The chicane exit was navigated over 600 times during the course of the race with about 5 mistakes. That's less than a 1% error rate. I really dont think it was 'like a public server'. The thing is, the cameras caught them all

Quote from bbman :

No, but for crashing in the chicane in general... AFAIK, you shift down BEFORE the chicane, so especially throttle blip should make no difference at all... Of course, going in with a car highly unsettled is suicide, but it is if blip were on too... As I said, it doesn't get that much harder, it isn't such an overwhelming change, there surely was enough time to prepare since the last race had the aid ban too, so excusing everything with something this unimportant is beyond my understanding...

funny, I checked your lfsw online stats and you have exactly 1 lap in a TBO car at south city classic. what makes you so confident that you could have mastered that chicane every single lap without errors, but fast enough to not fall back? I must admit I found especially 2 drivers weren't prepared well enough to be safe to race, I met one of them in the race as well, costing me my lead, and no there was no lag at my side, I was arriving as usual on the limit to the first left kink and John was just recovering from his incident and was still on the racing line, nothing I could have done to avoid him. the speed difference and the fact that it is a dark, nearly blind exit, didn't help either.

hitting the exit of the chicane wall once or twice during a 30 minute race isn't such a big issue, everyone makes mistakes.

I agree though that blaming the absence of blip is not an acceptable excuse for mistakes, especially with a fwd car.

Quote from Becky Rose :

They've done similar things in real racing in the past too, I think it helps to clearly denote that what you are watching is a replay. I'm actually thinking of dropping the 'R' in the corner and just having the sphere effect.

I would say that it would be best to leave the "R" or, even better, overlay the whole word "replay" and drop the sphere for a more simple, clean transition. Something like an image flip or a growing frame would look more professional. The sphere is a little too "trying too hard".

I fraps'ed a nice fight in Heat 2A of round 7. Click here. First appearing XRT is Silva (from the start, white helmet), who during the first lap starts an argument for positions with me (red/white/black helmet, yellow/black car), and later we meet up with Horvath (yellow/grey helmet, also yellow/black car, my teammate). Pickard also makes an appearance as he blasts past us in his FXO on the first lap.

Google-Video pretty much ate the quality (the video was already at the target bitrate and resolution, but was transcoded to flv *argh*) but we stayed so close to one another it doesn't matter.

Vain

Quote from Cue-Ball :

I would say that it would be best to leave the "R" or, even better, overlay the whole word "replay" and drop the sphere for a more simple, clean transition. Something like an image flip or a growing frame would look more professional. The sphere is a little too "trying too hard".

hell must have frozen over but for once we agree on something
imho it should look as professional as possible expecially if you want to attract sponsors

and nice vid vain

Quote from csurdongulos :

I agree though that blaming the absence of blip is not an acceptable excuse for mistakes, [...]

Which is the only point I made, or at least tried to make... You see, I'm a rather simple person: I say what I mean, I mean what I say... What I don't say, I don't mean...

In the end, it wasn't Becky banning the aids making people hit the wall, it was them running out of grip/room/luck, nothing else... I know we like to think of ourselves as being racing drivers, still that doesn't entitle us to make up racing driver excuses...

Absolutely brilliant. Again.

I love how you talk about if the stewards have seen people do things and how they are looking at data. And no comment on drifting!

One thing though - maybe you feel different about it - but shouldn't honking your horn be a similar offence to, say, telepitting while still racing? When you watch real life racing on TV, how often do you hear the drivers honking their horn? To me it just sounds silly.

Maybe you should start selling DVDs of the races

Andy, we've actually had debates in our own forum amongst ourselves, and honking is meant as a way for us drivers to express ourselves virtually.

@DVD's... Drivers are able to purchase a set with all the races on DVD, I'm unsure of what Becky might do.

Ah yes, just had a look, so you are encouraged to use headlights instead, and honking is equivalent to flipping someone off. But Becky allows it because it helps give the drivers personality as it is virtual racing. It would be nice if they weren't used at all but Becky's reason (of course) makes sense

When I say a DVD, I don't mean just the Windows Media files put on a disc, I mean a proper video DVD that you could watch on a TV. Maybe that's what you meant anyway

Quote from andy29 :

When I say a DVD, I don't mean just the Windows Media files put on a disc, I mean a proper video DVD that you could watch on a TV. Maybe that's what you meant anyway

My understanding is that the DVD contains the HQ version. The MQ and the LQ versions are available for download, but the HQ version is DVD quality, not WMVs on a DVD

I took notes while I was watching the race and figured I'd offer some constructive criticism. But, before I do that, I just wanna say that this is the best STCC video so far. Every month it gets better, and this broadcast was no exception.

+ I really enjoyed the 3D cars at the beginning. Much better than the grid walkthrough, though it did go a bit fast. I think showing two cars, pausing, then quickly moving to the next two would work best.
+ The new 3D STCC intro logo is excellent. That looks very professional.
+ The "Pits Open" message was nice. I would have liked to see a "Pits Closed" message as well though.
+ The picture-in-picture showing people in the pits was really nice.

- Even though the cars are the same every time, I've always enjoyed the car comparisons in the past. ie: This track has a long straight which should suit the FXO, and the RB4 may have tire trouble due to all the right turns...or whatever.
- The lap counter was jittery. That was a bit distracting, but if you can fix that it's definitely nice to see.
- With all the damage everyone was taking, it didn't seem to get much mention, even after the leader colliding with a damaged backmarker.
- I think the scrolling bar at the bottom should either be moved clear to the bottom or clear to the top. The current position interferes a bit with the view. If it were at the top, it wouldn't intrude as much.

Overall, very, very good coverage this round. I can't wait to see next round!

Great observations, I think!

Quote :

When I say a DVD, I don't mean just the Windows Media files put on a disc, I mean a proper video DVD that you could watch on a TV. Maybe that's what you meant anyway

Well disk 1, which has rounds 1-3, is certainly DVD and not just a disk with WMV's on. In fact the full uncompressed HQ streams are twice the size of a DVD so no matter what I do there is always going to be quality loss - The first few dont really look much better than their MQ counterparts, but the latter ones certainly have a difference between the MQ version and the HQ version, but i've not converted them to DVD format yet to make sure they keep the better quality.

The DVD itself is really very funky, I put a lot of work into the first one. I just havn't had the time to make the packaging and labels and do the second disk, so i've decided that this is an end-of-season project .

Quote :

- The lap counter was jittery. That was a bit distracting, but if you can fix that it's definitely nice to see.

It's already fixed, early pre-release copies had this flaw but it was patched out the first night. I think though that some ISP's had cached the old file.

Quote :

- I think the scrolling bar at the bottom should either be moved clear to the bottom or clear to the top. The current position interferes a bit with the view. If it were at the top, it wouldn't intrude as much.

Unfortunately graphics have to be in a surprisingly small area of the screen because when viewing on televisions they have these things called 'safe areas' - which is where all the changing standards of screens and widescreens and stuff will appear on one screen but not on others. These safe areas more than anything else determine where I put things on screen. I chose to use the bottom because the safe area at the top of the screen would have meant that it overlaid too much action.

Quote from andy29 :

One thing though - maybe you feel different about it - but shouldn't honking your horn be a similar offence to, say, telepitting while still racing? When you watch real life racing on TV, how often do you hear the drivers honking their horn? To me it just sounds silly.

the only horn i remember was about the same lap the pits opened with me chasing down Raemisch, i went up the inside and not only did he close the door on me, his rear pushed me into a wall, making me loose all momentum when i probably would have taken him - i was annoyed and used the horn, although usually i use the lights, you can barely see the headlights on this broadcast!

All videos streams now online so you can watch on Google Video too, and I uploaded the Race Photos. All stats are now online in the results section of the website.

Is there some reason behind several of the drivers with "UNICEF" plates? Some kind of volunteer sponsoring?

usually a charity is picked pre-race, and you can either use "STCC" on your numberplates or the charity name

Yup, we usually pick a good cause and half the number number plates have that charity as our sponsor, we've been doing this since round 2 but we dont really mention it because of time constraints.

To be selected a charity must be considered a good cause and not politically aligned, (such as Red Cross or Blue whatever the Irish one is), and it must have a registered charity number or equivellent from it's home country. It also has to fit inside 8 letters, frustratingly...

Quote from Cue-Ball :

I took notes while I was watching the race and figured I'd offer some constructive criticism. But, before I do that, I just wanna say that this is the best STCC video so far. Every month it gets better, and this broadcast was no exception.

+ I really enjoyed the 3D cars at the beginning. Much better than the grid walkthrough, though it did go a bit fast. I think showing two cars, pausing, then quickly moving to the next two would work best.
+ The new 3D STCC intro logo is excellent. That looks very professional.
+ The "Pits Open" message was nice. I would have liked to see a "Pits Closed" message as well though.
+ The picture-in-picture showing people in the pits was really nice.

- Even though the cars are the same every time, I've always enjoyed the car comparisons in the past. ie: This track has a long straight which should suit the FXO, and the RB4 may have tire trouble due to all the right turns...or whatever.
- The lap counter was jittery. That was a bit distracting, but if you can fix that it's definitely nice to see.
- With all the damage everyone was taking, it didn't seem to get much mention, even after the leader colliding with a damaged backmarker.
- I think the scrolling bar at the bottom should either be moved clear to the bottom or clear to the top. The current position interferes a bit with the view. If it were at the top, it wouldn't intrude as much.

Overall, very, very good coverage this round. I can't wait to see next round!

About not mentioning damage, I think that's because the cars just dent - you can't say much about a dented panel. If bumpers were hanging off, or mirrors fell off then they'd be more to discuss. Also, body damage doesn't affect the driving of the car, so doesn't need to be talked about as a racing problem. If there is suspension damage then it would become apparent fairly quickly.

I try and mention stuff like damage, strategy, tyre temps etc when I can, as the dull technical commentator, but LFS' damage system isn't all the exciting from a race outcome perspective.

Besides which you have to fight for air time !

Getting better though - my e-elbow is becoming stronger. Just got to fight with my natural instinct to not interrupt people - having patience (not the cards) isn't always a good thing because by the time I can talk the point I wanted to make is worthless...

/hides behind small rock

I have a suggestion thro..

I noticed that this round 7 broadcast dun show the gap between racers. My memory recalled that one of the previous round has this feature, and it's real nice and hooked the audience into the race from showing the gap between the front-pack racers from lap to lap or randomly ^^ just like F1.

Yes, agreed that would be nice. Without timing info we (I?) were reduced to saying that gaps look closer but unable to quantify that statement with times.

Quote from Cue-Ball :

- With all the damage everyone was taking, it didn't seem to get much mention, even after the leader colliding with a damaged backmarker.

actually I didn't get any damage at all in that incident, luckily. I pitted at the first opportunity to avoid the SC phase, and any accidental damage I got on the way, by brushing a wall here and there. The earlier you pit, the less chance there is you got major damage which makes you lose a lot of seconds in the pit due to repair. After the pit I lost maybe 2 seconds to Hannu due to having to fight a little with those who haven'T pitted yet, but it wasn't that bad and I couldn'T have closed the gap down anymore as my tyres were overheating badly, so the SC phase was welcome to cool the tyres down.

Shhh Victor, if you reveal too much you shatter the illusion that Tristan and I are making an informed commentary, when in reality, we just talk rubbish for three quarters of an hour.