WIX Racing TCC - Round One (Brands Hatch Indy) - Drivers Briefing/Discussion

Welcome to the first round of WIX Racing TCC!  This week we are at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit, an obvious place to start a Touring Car Series.  The Brands Hatch circuit is home to many forms of motorsports and owes to its origins to a group of cyclists who wanted to practice for cycling races in the fields of the Brands Hatch Farm.


Qualifying - This will be the typical "6 laps and out" qualifying.  Drivers will have 1 warm-up laps, 4 flying laps, and 1 cool down lap during which drivers will park on Turn 1 (Paddock Hill Bend) were lobby hosts will collect times.  Remember that drivers should be/appear online 15 minutes prior to qualifying start.  

Here is everyone's qualifying lobbies for this series:



Race - There will be two races in an evening, and each will last around 25 minutes.  For Brands Hatch Indy, that will be 27 laps.  Race One will form up on the grid in the order in which the competitors qualified.  Race Two will form up on the grid in the order in which the competitors finished Race One.  There will be no mandatory pit stops during the races, but the pits will be open if your car becomes damaged.  If drivers do need to enter the pits, please remember that there is a pit of a chicane going into the pit lane.  



To sign-in for the race, please use the sign-in form that you can find here: http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t16066-wix-racing-tcc-race-sign-in-form-live-timing

Please ensure you've signed in here before racing on Tuesday!
http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t16066-wix-racing-tcc-race-sign-in-form-live-timing

A lot of drivers have not signed in yet!  Do not forget to sign in if you want to race.  Remember, those who have not picked a car yet (you know who you are) need to pick a car by Sunday at 20:00 GMT or they will not be allowed to race.

I'm not sure if people are aware of this, but since last Tuesday's Forza 6 update, any cars that stop on track for 30 seconds now get disconnected from the lobby (this applies to both public and private lobbies). Which makes the manual standing start procedure virtually impossible now! It also affects qualifying lobbies as hosts will need to take a screenshot or phone photo of the results within 30 seconds before people start disappearing from the lobby.

CQR MAGiC wrote:I'm not sure if people are aware of this, but since last Tuesday's Forza 6 update, any cars that stop on track for 30 seconds now get disconnected from the lobby (this applies to both public and private lobbies). Which makes the manual standing start procedure virtually impossible now! It also affects qualifying lobbies as hosts will need to take a screenshot or phone photo of the results within 30 seconds before people start disappearing from the lobby.

With this in mind Magic, have you (with others obviously) tried anything to improve the starting process to get around this new issue or do you have any ideas? The multi-player racing I've done recently was all OK as we were in a private lobby with everyone going for it so not seen this issue in action.

We had to do a rolling start instead in TURN Clio Cup on Tuesday as it the update had literally just come out an hour before.

There is a potential workaround - the October update added the ability to set the grid based on the Best Lap from the previous race. So, we could do a one lap warmup, collisions off, and nobody dirty their laps. Everyone cross the start/finish line to start the laptime counter running then shuffle into our correct starting order and then each driver complete their lap, allowing a few seconds apart for each car. That SHOULD ensure that our laptimes will be in the correct order to set the grid. Then set the lobby to Best Lap grid order and do a regular start (just drive straight from GO).

CQR MAGiC wrote:There is a potential workaround - the October update added the ability to set the grid based on the Best Lap from the previous race. So, we could do a one lap warmup, collisions off, and nobody dirty their laps. Everyone cross the start/finish line to start the laptime counter running then shuffle into our correct starting order and then each driver complete their lap, allowing a few seconds apart for each car. That SHOULD ensure that our laptimes will be in the correct order to set the grid. Then set the lobby to Best Lap grid order and do a regular start (just drive straight from GO).

That sounds like a simple workaround and is also something TORA have done before for previous comps to set the grid order i.e. 1 lap round Motegi loop. If the lobby hosts all get their head around this method then it should work fine.

Yeah hopefully, TCC just wouldn't be the same with rolling starts lol

CQR MAGiC wrote:I'm not sure if people are aware of this, but since last Tuesday's Forza 6 update, any cars that stop on track for 30 seconds now get disconnected from the lobby (this applies to both public and private lobbies). Which makes the manual standing start procedure virtually impossible now! It also affects qualifying lobbies as hosts will need to take a screenshot or phone photo of the results within 30 seconds before people start disappearing from the lobby.

Although this is a pain it is sorely needed in the public lobbies to avoid all of the cheating crashers out there who when they cant compete just crash everyone out.
I actually wish it was modded to apply to anyone repeatedly going backwards round the track or the same for making contact with the back of someone elses car.

They added this 30 sec disconnection 'feature' to stop people just sitting in Online League lobbies and picking up points without even racing, but it should be turned off in private lobbies IMO (or give us a menu option at least!). There's been a lot of reports of random disconnections even when people are actually racing since this update, so it looks it may be having some unintended side effects too.

indycar race yesterday had no issues with the disconnect. so you might be lucky

Totaly agree Mark, if they were going to implement something like that then it needed, ideally, not to be a blanket feature.

We are going to try and avoid rolling starts. The plan will be to do a single lap race t set the grid using 'best lap' to set the grid. Hopefully it will work correctly!!
I fully understand it was needed in general open lobbies but user defined ones? That should have been added to the settings. it's a shame and I hope they fix that for us all soon.

The thing that will be most likely to trip up the best lap method is the fact that some cars will start their flying lap before others - cars at the front of the grid will get to the line to start their lap before the cars further back. So to minimise this being a problem, we really need the whole grid to slowly move forwards to cross the start/finish line to start their lap roughly at the same time. Then call out the grid order one by one as we continue slowly around the lap, and each car cross the line a few seconds apart. It's more complicated to explain than it really is to do

I'll be hoping to ensure everyone knows their grid slot before we go into the race. To say I'm unimpressed with this latest 'addition' is a huge understatement!

Had a play around with this tonight in a private lobby. With the collisions set to "Always off" i.e. qualifying, no disconnections occurred. With the collisions set to default, a car remaining motionless on the track with no buttons being pressed (like the throttle) disconnected after 30 seconds but a car that was motionless with brakes on and feathering the throttle took 60 seconds before disconnection.
I guess if you can get a 15-20 car grid lined up and the race started in under 60 seconds then you'll be fine

MVG skyshadow5 wrote:Had a play around with this tonight in a private lobby. With the collisions set to "Always off" i.e. qualifying, no disconnections occurred. With the collisions set to default, a car remaining motionless on the track with no buttons being pressed (like the throttle) disconnected after 30 seconds but a car that was motionless with brakes on and feathering the throttle took 60 seconds before disconnection.
I guess if you can get a 15-20 car grid lined up and the race started in under 60 seconds then you'll be fine

Interesting discovery! Thanks for that

Plan for tonight is thus (thanks to skyshadow for checking this out)

- Pre-race lobby host will message ALL members of their lobby their grid positions. Please help the process by also checking for yourself on the live timing sheet in the TCC section.

- Two parties will be in operation with one containing the main host, 1st place and last place.

- The driver in 1st will lead the pack away at a pace slow enough to allow drivers to get into position. IT IS VITAL THIS IS DONE QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY Driver 1 will also keep the pace slow enough to ensure the pack is closely bunched.

- Once back to the grid, 1st and 2nd will get as close to their grid markers as possible with the rest of the grid forming up as best they can behind.
The driver in last place MUST inform the chat as soon as they are in position.

- A 5 second countdown will then commence after which the race begins.

- The idea being that forming the entire grid ought not to take more that 15-20 seconds if the pack remains closely formed. Therefore we should be able to start the race with 5-10 seconds remaining. It is in everyone's best interests to help this process work so please co-operate as best you can and adhere to any instructions given on the night.

IF this process fails then we will (for expediency) have to resort to a rolling start.

how will the people in the second party hear the countdown?

I may miss qually tonight but will be  there to race

Matt wrote:Pre-race lobby host will message ALL members of their lobby their grid positions.

Good idea

Matt wrote:Two parties will be in operation with one containing the main host, 1st place and last place.

Nobody else will  hear the countdown.

Whats wrong with a formation lap and bunch up the pack.  Once everyone has formed (hopefully within 10 seconds) call out the start time within 10 seconds on the big timer.  The old process wasn't broken so no need to trry and fix it

What is the work around for the second group being able to hear the race start time?

No need for parties IMO. Everyone in the race lobby. As long as the driver can confirm they can hear someone then they will hear the race timer at the start of the race. All thats needed is the drivers to repeat the race start time.

Might miss qualy tonight, hoping I won't miss it but there's a chance. But I'll defo be on for race.