What are your iRacing 2021 S4 plans?

[Skid_Marc_]

Just wondering if anyone has put any thought into what they're racing next season?

My goal of weekly staples;
KamelGT - Nissan ZX-Turbo GTP - Wednesday 3:00p EDT(19:00 GMT)/Friday 17:00 EDT (21:00 GMT)
V8 Supercars - Supercars Ford Mustang GT - Thursday/Friday 22:15 EDT (05:15 GMT)
Porsche Cup - Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992) - NA Evening TBD

 

[Deb]

I've been trying to pick a series each week on a track that I know. Even better, if I like the car too I imagine I'll keep doing that. Not sure if I'll be on this Friday though, depends on plans for Labor Day weekend

 

[Kenadian]

I'm probably going to stick with GT3 just because it's good wreck avoidance experience driving with crazies.

Still will do IMSA now and then and maybe some GT3 Cup.

 

[Brainling]

I'm going to be trying to make at least 3/4th's of the IndyCar SoF races this season. They made some big changes to the IndyCar road tire model. I've been trying to find a reason to drive the IndyCar more and this seems as good a time as any.

I'll continue to do anything the P217 is in. It's become my favorite car on the service and I drive it religiously at this point. So depending on what tracks are up I'll try and get a P217 race in every week in IMSA, ESS or P217 Fixed.

 

[Daunt]

GT3 is still my primary drive. GTE or GT4/TCR as secondary cars.

I'm surprised at how diverse the driving selection has gotten here at B2O! I've been wondering why I haven't been able to catch anyone during the week practicing but seems to be a combination of weekend only or no one is really driving GT3 here.

 

[Skid_Marc_]

GT3 is still my primary drive. GTE or GT4/TCR as secondary cars.

I'm surprised at how diverse the driving selection has gotten here at B2O! I've been wondering why I haven't been able to catch anyone during the week practicing but seems to be a combination of weekend only or no one is really driving GT3 here.

Yeah, I think the introduction of GTE kind of split the community. IMO GT3 became less fun. Also, iRacing did a pretty good job with the BoP the last year, or so, but this season the BoP has seemed way off in both classes, and that makes it tough to be excited about when you know your favorite car is just trash. Also, the increased field size makes racing together in the same split almost impossible except for a few of us.

 

[Daunt]

Yeah, I think the introduction of GTE kind of split the community. IMO GT3 became less fun. Also, iRacing did a pretty good job with the BoP the last year, or so, but this season the BoP has seemed way off in both classes, and that makes it tough to be excited about when you know your favorite car is just trash. Also, the increased field size makes racing together in the same split almost impossible except for a few of us.

I think you are spot on with everything there. I've always found GTE more fun and better to drive but I prefer GT3 still. The BOP is horrible. They really need to institute some dynamic automatic bop. Not sure why they haven't. If it's a technical limitation or what. But a BOP that looks at the top splits (min SOF of 2.5k or something) and makes adjustments every race would be fantastic. "Hey everyone is in the BMW and winning?" +5KG. "These cars are at the very bottom" -5KG. Rinse and repeat.

As far as GTE goes, I really do enjoy multiclass racing but I find that because you're racing less drivers (because there are 2/3 other classes) that the competition is much less- and I know that's my own takeaway because I'm not doing the main time slot races but yeah. My thing is, with a full 40 car grid there's more than likely going to be a few guys I can battle with throughout the race. But when that decreases to 10-20 then I feel like there's a lot less action. Again though yes that's just me and my crappy time slots and all.

I get it's difficult to get into the same split but I dunno I personally don't mind it if someone is in a different split we can still chat just a bit or be there to cuss what I hit the wall.

 

[Skid_Marc_]

"Hey everyone is in the BMW and winning?" +5KG. "These cars are at the very bottom" -5KG. Rinse and repeat.

So a really fast guy runs a race in an Audi, gets 5KG slapped on the car, so he doesn't run the next race, but you come along and get slapped with 5kg? Thats dumb. Really dumb. Do you see what car is BoP'd before the race? No one drives that car. Someone has all his buddies run one car and do good so he can have an advantage in a different car for the next race. Thats a knee-jerk, stupid idea. iRacing has done a lot better with the BoP over the last year, or so, it just seems the last season they missed it. They've also had a large influx of GT3/D cars with the BMW, Lambo, and Porsche, so they have a lot of plates spinning.

I do think they should be quicker to do something about it, though. They've done plenty of mid-season updates, I think they definitely should have done something with the GTE's after Daytona.

 

[Skid_Marc_]

Also, it's tough to tell all the reasons why so many people are in Porsches, when Porche is probably the most popular manufacterer in sports cars...

 

[Daunt]

If you're bopping just because of the top finishing car... Or just a few cars where a few buddies can manipulate it... You're not doing it right....

You can see patterns very easily. They collect so much data on so many races I have no idea how you CAN'T collect information to determine what car is fastest.

There's no way you'll convince me there's not a way to automate bop

 

[Daunt]

I said in my post "everyone is winning in the bmw" if the top 10 in the top split are mixed with 4 manufacturers then clearly those cars don't need to be touched. But if the top 10 has one to two cars, then adjustments should obviously be made.

There's a system that can work it's a matter of tweaking it.

 

[Skid_Marc_]

But what if the 10 fastest people are just Porsche lovers? That doesn't mean the Porsche is OP. You've complained about the weather changing race to race, but you're okay with a weight/power change race to race? Every week or two, absolutely. Every race through-out the week? No thanks.

 

[Daunt]

OK I did not say my exact system was perfect- but again a BoP is designed to see PATTERNS. If there are patterns there should be BoP. Whether it is on a nightly basis, or weekly, or monthly, we are dealing in a pattern. Not a one off event of hey ten cars ran and all finished top ten. BoP time.

Why is there a BoP at the end of this season, likely to give more weight to the BMW?? Because we saw a pattern of everyone using and winning in the BMW.

Did we really need 12 weeks to establish the strongest cars? Not in the slightest. We can see patterns in just a few races sometimes. Sometimes it may emerge after a few weeks. I don't understand that you recognize that there needs to be a BoP but what- are you just guessing or... is there data that you're looking at? Perhaps we could utilize that data in a way that isn't just "hey let's guess at what to add to or take away from what car"....

Every week or two is too slow to react but automated boping every week or two is better than what they're doing.

I'd pay you five bucks if you could guess correctly if you were racing a +5, 0 or -5 KG weight seven out of ten times. That is without looking / directly comparing lap or sector times. So I am not sure why it would make a difference if my weight from monday was different for my friday race.

 

[Daunt]

Even race labs can gather the data...

Granted that's only the top 20 but any BoP would look at more than just that, but if you look at that data, you can't tell me there's not something that can automate BoPing what is gathered from all the races.

 

[Kenadian]

I really don't think it's as simple as slapping a weight penalty on cars to slow them down and vice versa to speed them up. If the system was easy then iRacing would likely have made it happen as they know a lot more about the system than all of our combination of input here.

I did find something interesting on Reddit though in regards to BOP at Interlagos and why the BMW was quicker than other cars that week. Apparently it's due to a combination of altitude and the BMW running more Turbo Boost than the other cars it was compared to, in this case the McLaren and Ferrari.

Legend: BMW, McLaren, Ferrari

My guess is it's very, very complicated and probably based on everything if the above graphic is any indication. For all we know BOP takes into account temperature, humidity, altitude, track state, road compound, tire wear and heat distribution, time of day, rear and side view mirror adjustments, empty candy wrappers in the glove box, whether or not you shaved, had a big lunch or just took a p00p, etc.

Lastly, I think higher iR Drivers or wannabe's tend to focus on this stuff more than the bulk of iRacing's Membership.

I've been watching this guy on Twitch called Piltdownman (I think it is) and he's approx. 1.2 K iRating and there's a pretty good distribution of manufacturers in his splits.

I do agree it sux to see all one manufacturer in a race and wish it were different but iRacing's system allows for it. I'd much rather see series where you're locked into a manufacturer for the entire season but I'm very sure I'm a minority in this regard. Plus, iRacing simply cannot force anything as it's all about options, remove them and people will play something else.

 

[Daunt]

Such a system would mean all those things don't matter. You're overcomplicating it. Boost, Track state, temp, humidity, altitude, road compound etc etc. It doesn't care about any of that. All it needs to do is adjust the cars so that the pros are turning similar lap times with all cars. Whether it looks at 10 races, or 2 weeks, or a whole season, all it needs to do is gather data on how popular cars are and where they're finishing and adjust. The system will self-right with these minute adjustments.

It really is that simple. What is the worst that could happen with such a system? We BoP too often? OK then push out how often the BoP rolls out.

And yes there needs to be a fair enough sample size to adjust. It will not BoP based on 1 result, or 10 results. It will need a good amount of results from all the cars.

But a week like Interlagos would NEVER happen in this system (assuming it BoP'd often enough), as it would've been BoP'd mid-week considering everyone was using it and it set the fastest race laps by a long shot.

 

[Daunt]

And sorry to hijack thread.

 

[Kenadian]

Such a system would mean all those things don't matter. You're overcomplicating it. Boost, Track state, temp, humidity, altitude, road compound etc etc. It doesn't care about any of that. All it needs to do is adjust the cars so that the pros are turning similar lap times with all cars. Whether it looks at 10 races, or 2 weeks, or a whole season, all it needs to do is gather data on how popular cars are and where they're finishing and adjust. The system will self-right with these minute adjustments.

It really is that simple. What is the worst that could happen with such a system? We BoP too often? OK then push out how often the BoP rolls out.

And yes there needs to be a fair enough sample size to adjust. It will not BoP based on 1 result, or 10 results. It will need a good amount of results from all the cars.

But a week like Interlagos would NEVER happen in this system (assuming it BoP'd often enough), as it would've been BoP'd mid-week considering everyone was using it and it set the fastest race laps by a long shot.

If it were that simple it would be done already. I think you're assuming way too much off minimal knowledge of what iRacing actually does to create BOP in the first place.

Why not post this question at iRacings Forum and see what feedback you get there?

 

[Jes_971]

I'll be racing in a car on a track at some point in time.

 

[Ogami Itto]

This is cute that anyone thinks iRacing has any interest in BoPing a new car down to existing choices in category without several months of 'analysis'. In the meantime if you choose not to buy, well you can guess the results.