Thoughts on League Tracks

TonyG · Post by **TonyG** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:48 pm

First I want to make sure everyone understands that this is not a dig at any driver, administrator or league.

Currently I think there is only one thing wrong with the VR/InSPire Truck league and that is that there are too many crashes, bingles, rippings or whatever you want to call them and this leads to frustrated drivers who make more mistakes etc etc.

I believe that every driver in this league would be quite happy if their were no crashes during a race, of course this is never going to happen but how can we improve the situation and please everyone (or get as close to that as is humanly possible  ).

First we have to identify the problem.

This is what I believe the problem is:-

1. The skill level is overall pretty average (here again I am not having a dig just making a statement made on observation)

2. Having 40ish drivers on the track causes traffic problems.

3. Certain tracks are too small, tight or difficult for 1 and 2 above

This is what I believe is the soloution:-

1. The skill level will increase with experience and time, but there will always be drivers leaving and joining the league, be they placed 1st, 5th or 30th and therefore the skill level will remain relatively similar.

2. Having 40ish drivers on the track at the same time, if I have been reading the threads properly is what the majority would like.

3. Changing the tracks is the only soloution.

Ok, so what sort of track should we race on, and which ones should we not race on:-

The minimum of accidents occur on superspeedways and wide and long speedways Daytona, California etc. The majority of accidents occur on shorter and narrower speedways, Texas, Lowes etc.

The answer to me is quite simple; we only race on the wide and long (ish) speedways. Unfortunately NR2003 doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t provide enough of these tracks to have 12 races (which is a pretty good length for a league).

This brings a couple of problems, we donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t want to race on tracks that are Ã¢â‚¬Å“all the sameÃ¢â‚¬Â

BAZZIL · Post by **BAZZIL** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:56 pm

Excellent TonyG

I also think the same, the larger tracks are better for the numbers we have, Part of the problem with the smaller tracks is the fact that cars appear out of thin air because the server limits the number of cars you get data sent from.

Larger tracks are more fun anyway, there is more drafting and team work involved.

Yes when Inspector and I generated the track list we struggled to get enough easy to drive tracks, we knew ones like Lowes would be dodge

but to get 12 tracks out of what was available that everyone would be able to drive on was rather tight

Anywho, I think if we can find enough addon tracks like you have done, then we can use those, we did have a look for addon tracks but didn't really have enough time to have a good look around for them and we wanted to get the league underway without a big debate about what tracks we should race

More on the race comittee helping out would be good aswell as some of us get busy at times

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:11 pm

i still cant see how avoiding the tracks that cause issues, will improve the skill level.

i know there is no easy solution, but simply forcing everyone to run one track type because a select group have neither the skill or the desire to try and drive the smaller tracks properly sucks, and does nothing for the league in the future.

all the fast guys say yes lets do it, cause they dont run into issues with dings on the bigger tracks, but the rest of us mid feild still have to deal with it every week, and the change to the bigger tracks wouldnt help us at all.

if needed or as a another chain of thought, i would like to offer to admin a seperate league, that uses the smaller tracks, but carries heavier penelties for incidents. this would run side by side with the main league, and could help with the overloading problem, as well as up skilling people.

TonyG · Post by **TonyG** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:48 pm

ronwest wrote:i still cant see how avoiding the tracks that cause issues, will improve the skill level.

i know there is no easy solution, but simply forcing everyone to run one track type because a select group have neither the skill or the desire to try and drive the smaller tracks properly sucks, and does nothing for the league in the future.

all the fast guys say yes lets do it, cause they dont run into issues with dings on the bigger tracks, but the rest of us mid feild still have to deal with it every week, and the change to the bigger tracks wouldnt help us at all.

if needed or as a another chain of thought, i would like to offer to admin a seperate league, that uses the smaller tracks, but carries heavier penelties for incidents. this would run side by side with the main league, and could help with the overloading problem, as well as up skilling people.

Ron
I think the skill level will improve racing tracks like California, Papyrus, and Michigen because these are quite difficult tracks to get 100% right but what they offer is a wide "escape" area for wayward trucks, and a good chance of following trucks missing them, this means less big crashes, more racing and skills improving.
When the time is right and we can say the majority could race with minimum mishaps on texas for example, then we do it.
There were a few posts suggesting we were there last season.....but obviously not

As for the fast guys missing the midfield crashes, remember the top five start at the back!

I think a small track league would be great

BAZZIL · Post by **BAZZIL** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:49 pm

ronwest wrote:i still cant see how avoiding the tracks that cause issues, will improve the skill level.

I think you missed the point ron,

as TonyG illustrated it's going to be very difficult to dramaticaly increase the skill level, the point is we don't really want to race races that are just a crash fest, longer tracks are less of a crash fest than small ones.

famin · Post by **famin** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:58 pm

easy answer... race on road courses...

chronic · Post by **chronic** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:08 pm

I would still prefer a mix of tracks for variety and challenge but as Tony suggests, larger and wider tracks may have to be the norm if we are to reduce the number of incidents.

Still, even Superspeedways have a habit of producing some rather nasty prangs like the one that occured inside 2 laps during the kiwi vs aussie race.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:17 pm

skills relate to two areas, ones ablilty to drive well, the other is how well you think about driving.

big tracks are great for racing, but teach little in the way of thinking about how to avoid causing a wreck, getting into a wreck and piling into a wreck.

i think your approaching it from the point of view that a group of drivers, want a wreck free race every week, and the only way you'll get it is too sanitise the racing to suit.

down the road in a years time, you going to have 43 drivers that know nothing about wreck avoidance.

GP might as well start selling the sim brick

as for the top 5 going to the back each week, hasn't really hurt them at this stage, and still does nothing for the mid feild that have put up with the wreckers that just want to barge on thru and say sorry after the race.

i know i am flogging a dead horse, and in time the thinking will change, just hope it's b4 gt50 comes on the shelves

UnbounD · Post by **UnbounD** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 10:54 pm

Like it the way it is...............

Except for papyrus.. If we are going to have road courses, lets have decent road courses......
If we are racing ovals and a tri-'s lets do that.....

As for track size, if its all big tracks it will get a little old quite quick.

rob_c · Post by **rob_c** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 12:18 am

I have never liked the small 1/2 milers (especially with almost the full fields that you guys are getting) . . . and the SS's can get boring . . . so how about another approach ?

As per the last race at Lowes, the main problem seems to be the narrowness of some of the tracks . . . how about we try and find some track editing guys who can simply make some of the existing tracks wider ?

I know that there is a lot of work in creating a Roadcourse from scratch . . . but I have no idea how easy or hard it is to modify the width of existing tracks ?

Someone mentioned that "Team Tactics" can be employed at SS's . . . .that doesn't help us poor old Independents.

And no . . . please don't add Roadcourses . . . if I wanted Roadcourses (and if I could actually drive on them) then I'd be in your Sportscar League.

TonyG · Post by **TonyG** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 10:50 am

UnbounD wrote:Like it the way it is...............

Except for papyrus.. If we are going to have road courses, lets have decent road courses......
If we are racing ovals and a tri-'s lets do that.....

As for track size, if its all big tracks it will get a little old quite quick.

Papyrus is always gonna be a love it or hate it track

As for road courses, IMHO we can't get around a medium sized oval without having huge crashes every time, a road course would be worse.
Try the tracks i posted they are all different

TonyG · Post by **TonyG** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 10:57 am

rob_c57 wrote:I have never liked the small 1/2 milers (especially with almost the full fields that you guys are getting) . . . and the SS's can get boring . . . so how about another approach ?

As per the last race at Lowes, the main problem seems to be the narrowness of some of the tracks . . . how about we try and find some track editing guys who can simply make some of the existing tracks wider ?

I know that there is a lot of work in creating a Roadcourse from scratch . . . but I have no idea how easy or hard it is to modify the width of existing tracks ?

Someone mentioned that "Team Tactics" can be employed at SS's . . . .that doesn't help us poor old Independents.

And no . . . please don't add Roadcourses . . . if I wanted Roadcourses (and if I could actually drive on them) then I'd be in your Sportscar League.

Try the tracks, Superspeedways can get boring but how many times have you heard the commentators on NASCAR races comment on the fact that the drivers are always looking for someone to work with and draft together, a bit of strategy is involved, drafting is a skill, the variety is important, I'm not saying my list is perfect but I believe it is a good start to racing more than crashing.
And yes there WILL ALWAYS be crashes but you can't avoid them on a narrow track!!

rob_c · Post by **rob_c** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:37 am

Any reason why Indianapolis wasn't included in your list ? . . . that can be fun.

And I've put posts in a couple of forums to see if anyone can advise if it's feasible to edit the track widths (or create new, wider ovals from scratch) . . . tho it's obviously a bad time to be asking about Track Editing with "First"s carrying on at moment.

TonyG · Post by **TonyG** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:41 am

Indianopolis can be fun, also there is a banked indy track available, but this list was my first choice there are another 4 or 5 tracks that i like too, there is a lot to choose from

Mattly · Post by **Mattly** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 10:16 am

100% agree with you TonyG. You will get my vote and a suspect many others. Perhaps the current commitee would consider his proposal and put it to a poll so that we can gauge the feelings of the other drivers. Allow for the option " I disagree but i will race" so we don't force people to leave.

UnbounD · Post by **UnbounD** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:56 am

If we are going to be stuck with SS tracks can we at least do it in something faster than trucks .......

What a massive shame ...... It was just getting interesting

UnbounD · Post by **UnbounD** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:01 pm

TonyG wrote: Papyrus is always gonna be a love it or hate it track
As for road courses, IMHO we can't get around a medium sized oval without having huge crashes every time, a road course would be worse.
Try the tracks i posted they are all different

So your saying its the level of skill thats the problem not the track choice as we seem to be able to get around the tracks ok on a Sunday night....

I dont want to run road courses Nascar style, as Rob said, thats why I joined the sports cars.
Which im guessing will become GTP.

Either way its going to get busy. There are a crap load of ppl wanting to mp gtr so that would make 3 nights a week without adding any kind of dirt racing.

Shit my job sucks azz...... Someone give me some bloody work to do

Snake Rogers · Post by **Snake Rogers** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:08 pm

Top effort Tony

Snake Rogers · Post by **Snake Rogers** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:10 pm

UnbounD wrote:If we are going to be stuck with SS tracks can we at least do it in something faster than trucks .......

Well lets go back to racing the cup cars + super ovals

Bold · Post by **Bold** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:16 pm

Id be happy to give Cup cars another go.

One suggestion I have is to sort a good stable setup for all tracks before the league has started rather than finding out 2 days before the race that the setup is pants. Alot of the time the setup we race is far from perfect and only adds to the dings with cars loosing control by themselves.

BAZZIL · Post by **BAZZIL** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:23 pm

I'm all for cup cars too

It'll be nice to have a bit of a change

Snake Rogers · Post by **Snake Rogers** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:28 pm

Should we send it to a vote cup cars or trucks?

Mattly · Post by **Mattly** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 1:49 pm

Snake Rogers wrote:Should we send it to a vote cup cars or trucks?

Yup votings good. The comment about the setups good to. Perhaps for next season we could get more people involved to share the load?
Organisers,protest comitee,pre-race track reporters, post-race reporters etc.

UnbounD · Post by **UnbounD** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 1:50 pm

Spose I can live with that.
Then maybe once we have that out of our systems the league after that can be back to trucks and some smaller tracks.

small is good

Eagle32 · Post by **Eagle32** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:07 pm

It'd be nice to drive cup cars for a change of pace.

While I also like the small tracks but some people seem to take issue with them

I'll put my hand up to help in whatever capacity is needed next season.