OBVIOUSLY........I'm interested Put me down for a set.

Heh heh, picky picky - well I'm sure Tom and Yann are learning as they go - we'll (iCON) try to make less mistakes next time.

Nice to hear the positive comments guys

Hi Vic,

Can you please take down the iTCC Touring Car Championship banner as this year's championship has now ended.

Many thanks,

Joe Keaveney

Quote from Jakg :

£94 for a case? You can pick up the 900 (which is very very similar) for £45-£50 on eBay, or as low as £30 if you put some legwork in.

The 902 might be a good case, but if it feels as cheap as the 900 i'd feel conned for £100...

Yeah well to be honest I only specced it with the 902 becuase he mentioned it in the original post. Myself, I'd go for the Antec Sonata III Case with 500W EarthWatts PSU combo (£95 for both case & PSU), it would save a packet on the build cost and the quality is top notch.

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Quote :

Some people being real dicks up in here.

Fixed

We love you too, Boris

Quote from LFSn00b :

Well - this pc of mine, I admit it's starting to fail a lot more than before and seemingly I got a nice budget and thought of buying a new PC - possibly building it myself.

Here's a screenshot of the shopping cart from a site I used.

The GFX card was suggested by a friend of mine, and the DVD drive is just a cheap one as I rarely need a DVD drive, only for install disks.


EDIT: I will also need a CPU cooler, suggestions?

I've put together a list of components which would do the trick IMO. Probably a little bit cheaper and just as good.


Antec 902 Nine Hundred Two Black ATX Case - No PSU
Corsair 520W HX Series Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L iP45 Soc ... nel audio ATX Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GH ... )) L2 Cache OEM Processor (Although the Q8400 looks very good too!)
Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freez ... cket 775 Processor Cooler
Samsung EcoGreen F2 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 32MB Cache - OEM
Sapphire HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 Dua ... V Out PCI-E Graphics Card
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 1066M ... HPC Edition Dual Channel
Sony AD-5200A-0B 20X DVD±RW/D ... DE Bare Black Drive - OEM
Antec TriCool 120mm DBB Case Fan


No doubt there's better DVD drives out there, but that one will do. That lot of components worked out at £675 which in euros is just under 790 Euros. I reckon that would make for a decent PC!

Quote from Boris Lozac :

The Internet - where it's "cool" to be a sensless prick.

I think there's another way of looking at your argument. The idea of a forum is that everyone with an opinion can contribute to a conversation. If their opinion isn't the same as yours , so what? Not everyone has to agree that Michael Jackson was great, neither do they have to care that he died. They don't have to even show respect. It's their choice. If you find what they say offensive, report it to the moderators.

Personally, I dont feel any emotion for MJs death... Guess he never really touched me when I was younger.

Quote from menantoll :

I thought I would post this here as I seem to be spending more and more of my free time on LFS and reading these forums at the moment.

My dads dog went missing back in February and we'd given up on ever getting her back.

On Saturday she was found.......550 miles away!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sco ... urgh_and_east/8115122.stm

I would have sent the Proclaimers to get her, but it's just a little too far. NVM.

Quote from Jakg :

Using 2x 85 mbit Netgear HomePlug (or Power Line) adaptors - One is in my Dad's room hooked up to a BT HomeHub through a few switches, and the other is in my room and my PC is plugged into it directly.

Every 10 minutes or so, my PC seems to lose all internet connection. I don't *think* it's the modem (although on the older Belkin Vision it was fine...) as no-one else is having any issues - but I need to check this.

All the lights on the adaptor stay lit, although obviously the "incoming" data lights on the adaptor stop flashing.

When the internet dies on my PC, it also dies on PC#2 and the laptop using the Wireless access point hooked up to the same HomePlug adaptor - So I'm assuming that it's not my PC's or a software issue.

When I had a cable running from one end of the house to the other - it worked fine - but I only had the cable there for about 30 minutes before someone slammed a door on it and broke it so thats not a permanent solution.

Once the network breaks I'm unable to even connect to the router - and then about 2 or 3 minutes later it comes to life again.

Any ideas at all?

Wish I had an answer, Jack. I'm thinking it may be some sort of RF noise in the mains, not exactly sure where that might come from though (possibly a high-power device plugged in somewhere?)

I've got these homeplug adapters myself as I use them for connecting my PS3 to the router when I'm running Linux on the PS3. The connection is perfectly reliable in Linux but when I use the wired connection in XMB on the PS3, it drops out! Strangely enough, wireless is rubbish in Linux but perfectly reliable in XMB!!

So I'd look at noise on the lines mate, got to be something like that. Sorry I don't have a definitive answer but when I find it, I'll post back here for sure.

Quote from hyntty :

The amount of advanced mathematics in those charts amaze me

120 + 48 =169 (core2)

15+6 = 7+6 = 13 (ndr)

Thanks Timo! Gee, I don't get any better at doing math do I? Points updated now, sorry about that NDR

Hi racers,

Firstly, please let me thank you all for attending the races in the inuaugral season of the iTCC. This season has seen the most intense racing that I personally have ever seen in LFS since I started racing in 2004/5. Those of you involved in those battles on the tracks of LFS surely have great memories of this season to treasure, and I hope to see you back and ready to race in 2010. I have many fantastic moments I can think of when I think of the racing we have seen - however the two that stand out right now is Nolan Scott's audacious pass on Rudy Van Buren at Westhill in Round 1, and the lap-long CoRe/Renesis battle (with a CoRe car sandwiched between 2 Renesis cars) that we saw at Aston National in the final Round. Thanks to the drivers once again, you guys are the stars of the show, and you made this championship what it is.

Secondly, I hope you all find the time to take a few minutes and think about what you'd like to improve in iTCC for next season. I'm asking for ideas as well as constructive criticism, where you see a weakness, please tell us, and where you see an idea to improve the iTCC, tell us that too. Open a thread and make a suggestion. But leave this thread for congratulating the winners if you wouldn't mind.

Finally, it remains for me to name the winners in this 2009 season of the iTCC Touring Car Championship. In the Drivers Championship, the winners are:

2009 ITCC Champion

#16 N. Scott

2009 iTCC Runner-Up

# 99 F. Enersen

3rd Place

# 57 R. Van Buren

A fantastic, season long battle, decided at the final round, with amazing skills seen from all three drivers, even more amazing considering the amount of ballast they were running in the final rounds of the season. Well done to all 3 drivers on their skills and ability to get the results they needed.

In the Team Championship, becuase of several drivers leaving teams and joining others mid-season, it became next to impossible to allocate points to the relevant teams appropriate to those drivers. Those drivers who left teams mid-season forfeited their teams points and have been removed from the Championship table.

The 2009 iTCC Team Champions are

CoRe Racing #2 - Ben Keough & Nolan Scott

Well done to the pair of you, congratulations on a well-deserved victory for the CoRe Racing Team.

Thank you to all competitors in the iTCC this year, and I hope to see you all at Round 1 in 2010

Cheers,

Joe Keaveney

P.S. The final championship standings are attached to this thread.

Last edited by Joe_Keaveney, Mon 22 Jun 2009, 21:10.

Quote from BigTime :

Any idea on when the season will be finalized?

Very soon, I need to do the points and publish them and then you'll know who's finished where.

Sorry it's took a while, I'm very busy with work right now. I'll do the points in the next day or two.

Cheers

Admin decisions added (in blue) to original protest posts. Warnings & Penalties thread also updated. Final points table will be sorted in the next day or so and Individual & Team Champions declared.

Hi Becky,

I'm absolutely thrilled to see you're thinking of bringing back STCC. I remember watching the videos and enjoying the commentary and action. The iTCC broadcasts (although very different in a lot of ways) are inspired by those videos you and your team produced for STCC.

One thing I wonder if you've considered - your internet connection. Obviously, when you're producing a video for download/streaming, you can go to a lot of trouble to get the format and bitrate just right. The quality of your live broadcast will depend on your upstream bandwidth (hence the relatively low quality of iTCC's broadcast - my bandwidth is 440Kbps - to achieve a smooth streaming experience means I'm uploading at about 220 Kbps). So maybe you've already thought about this, but I'd just like to offer that piece of information if it helps.

On the same point, although perhaps there are other streaming providers, the two that are free that spring to mind are Zaplive and Livestream(formerly Mogulus). iTCC uses Livestream, which place a bandwidth limit of 500 Kbps on their free streams. 500 Kbps should be enough for a good to very good stream provided your internet connection is up to providing it (I'd hazard a guess that you'd need 1Mbps upstream for a smooth 500Kbps streaming experience). Other options include Multi-BC, who have some very good hardware, and of course, buying Flash Media Encoder for a server (which is very expensive!)

Anyway, I hope I've been of help.

Lastly, with regards to feature races and the like, when are you thinking of bringing back STCC? This summer/autumn? I can't speak for the rest of the iCON team (I'll PM them later) but personally I'd love to involve a league series as a support championship to STCC ran as part of the broadcast..(I could broadcast the race). I'm thinking specifically of restricted XFRs (Clio Cup style racing) or a multi-car championship with most ROAD cars or (lastly) an LX4 championship.

Cheers,

Joe Keaveney

Hi racers,

This is the first of several discussion threads that I'm starting so we at iCON can gather your opinions about what works and what doesn't in iTCC. These threads will help us to improve the experience for you the racer and for the viewers of the iTCC.

I should add this point

• The intention when creating iTCC was (and still is) for it to be based as closely as possible on real-world touring-car race series.
  

The first of these threads concerns the ballast system.

Current Ballast System

The ballast system that has been used is based on the 2007 WTCC success ballast system. This system has worked well as a whole for most of the field, however towards the end of the season the difference in ballasting between the most successful drivers was far more pronounced than earlier in the season.

The current rules are: (in blue)

Success Ballast

The imposition of success ballast is based on 2 criteria: championship points and race results.

a) according to the Championship points: 1 kg per every 3 points scored

b) according to the sum of points obtained in the three races of the last event, according to the following scale:

1st = 30 kg
2nd = 25 kg
3rd = 20 kg
4th = 15 kg
5th = 10 kg
6th = 5 kg

These ballasts will be scrapped and recalculated after each championship round.

Handicap weights a) and b) are cumulative up to a maximum of 70 kg

At the first round of the championship, nobody carries ballast (Because no-one has won a race or has any points)

At the second and each subsequent round of the championship, any driver entering the championship for the first time that season will have a 'new-entrant' ballast of 30 Kgs for that round. (The WTCC 2008 ballast rules had the same clause)

Future Ballast System

I am inviting your ideas and opinions on possible ballasting systems for the 2010 iTCC season. Please base any solution on a real-life touring-car race series if at all possible. It's not that the current solution is bad, it's actually very very good (IMO:razz, it's just that we'd like to hear your opinions, and we'd like to see if there's a better way of doing things.

Be in no doubt - ballasting is an integral part of iTCC - it is here to stay.

Thanks and I look forward to your replies,

Joe Keaveney - ITCC Admin

Last edited by Joe_Keaveney, Wed 18 Nov 2009, 08:04.

Quote from dekojester :

This entire bumpdrafting arguing is getting completely silly. Seriously, going to the level of trolling/personal attacks ? This is absolutley stupid. Anyone doing any attacks or anything of that nature is by default, excluded from the dsicussion. Make your points without cheap shots or calling people names, that's just completely childish. This behavior is NOT what you want in public for a series that has a rather high public profile. This is NOT good for the reputation.

So, calm down, get over it, it happened. Discuss why or why it shouldn't be allowed for next season to your minds, but remember, it's the admins final call, and deal with that comes from them.

To be perfectly honest, some of the discussions seen here make me want to never take part in this series again if some people act like this. This does NOT reflect well.

dekojester

Well said, Deko.

Thanks guys, for your honest opinions - but let's keep it to your opinions and stay away from personal attacks on someone with a different viewpoint.

I actually think a healthy debate on our rules is good for the iTCC - it shows how passionate we all are about our racing and it helps to inform the admins about where the racers want to see the series go. But let's keep the comments civil and polite, please

Quote from Gil07 :

Yes, way to go to miss the point...

I'll try to explain again... In which racing series do you ever see bumpdrafting? It's just something that is not part of racing, end of! It's ridiculous that it was allowed in the first place during this season imo.

Please remember this is the first season of the iTCC. We wrote the rules back in 2008, and revised them after the 're-start' incidents at Round 1. Bumpdrafting was not disallowed - it just wasn't mentioned in the rules. From then on we just ran with the rules as they were. We were determined not to change the rules mid-season. Which meant bumpdrafting was not outlawed.

Now the season has finished, we'll be looking at what has made the season such good fun and we'll concentrating on how to keep the fun going for the 2010 season. At the same time, we'll be looking at what 'touring car racing is about' - to my mind that means short, intense races between closely matched cars with robust but fair racing. Whether bumpdrafting makes it into Season 2 remains to be seen. Anyway, let's get on with enjoying what we've had this season, go and watch the races again, they're great fun to watch, if only to listen to Deko,Passo and Boothy having repeated cardiac arrests!

Quote from Tomhah :

Mogulus has renamed to livestream

Smartass. OK Livestream....

Guys, I've asked for no discussion of the protests in this thread, and I would like for you to respect that. Boothy, don't provoke arguments please.

Let's just keep it to the protests if you wouldn't mind. I don't want to start deleting posts.

I think the challenge this season has been to choose where 'touring car' racing ends and where dirty driving begins. It's not always easy, especially when there are perhaps team interests at play. We've tried always to just look at the incidents reported to us objectively and on their own merits.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how the season has been received, all of us at iCON hope we given to the LFS community something of value that everyone (y'all) will want to experience again.

We're not going to rest now, though and wait for the 2010 season. My own objective now is start asking you the racers to contribute your ideas on how we can improve iTCC.

Over the next few days, I'll be starting some new threads asking for your opinions and ideas about certain areas that we want to improve to make the 2010 iTCC Championship better, brighter and more enjoyable both for the racer and for the viewer. We're not going to be 're-inventing the wheel' (no massive changes), so don't worry - it will still be the same pedal-to-the-metal, hard racin' that you all know and love.

The broadcasts this year have been fantastic, we've had a constant 50 or so viewers at every round which doesn't sound much but we're happy with that! The commentary team of Dekojester, boothy and Passo have been magnificent, very slick production and excitable commentary have kept us all watching. The on-demand feature means all the racers can re-watch the race to see what they missed while on-track, and for that we have Mogulus to thank. Lastly, we're very grateful to Alan Zadro (Thunderhead) for producing a great intro movie for the iTCC. He did a great job, awesome movie, and I hope he returns to LFS sometime.

I'll post the consultation threads in a few days. Stay tuned! Thanks again..

Lastly, but most importantly - a massive thankyou to all the racers who competed in this first season of the iTCC. You're the stars of the show, guys! A big thankyou and well done to you all!

OK post your comments here....

I'd just like to say that due to me screwing things up, the replays won't be available until tomorrow, so protest deadline will be Tuesday midnight GMT.

Cheers

Joe

EDIT:

If anyone does have any of the replays from tonight's race, please can you send them to me Thanks

Last edited by Joe_Keaveney, Sun 14 Jun 2009, 21:27.

Quote from BlackMajik :

So much foe racing. Never got a shout back.

You didn't submit a hotlap. Read the original post again. Submit a hotlap, within the time that I've posted, and I'll 'shout back'. Good luck

And choose an appropriate number (600-699).......

'Locked-in' Drivers for Round 6 (14th June 2009)

The following drivers, who are the top 15 drivers in the Driver's Championship after Round 5, are now 'locked-in' for Round 6 of the iTCC. That is to say, they have qualified directly through to the iTCC event itself, and do not have to qualify through the 'Reserve Shootout'.

These drivers are:

16 N. Scott
57 R. van Buren
99 F. Enersen
19 R. de Jong
47 D. Lind
209 P. Diaz
94 A. Laudens
69 H. Marques
33 B. Keough
66 T. Ostgaard
285 E. Bitan
222 D. Faurie
88 D. Vuckovic
23 J. Pickard
38 P. Dolezal

All other drivers must qualify through to the 6th round of the iTCC through the Reserve Shootouts.

These drivers are in the Reserve Shootouts:

Reserve List

04 D. Lobb
05 T. Osterhouse
06 C. Zorner
07 M. Boljevic
08 C. Ford
09 V. Gruppelar
15 L. Malecki
18 J. Jokela
20 N. Grans
25 T. D'Souza
26 J. Atkinson
27 T. Hynninen
31 C. Wilkinson
32 B. Grindle
35 J. Ward
36 G. Noll
40 D. Nikolin
41 A. Ristic
42 S.A. Skavdal
44 Á. Árnason
55 M. Makalowski
61 J.J. Wang
71 K. Gasiunas
73 J. Dimic
74 V. Pavlovic
77 D. Novak
80 M. Meier
82 S. Mathei
83 F. Fredrikkson
86 M. Cherkashyn
87 J. Lovett
89 J. Matthews
91 J. Miranda
97 S. Moore
98 S. Stankevicius
200 K.A. Gjerde
207 A. Turner
213 P. Goik
217 A. Collett
226 L. Kaczmarek
236 K. Burns
246 G. Alamaras
256 L. Baker
282 Z. Cagas
288 A. Perrs
301 R. Muller
405 Y. Laprevotte
433 S. Oliveira
444 D. Jourdainne
513 L. De Jong
527 Z. Ferreira
537 J. McIntyre
555 R. Gonçalves

No-shows required to confirm interest

The drivers listed below did not appear at Round 5 of the iTCC Touring Car Championship and are requested to confirm their interest in the iTCC for Round 6 by replying to this post in this thread with 'Still Interested'. Upon receipt of their reply they will be moved to the Reserve Shootouts.


New Sign-ups

There are several places in the Reserve List. Sign-ups are invited from drivers not currently in the iTCC Touring Car Championship. These drivers will join the other drivers already in the Reserve List and must qualify themselves through to the iTCC event through the Reserve Shootouts.


Unable to attend round 6:
353 J. Kursk

No longer interested
13 A. Zadro
24 K. O'Keefe

Eligibility

To be eligibile to enter the iTCC you must be able to meet a minimum standard of outright pace - the iTCC requires that you can lap within 103% of a recognised benchmark. In this case it is Rudy Van Buren's fastest race lap from the Pre-Season meeting at Aston Grand Touring (AS6) - 2:45.22. So the time you will be required to beat is 2:50.18

When registering your interest in this series please submit a .spr hot lap of your racing at Aston Grand Touring (AS6)

Please submit the .spr as an attachment to your sign-up post.

Joining iTCC

Please signal your intention to join the iTCC by replying to this post with the following information as shown below:

• LFS Username :
  
• Real Name :
  
• Team :
  
• Eligible (Hotlap of AS6 in under 2:50.18) :
  
• Preferred Number :
  

Where new drivers belong to a team already competing in the iTCC, if they have a team currently with only 1 driver, then they may join that driver in the that team.

New team entries are allowed within the guidelines published in this thread.

Race Numbers

Any numbers are available between 600 & 699.

Allocation of race numbers is strictly on a first come first served basis.

Rules are here, bear in mind these are in the process of being revised, it would be wise to re-check the rules before Round 6 begins.

Skins must be to the guidlines published here

Best of luck to the new entrants, and to everybody, thankyou for supporting the series, let's give a good show at Round 6!

Cheers

Joe Keaveney - iTCC Admin

Last edited by snoring_snoopy, Thu 11 Jun 2009, 15:42.

Quote from The Very End :

But how high is this sound? Probally something that canot be heared by human ears, but there must be a limit on this? If it's deep down in the ocean there must be like a million things that can disturb this sound

It's a 1 Hz signal, when the beacon makes contact with water, the water acts as a switch and starts the operation of the beacon. The beacon is (normally) mounted on the side of the cockpit voice/data recorder, I'm not sure of it's output power. It won't be a lot becuase the battery is only about the size (in fact it probably is exactly the size) of a 'D' type battery (LR20 to those of you younger than me). So range won't be massive, in the order of a few miles.

The problem with that is that the plane might be 5-6 miles down at the bottom of the Atlantic, so a) how do you hear a beacon which can't transmit to the surface and b) even if you did find it, how are you going to recover the box? Only very specialised robotic submarines and diving bells can go that deep I would imagine.

Like Dan said, the battery life is in the order of a few weeks, so time is of the essence to work out it's location from the clues they have - which are it's last recorded position when it signalled the electrical fault, and the debris they have found. There are smart people (oceanographers) who can work out the prior position of the debris, by looking back over the movements of ocean currents in the last few days. 'Timecasting' is the technique they use I believe.

Still, the odds of recovery of the flight data recorderhave got to be fairly slim.

Quote from 666MePhIsTo666 :

Can't you guys forget my ballast? I'm such a n00b that i don't really need more handicaps.

Yeah, right. In a field full of really good drivers, you picked up loads of points and you want less ballast? Some n00b

Well done mate, hope to see you on the podium at Round 6