League Concerns

[smattocks]

All,


I started this new topic to be a One Stop area for individuals to Voice their concerns – I do not see such an area anywhere else on the board.

Concern 1 - Schedule
 It is my understanding that the league will mimic the NASCAR/iRacing  Xfinity schedule; however, the current schedule does not lend itself to that model

Suggestion 1
End the current season, as of the Iowa race, forgo the chase, and begin the next season with Dayton (NASCAR) schedule; or
Finish the current season but switch over to the NASCAR schedule beginning with the Daytona race. Races should be held the Sunday before the iRacing switches to the next track on the schedule.

Concern 2 – Penalty/Reward Points
The current penalty model is a good system, IMO; however, there seems to be some inconsistencies;
Significant glaring variations in penalty/reward points exist.
Penalties/rewards points are not administered equally, some drivers receive more, some drivers receive less for the same actions  

Suggestion 2
Continue to post penalty points per race and aggregately
Conduct a prerace review of previous point getters
Remind all drivers pre/post race to review points and provide feedback

Concern 3 – Group Practice in Actual Race Conditions
We fail to conduct any meaningful pit parties.  Trying to conduct a pit party 5 min before the race is hollow.

Suggestion 3
Conduct at least three mandatory pit parties (45/30/15 minutes) before each race.  This give each drive an opportunity to test (in traffic), make appropriate changes, evaluate the changes, and tweak before the actual race.

 

[soupflakes]

I like all of these except the point penalty system. Here is my problem with it. The harshness of the penalty is far too high for a no blame penalty system. I agree that if you get higher than normal some of that is you. No arguments there. However, I'll use my Richmond race as an example. There were 4 incidents that I reviewed that pretty much only way to avoid was to sit out. Now. If my car wasn't competitive any more than fine, but they were stupid minor incidents. And if the argument is you should park it, well, that's a problem. That's like Alabama saying hey were undefeated and going to be in the playoffs, so were going to sit out a game and not risk any injuries. No way would anyone do that. And we shouldn't reward that kind of competitiveness. All my opinion.

Lastly the harshness. Here's my biggest problem, the penalty for a no blame system is essentially ending someone's season. So it's no longer about racing, it's about playing the incident game.

I agree with the incident limit. However it's an extremely harsh penalty for a no blame system. I would recommend a 15 point penalty and maybe even eol. That's enough to hurt but it's not devastating.

I'm not mad at All, just my opinions on the matter and Steven put up a league concerns thread. So its his fault.

 

[soupflakes]

Lastly and i don't know how to filox this or even if it needs to be fixed. But or league has changed. My opinion again, but here's what I see.

Competition has gotten very good and individual teams work together. In fact I would say competition has really improved and I have gotten to be a faster driver because of it. However: this came at a cost. And that was league camaraderie and cohesion. Gone are the days of 8 or 9 of us hanging out all night long bsing doing stupid miata races and goofing around and building league morale. It's gotten very segmented and individualistic, and we have definitely lost that league cohesion.

So. In summary. We have greatly increased competition but at the price of league cohesion and camaraderie.  Just look at ts. Used to be one lobby. Now everyone sits in their own channels. It's understandable. But different.

If this is the direction of the league, then so be it that's the case. And that's fine. Ok rant over. Again don't construe this as Paul's pissed off. I don't get pissed off much.

 

[soupflakes]

Also I want to specify it's not necessarily a bad thing. Just a change.

 

[BrandonMassey]

What I am about to post will be longer but will address some concerns.

 

[BrandonMassey]

Since a post was made, I will allow a glimmer into the thinking and planning we have already done for next season. Keep in mind that nothing I say is final as it is still early into our planning and we only have a rough idea about what we want to do.

Concern/ suggestion 1: 
The reason for racing at the end of the week is purposeful. People get to build and test a setup all week long, at their convenience and test it by actually racing against others in multiple weather patterns. This also saves the League and our drivers money by having hundreds of practice servers open to them during the week. Once again these servers run 24/7 the week of a race and people who are limited by a work or travel schedule can practice just as much as anyone else.


We will not be racing the week before, I am sorry but the above was the only reason we began following the schedule besides not forcing drivers to build 2 setups a week. This also allows people who don't know the first thing about a setup to go to the iRacing forums and get a setup and learn as they go. 


Concern 2: 
First let me start off by saying that I am glad you like the current system. There is not a person on the management team that does not believe the current system is without faults. However I go with the Sammy Holmes system and that means not changing it during the season but seeing the issues and correcting them. 

The current system will stay in place as is but with a modified changing of the penalty structure. This is how it would have worked had I agreed to change it mid season(spoiler, I didn't). 
[ul]
[li]35 incident points - 50% reduction in points earned for the race you hit 35 in.(You get 20 points, reduced to 10 points) This would count as "probation" and therefore could be used as a drop week.[/li]
[li]55 incident points - Race suspension, points not reset and can't be used as a drop week.[/li]
[li]75 points - driver would race their way back in for their seat or be demoted to the truck series depending on which system we can actually run next season.[/li]
[/ul]
As it stands now, missing a race with notification only removes 5 incident points but being suspended removes all of them. So a driver choosing to sit out a race would have a better advantage just being suspended and starting over. 
[ul]
[li]Next season a driver who chooses to miss a race to avoid being issued a penalty will have their Incident Points reset to 0. This would be a 1 time usage and must be specified to us for it to reset you.[/li]
[li]If a driver can't make a race, the usual 5 point deduction will apply.[/li]
[/ul]

Please keep in mind that the glaring issues you see in how incident points are dished out is because the incident system itself is a "no-fault' system. This allows the system itself to hand out penalties and keeps any bias from us out of the picture entirely. It also means I no longer have to meet for 10 hours a week because issues happened in a race.

Concern 3. I will definitely take this into consideration. While I would hope one day having all week long to race against other drivers would do away with the need for a pit party, I do agree more are needed now depending on the track. I will make sure that we keep this suggestion in mind as we continue to plan it out.


Finally the chase. What a lot of people fail to realize is that we are modeling the changes we run now with respect to how the Peak does it on iRacing in both incident system and chase length. In 2017 for example they raced 16 races with 4 of them being the chase itself. For this season and next season at least, the chase is here to stay just like open setups was. If after next season we feel that is not having the intended effect we can consider reverting at that time.

 

[BrandonMassey]

Please keep in mind that at the end of the day we race for free, we race for bragging rights and we race on a broadcast. There is no money or glory on the line but between us in this community.

As long as this discussion remains civil, I will continue to listen to all feedback received. However keep in mind that my tolerance for salt about any given rules is limited. Multiple times this season I have heard more than I feel is fair about how the rules "suck" even though we all agreed to them when we signed up.

 

[fotors3]

As I am running week by week, I have found that this is a great place to be. As someone who wanted to get back into sim racing, I was drafted into this series, and so far I'm pretty happy. I've met some great people and my team mates are beyond helpful and patient with me. I hope my thoughts are warranted.

1. The schedule doesn't bother me. Most of these tracks have been places I've never driven in iRacing, only some I've done on Forza and NR2003 back in the day. I would like to see a shake up next season, maybe taking the worst races overall and replace them - or as suggested, mirror the real iRacing 12 week schedule. Would be kind of cool to be able to do pick-me-up races right before or after our race all week. It would help me get used to racing with people as opposed to testing 5-6 days a week alone. Race lengths IMO are pretty fair, though a few could have had more laps (i.e. Iowa at 150 laps).

2. Penalty system. I'm not a huge fan of the system in its current form. It's a good start but we now have a lot of drivers within 10 of getting sat out a race. I like Brandon's ideas of a tiered penalty system. It allows people to be competitive but also careful as to not lose too many points. The 0 incidents earning 5 off your total is a great idea. I actually benefited from that myself. However, as I said, the current penalty system should be looked at. There are too many people getting incident points for stuff that isn't their fault.

3. Pit parties are good to get us used to cars on track. I enjoy the pit parties we do have so we know how we drive around each other on that specific track before the race. Going back to my point in #1, that if the schedule does mirror the real iRacing schedule, pit parties, in my opinion, would be less vital since drivers would have plenty of chances during the week to race other human beings.

Overall, I'm really happy with how my rookie season is going and I hope I haven't made anyone upset while racing. I do all I can to give room and race as hard as I possibly can.

 

[BrandonMassey]

Overall, I'm really happy with how my rookie season is going and I hope I haven't made anyone upset while racing. I do all I can to give room and race as hard as I possibly can.

IMO Brandon you are doing a great job and make a great addition to this community. Keep up the good work and thanks for the feedback. Always a pleasure racing against you.

 

[Kyle7]

I feel like these are strong ideas for the future! I joined PRL in order to work on setups and learn how to get faster which I definitely have throughout the season even if my finishes don’t completely show that. The only thing I would say is the pit parties being “mandatory” for all may become an issue If I forsay could get logged in until say 15 minutes before qualifying. Would I be penalized for missed the ones before? I make the basic of my setups during the week and usually do final touches in about 30 mins of the practice session before the race. Otherwise all looks good to me!!

 

[BrandonMassey]

 Would I be penalized for missed the ones before? I make the basic of my setups during the week and usually do final touches in about 30 mins of the practice session before the race. Otherwise all looks good to me!!

Keep in mind that when we use the word Mandatory in regards to pit parties, we only mean that it's mandatory that drivers either exit the track or slow up and make room for the pit party. Once the pit party rolls out, it's their track. The only reason I hold them so late is because of people working on long runs as the last thing I want to do is detract from the actual usage of practice in an open setup league.