Brands Hatch Post Race Chat

Had a shocker of a night which was totally due to my lack of driving ability rather than anyone else's fault, I just struggled to find any kind of rythm, but i certainly made sure that the Curators at Brands Hatch had plenty of work to do Today, especially in getting all the sand back into the sand traps, If Tiger Woods spent as much time in the sand as me then Sex would be the only thing hs's good at.
Oh well bring on Imola, much more forgiving sand traps.

Thanks for a fun night tonight
really enjoyed the patches that i was actually racing with some of you guys, not just lapping, all 3 races ended last by halfway through lap one, and made a few positions by people playing sand castles, then cost my self afew positions by doing the same

enjoyed having so many on vent, i dont talk much as i need to concentrate, (even at work, i find if i get distracted in a conversation i make mistakes or forget to tell people stuff)

race 1, got turned around at the start, looks on replay like gman got turned around and then into me, so i was at the back and just plodded on till about halfway though before i spent a miniute in the sand

race2, car started to roll so i stoped, then had trouble getting off the line so i was swamped, and acidently turned gman around, then around after turn 3 got turned around as someone got a better run off the corner
got a few positons back before again playing in sand

race 3. got turned around again by gman, (sorry not picking on you gman) ended last, but i think the weight some guys were carring ment i could keep up, and made time on drivers, was in about 14 on the last lap battling with ash and abs, then i cracked under the presuer and went off and ended up in around 22nd

great racing tonight, nib, dave, good concept you have going, and thanks for the work you put in to run it

What a fun racing night last night. This mod is really enjoyable and a great drive. I had ample oppotunities at the front of the field in all three races but some driving errors on my behalf put me down the order a bit. The three race format with penalties and reverse grid made for some close and even racing and I think we should continue with this format for the coming races and maybe even some of the other mods. Great job by Nib and Dave for putting this all together and a bigger thanks to Lachlan for doing all the skins!!!

Had a ball as well. Like Graham, don't talk much on vent... Hope i didn't get in too many people's way...I try to look who's behind and let the faster guys past.... see ya all next race

Congratulations to the many different drivers who managed to get onto the podium. I had my chances to get there but made mistakes under pressure when the tyres went off, particularly when the weight was on.

I had some great battles throughout the night, particularly with Kwikiwi, Nibiru, Lachlan, Jimbob, Barney, Rawprawn, Rev-head and Holdfast. Sorry for the touch on the last turn Rev-head, I redressed but waited too long and lost 4 more places to 15th. Caught up again but locked up avoiding Rawprawn and ran into the fence, it was hard to turn in after that.

Bloody good fun whatever the final results though, great series, well put together and organised. Also good to see no DQ's for the wrong upgrade.

Been reading you race reports..

Another great nights racing well done to all, really enjoyed this mod and the format.

Yes that was great fun last night, even enjoyed the first race where i finished 19th after parking it in the sand on the second last lap had great battles with lots of different people over the three races. Am looking forward to the next round!

A very interesting evening of racing... a big field, different cars with different strengths, reverse grid and weight penalties, close racing.. Brands Hatch had it all!
Perhaps, however, one of the MOST satisfying aspect was the freedom to completely adjust setups. This element opens up another level of the game which can be just as satisfying as the actual driving. I am hopeful that in the near future, free setups will be allowed in other championships (at least in League 1).
Congrats to Jimbob for topping the points score for this round.

I agree...a great round...well supported. Very happy to get my first official Fartcan pole & race win....well done Jimbob on the Rd win...I must agree with RobZee about the free set ups..it does bring out a whole new exciting element to the game...looking forward to the next Rd.

I'm still not sure if free set-ups are the way to go, they can increase the margin between fastest and slowest because generally, the faster drivers are also better at setting a car up, and their set-ups may not suit the driving style of slower drivers.

I found Robzee's set-up fast but I wasn't confident I'd keep it on-track because it was way looser than mine or default settings.

I wasn't able to match times I set weeks earlier on default settings, whether using my own or Robzee's set-up. I ended up racing with default in race 1 because I had to restart rfactor during quali and Parc Ferme wouldn't let me put a set-up on. I got a pretty good 7th, then 7th again in race 2 with my set-up but I know if default wouldn't been better.

Anyway I think its good to have one of our series with freedom of set-ups for those who like it that way.

I agree with Rims, I guess a lot of people including myself would be lucky to get time to even have 30 minutes of practice let alone stuff around with set ups. Great mod but it's a pitty we don't have a second league for this one so the hacks can just have fun as we do with the V8's. The tight lipped attitude at the begining re fuel made me laugh. Oh well obviously alot of blokes take a much more serious approach to playing this game than I do. Will be keen to see how the remaining races go.

Cheers,
Sulio

I give up........................you can't please everyone all of the time.

dont die nib nib....

I heard plenty of fuel info given before the race. We were told to put in enough to cover quali and warm-up as well as the race. I told everyone that tv-style reckoned the fuel-rate was much lower than the rfactor fuel-estimator. I think ppl were more likely to have excess fuel than run out before the end of the race.

As for keeping ppl happy, I think you've done a great job of making everyone happy most of the time, Nib, don't despair. I said it was good to have both variable and fixed set-ups, I'm happy with that, but I also said it could spread the field out more, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That way the guys who're prepared to put the time in to work it all out get rewarded with the satisfaction that their superior set-up earned them a better place.(like in real racing) I know I need to learn to set up my car because my driving-style, like everyone else's, is unique to me and the set-up must enhance it rather than force me to alter it.

Numbers are picking up for the next round and we must be approaching the point where we either split into 2 leagues(if that's an option???) or close registrations. If there is a League 2 could it have fixed set-ups???

Round one I had bloody ball,had some fantastic battles.All good Rims shit happens,thx for waiting m8.
Well done Admin looks like this should be a great comp for some close racing.

my 2c.

1) if you dont have a setup, just ask for one to be sent, on another server where i do some racing, people are happy to share, and i cant see that it wil be different here,

2) it was good to race with so many people (im a back marker) and i dont have any issue with one league, it should inspire people to get better, anyway its all fun,

Well enough is enough. I knew this was coming, there will always be those for Setups and those against. I think everyone needs to just step back and look at the clan you chose to race with, in the full understanding that setups were not on the agenda.,

FartCan was established by Sulio & Myself to give guys who didn’t have the time to Practice and setup cars because of other life commitments, a place to come and race, along with others guys in the same situation, just get away from Life / Work and have some fun on a Monday night.

We had both raced with other clans where free setups are the normal race procedure, we and others who are now with us found it almost impossible to compete without committing to hours of practice and car tuning, that’s why FartCan is here Today, Now people will say just get a setup off someone else, yeah that’s all good in theory, but not in practice, everyone has a different driving style and because of that it creates many different options when setting up the car, which is the reason why the faster guys all make their own individual setups because it suits their driving, One guy likes his car loose another likes his tight. The only guy who wins from setups are the experienced guys with lots of race and practice hours available. And so the quick guys get quicker and the slower guys get further behind.

It amazes me that this Clan ran a full Historix series with fixed setups cars like the Mustangs, Falcon, Cortina etc etc, that let’s face it if you compare them to the WTCC, V8’s and Dumans they were a handful to drive but they were great fun because everyone was on a level playing field.

The free setups were brought into the WTCC I believe because of gearing differences between the cars, creating big speed differences. I’m not sure if the AI cars give an exact representation of each cars ability but i’ve done several test races with them and had a variety of cars on the podium in fact if any car dominates it’s possibly the BMW, but certainly not by a lot. Having said that i’m not sure if it’s a true indication.

Anyway as a result of this current issue and several other issues that really have got me to the point where it just aint fun for me anymore, I’ve decided that things have to change at FartCan , I hope that the Clan will continue on but at this stage there is no guarantee of that, I guess the upside is that those who want to run setups can move to other Clans where they do run them.. I will keep everyone informed when I know more.
Cheers
DaveG

NOOOO!
I am a tea pot!
I am a tea pot!
I am a tea pot!
I don't want to hear this.

Okay, I am new here, but I like it.

you can't please everyone, I have anguished over these sort of thing in a league, I just remind myself what is so good about "things", in this case "Fart Can Racing"

I like the peeps and the "fun"

my 2d worth (sorry about the old pre-1966 coinage )

Is it really that big of an issue? I haven't heard any complaints about the fixed setups. Just because people are expressing pleasure at the free setups, doesn't mean they're complaining about the fixed ones. Everyone seems pretty happy with the way things are being run, and I've only seen positive attitudes towards the admins. You certainly have my full support. I say sleep on it before pulling the plug.

Sorry you feel that way about things Dave, I thought the feedback given in this topic were generally positive and encouraging, with a few guys expressing their gratitude for having the chance to use their setting-up skills.

Most of us were expecting fixed set-ups when we turned up to race WTCC on Monday night, which means that we must all be happy to race with fixed set-ups rather than go elsewhere. I think that if the set-ups were fixed for the WTCC the discussion would have been all about how great the racing was and set-ups wouldn't have been mentioned.

I didn't know why set-ups weren't fixed until I read your last post. Your decision was based on hours of testing that you did to makes sure its fair for everybody and I'm sure that it was. Its interesting that in Historix we had to all drive the same car with fixed set-ups to have a "level playing field" and that to give us the choice of cars you had to unfix the set-ups to achieve it.

To me that would indicate that the default set-up for different cars in multi-manufacturer series don't always make them equal. To equalise them with fixed set-ups for each car would mean even more work for our over-worked admin, but if we stuck to single car series those problems wouldn't arise, so Dave and Nibiru would have a bit more time to practise and enjoy their racing.

The DuMans series seems to have the desired level playing-field, so there must be other mods that got the default set-ups for different cars more even, those mods might just be hard to find, requiring extensive testing.

I'm confident that the current race-formats Fartcan runs produces the closest possible racing between drivers with widely varying speed, and its because of the much appreciated time, effort and thought Dave and Nib put into it.

What more could anyone want, except maybe to have a forum to share our thoughts on what we do?

Hmmmm

Well all Im going to say is there are many servers that run Free set-ups and the thing that makes Fartcan different is we dont do free set-ups! (well we didnt before this!)

There has been many an argument over this on other servers!

Just remember Fartcans welcome note on the left top of your screen
quote
"Fartcan racing is an Online sim racing community, a few guys who started out racing with no Sim racing experience and found that the major race leagues are packed with experienced Sim Racer's who’ve been doing this for years and as a result we found it difficult to be competitive, so we decided to create a Race League for those starting out or those who are not at the pointy end ..."

I think without saying it directly that having free set-ups is directly against what they Dave and Sulio set this up as as its meant to be a place for people who are racing for fun and dont spend hours on setups etc.

Ash

No disrespect to you Almac but the conversation here is just the tip of the Ice Berg i'm afraid.

As i said this is only one of several issues that have taken it's Toll.
The last thing I want to see is FartCan fold so I'll be doing what I can to avoid that.

Please note: I wont be respondng to anymore PM's about the direction FartCan should have or should be taking. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but i'm getting sick of defending our format.

FCR DaveG wrote:..........PM's about the direction FartCan should have or should be taking...............defending our format.

Sorry, I didn't know you were under pressure to make changes, please continue in the direction we're headed, its a great format.

FCR DaveG wrote:No disrespect to you Almac but the conversation here is just the tip of the Ice Berg i'm afraid.

I figured I wasn't getting the whole picture I could tell from some of the official emails that you're getting a bit stressed. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.

FCR DaveG wrote:As i said this is only one of several issues that have taken it's Toll.
The last thing I want to see is FartCan fold so I'll be doing what I can to avoid that.

The clan has grown a lot just in the short time since I joined. Maybe it'd be worth adding another admin to take some of the load off, and you could concentrate on just running the server and leave the politics to someone else. I nominate Rims.

FCR DaveG wrote:Please note: I wont be respondng to anymore PM's about the direction FartCan should have or should be taking. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but i'm getting sick of defending our format.

That's just weird to me. Who joins a clan in full knowledge of how it's run, and then makes a nuisance of themselves trying to change it? (that's a rhetorical question, I don't want names). I, for one, joined specifically because of the way it's set up. If I wanted something else, I'd have joined a different clan.

I've never been an admin of any forum, but if I were in your position, I wouldn't have bothered defending it in the first place. A useful phrase for these kinds of people is "Thankyou for your input. We will give it all the consideration it deserves." (That applies to this post as well)