I'm for more classes too, but I don't see why they would need full server’s fields to have them a reality. We don't have a full server very often now. But you know there was still a large field of drivers even though we were having the last race of 8. That says something for the field of competitor’s participation.
Are cars other than GTR's being considered? That could get very interesting.
Of course if somebody not uses the pitlimiter and others are instructed to activate them (in this case the yellow car in the middle of the grid) or simply follow the, what they think are rules, it gives some an advantage and some others an disadvantage. In the case of round 8 it almost divided the field twice with TDRT #21/#22 car unfortunatly at the middle/back of the grid. See att. file. It shows the round 8 IGTC race start as well as the SC start.
I think we definitely have a dedicated field of drivers, but it is still relatively small, and to divide that field in half would reduce the competition by quite a lot for both halves. I don't really see it being worth it at this stage in the game.
If we were to introduce a second class there would have to be a reserve number of GT1 cars. Also the chances of anything other than restricted GTR's or even N-GTR's is slim.
Think about it this way. Currently, only half of the field competes for the podium as it is. With the same number of cars being split into two classes, the latter half of our current field could be competing for a podium in their class. The number of cars/traffic would be the same and add a bit more challenge.
We'll definitely consider it, but shouldn't those second half teams be looking to improve rather than be looking for an easier podium? That's kind of the goal of competitive racing, no?
I'm still pretty uncomfortable with the idea of only having 6-8 cars per class.
Yeah I hear ya, that's an all too common argument for not adding more classes in LFS. I just thought it would get us one step closer to an "AMLS like" event, that's all I meant. Then we'd be set for when we get our Prototype cars.
That's very true. ALMS is a multi-class series, and IGTC wants in many regards to emulate ALMS.
However, you also have to take into account the large number of leagues offering multi-class racing these days (MoE, LFS GT, Le Mans League)... I think at this point IGTC is the only endurance league offering single class competition. I think that's pretty cool, really.
I also support NOT to have more classes. It´s much funnier and challenging to race in the same class and build up your team and skills so you wll be competing with the best of the league.
In top of that, I find it a bit silly to be blue flagged in a GT2 class 100 times in 2 hours. And when one of the GT1 cars has an accident with a GT2 car, because of a race incident, normally the GT 2 will always be blamed right away...especially if it´s the leader of the race, who got involved. Fairness will easily be forgotten. There will be an aftermath with a lot of discussion on the forum.
Keep IGTC more or less like it is. Improve the rules so they are more fair. Keep mature and neutral admins. Don´t change the concept, so it looks like all the rest. Otherwise, why should people choose IGTC in the future then?
To make things look like ALMS is a good idea, but we must be realistic on it. ALMS has a very good organisation and procedures for having 2 classes, but IGTC has to improve in this BEFORE working with 2 classes. Fairness in rules, judging, driving and organisation is the most important thing. It must prove it´s cabable for this first.
I think IGTC is on it´s way. But let´s take it step by step in the right order.
Let me say it this way, they didn´t impress me with their way of giving penalties during a race for things which is not easy to judge on. Things that they should have waited to look at to after the race. There were also in relation to an accident, where we got a penalty, a revenge from the other part. It was not penalized. So what can I conclude from this?
To your knowledge, in this race, I took part of a new spiring project DITTO, which is a new danish project, and not the team UNITY I have myself. Therefore there were other drivers.
Information about starting time was also bad, so we had to start 12 hours earlier than we thought we should...which made us less prepared, than we should. f.ex. in pitting, where we made stupid mistakes.
But we also made other mistakes ourselves, f.ex our 3rd driver which was completely new was not ready for a race like this. Our set was too slow. These things made me convinced, that this new project were not ready for entering yet.
All in all, we decided to withdraw from MoE, prepare ourselves better, and concentrate on better series than that one. I hope for them they also will take a serious look at themselves and change some things like taking away the penalties for accidents during a race, so it will be more fair. It should be done afterwards.
This time they and us got a minus, but I belive things can change
