B2O League Penalty System Simplification

[Kenadian]

After Fridays League race at Zandvoort, it's become increasingly clear that we're in need of a simple system that is easy to understand, consistent and (mostly) self-policing.

I'm just going to speak about 3 incidents I was personally involved in and hope the conversation grows from there. Essentially, I want a simple rule set that covers most issues under the same blanket so people will know what to do when things happen on track.

Also, please be aware that this is not a witch hunt so if you're name comes up it's only in the context of the racing incident. The one thing you'll come to realize about our League is it's about continually advancing it and bettering the Racing Experience for everyone!

As a League it is in our collective best interests to offer what iRacing does not and that is fun, clean racing at all times. Yes, incidents are always going to happen but if we can find ways to minimize them and police them immediately with no fanfare we'll continue to stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Qualify Race: Kyle and Ken T1

Kyle, even though I'm the one who got turned and knocked out of the points I actually felt worse for you than myself. This is why on the last turn I handed you the position as you refused to pass me on the previous lap when I nearly drove into the wall on the final turn.

You and I were racing hard, you had far better pace but I did not want to let go of 2nd place.

It ended in a punt that spun me in T1 and I knew you felt bad for it. I felt bad for you feeling bad which is kinda stupid lol but there it is.

You were very gentlemanly and waited for me to catch up losing several positions in the process as well.

Main Race: Ken spins Kyle after severe punt by Aki

I felt about an inch tall on this one Kyle because I had no control of my car and you paid for it.

In viewing the replay, it was quite clear that Aki hadn't even thought of braking until only feet away from my bumper.

I don't want to speak for Aki but it appears as if 1 of 2 things were running through his head at this point given our discussions over Twitch:

1. He felt there was plenty of room to the right where I'd move to allow him to sling shot past me. Although empirically correct it makes no sense given the right side of the track is not the race line and nobody in front of me was making this move.
2. Aki lost track of where he was which I think is far more likely given how many positions he'd gained in only 1 turn.

Again I don't want to speak for you here Aki but I have to post something as this incident was completely avoidable and Kyle suffered for it.

It could easily have been both Kyle and me but for some reason my car remained undamaged and pointing forward.

Pace Lap: Noel car contact resulting in 4x

I'd be remiss if I didn't state this was by far the most agitating incident I've been involved in to date.

I'm sorry but car contact during a Pace Lap is ridiculous and just should not happen. What would have been worse is if that 4x gained me a -point in the scoring.

...

I know Davey had some issues as well so hopefully we can gain some insight from what they were and rule on them.

...

Now since we're doing our best to emulate Blancpain it's probably best we do so where possible in the rules.

There's a lot of rules to go over which I'm guessing we'll tackle over time but today's flavor seems to be one centered around "Avoidable Car Contact".

More specifically Avoidable Car Contact resulting in loss of control

I think there's a very easy rule we can apply to Avoidable Car Contact resulting in loss of control and that is a Pit Lane Drive Through Penalty. Blancpain uses this currently so I see no reason to just adopt it here.

I believe Drivers are allowed up to 3 laps to serve this penalty but it's up to us if we want to wait that long or just force Drivers to serve it immediately.

As for Pace Lap Avoidable Contact my preference is to make that a -1 in the scoring. Serving a Drive Through for it is ridiculous but it is harsh enough I think to ensure people don't goof off on the Pace Lap.

I know this may seem a bit harsh for Pace Laps but honestly we have several people streaming as well as creating YouTube content for these races. Car Contact, driving off track and/or in the Pace Car just looks bad especially when trying to grow a League.

...

Lastly this leaves us with Aki who did not serve any type of penalty for his contact.

Again, I'm not picking on you here Aki, just trying to learn from the incident.

Now since the possibility exists that cars can get together and change the entire race outcome in the closing laps of a race this is something we need to consider. The reason for is that it's entirely possible that Drivers won't have enough laps remaining to even serve a penalty.

For this I'd suggest that if no penalty is served then it must be served in the very next equal event. This means that if your incident is during a Qualify Race then it will not affect your next Main Race, only your next Qualify Race (and vice versa).

Given our Qualify Race has a different (and much lower) point scoring structure, it would be unfair to EOL someone in the Main Race for an incident in the Qualify Race.

In Blancpain penalties happen in the very next race but given our point structure I think it's only fair we err on the side of balance here.

Of course I'm just offering this up as a suggestion, if you guys feel differently then please say so.

The one point I will stick with though is the high importance of creating a system where the same penalty can be easily handed out (and enforced) for most incidents.

Drive through penalties are used all the time in Blancpain as are EOL's so where possible I'd like to incorporate them here.

 

[Noodleguitar]

Good discussion. I believe this is the sort of system we were already trying to apply in the league but it wasn't fully clear until now.

The pace lap contact was a bit silly I agree. I'll happily give away the point in the standings but if it were a drive through penalty I would have mind that a lot more, just because there were more factors involved.

For example, the field was checking up and accelerating which is not necessary if you ask me with a pace car that does 60 km/h and isn't near hairpins. The second is that I could have braked harder, but I'm aware that there are cars behind me as well so I always try to avoid hard braking on pace laps. I thought we weren't going to hit, but I knew if we did it would be a 0x or no registered incident at all. Somehow iRacing turned that into a 4x but I suppose that is my fault for not taking into account netcode.

 

[Daunt]

That was an extremely frustrating race (and quali race) for me. Being so fast yet being able to do almost nothing. Regardless it didn't excuse my T1 punt in the qualify race and I ended up extremely pissed with the result. I feel like I still shouldn't have been given a better result than you.

Was hoping to bounce back during the main race but was shot down fast. I gave up a big run on the start (again- this time i even broke so I didn't go 3 wide) to be patient and stay behind noodle, given that it was a 50 minute race, and I got punted :/

That's the most frustrating thing for me is losing a race on the first lap. You feel like you've got a good chance for a win, let alone a podium and 10 seconds into a 50 minute race you've already lost.

I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to this philosophy, because I'm cursed with superhuman starting abilities, but I've yet to cause any sort of crash because of it. Still I probably should dial back given how much everyone yells at me.

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In regards to Davey's incident, I believe at the start of the Q race, I'd probably be at fault though I'd defend myself as a possible racing incident. I don't recall who, but I was following behind a Ford (Grant?) and Noel, who were going in 2-wide into T3 (slow lefthander). The ford went too high and looked like it was going into the wall so rather than slam on the brakes I went underneath (where there was room, believe it or not).

Turns out he was able to save from hitting the wall so we ended up 3-wide. At that point I wiggle a tad, touched Noel, bounced up into the Ford. Upon exiting, Davey's Ford ran into the back of my Audi and it caused him to spin.

 

[Kenadian]

@ Noel, you don't need to give up anything here my friend so don't worry. Up until now we've not really discussed this at length so this topic is about clearing the air and making things as clear as possible for everyone.

I admit I was probably a bit passionate in my original post but it's because I've actually been bothered by the Pace Lap for some time now and this just set me off.

I really don't remember there being that much checking up but if we run into that sort of thing we can act on it as well.

@ Kyle, I gave up the position as I felt you deserved it. If we were in a Race where no level of guilt was present you would have easily overtaken me on the straight when I botched the turn. I could see you braking so as not to overtake which I just couldn't live with.

It was your position regardless of what happened in T1 so I felt good about handing it over.

Yes T1 was unfortunate but it's part of racing so we need to expect it at some level and assign consistent penalties for it. If people go into these races with a better understanding of what the risks are then they may be more careful.

This is why I like the Pit Drive Through System.

3-wide is always going to be a tough call and may end up being assigned Post Race; it may be the only way.

It may be the car that made it 3-wide takes the blame should an incident occur but I can't say, we'd have to look at it further.

I think as we progress we'll find a lot of room for clarity when it comes to how we determine fault when car contact is made.

 

[Aksuli83]

Main Race: Ken spins Kyle after severe punt by Aki

I felt about an inch tall on this one Kyle because I had no control of my car and you paid for it.

In viewing the replay, it was quite clear that Aki hadn't even thought of braking until only feet away from my bumper.

I don't want to speak for Aki but it appears as if 1 of 2 things were running through his head at this point given our discussions over Twitch:

1. He felt there was plenty of room to the right where I'd move to allow him to sling shot past me. Although empirically correct it makes no sense given the right side of the track is not the race line and nobody in front of me was making this move.
2. Aki lost track of where he was which I think is far more likely given how many positions he'd gained in only 1 turn.

Again I don't want to speak for you here Aki but I have to post something as this incident was completely avoidable and Kyle suffered for it.

It could easily have been both Kyle and me but for some reason my car remained undamaged and pointing forward.

...

Lastly this leaves us with Aki who did not serve any type of penalty for his contact.

Again, I'm not picking on you here Aki, just trying to learn from the incident.

As talked in stream, my brain just farted there and I forgot the concertina effect of everyone slowing down a bit earlier to the corner than the car ahead.
I wasn't looking for an opening in that corner or anything like that. I passed 4 guys in T1 in the middle, where I put my car pretty gently and not just throwing it in there hoping for a hole, while hearing Daveys reaction "cmon Aki it's 50 minute race". I knew that, I also knew that my pace for once was on Noels area, which isn't happening that often, so I didn't want to let him get too far ahead.
And I know the contact on you, which lead to you hitting Kyle, was avoidable, and I did admit it right after it happened that I done bad..

While I can't change what happened in that race, I'd also like to point out that it's easy to watch it on 1/8th speed slowmotion and wonder why it takes so long for me to react to your brakes being on. But what you didn't notice was that I reacted to your brakes in less than a second and tried to go on the left side of road with brakes on wishing that I wouldn't hit, and not to follow the race line which surely would have caused a contact, which happened anyway.
Though pointing out what I did is useless, when I didn't originally do what I should have done.

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You are not picking on me but I'll just want to point out and ask that how much did I rage when I was turned in on Sonoma or MoSports first lap first corners. Sure those contacts weren't as hard, while they still were "1st lap contacts/moves/fails" that gave me damage that slowed the pace down.

 

[Kenadian]

You are not picking on me but I'll just want to point out and ask that how much did I rage when I was turned in on Sonoma or MoSports first lap first corners. Sure those contacts weren't as hard, while they still were "1st lap contacts/moves/fails" that gave me damage that slowed the pace down.

Aki, nobody is raging here and as I stated, nobody is being fingered either.

We've come a long way in this League to date but there is a long, long way to go before we have it fully flushed out.

This post exists as a natural progression of how our League is maturing. It isn't about picking on each other, it's about learning from what happens on track.

Up until now we've made little effort to be clear and consistent when things happen on track which is what I'm trying to address here.

Yes Sonoma sucked for you and we spoke at length about Mosport. The problem is that we never formalized anything into some sort of system which is what I'm trying to do now.

Everything that's lead up to now has been League testing in my opinion. Now that we're actually starting our marketing campaign for the League it's time to button up the loose ends which is what we're doing now.

Rest assured, this topic is going to be lively for the next 12 weeks so I suggest everyone who reads realize all we're doing is taking incidents and finding ways to rule on them in game.

We do not have Course Marshall's like they do in Blancpain so our system will rely almost solely on real-time decisions of League Drivers.

 

[Daunt]

And I know the contact on you, which lead to you hitting Kyle, was avoidable, and I did admit it right after it happened that I done bad...

Aki, don't worry about it. If you're a consistent / clean driver it will be forgotten. I can tolerate being punted by someone once and a while. Obviously it's when a driver has multiple punts to his name and very crappy, aggressive driving all the time is when it gets to be an issue.

Shit happens, even with the best of intentions, and so unless you punt someone again each of the next two races, I'm not too worried / angry.

 

[Nejtun]

Regarding the race where kyle came through the pack quickly, it was my Ford that took the slap and the aero damage. My car was wide on purpose to make sure the car inside wasn't going to give me any contact at all while the very tight field shuffled through a particularly narrow part of the track and not an invitation for a 3rd car to squeeze its way through with the disastrous results.
A good example is when Davey got his car fixed he caught me back up very quickly indeed a simple " I am on your right" from him over TS and neither of use lost any time at all. No need for him to muscle his way past me and no need for me to try to hold him up. worked out great with just a moments thought from us both.

Personally for a league race I think turn 1 or 2 incidents are totally avoidable, especially if you are doing reverse grids putting the slower people at the front.
The fast people are clearly going to come by fairly soon in the race so if they all need to be in P1 on lap 1 I would sooner the grids ( from my point of view ) were not reversed at all.
I don't mind being gridded up according to how fast I am as it gives me something to chase and hopefully improve where as when the grid is reversed I am guaranteed to have someone much faster than me wanting to come by, so I either hold them up or let them go, either way is not as much fun as trying to keep up and give chase.

As it happened I had to do the first race with a damaged car and the second ( didn't even make it to turn two before being smacked off the circuit) with annoying aero damage until 25 minutes in when I could use my free repair, at which point I had a much more fun second half of the race with a working car.

I am not terribly concerned with having to dish out in-race penalties (whether for me or someone else ) I would prefer we didn't race like it was official/public and all use our heads on the opening lap so the whole race is enjoyable for everyone. I am pretty sure everyone knows what they are doing behind the wheel of a GT3, I am easily one of the slowest on the circuit and I am confident I know what is going on so the faster guys should too

 

[Stephen Schumph]

Good healthy discussion here... and a good part of the reason I joined this league - the desire to keep contact to a minimum.

There will always be race incidents but I think it is healthy to review them and think of ways to minimize them. I, for one, am sure that I will be the focus of a discussion and penalty at some point soon... we are all human and will have our good and bad nights. That is not to say that we can't learn from the bad ones.

I can't comment on the incidents in the last race as I didn't see them; however, I really appreciate folks taking the time to discuss how to limit and learn from them.

 

[Haff]

In regards to Davey's incident, I believe at the start of the Q race, I'd probably be at fault though I'd defend myself as a possible racing incident. I don't recall who, but I was following behind a Ford (Grant?) and Noel, who were going in 2-wide into T3 (slow lefthander). The ford went too high and looked like it was going into the wall so rather than slam on the brakes I went underneath (where there was room, believe it or not).

Turns out he was able to save from hitting the wall so we ended up 3-wide. At that point I wiggle a tad, touched Noel, bounced up into the Ford. Upon exiting, Davey's Ford ran into the back of my Audi and it caused him to spin.

I've just taken a look at the replay of the Qualifying Race to investigate. I started 2nd last due to switching cars, with only Kane behind me as he had just joined. You'll have to forgive me for not knowing the names of everyone here yet, but if Noel is Noodleguitar, then I believe the incident you're referring to is where Nejtun Cameron almost loses it in the first lap, 3rd turn. It looks as though you pinch down a bit on Noel, there's a small amount of contact, your car starts getting sideways into him, then his noses forces you straight again and into Nejtun. I could cut out that bit of the replay and host it somewhere (dropbox?) if you'd like.

 

[Daunt]

Regarding the race where kyle came through the pack quickly, it was my Ford that took the slap and the aero damage. My car was wide on purpose to make sure the car inside wasn't going to give me any contact at all while the very tight field shuffled through a particularly narrow part of the track and not an invitation for a 3rd car to squeeze its way through with the disastrous results.
A good example is when Davey got his car fixed he caught me back up very quickly indeed a simple " I am on your right" from him over TS and neither of use lost any time at all. No need for him to muscle his way past me and no need for me to try to hold him up. worked out great with just a moments thought from us both.

No one is trying to blame you, nor am I saying I'm not at fault here. If any blame is assigned, it is certainly on me. As Haff says, you almost lose it in T3 and in the moment, I decided rather than check up and risk being punted by quite a few fast cars behind me, I went below you. Clearly it was a mistake, as the result of everything shows. There's no way I could call out anything fast enough over comms, that works well enough when you have a run on someone on the main straight but not here.

Usually though I do try to warn anyone when I'm starting to wiggle so cars behind me know I may be milliseconds away from spinning and dying. I think most people are good at that... occiasionaly you'll hear Noodle's warning, as it sounds like a ghost from Scooby Doo. Communication in a race is a big advantage.

If you want to post that video to youtube from a few different angles, sure. But there's nothing much to dispute here.

 

[Kenadian]

Definitely a lot of good points being raised here guys, very much appreciated as I'm sure all will help us iron out the issues eventually.

Just to reiterate though, at no time is anyone to personalize anything being said here. All we're doing is taking incidents from the Track to the Forum to decide how to minimize there impact.

3-wide:

In reading the responses above I would love to say "OK folks, 3-wide from this day forward is a Drive Through Penalty" but I can't do that. It's both unfair and completely unrealistic.

If someone is parked in front of me when the lights go green I'm going to try and get past where possible. Having said that the onus is on me to not just pass that car safely but to ensure I do not put the car next to him in danger.

I do very much understand the frustration 3-wide brings as I too felt it at Montreal where I had to dodge a 3-wide dive. It was a 0x and luckily all cars made it through but it could have been (and probably should have been since I got on the grass) much worse.

I think what we'll need to do is make 3-wide in the opening lap something that is examined post race and penalized accordingly. We have enough people here to make the decision while I create the Session and Grid for the next event.

Avoidable Car Contact (In General):

Is everyone ok with me just assigning this as a Pit Drive Through Penalty? I think it's just a no-brainer to do this and it's something everyone can remember.

Given a choice over serving it immediately or within a 3-lap window my personal preference is to have Drivers serve it immediately.

Please share your thoughts.

Inverse Grid Qualify Race:

The core reason for Inverse Grid is because without it Aliens Alien and are never seen again. It is about challenging them at the highest level and it keeps them in the Race far longer than anything iRacing does.

It does need to be re-iterated however this is an "opt in/out" Inverse Grid Race. I knew when setting it up that it would not be for everyone so those who don't want to grid Inverse can be placed at the end of the field.

Assuming multiple Drivers opt out all I need is a little help from someone who's still in Session to tell me the Driver order as I set up the next Session.

Just so everyone understands though, the Inverse Grid is what makes us unique so if possible I want to keep it.

While its true slightly slower Drivers are at the front it is not as if you're being run over either. There is a bumper or cushion effect in Inverse Grid where the fastest among us are behind Drivers who are only slightly slower than they are.

In fact, the entire field is populated with Drivers who are only slightly off pace to the cars behind them. If we all race smart then this should not be an issue.

To be clear though, just because I want to keep it doesn't mean it will be kept. As our fields grow it may become difficult to keep this format but I'd rather the racing tell us this rather than speculate on it.

To date I've not seen Inverse Grid cause any significant issues that I would not have seen in a typical iRacing GT3 Race.

Your mileage may vary.

...

In conclusion I believe what we're doing here puts us miles ahead of everyone else. We have a very unique format that is highly social and communicative in nature.

As we grow this League we will experience growing pains, I just need everyone to realize while frustrating at times, these are all positives.

Let's collectively learn from them, create policy to deal with issues and enjoy the fruits of our labor both in Teamspeak an on the track.

Thank you all for you very valuable feedback, please keep it coming!

 

[Stephen Schumph]

Avoidable contact = drive through - completely agree with the no brainer comment.

Inverse grid - I agree with the view that it is part of what makes the league unique and would prefer to keep it.

 

[Kenadian]

As of this Friday all avoidable contact resulting in loss of control (for the Lead Driver) will result in a Drive Through Penalty.

Now I'm sure there will sometimes be extenuating circumstances where someone feels the car contact was not entirely their fault. If this is ever the case then just race on and we'll assess the situation post race.

If it is deemed you deserved the Drive Through Penalty then you'll have to serve it in the next Race.

Always remember though, if you are the trailing car it is your responsibility to get past the car in front of you cleanly.

 

[Aksuli83]

Where the heck is the button to not watch some thread?

 

[Kenadian]

Where the heck is the button to not watch some thread?

At the top of each page.

You can also do it in your Profile too: http://bandofothersgaming.com/community/watched/threads