circumstances occupying peoples time at this moment and I wasn't clear on everyone's time-line. For me, B2O Endurance is FAR from dead. I have always had zero interest in the 24-hours of Spa, not just this year, but every year that it has come around. I have very little interest in GT3-only endurance (barring multi-class events that could potentially result in single-class splits. Those are most likely at Bathurst and Nürburgring. I'd always prefer multi-class racing, but I'll settle for those two tracks.), both because of the racing standards (which were on full display in every stream, and every split, of every race that I saw at Spa this week, from Fixed-Sprint, to Sprint, to Sprint-Endurance, to the 24-Hour). The driving was horrible, with several multi-car pile-ups. The combination of GT3 aggression and a heavily draft-dependent track such as Spa is a recipe I have little interest in investing TWO vacation days on. I was only around on Saturday, so I could do the 3-hour race, and if the Endurance had been a 10-12 hour race, than, given the situation I've happened into at work (having weekends off), I'd have done the race, but I still wasn't willing to set aside a second day for the full 24-hour event.

And, because I saw little to no interest from anyone else in the community leading up to Spa, I figured there was no need for a post.

I like your Widget @Kenadian , that's a nice addition!

I have time-off scheduled for Petit Le Mans, and I WILL be there for that race.
 

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