PCARS Season 2 - Div 1

Hi all,

We have had several complaints against a particular drivers antics, now we know this was not a Rooz sanctioned event, but in any Rooz based practises etc.. especially with newly recruited members we should be following the racecraft guide especially when it is Rooz reputation at stake.

After all, the lure of clean gentlemanly like racing is what bought most of us here, please brush up on the following and please keep it clean out there.

Any further complaints and we will be forced to take things further.

Kind regards
The Mod team.

The Good Racecraft Guide

This article will cover what the cleanest gentleman drivers here consider to be good racecraft, etiquette/manners, & general sportsmanship. ...
The following is based on .. many experiences of gentlemanly racing with some the cleanest forum members out there online over the last few years, ...in GT5 Prologue...GT5 [and iRacing].

[This article reflects what is considered proper race etiquette at ROOZ and is intended to supplement the existing ROOZ Rules & Regulations - http://raceonoz.com/forums/index.php?threads/racing-rules-regulations.70/.] [VBR from GTPlanet is acknowledged as the original author of this guide.]


Defending Your Position:

An experienced racer will take whatever line he feels necessary into any given corner in order to defend & maintain his place, he is entitled to do so as he has track position over the pursuing driver, remember that the fastest line is not always the winning one. It is the other chaps job to force him into an error, whilst still driving cleanly of course, or wait for one to occur naturally & then take advantage of it, albeit in the proper fashion.

An inexperienced racer will, in his endless optimism, tend to stuff it up the inside at every unavailable opportunity when trying to pass, imagining he is driving well but making far too much contact & causing many unnecessary incidents. Also, some lacking in good racecraft tend to drive right up to & into the driver in front, as they do not have the common sense to adjust their throttle & braking to account for following in the slipstream of another. You will notice that drivers who have good racecraft make very little contact when following & passing others on track.


Overtaking & Being Overtaken:

When being overtaken up the inside, on the run up to a tight high speed corner like 130R on Suzuka for instance, the competitive driver with good racecraft recognises when the battle is lost & will yield by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary, so that both cars can make the apex of the corner at pretty much full racing speed. The aggressive driver will carry on round the outside at full throttle in a dangerous attempt to defend his position, which is clearly already lost, this kind of optimism can lead to a catastrophic & entirely unnecessary incident.

If both cars do somehow manage to make it through the corner side by side, which obviously results in lower cornering speeds, the bad driver has now let the rest of the field catch up some, let the the drivers ahead increase their lead or sometimes both. Not only is it counter productive, it is also bad manners, you will not see top class racers executing such mindlessly aggressive do or die maneuvers.

When attempting to overtake up the inside, on the run up to a tight high speed corner like 130R on Suzuka for instance, sometimes you are not close enough to pull it off. The discerning driver knows when this is the case & will yield by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary, so as to not cause an incident, there is after all only 1 racing line through 130R. The aggressive or overly optimistic driver goes for it regardless, stuffs it up the inside, causes an incident, & puts his poor racecraft on display for all to see.

You will not see mature racers out on track performing in this way, they get their overtaking done well before the apex of such corners. However, a possible exception to these scenarios might be when two intelligent drivers are equally alongside each other & battling for position on the final lap, where driving slower & side by side through 130R to keep track position would lead to a win, or higher finishing position.

When the driver of the car in front has made an error & gone wide into a corner, the well mannered driver behind will go for the overtake but leaves just enough room for him as he accelerates out, this is because he knows that the other car is still going round on the outside of the track. An inexperienced driver, or one with bad manners, will also go for the overtake but accelerates out of the corner at full speed using all of the proper racing line as if he is the only one on track. This leads to contact, pushing the other driver off track, or even an incident involving multiple cars if battling in a pack. You will not see gentlemanly racers causing this kind of unnecessary incident through such a lack of manners.

The correct or optimal racing line in certain corners, like the last 2 turns at Fuji for instance, can look very wide to the untrained eye. The undiscerning racer cannot tell the difference between a driver taking the correct racing line, & one going wide into these corners, he thinks the chap in front has made an error & stuffs it up the inside in a futile effort to overtake. When the driver in front accelerates towards the apex, the driver behind now finds he has placed his car in the wrong position, & there is contact. Once again by slowing both cars up, the bad driver has let the chaps in front pull away some & the those behind catch up. The intelligent racer knows there is usually no real advantage to this, & does his overtaking on the following straight, or when he sees someone has actually gone wide in these types of corners.

When an experienced & thoughtful racer is being overtaken in slower/wider corners, he knows where the other driver is on track & leaves him just enough room so that they can drive around together side by side, he takes a different line while still maintaining a reasonable amount of speed. The aggressive or unthoughtful racer sticks to his line, turns into the other driver & causes unnecessary contact, as he is not discerning enough to make the correct adjustment to his line. Drivers with good racecraft have the ability to adapt quickly to various situations, to make better judgements, & tend to avoid & not cause as many incidents.


Drafting

It is considered extremely unsporting to weave about left & right all over the track trying to stop your opponent from drafting you, it is also quite undignified, & not at all gentlemanly (do not confuse this with blocking by weaving to stop another driver from passing you, which as you already know, is against the OLR). A well mannered & intelligent racer may choose to take a variety of different lines through corners to try to minimise the amount of draft his opponent gets, he is entitled to take any line he wishes being the driver in front. Also, when coming onto the straight, he may continue turning past the track out point, & take a different line down it. From then on however, manners dictate that he only has 1 move either left or right to choose his line into the next turn, this should be done early & slowly enough to give other drivers following behind a fair chance to react, lest there be an otherwise avoidable incident.

When drafting in a pack down the straight heading for a turn, the experienced driver near the back knows he is drafting a car that is drafting other cars, & is thus travelling significantly faster than everyone else. He also knows that he will need to brake much earlier than the others to avoid contact by the end of the straight, especially if the chaps in front are going in 3 or 4 abreast & there is no room to pass. The optimistic driver still thinks he can overtake them all & come out in 1st place, he carries on, brakes way too late, & ploughs through those in front causing chaos & ends up off track, in the sand or having to wait for those he hit. Experienced racers hardly ever find themselves in this position, on the rare occasions they do, it's usually just down to braking errors, & certainly not due to wildly optimistic overtaking maneuvers.

When overtaking another car right near the end of a straight, it is good manners to leave the other driver his line, & stick to your own. It is bad manners to quickly swerve in front of the car you have just passed, take his line & brake. This is because you will be travelling much faster due to drafting him, & will have to brake significantly earlier, the other driver will have almost no time to react by changing his line or braking point. This kind of bad racecraft can lead to many unnecessary incidents going into turns at the ends of straights, you will not see the more experienced & well rounded drivers performing this kind of maneuver.

When a thoughtful racer finds himself drafting a different make of car down a straight, that's faster but with less braking power & slower round corners, he pulls out of the draft much earlier than usual. This is so he can out brake him going into the next turn, without running into the back of him. The unthoughtful racer carries on oblivious to the fact that he is just about to cause a major incident. Good racecraft also involves taking into account the diverse range of vehicles, tunes & personalities on track & how this can dynamically alter the way the race pans out, through the various & ever changing situations as they unfold.

Ok guys, I will be updating the driver lists tomorrow (Tuesday) and will also release the track list tomorrow at 3PM. Has been a big job, and i am pretty sure i dont have it absolutely perfect, so be gentle with us ! If there is an issue please PM me and i will work through it. In the interest of transparency i have dropped myself to Div 3 as the drivers who have submitted qual times were faster than mine, and i am unsure of the pace of some of our new members in div 2, so i wasn't going to drop them in favor of myself.

I can confirm that this season will be TUNING PERMITTED. The reason for this is that we thought we had the fuel glitch covered but it seemed to happen again with a few who had adjusted their settings but still got nailed. We needed to make a call to give everyone a chance to adjust the car to their liking, and this was a better option for us than having drivers disadvantaged with a limited amount of fuel, and not able to get to the end of the race. It also open up the strategy aspect which is something that could be easily tweaked in GT6 settings....as we move through the season i am sure that we will see things to make better for season 3, but this was the lesser of 2 evils..

I have to confess that i have always been a supporter of nontune series for the simple fact that everyone knows that its 90% driver dependent, however given we have members who has stated they are willing to help with setups we should be ok. That said, it is no certainty that next season will allow tuning, we will have to assess at the end of the season and work out what is best.

The car itself is pretty good straight out of the box so there really shouldnt be too much of a need to adjust much, perhaps a softer suspension will help all of us !

I will not be adjusting the track list in light of tuning, even though it opens up all tracks. The reason for that is the shortlisted tracks are all pretty good for the car, and gear boxes wont really need to be tweaked much so that helps to minimize the amount of tuning needed.

Again, apologies for the delay in getting all this to you, but here is hoping that we have a great season filled with close, hard but most importantly fair racing.....

guys, hold the though on tuning please....for an explanation see the expressions of interest thread.....

Will still be releasing the track list and amended driver divs today

@Giant slayer , @thebigRAGOO_14 , @Konnor McCluskey , @Samsung1998racer @Fastboysmith @cowdoesfly @emuegg11 @hughesy_12 @autech91 @holl01 @TheJuzzy @R0T0R-AU86 @zuluwoffle @Flukyluke99 @jc1186

Ok guys track list has been released.....see OP for details.
While the grids are still provisional at this stage, i cant see there being much of a change unless we get some super fast qual laps from new entrants.....if that happens will have no hair left.....

The tune / non tune debacle should be sorted soon, apologies for the screw around with that....i take the full blame for it , not testing as much as i should have.....

If you DONT INTEND racing this season please let me know asap so we can continue to sort things out......and try to stay on top of things.....if i dont hear from you we can assume you will be there for round 1 on the 14th...

Stu

Check OP, and m&g the week before start.

IS generally a chance for everyone to check host / get friendlist sorted / check connections / compatibility etc .... we generally do short races from the season list or whatever the general consensus is on the night

Ok guys,

First off huge thanks to the guys who helped with this, Especially Cob and Giant who spent lots of time, over and above the last four nights of 1am finishes ....we have found lots of things that will help in any future seasons of PCARS. I think we have examined and put to bed some of the things that were being put forward as reasons as to why we should head in either direction, which at the end of the day will benefit the community as a whole.

After further testing last night we have come to the conclusion that it would be best to run the series as TUNING ALLOWED, as was originally announced.

The reasoning....
- after EXTENSIVE tire testing, we found that with the tuning prohibited, there were still occasions where drivers couldn't get fresh rubber when needed, and we couldn't replicate the issue to find a fix. This was after Giant created a new account to replicate a new car coming into the lobby. Even with the fuel "issue" being present (low fuel) in his car, he was able to get new tires when pitting, which was the complete opposite to what happened to BlueXR8 and Rotor the night before. Put simply, we couldnt replicate the issue, and try to find a fix....meaning there was a "chance" that drivers would be disadvantaged during the season. In this regard we felt that tuning, and the freedom to change tires openly could help to negate this possible issue.

- Rain tires. We found in testing last night that some of the guys were going through the rain tires last night in 1 lap, while others were wearing as normal. The lobby was non tune and we had the 4 weather slots set to different settings. This will need more investigation before round 4 to see what may have caused the issue, HOWEVER, with the weather set to "rain" with no slots selected (rain was the only option) there didnt seem to be any issues with tire selection or wear.

- The fuel issue. As has been highlighted by a few on here, there is a way around not having the default 90L of fuel for both qualifying and the race. We initially believed that this issue saw the tires not being changed when needed, but this was disproved last night. We agreed that having 1 driver on 45 ltrs for the race while everyone else is on 90l is an unfair advantage. For this reason, its only fair that we level this playing field as much as we can, and everyone will be advised of how much fuel you will need for the race, so you can put it in your strategy.

- SETUPS. given we have decided to go down this path i would hope that there are setups provided to the masses, as previously promised

- TEAMS CHAMPIONSHIP. I still think that this can run, HOWEVER, if you decide to participate in the teams champ you need to understand that TUNING COULD give your opponents a bigger advantage, affecting your position in that championship. Its not a huge issue, but you need to think about the following....will one of you div drivers who you are competing against give up their "possible" fast tune to you in the last race of the season. We would hope so, but at the end of the day drivers wanting a championship might not be so generous. . Just something to think about so make sure you let @@Hatfield know your intentions clear here
http://www.raceonoz.com/forums/inde...pcars-cross-platform-teams-championship.2063/

- LOBBY SETTINGS. we will still determine what these will be with regards to tire wear, but we are thinking either X2 or X3. FUEL WILL BE ON REAL

- TIME SETTINGS; TBC, but i think if we set all the rooms to the same date and time might be the easiest ?

We get and understand that running tuning wont be to everyones liking. However i think we have proven that while it does complicate the game a little more, it will give the less chance to create issues that disadvantages drivers competing.

The car is very good out of the box, i imagine that there will be minimal tuning to be done, hopefully a few of the guys are able to help with that if you feel you are struggling.....i will need some guidance with fuel strats etc, but once i get my head around it will be able to help anyone that wants it....

I hope, that given we made an informed decision as to why we went down this path, we see you all on the grid come the 14th, IF you don't plan on running now, please let me know so i can look at the divisions and make any necessary changes.

stu

@Fastboysmith has decided to be eligible for a team