For me at least trying to practice online is futile, not implying that races are filled with wreckers but there's just too many distractions and the races aren't long enough. The AAL runs races at least an hour long so I practice in stints the same length that I plan to run in the race so I can determine my best pace to run, factoring in fuel use and tyre wear.
I share a lot of your feelings about things Tweak and would like to get online more but I might get 5 hours a week to race which makes it hard. Also doesn't help that the AAL is so competitive

OLFSL and Nations Cup at the moment. It's great fun

I've had lfs for quite a while now, in the last few months I've played much more than ever, a mate entered a league and I liked the sound of it. makes it feel much more like 'racing', you know what track you'll be on next week, you know who you'll race, you need to work out a set, practice to become as competent as you want. Previously I'd assumed it'd feel too structured / stuffy, but I love it. Don't seem to race public servers at all these days though 1.5 events a week mean I'm either working on a setup / hotlap, or involved in the event. Don't have any more time than that to spend with lfs.

For those who were introduced to online racing events through LFS, has competing changed your view towards race sims? Are you more serious than before or more interested in LFS now that you have tasted online competition?

For those who were introduced to online racing events prior to the apparance of LFS, how has LFS changed your view towards online racing?

Granted, not really a series or a league, but I'm now involved in the 3 race endu tourney running the dSRC team's practice session on each of the consecutive Fridays. I've definitely taken racing mroe seriously immediately. I practiced a little for the first event, and as the 2nd one is approaching I find myself concentrating more and more on practising. Getting a solid rhythm, a decent consistency and pace needed for longer events.

It's great fun to be involved in such events, and does make joining other leagues a more distinct possibility because random races on public servers often don't have many people of the same skill level. I'm a clean driver, fast or not and judging from how much fun this current 3 race tourney is, I definitely look forward more and more to being involved in organised events of longer span!

Quote from Gunn :

For those who were introduced to online racing events through LFS, has competing changed your view towards race sims? Are you more serious than before or more interested in LFS now that you have tasted online competition?

yes, to both.

Not sure if this is the right topic for this, but here goes.

I voted "haven't competed, and not sure if I want to". It's not because I have no interest in events, it's because I could never afford the time, persistence or inflexibility required to practice (sometimes from scratch) a particular car/track combo and have to race it on a particular day.

But that's not to say I love the public servers - I've often grown frustrated with the T1 spills, random shunts, etc. And recently over the past week I've noticed a couple of times that even when an admin is present, it doesn't do anything to improve things as they behave childishly and abuse their power, restarting the race just because they didn't make it through T1 in the way that they wanted, or threatening to ban you because you (unknowingly) tried to kick their friend whose car never moved from it's starting position on the main straight. Sure, I've just been unlucky and in both cases I just left and looked for another server, but both rude folk/n00bs and six year old admins take the fun out of public server racing sometimes.

So basically what would interest me most is a kind of "half way house": a server that runs longer races, but on a (automated?) schedule so they're much more regular than a weekly/fortnightly league event. For example, a server that:

- starts the cycle at the top of the hour with 10 mins free practice / messing about
- at ten past the hour, 20 mins qualifying.
- at half past, the race starts, which would last for 20-25 mins.

With no mid-race join and all the other n00b-unfriendly measures switched on, the racing would be cleaner but still accessible to all. Each week, it could change to a different car class / track combo, run that for a week, then change again, etc. And by sticking to an hourly schedule, once you know what that schedule is then you don't have to worry about missing the start of the next race if you go and make a drink/snack as is often the case on a public server running sprint races.

SCCC has hosted such an event, called Mini-Enduro... Was kinda fun, but only lasted 1 week...

I'm racing OLFSL now, and to answer Gunn's question: Yeah, joining a league does change your way of racing... You're training to know a track till the event, you try to get consistent with decent times, in the same time you try to find a way not to burn the tires too much, tweak your setups and looking for a proper strategy, so that the event will be a success...

Dutch League and ESCC for me, but both are comming to their ends

ohye, used to race in endu aswell

Dutch league, OLFSL, 1NL and (RIP) dE Ladder for me...

In S1: French MRT league and GT/GTi League, French Rally league, "Pepe" challenge and dE ladder. A lot of inter-team challenge with FRH versus BSKfr, SCR.

In S2: ESL LFS Warm up Cup, ESCC, French Rallycross League, Master of Endurance and LFS Nation Cup.

That's all

Quote from STROBE :

So basically what would interest me most is a kind of "half way house": a server that runs longer races, but on a (automated?) schedule so they're much more regular than a weekly/fortnightly league event. For example, a server that:

- starts the cycle at the top of the hour with 10 mins free practice / messing about
- at ten past the hour, 20 mins qualifying.
- at half past, the race starts, which would last for 20-25 mins.

With no mid-race join and all the other n00b-unfriendly measures switched on, the racing would be cleaner but still accessible to all. Each week, it could change to a different car class / track combo, run that for a week, then change again, etc. And by sticking to an hourly schedule, once you know what that schedule is then you don't have to worry about missing the start of the next race if you go and make a drink/snack as is often the case on a public server running sprint races.

I like the idea and it has been brought up before.. but IIRC it would need some insim programmer to make a program to do it and there isn't one available at the moment as far as I know but If someone was to make such a programme I would sponser a server to run like that