Ok, this is purely for throwing ideas into the hat, basically, RSSC3 ISN'T confirmed yet, but I would like to get some ideas of the amount of interest in a future season, if there were a RSSC3, it certainly wouldn't be before mid-end April 08.

Plus, I would also like your thoughts and comments on what was/is good, what isn't, what could be added, what could be removed etc etc.

So, over to you guys

List of things to sort out before RSSC3, if you can help out, please pm me

1) Pre-season promo video
2) Generic RSSC/RSWC league userbar
3) Add official practice sessions to calendar
4) Promotional work
5) Add more sprint / Enduro races to the calendar
6) LFS Forum banner ad
7) Look into ways to attract new(er) FZ5/RAC drivers
8) Find a way to add extended stats immediately after race
9) RSC Setup package, a collection of stable & fast FZ5/RAC setups to assist new(er) and old(er) drivers

Certainly interested, I think a couple of the other Concept lads might be as well

I might not be up with the fastest, but the series provides excellent racing and the guys who normally enter are a joy to compete with. Would be a shame if there was no Summer Cup this year.

The 90min race at Westhill in RSWC2 was for me a great race. I hope to see another of similar length in RSSC3 if it goes ahead.

Endurance racing will certainly be a feature of any further RSC leagues, the Westhill race was one of the best races I have experianced in LFS.

As for the grid size, yes, it's a problem, personally I would like to have full grids every week, but it's just not realistic, I really can't think of any way to attract more people.....

As it stands, we have some of the cleanest, fairest and toughest opposition in LFS, probably bar none, and that in itself is a great acheivement.

You’ve done such a good job, things should largely remain the same. This leagues great because of the organisation and the racers taking part. It’s the only place to get decent RAC/FZ50 racing. Once every two weeks is ideal for me.

It’s a pity that the numbers dwindle away as the league goes on, but lots of leagues have that problem. We were down to about half the number of original entrants in the last race.
It’s hard to keep everyone keen without incentives. I suppose the weight handicaps help there. Broadcast coverage also helps, but that’s hard to get.

You’ve arrived at a good qualifying method that doesn’t take excessive time.

The variations introduced in the winter cup were welcome, maybe have more than one double race and endurance race each. I would suggest the endurance events get more points. For the double headers, how about reversing the top # number of positions. Or this may all just complicate things.
Maybe more weather variations, they seemed to disappear.

Keep up the good work

Yes, the weather is my fault, TBH, I forget untill just before the race normally.........but i will certainly try and keep it up in the future.

Broadcast coverage is tricky, I tried to get SRT to cover the races before, and to be perfectly honest, the amount of work required to send all the info SRT wanted, far, FAR outwieghted the coverage we got, so I decided it wasn't worth persuing.

And yes, the points for sprint and enduro races will be balanced more, because double the points for a sprint event as you get in an enduro event, in hindsight, was not a good idea.

Ballast, I am happy that it is doing what I intended it to do, which was make the top end of the table more balanced, and not let someone run away with the title (well, hannu is an exceptional case), but I think there is room for some tweaking in the ballast system.

I would certainly mix things up a bit more, have more sprint and more enduro races, so for an 8 race season, 2 sprint, 2 enduro and 4 "normal" races.

There is certainly a lot to think about, but improving attendence is paramount ATM.

Since i've joined, this league has improved alot. It's the only and best place, where i can have clean and fair races with FZ5/RAC and more than 5 people.

About decreasing number of drivers: That's imho pain in the ass of every league. And with cars like these, which majority can hardly handle while cruising, nor racing, you cannot expect them to come with enthusiasm.
Also i'm trying to spread the word, but people seem to lost interrest because of race time. Thursday evening is bit unusual for them (while i'm ok with that).

Races and points: Everything has been already said. More points for endu, less for sprint races. Two endurance evenings is good idea.
Just one suggestion: What about single LX6 race?

Anyway, if there will be RSSC3, then i'm in. You're doing great job Dan.

I think the number of responses you've had already is a testament to the popularity of the league. The bunch of drivers who compete in this series are all very friendly, which makes the whole atmosphere on a race evening excellent.

In respect to building up the numbers, is there something that could be done to help the less experienced / less skillful drivers to improve? For instance, setups for these cars are scarce through the normal channels, yet they can make a huge difference in terms of how easy the cars are to handle. Maybe we could encourage the sharing of setups long in advance of each race to aid these drivers. Maybe also racing clinics could be arranged for the middle Thursday between races, with one or two experienced RAC and FZ5 drivers helping other drivers to improve on the track for the following race.

It would also be nice to see stats posted more quickly, and updated signature graphics (forgotten the name for those title bar things!)

A promotional video might help to raise the interest prior to a new season.

A more radical idea would be to add an extra car to the grid (LX6?), suitably handicapped, which could either race in the same championship or within its own parallel championship. That might broaden the appeal a little, although at the risk of diluting the current focus on just the 2 road cars.

Is there any mileage in changing anything in regard to setups? Mandating tyres other than Road Super for instance, or adding passengers. Such things could be used to create unique challenges at selected races, or to be used as an additional handicapping method.

Given that there are a number of drivers who have been in this league for a while, it should be possible to share the load a little and get some volunteers to help if necessary.

Each season has been enjoyable to date, so I would be very keen to see RSSC3 .

Stats are a man-power issue, I do the stats and results as quickly as I can, but sometimes time is hard to come by.

Userbars, yeah, Gavin sent me some for RSWC, but I just never got round to implementing them, I am sure we can get some for another RSSC.

Setups, in my case, setups are freely available, infact, I have a stack of decent, quick and easy to drive FZ5 setups, which I am more than happy to hand out, I could even pack them up and post them in a single file, if that would help out newer FZ5 drivers.

Which leads me onto something else, forced setup, I would love to have a forced/fixed or reduced setup for the RSSC, simply because it is meant for "road" cars, and the amount of setup variables available are far, far more than you could get IRL, alas, it's not really possible or viable at this point in time, I may give the idea of forced road tyres further thought though....

As for "newer" drivers, I wonder if a restricted class would bring some more drivers in?

A promo video would be excellent, but I would need to ask for help from the community, because I neither have the time or skills to produce such a thing.

There is a stigma attached to both the FZ5 & RAC, that they are not good for racing, of course we know different, but I have tried to bat that stigma down so hopefully that will help things out for a new season.

As for the LX6, I just don't think it "sits" well with either the FZ5 or RAC, which seem to be very well matched over the course of a season.

Keep the ideas coming, its all good food for thought, and certainly, if anyone feels they can lend a hand with organisational work, let me know, I would be very greatfull with any assistance.

A front-engined RWD with a decent amount of power (older BMW M3...) would go well with FZ5 and RAC and bring a bit more conservative car to the class. Too bad Scawen has given a cold shoulder for (even good) car suggestions.

Anywhooo...

How about open practice nights that are announced (the mods will love us) in the general discussion and easy-yet-somewhat-fast sets that are readily available in some sort of setup pool (sticky thread in RSC league discussion).

Well just about anything that would ease the learning curve and get new peeps in would be ace.

EDIT: Oh oh oh oh I got it! Everyone starts with a white car with white wheels and earning championship points would unlock 'painted' wheels and new 'stickers'! Flames 'n shit and big ass NOZ letters. Full grids ahoy!




What?

I think you've nailed a pretty sweet spot with RSWC as it is. I like the quali-session, I like the penalty-system, I like the scoring and I like the race-distance.

Obviously, when I think that everything's alright I shouldn't post in a suggestions-forum, but I'd like to add that the RSC doesn't need any big changes. Most of the suggested changes would rather deter me from the series.

Regarding fixed setups, I'd also like to point out that the FZ5 is the equivalent of a Porsche 996 GT3, which has a *very* large variety of possible changes to it. I see the RSC much closer to e.g. Porsche Supercup than the VW Polo Cup.

Back to some positive statements, I think the RSC could improve on public relations. It's become quite usual for most drivers to practice alone, modify existing sets in singleplayer and then meet on raceday for 2 hours before saying goodbye for 2 weeks again. I'd definitely support it if there was a regular free practice established on the thursdays between the events.

Quote from danowat :

Stats are a man-power issue, I do the stats and results as quickly as I can, but sometimes time is hard to come by.

Dan, you're doing a great job with limited time. That's why I suggested getting others to do specific jobs. I find that Stats are most effective when viewed shortly after the race (like next day).

Quote from danowat :

As for "newer" drivers, I wonder if a restricted class would bring some more drivers in?

Or run a 'novice' competition. Any driver with less than x kilometres experience with their chosen steed would be eligible for entry into the novice championship as well as the main championship.

Quote from danowat :

A promo video would be excellent, but I would need to ask for help from the community, because I neither have the time or skills to produce such a thing.

Unless anybody else volunteers, I could try knocking something together. Once a decision has been made about RSSC3, give me a shout and we can discuss the content for a video.
EDIT: Just found two RSSC2 videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m4Cn0w3qyI and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3vxQZFPEs - I don't remember watching those before!


To concur with Vain and Spankmeyer, an open practice would be a good idea.

Again, all good points.

I personally feel that the RSC leagues, bar a slight amount of tweaking here and there, are pretty much sorted, but I do agree with the lack of PR.

This is probably the main reason I am doubting another season, I just don't have the time available to commit to make all of the things that should happen, happen, heck I am even finding it tough to get a single lap of practice in prior to each race, and end up using qualification as my practice, which is far from ideal.

I do like the open practice idea, maybe that could "fill" the week proceeding each event?

Stats can be done real time, it's just a case of remembering to startup the app after qually and before the race.

I do agree with Vain that we should get online as a group to practice a bit more though, as well as possibly helping out the slower amongst us, it might attract prospective entrants to the series if there's a populated server to wet their appetite.

I suggest an official practice/help session on the night before a race. That's when most seem to be doing the combination.

Since the seasons don't run concurrently, a general Road Sport Cup userbar would be enough and won't need changing.

Just a little thing, but maybe speak to Victor about getting a banner at the top of the forums in that little advert bit at the top right.
I'm sure there are people that simply don't go hunting through all the league forums, and might be attracted by a cool looking banner.

Ok, i am going to start a list of things in the first post that I feel need adding/fixing before any work begins on RSSC3.

If you feel you can help out with any of these things, let me know, any help is greatly recieved.

Cheers for letting us know, but i already knew


If there were 50 hours in every day, then i would have time to get things 100% perfect, unfortunately, there isn't.

The RSC website isn't the only website i maintain, there are 2 others, and on top of that, any spare web coding time is spent on the new AR site at the moment.

When that is finished (Very very close now) i will spend a little time tidying things up with the RSC site, and change how things work in the background a little, to hopefully make updating it with the latest set of results easier.

About stats: You can run them in background while racing, so you can upload them on forums right after race. It doesn't consume CPU that much, if it does (at least i didn't notice any framerate drop - P4 3GHz, 768 ram, old GF6600).

Hmm, i think i will look into that. It would be great to ba able to just hit a button after the race and have everything upload...
I have a spare core lying around whilst using LFS, so it shouldn't effect things much in that department.

Quote from GFresh :

Hmm, i think i will look into that. It would be great to ba able to just hit a button after the race and have everything upload...
I have a spare core lying around whilst using LFS, so it shouldn't effect things much in that department.

I used to run the stats in real time on my A64 3500 with no ill effects back when OcUK Racing had an internal league. Any modern PC will have absolutely no problems doing it.

suggestion: This was a suggestion made before last season, and denied, but having your worst result of the season scrapped for the championship would be nice.

I wrote worst result, if you miss a race, that's your worst result. It doesn't matter who decides btw, worst result is worst result. Now, in the case that you drive all the races you still have an advantage as your overall score will still improve (unless you finish every race in the same position).
The thing is, everyone (Human, not Hannu) has an off day sometime, be it because of illness, family, or just a lousy race. It gives everyone a certain 'cushion' for this. I really can't see how that's bad.
Oh, another advantage is the outcome of the season will be a bit less predictable.

Hi

I'd be interested in returning for RSSC3, if it were to go ahead. It was a good series :-)

Nowt happening with RSSC3 then?

Quote from elkdanger :

Nowt happening with RSSC3 then?

Never say never..........watch this space......