Postponing League for the Endurance Season

[SavreticD]

It would be fun to drive every week something else, even free cars like SRF,SR8 and things like that.I Don't care about standing, fun is more important and remember guys how fun was Porsche in week 13 when we had, so cool and fun that race it was

I had a few fun races with Arjuna team, we drove...omg I don't know,some crappy oval car on Sonoma,jizz guys,how hard was that but so much fun because that struggle to drive that thing

 

[Nejtun]

So, as suggested we had a little meeting on TS regarding how to move forward for league nights/ practice pals.
Thanks for all that showed but we were a bit thin on numbers so decided to continue the discussion here to make sure that anyone who wanted to express an opinion or put forward some idea's may have a say.

We came up with a couple of options, but PLEASE throw your ideas forward so we can get something together as soon as possible.

Please bear in mind that for the time that the league time on a Friday that we can all get together is around 3-4 hours currently so anything that adds extra admin duties is going to stretch someone eventually to the point where things just aren't practical (and that usually means Ken, so lets try not to give him any extra work to do)

The two things we came up with initially last night were:

1. We use the Porsche GT3 cup car (I think most people own that), continue with B2O branding for practice pals, then on league night we join an official race which would not only give us a full field but also push the brand/community for those racing that may want to join in with other events like endurance, or anything else we may play.

The Porsche at that time of night is still populated but not so much that the race would split and possibly separate us. Sure, we are all in teamspeak together even if the race did split but for me being in TS and in the same race at the same time adds to the fun. For others just being all together in TS works just as well so please give your thoughts on this one.

2. We run league in its current format but switch to some of iracing's newer content to hopefully attract more new faces, One suggestion for this was using GTE cars, similar to the GT3s we are already driving and pretty well BoP'ed this season IMO, the same GT3 schedule can be followed to make track organisation easier and as far as I know, everyone in league currently has a GTE car.

We discussed the idea of multiclass briefly but we don't really have the numbers (currently) to support that and it is also a scoring and admin difficulty that again adds extra admin to something that really doesn't need anymore than the great deal it currently has.

This is what we came up with from just a handful of us so please speak up if you have any suggestions so we can put it to a community vote. Please also note that this is based on what I took away from the meeting and is no way anything set in stone!

Bring it on!

 

[Deb]

Nate, I like either of these ideas. If we do official races, I would prefer we could all be in the same split because to me it is driving with the members that is the most fun. I can drive with a bunch of strangers any time. I get we would all be in TS if not in the same split, but we wouldn't be experiencing the same race and that is what makes it fun to me to be in a league, the interaction between the members on the track.

The issue I see with official races goes to IR. Would it change the dynamic now that IR comes into play and would it be almost impossible for the newer or slower drivers to maintain or increase IR. So this could create an even more frustrating experience for new drivers. The solution would be to run in a Hosted Session, but open to others and post it is a Band of Others Session. That would promote the team and hopefully bring in drivers that are curious about Band Of Others.

Or for that matter, we could even keep the GT3 series and run a Friday night race as an HS and open it to all, posting it as a Band of Others session. I think that would help attract new members, have more folks in the race and make it more exciting for the folks watching the streams. It seems the GT3 series are the most popular so may have the best change of attracting new members.

Porsche cup, GTE or GT3 are all fine with me.

 

[SavreticD]

GTE is my vote
I don't drive Porsche or GTE but anyway it should be fun to learn

 

[Noodleguitar]

Crap, sorry, I forgot about that meeting. I like the idea of merging us into an official race as we never really had the numbers to run a full grid ourselves. I guess the Porsche GT3 is a favorite because it is easy to drive and the races are not very popular? Is it still fixed setup and a race of 25 minutes?

I don't really see the issue with iRating, it should be balanced out by iRacing's system. From what I've seen it screws over low iRating drivers only if there are a lot of high iRating drivers in the same split, which won't be the case. In addition, people unfamiliar with the track in that week will have the practice leading up to it to discuss lines / braking points or get help from the ones who know the track well for example.

I believe V8s Americas used to run their tournament in official races as well. They kept the standings published on the official forums and included all drivers in the session. That might be an idea to get new people interested as well.

 

[Deb]

Just a thought, but why not try both? Like we could do a Porsche Cup series in an official race starting the week after Petit Le Mans through Thanksgiving. Then from Thanksgiving to Christmas we could do GTEs in an HS limited to 20 or 30 cars (or vice versa, whatever). That way we could see what members like the best and what best promotes B2O and streaming.

 

[Jes_971]

I like both and ideas and think (as Deb does) that they should both be explored. I feel the official session idea is one that could have some unforeseen pros/cons that we might not notice until actually doing it. Which is why it would be a good idea to just "Give'r a go".

 

[Noodleguitar]

A correction from me: I saw "Porsche GT3" and had the RUF GT3 car in mind, which is why I mentioned it being easy to drive. The Porsche cup car is actually not easy to drive but much more fun if you ask me. Those races are also not fixed setup are they?

 

[Nejtun]

The Porsche GT3 Cup is open set up @Noodleguitar but they really aren't very complicated, pretty sure you have less options than a GT3 car right?

 

[Sam Roselaar]

Any interest in the mx5? It's super easy to drive yet i think a lot of people here can learn loads from driving the mx5. It's also known for allowing extremely close battles which would be great for a community.

I know it's not really a popular car but it's alot of fun. My vote goes to mx5 but i will most likely join with porsche cup aswell.

 

[TokyoGwB]

I like the idea of the Porsche Cup car. I am not fast in any car, but might be fun to learn especially in an official race.

 

[Arjuna Kankipati]

I know I'm late to the party, but wanted to throw my 2 cents in. I've missed almost 2 months of B2O because I've had family visiting me, and I just finished relocating from Atlanta to San Francisco. Now that I've settled in and gotten my rig fully setup, I was looking forward to joining the group on a regular basis again (especially since now I don't have to walk and feed my dog during the races, I can wait to do that after with a 4:30 PT start ).

Even with low grids (I think the lowest I've been a part of has been 8 cars?), B2O is always super fun for me and is something I look forward to, and feel disappointed when I have to miss it. I had initially joined because I wanted to focus a bit on the GT3 cars (which aren't my favorite in iracing), so potentially switching the cars does sound interesting to me! Denis mentioned that I have organized some fun races with my own team, in which we will just choose any car and track that everyone owns that would provide good racing, but to do this on a weekly basis as a league would end up being tiresome I think. Between the GTEs and the 911 Cup car, my preference would be the GTE car - but I would be extremely happy with any of the newer content that iRacing has put out. I feel a night and day difference in the FFB with the newer cars; they are super engaging to drive, and when in races, I find it hard not to be smiling

 

[Skid_Marc_]

I never wanted to see the league go away, but the entertainment has run out for me in GT3. I feel really bad for @Kenadian as I know the Blancpain Sprint Series is his favorite series, and I think that both the BSS and BES, and GT3 championships everywhere are still some of the best road racing championships out there IRL, and I think that is backed up by just how many there are out there. I mean, seriously; 24H Series, ADAC GT Masters, Asian Le Mans Series, Australian GT Championship, Blancpain GT Series Asia, BES, BSS, British GT Championship, FIA GT World Cup, Michelin Le Mans Cup, Intercontinental GT Challenge, International GT Open, Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring (totally didn't copy/paste that, and sure, I CAN say it out loud, but don't ask me, because I will just CHOOSE not to! ), and WeatherTech SportsCar Championships, as well as series that allow these cars to compete along-side other cars competitively such as Pirelli World Challenge and Super GT! I don't see anything wrong with the cars in real life, I just blame iRacing for their "mishandling" of the series. (To be clear, I don't know whether or not it was completely their fault. I have no idea to the behind-the-scenes workings of iRacing. I just don't think that what iRacing provides under the "GT3" banner compares in quality to their other offerings.

Continuing the league needs a few things, but mostly I think of Consistency and Sustainability. There are leagues out there that go track to track, AND car to car, each week, but I think that that becomes hard to maintain for multiple seasons. Also, there is the cost issue. Running a dedicated league requires hosted sessions not just for the league, but also for practice through-out the week. In my opinion, the best direction for small leagues like ourselves is to follow an existing series, like what we were doing with the GT3 league. This allows us to use open practice sessions during the week for practice, resulting in the only cost for running league races are the race sessions themselves.

Two things that admittedly I'll take all, or at least most of, the blame for in leading to the demise of our previous league is maintaining posts on the forum, and maintaining the championship points. While I know a lot of us aren't cut-throat competitors, I think there has to be a sense of order, and a sense of competition to keeping this league going, and those are both points that I failed with in the previous league.

As far as getting back on it's feet, I am on board!

I am a huge fan of the Porsche, and would have no issues going in that direction, but I think a modern version of the FIA GT1 World Championship, using the iRacing GTE cars, would be pretty sweet.

I also think it brings with it two huge benefits;

1. Popularity
2. Extra Track Choice

Obviously, the first one is self-explanatory. There is a lot of love for the GTE cars, overall. They're all relevant to the last two years, they're fun to drive, and they are very well BoP'd, from what I've seen. If we want to draw people to the league, it is easiest to draw from the largest pool.

Another advantage of the GTE cars is that they are used in two different iRacing.com official series; IMSA and iLMS. This means that each week we could have two tracks to practice for. We'd just throw up a vote each week for IMSA vs iLMS, and whichever track people like is the one we'll run. This would enable us to easily avoid instances where a series is going to a track no-one likes and we have to come up with a replacement!

The largest downside would be avoiding other classes in our practice session, but considering some of our drivers would drive at LMP1 speeds while others would be similar in pace to GT3's, it wouldn't be that much of an issue! *Joke!* But seriously, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a quiet practice session, especially at the times that we usually practice in mass.