Round 6, Grand Prix Japan

Round postponed until further notice due to lack of participation.

Date: 26 October 2014
Time: Free Practice 17:40 UTC (20 Minutes) Qualifying 18:05 UTC (25 Minutes) Race 18:45 UTC
Race Distance: 49 laps+1 formation lap (2 hour maximum time limit)
Car: Formula V8 (FO8)
Course: Kyoto Ring National Reversed (KY2R) Track Map
Weather: Cloudy Morning
Wind: Low for RACE ONLY

Important Notice

Track Limits

To be added shortly


Turn 3a

Please remember that the inside curb at turn 3a is buggy if you go too far over the main section of the curb.

Safety Car Location

Please note that the safety car will be located on drivers right at Turn 12

REMEBMER: As I know this is the time of year when time changes happen, UTC NEVER CHANGES! You change in relation to it.

Round postponed until further notice due to lack of participation.

oh shame

hopefully we will have enough for westhill in a couple of weeks.

Cancelled 2h before start - late attendants never had a chance...
With new Westhill we would have full grid,oh,wishes,wishes...

A decision will be made in the next couple days of when, if at all, to reschedule Round 6. If it is rescheduled, the confirmations thread will be reopened. If not, the confirmations thread will be treated as standard and those who did not respond will have that tallied against them.

We are sorry we didn't get the confirmations thread out until midweek, but it was still up long enough for people to say yes or no, at least on a provisional basis.

Quote from dekojester :

A decision will be made in the next couple days of when, if at all, to reschedule Round 6. If it is rescheduled, the confirmations thread will be reopened. If not, the confirmations thread will be treated as standard and those who did not respond will have that tallied against them.

In my opinion you should penalize those who didn't respond already, or am I missed here?

And on the other hand you should not penalize people for rescheduled round confirmations if it is rescheduled at earlier date than round7. Because some people might actually get online only the days scheduled initially in the calendar.

All drivers are requested to view the message sent by me regarding this round, and partake in the discussion.

Also, do realise that the level and type of discussion in this thread now will have an impact on the decision on the future of NDR.

My plans may vary in close months so I can't provide any useful info.

tl;dr:
I'm fine with rescheduling to either 23rd or 30th November, although I don't think the grid will be much bigger.

Looking at the points standing, the pattern is obvious. Full grid in Round 1 and then a steep decline in participation. The reasons for not participating can vary, some drivers don't have time, some are just not motivated enough or bored of it, and some sign up just for teh lulz.

However, it would be a big coincidence if the majority of them only had time to do the first round and not the rest, wouldn't it? So is that simply lack of motivation to race for the rest of the season? No chance to win the championship?

Maybe some are fine with participating in a 7-round league and doing only one or two races, and then retiring. I understand that not everyone is hunting for the points. But there are other reasons to race, simply to have good races, to have fun. So is the season too long? Not for me, but it may be for others.

But all that "fun" factor seems to be almost gone now. I don't entirely blame the drivers, we know how it is with the state of LFS at the moment. Having to race on the same 7 venues for many years had to get boring and repetitive at some point. Same goes with cars, although the FO8 is still decent to race with in my opinion.

The lack of participation from Round 2 onwards has been a trend in most racing series in LFS recently, not only LFSCART.

I don't know what we or the organisers can do to improve that – probably nothing. It's a sad truth. I was actually hoping that Round 7 would be held at the new Westhill, but that sounds really unlikely now.

/seriouspost

Quote from Flame CZE :

tl;dr:
I'm fine with rescheduling to either 23rd or 30th November, although I don't think the grid will be much bigger.

Looking at the points standing, the pattern is obvious. Full grid in Round 1 and then a steep decline in participation. The reasons for not participating can vary, some drivers don't have time, some are just not motivated enough or bored of it, and some sign up just for teh lulz.

However, it would be a big coincidence if the majority of them only had time to do the first round and not the rest, wouldn't it? So is that simply lack of motivation to race for the rest of the season? No chance to win the championship?

Maybe some are fine with participating in a 7-round league and doing only one or two races, and then retiring. I understand that not everyone is hunting for the points. But there are other reasons to race, simply to have good races, to have fun. So is the season too long? Not for me, but it may be for others.

But all that "fun" factor seems to be almost gone now. I don't entirely blame the drivers, we know how it is with the state of LFS at the moment. Having to race on the same 7 venues for many years had to get boring and repetitive at some point. Same goes with cars, although the FO8 is still decent to race with in my opinion.

The lack of participation from Round 2 onwards has been a trend in most racing series in LFS recently, not only LFSCART.

I don't know what we or the organisers can do to improve that – probably nothing. It's a sad truth. I was actually hoping that Round 7 would be held at the new Westhill, but that sounds really unlikely now.

/seriouspost

GT1 Challenge has still a decent grid even though the season is almost over. The format of it is simple, but in NDR leagues nowadays we have some track limits bs, wind in every race which usually has been the maximum +20kph (wind is fine for me, but most of the drivers cant handle it properly and its not a secret that wind in LFS is awful), and still including that Autocross oval is surprising me, its not a really good track and shouldnt be inclucded IMO, and I dont find it surprising that it didnt gather much of drivers this year.

NDR events used to have a simple format, but then for some reason deko and others have added some unnecessary things in the races - and I think that is one of the reason why the motivation in this league has been killed for someone, while in GT1C the grid is still fine enough, and in my opinion one of the reasons are that the format is simple and not mixed up with any wind or some other things.

Even though that I dont agree with some things of NDR nowadays, that still doesnt mean that I don't enjoy events of NDR.

Good points about the wind, I forgot about that. It was a bit of an overkill on some tracks, that's true.

GT1C was initially prepared to have two grids, which could also be the reason why it still has one full grid now?

And regarding the track limits "bs", I have never really bothered about it while racing and never done anything against those rules. Aren't the rules just the same as ever, just clarified? Anyway I didn't have to adjust my driving style to fit in those rules or anything.

Quote :

However, it would be a big coincidence if the majority of them only had time to do the first round and not the rest, wouldn't it?

What really stands out to me is the high DNF rate in races. (almost 50% in 2nd race) I think some drivers try too hard and so are unable to finish races and eventually give up alltogether.

Quote from Flame CZE :

And regarding the track limits "bs", I have never really bothered about it while racing and never done anything against those rules. Aren't the rules just the same as ever, just clarified? Anyway I didn't have to adjust my driving style to fit in those rules or anything.

When the "track limits" were introduced, it was quite unclear at start. They never got really clear until the AS5 round. But yeah, I guess the rules are just the same as ever, but I dont see why they had to be even clarified or be even introduced, as it managed to cause quite many misunderstandings.

Quote from Gutholz :

Quote :

However, it would be a big coincidence if the majority of them only had time to do the first round and not the rest, wouldn't it?

What really stands out to me is the high DNF rate in races. (almost 50% in 2nd race) I think some drivers try too hard and so are unable to finish races and eventually give up alltogether.

Round 2 was the horrendous windy Fern Bay carnage race, so I'm not surprised.

Reason either series got so many signups: LFS brought out new forum, promised a new westhill.

LFSCART has actually been slightly better this year than last. Even some terrible Niki Dakovic won GenR GT1C last year, so I guess it's the same situation there too.

LFS is on it's last legs atm it's no secret, even the developers realised it that's why they changed their tune and offered something and I don't honestly understand why between GenR and NDR you're running a league race every weekend. With the numbers you have left interested in league racing, you're expecting a bit much to try and get a decent grid in both.

If you get a decent number of drivers I would race on any of the suggested dates, but I don't see that happening

Quote from IsaacPrice :

If you get a decent number of drivers I would race on any of the suggested dates, but I don't see that happening

And here is the issue, LFS has reached that critical point when drivers look at the size of grids and say "nah."

No point trying to blame the community or league organizers though, we all know who's issue it is and it's only them who can fix it.

If all drivers saying "nah" would join the races, we'd have full grids, problem solved

Yeah it's not that easy.

And that's why it's frustrating

I am a 'nah driver' as is most of the community if I'm honest.

I'm also fine with rescheduling it to 23 or 30 November.

Quote from Iginla :

and still including that Autocross oval is surprising me, its not a really good track and shouldnt be inclucded IMO, and I dont find it surprising that it didnt gather much of drivers this year.

I'm still livid at EVERY SINGLE DRIVER who had a negative reaction as soon as I loaded the track and then left without explaining why they felt the way they did. You had AT LEAST TEN WEEKS to tell us what you thought of it, but you didn't, so that's why it was included. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE gave a SINGLE GOOD EXPLANATION of why they didn't like it. It was used in past seasons with reasonably decent reviews, so I had no idea that anyone would have grief about it.

Also, for the new Westhill to be used, a test patch with it will have to come out no later than Sunday, November 2nd. This will allow us enough time to see if it works first of all with no major issues, then change over. If Monday comes around, the current Westhill will be used no matter what.

Quote from dekojester :

Quote from Iginla :

and still including that Autocross oval is surprising me, its not a really good track and shouldnt be inclucded IMO, and I dont find it surprising that it didnt gather much of drivers this year.

I'm still livid at EVERY SINGLE DRIVER who had a negative reaction as soon as I loaded the track and then left without explaining why they felt the way they did. You had AT LEAST TEN WEEKS to tell us what you thought of it, but you didn't, so that's why it was included. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE gave a SINGLE GOOD EXPLANATION of why they didn't like it. It was used in past seasons with reasonably decent reviews, so I had no idea that anyone would have grief about it.

Also, for the new Westhill to be used, a test patch with it will have to come out no later than Sunday, November 2nd. This will allow us enough time to see if it works first of all with no major issues, then change over. If Monday comes around, the current Westhill will be used no matter what.

From what I heard, they either don't have anything enough serious to complain about (rules are same for everyone, so complaining would look bad for them), or they feel overfrustrated of how things come in the race and that has not much to do with organisers.

Nothing you can do about grid getting smaller really. The points system is really nice for me as a backmarker, so I have no idea.

I heard a lot of complains about the wind... In my opinion it should be forecastable for the race like "wind is either north or north-west, 5-10 m/s), otherwise it is a gamble.

The harder it is to finish, the less people you get in the end, so wind didn't make it better in that aspect imo.

I don't believe for 1 second you had no idea that people would dislike the idea of doing a layout oval. Sure nobody complained(in the past it's not exactly proven to be useful. If complaining helped you would never have introduced wind), but you didn't ask either.

I vote for 30th november since there are already 3 events on 23rd.

Quote from dekojester :

NO ONE and I mean NO ONE gave a SINGLE GOOD EXPLANATION of why they didn't like it.

Welcome in REAL LIFE where DIGITAL meets ANALOG brains. People in general have NO IDEA WHAT THEY LIKE. Why do you think the Iphone got massively POPULAR? Not because it's a good or reasonable priced PRODUCT. It's because it's MARKETED in a CRAZY way. And this HAPPENS with basically EVERYTHING.

Quote from dekojester :

a test patch with it will have to come out no later than Sunday, November 2nd.

Ehh wait you know more then me? You think something gets released before 2015? Or are you talking about 2015