@slowbird: I didn't survive the chicane. One mistake, touched the wall, had to pit for damage. Then my race for position was over. In the end I beat PsEG, but only because of his fuel troubles. Completely dissatisfied with my race.

when i took the grid last night iracing sent me back to the pits, gave me a 30sec time out and 1 lap down before the green flag dropped? anyone have that happen to them before?

That's pretty weird. Were you one lap down once you left the pits, or just as you were sitting there? I think everyone starts -1 lap, then it ticks over once you cross the line off the grid.

I'm interested in joining the league, if you're still accepting new guys. Just rebuilt my rig for the winter last week!

Just as a heads-up, if you're one of the following people and you're wondering why you haven't been accepted into the league yet, it's because I'm waiting for you to follow the instructions in the first post to prove you're a member (or for some reason your extended application didn't take):

• Branden W.
• Gregory K.
• Vincent S.

Aside from that, I really need to get this Friday's race setup. We'll have street stocks, but how about Star Mazdas, as well? Let's try Irwindale (the actual oval) and see how this works out. I'll poke this idea a little more once we see just how badly the Star Mazdas outclass the Street Stock.

Did a couple of quick laps and the Mazda seems to be (very roughly) about 3-4 seconds quicker. It's a bit of a handful, though; definitely not glued to the track.

I dropped $65 on cars and tracks a couple days ago: FW31, Star Mazda, Chevy National / Road Atlanta, Spa, Bathurst, but no Irwindale. USA International gets my vote for next week; it's a nice track.

As a side note, I drove the FW31 for the first time; wow! Super fun!

@pseg: You know what car is about 2 seconds slower than the SS, but significantly harder to drive (equalising it a bit)? The Lotus 49.

@mouse

:Yeah the FW31 is a ton of fun. The sense of speed through the esses at Suzuka is absolutely incredible. Don't have Spa yet, but I imagine that is even more fun in the middle sector.

@khann said:

@pseg: You know what car is about 2 seconds slower than the SS, but significantly harder to drive (equalising it a bit)? The Lotus 49.

I'd run the Lotus if offered.

You want a Lotus 49? You really want a Lotus 49?!?

Hold on a moment.

...OK, done. Burn with me

(except not me, since I don't yet have the Lotus 49)

If only there was some way for you to obtain one and run it.

Ohhhh yeaahhh.

Now we've got a race.

Aw man, that sounds crazy. I seriously need to consider attending this FNT. Except I would still need to buy the Lotus...is the actual series for it active or is it almost dead? (guess I could check for myself, huh) I really like historic cars but until now it's been always rFactor for me in that regard.

Yeah, pretty much dead. But still though, it's a fun car.

You can run the Street Stock or Star Mazda if you don't want to buy the Lotus.

For the record, if this pans out, I might add the Lotus 49 as a joke selection for every Friday Night Thunder. No way in hell would I force it on the league as the only car for a race, though.

Well, I think that's just short sighted of you as a way to be a complete bastard.

@khann said:

@pseg: You know what car is about 2 seconds slower than the SS, but significantly harder to drive (equalising it a bit)? The Lotus 49.

@mouse

:Yeah the FW31 is a ton of fun. The sense of speed through the esses at Suzuka is absolutely incredible. Don't have Spa yet, but I imagine that is even more fun in the middle sector.

i hate suzuka with the worst kind of passions. if the reactors had razed it to the ground i would have been happy.

@khann: I could, but a profound feeling of sadness would hit me every time I see a Lotus driving past.

@iron1c: So I guess you'll be one of us, then?

@pseg:

That was awesome fun. Even though I was only shifting 4 times a lap, combining the H-shifter + clutch with the constant counter-steering got me sweating a bit by the end there ;)

Hahah. I had a fantastic time. Ironically, I had my fastest laps near the end, when I was, let's say, feeling it. ;)

OK, so thoughts about what was briefly mentioned during the stream:

• We'll keep this current mix for Friday Night Thunder's oval races, using the Street Stock for short ovals and CTS-Vs for long ovals. Star Mazdas and Lotus 49s will remain the premium cars, rather than breaking the Lotus 49s into their own series. My logic? If you like the idea of an oval series featuring the 49s, you'll use that car anyways. If we get enough people driving it and it starts causing problems with the other cars, THEN we'll break it out into a series featuring a few more premium ovals.
• The F1 series still sounds like a great idea, though I don't want to dilute the field with additional older F1 cars. We'll attack some free courses, but mostly Skip Barber Racing Series and legit F1 tracks. I'll put up a survey here asking for favorite times to run the series in the near future, and we'll probably have an abbreviated season from the tail end of our first season until right before our second season begins.
• @rorie is, perhaps, my favorite for plugging our stream. Again. Right during my frustration with Slowbird, no less.

Tomorrow's Formula Duder is at Road Atlanta. I hope to see a whole crapload of you there. Before then, I'll try to catch up on recapping races from earlier in the season. I need to create a points standing overlay for the videos. Not that it's hard, mind you, but I've got fancy, finicky tastes when working with graphic stuff.

@pseg That sounds good. Curious how the 49 will fare on the slightly bigger ovals where it has a bit more room to make use of its power advantage.

Oh, and that contact we had near the end of the race wasn't me defending dirty ;) I nearly lost it being a bit too keen on the throttle coming out of that turn and came super close to taking us both out.

Look forward to those recaps :D Don't even remember what went on in those races.

You don't say.

So, the biggest thing we need to work on is attendance. How do we get that? Racing with you guys is super fun, but I really want a decent race. Trying to keep up with Khann and having my only chance be if he spazzes out and spins isn't really the best challenge.

We REALLY need to find out a way to either bring new people into the GB/FD/FNT community or get existing GB members to actually show the fuck up. Thoughts?

Just watched @pseg's Twitch feed of the race. I've spent so much money on random stuff this month, I actually resisted buying the Star Mazda and just raced the "boring" Street Stock tonight. But seeing the race from PsEG's perspective makes me really want to purchase the Mazda. Is it basically like the F1 in terms of handling, only a bit slower? That's what it looks like in the video. If that's the case I'll probably buy it. I still want us to have an F1 series though. I still want to do some Street Stock racing on occasion too. I actually like that car.

I have some thoughts on this. Note that we have 64 people in our league, 37 of which have logged on in November. There's a chance that we are so spread out in times that we're hitting our current maximum for people who can make it to a Friday night and Saturday night race, but I sincerely doubt that.

In regards to attracting new people, I think the stream's our best bet, especially if we can maintain a little staff support. YouTube recaps are nice for reference and engaging people who are already on the site, but it typically doesn't attract people to Giant Bomb itself. Blogs might help a little, but I'm unsure how much. Bribery through attendance bounties is a grand idea, but it won't help if I'm picking a bad time to schedule these races, and it can only do so much to help with iRacing's hefty costs.

With that said, here's the action I'm considering thus far:

• Standardizing the start times for each series, including a slightly earlier time for Formula Duder's actual race to encourage more worldwide attendance.
• Increasing practice times for each race, should frustration or worries about inept driving be a concern.
• Adding a couple of new series to the weekly mix. I'd like to be between 3-5 races each week. This may involve deputizing other league members to implement races/hold order, should I not be available to race (especially if we have weekday Euro-friendly races).
• Pushing out a season two survey near or at the end of season one to both determine how to tweak our seasons, what to add to the schedule, AND the biggest obstacles to participation.
• Seriously, more races.

Always open to suggestions beyond that. I don't think we're in any trouble in our current state, so the key is patience as we improve and adjust. We'll add more races, and if everyone keeps making their best efforts to attend, we should continue to have stability and growth.

I don't know why there's 64 people signed up in the league but only 1/5 or so join the Duder races. The league's only a few months old.

Is there a way we can have some sort of special event, with actual rewards for the top finishers? If we managed that, perhaps we could get the big guys to put some thing on the website to promote it. That'd definitely bring existing drivers to the race and gain some non-iRacing viewers from Giant Bomb's community.

I played a game called Turbo Sliders for many years, and we did a similar thing. The community's very small for that game, but when a big event was planned with awards, people came out in numbers! Filled the servers for some time. I actually organized several leagues for that game.

The Star Mazda's like a Skip Barber Formula 2000 with more power, technology, and grip (due to slicks). Given it's a support series for IndyCar, I'd compare it to an under-powered version of those rather than F1.

It's like the F1 in that it has slick tyres and proper downforce, but it definitely doesn't have as much grip and is much, much slower. I guess with the speeds it goes it does kinda feel like it has just as much grip. It's still on the old tyre model too, which is the only reason I don't enjoy racing it quite as much.

@pseg I'd be really curious to see how many show up for a weeknight race. Maybe lots of folks have too much going on during the weekend to fit a race in, but their weekdays are quieter and they can fit 2 hours in here and there. I dunno.

I also have absolutely no idea what time is good for the Europeans among us. The current times seem pretty good for US and Aus/NZ (roughly mid-day in this part of the world, though that can change quite a bit, depending). Prizes are definitely a good incentive for people to show up, though making it a bit more clear what you need to do to be in the running would be a good idea (e: actually, this is pretty clear. Ignore me.) . Maybe some of the regulars here with a little disposable cash could pitch in to sweeten the pot a little?

@mouse PsEG has said he could be interested in some kind of endurance event near the end of the year. That could potentially be what you're talking about. I think having the prizes only be for the fastest doesn't necessarily work, because the skill/experience/commitment level varies hugely (I imagine even more so if you were getting a bunch of people signing up just for a special event).

Definitely interested in joining the league

made a new skip livery in the new 2048 px resolution that is supported based on the old ALMS/le mans oreca viper. you can grab it on the forums here:

http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/250/1828661.page#7536732

and/or let me know if you want it personalized for you (name, country/club giant bomb etc etc) ill be glad to do it. :)

The aspect of prizes for the top finishers would appeal to the people looking in. The goal would be to create this for the regular Giant Bomb readers: "Oh man, those guys are racing for ______, I'll check it out."

I totally understand that it's not fair to everyone in our league though since there's the variations of drivers you pointed out. I think having a special event, that's just special to existing players isn't going to make others want to take interest. We'd have to find that something extra! People will take interest if we're racing for something. Perhaps a charity race of some kind.

Just tossing my ideas out there, since it worked in Turbo Sliders, maybe it could here. :) I want to see 20+ in our races!

Even though it' at 03:30am, I'm looking forward to tonight's Road Atlanta race. With it being our first premium race, I hope the attendance will still be healthy. Road Atlanta is a great track and I'm looking to take more points from PsEG ;)

I kinda wish the format was street stock/rotating premium oval car and free road/rotating premium road car to balance things out, but I know how much you guys love your open wheel racers. I guess what I'm really saying is, I'm not much of a fan of the street stock and would prefer a faster option that's still made for ovals.

I think PSEG should add a "What cars/tracks do you own/would you buy if they were run in a series?" section to the poll he's making. I think most of us who are more serious have more content than we did when the series started, and some of the newcomers to the series do, too. I think the max number of cars we can run at once is 4, right?

What's the car split usually like for the FDuder races? I usually just run MX-5s with the locals, but if I'm the only one putzing around out there for these races I can probably grab the Skippy or Star Mazda or whatever you guys run on the Road courses.

Four different cars is indeed the limit.

The reason I don't flat-out ask about specific cars and tracks is because of the wide range available. I'm not convinced I'd get any useful data, and it'd make the surveys that much more of a pain to complete. Rather, I'd prefer to limit that line of questioning to suggestions for series, where the cars, tracks, and intent is already outlined. I can work that down to a more sensible "I like/hate this idea" metric.

I definitely hear the complaint about car selection, though. I could add in a late model or similar car, but given we were split two a piece for the classes last week, I'm worried a total of four classes would over-segment the field, even if I scored it as one pack. I don't want to remove the Lotus 49 to give it a chance, but I'm willing to throw the Street Stock out for the CTS-V and/or swap the Star Mazda with a late model/national car. I'm not sure if the CTS-V is fun around short ovals, though.

I'd like to keep Friday Night Thunder to more oval/figure-eight-based events. We don't do nearly enough of that compared to road courses, especially given we'll be picking up an F1 event soon.

That aside, in regards to @mouse's suggestions, I totally have ideas for one-off events that I think would be perfect for sometime during the holiday season. I'm bouncing between a 2013 Grand Finals series with a long race in each discipline, a Giant Bomb vs. The World event where we take on all comers, or just an endurance event like what Dark was trying to pull off last week. I can look into prizes or rewards if people think that'd be a thing, but can't promise anything too extravagant. (Charity's not a bad idea either, albeit a bit complex. Maybe best to save that until next year's Extra Life.)

No, you won't be the only one in an MX-5. In the 2 FD races I've been in, there's been two; me being one of them and the other dropped out each race.

Having recently bought and practiced with the Skippy, I'm not confident enough in my driving ability to use it in a race yet.

Hey man, thanks for joining & hope to see you out there tonight! typically, we have about 6-10 racers in the Skippy and usually 1 or 2 in the MX5. We've designed this series to be a fun, introductory race to help people get more accustomed to the Skip Barber and iRacing in general. And also, to make "your mom" jokes.

K, I'll hold off on buying the Skip for now.

I like running the MX-5 as the local guys that race Spec Miata use them and I hope to get actual door-to-door in the next year or two. But it is just iRacing so more cars eventually will be a good thing.

Well, just turned my first laps around Road Atlanta. What a great track.

Also, don't be too afraid to jump into the Skippy guys. Just focus on running safe, rather than fast and the speed will come (something I need to learn to do...). You'll never get faster in it if you never drive it ;) Plus I imagine the MX-5 would be bloody terrifying around Road Atlanta. Especially from what I've heard of how it drives with the NTMv5.

e: sorry, kinda sounds like I'm discouraging using the MX-5 here. All I'm trying to say is that once you wrap your head around the Skippy, it's not as difficult to drive as you may be telling yourself.

Looks like it did count the incidents post-race... so I'll carry my offer over to the next race.

Welp. We did have 15 finishers tonight. So, true to my word, I've gathered the list of names (excluding myself) and the winner is....................

SamuraiGarrin!

So, Samurai, you have your choice of a track or a car, let me know which you want and I'll figure out a way to give it to you.

@khann: Which was what?

man, what an insane race. a mix of the highest car count so far, and just battles battles battles 3 and 4 wide, and just good close and super intense racing. havent had a race like that in a long time!

:D:D:D:D

I'll buy the next premium track (Spa, I think) in the FD series for whoever finishes with the lowest incidents. Or if they already have it I'll just buy a car/track.

@khann:

I had a lot of fun. I still hate how garbage the cold tires are in the Miata, though it's probably not any better in the other cars.

I spent like a minute in the pits waiting for my car to be repaired before I was told it was instant, haha.
AND I had to serve a stop and go for speeding in the pits.
Also I spun a lot!

I don't think I screwed anyone up TOO much though.