Pre Season Cup Feedback

Your feedback is vital to help balance this series and help it progress forward.

Any feedback or suggestions you have, positive or negative are welcome.

We realise after Round 1 of the Pre Season Cup that adjustments need to be made to the lobby size. As such we will be limiting the grid to 16 drivers max in order that all drivers can fit into 1 party chat. This would have eradicated the majority of Round 1's problems encountered with the lack of communication between drivers and lobby hosts.

Please bare in mind that this is why we decided to do the Pre Season Cup so that all problems encountered were ironed out before the official series began.

We are sorry that some of you (if not the majority) had their night tarnished by events during the race, however we hope to amend these issues heading into next week and the beginning of the official series.

Please leave any feedback or suggestion you have (please refrain from calling out certain drivers that you feel have done you wrong)

One thing we will address straight off is the opening lap issues.

If there is a wreck before the start, the start will be then "aborted", and we all back out into the lobby per usual restart procedures. If the wreck happens after the actual start of the race, a safety car will be called.

One note: to limit confusion, I may add the "minimum chatter" rule from VTCC, in effect limiting lobby chat in the opening lap to actual race incident reporting rather than arguing back and forth.

I think the starting procedure needs sorting, with the front going green and the person at the back slams into them.

would it be best if we line up like TCC and at a certain time everyone goes, cos I think the safety idea as proven at the chicane cause trouble and upset. with 25ft each car when linning up.

I also think that safety car called needs to be sorted properly, if lag happens on the first time formation lap fine, ok we back out and try again, same for big pile up (3 or more cars) on lap one ok a restart. if you lag out after lap one, tough luck, I been lagged out after lap one and didn't make a fuss.

Also under safety car, we keep cars gap to 50ft so they don't drive into the back of someone and when we get to 2 or 3 corners towards the end of the lap reduce game to 25ft to avoid purpose takeouts.

that's what I think but its an idea at least

This was my first experience on TORA, I can't say I can give any input because my chat wasn't working at all, this isn't anyone's fault obviously. From a deaf point of view, the race was ok, I didn't know why the safety car was called, or that it was called, but it ruined the flow of the race for me. I don't fully understand the criteria that has to be met to call a safety car, but i think the racing gets broken up by it. This is a personal issue, and it's not even an issue, I think a safety car should only be called if there's wildlife on the track, or if somebody dies. But I won't get hung up on it, it's a club policy and will be respected.

As for the cars, my own personal pace was pants tonight but I think the 205 is strong, my best lap in practice was a 2.15.7 without even looking at the gearing which really killed my car here. If my performance had have been better I would have kept with the 3 front runners for longer. I know my friend was in the bmw 635 and it struggled here, I couldn't tune and run a time better than 2:17.9, it's nearly 1.5 seconds off my 205s pace at road Atlanta aswell. This car could maybe benefit from a street weight reduction to make it more competitive. The Holden, bmw e30 and Ford Sierra are strong, the Toyota could be strong aswell. I can't comment on the rest of the field because I haven't tried the cars.

Ps, did I miss the road Atlanta sprint races?

Anyway, seemed ok to me, but I had a very lonely race at the Nurburgring!!

Road Atlanta is next week.

A positive from midpack: I had good battles with Red Racer's Toy, Smithy's Alfa, Daytona's M3, Josh's Skyline, Marco's Sierra and a pair of Benzes in my Mustang. The playing field seemed rather equal back where I was.

Some of the cars need a rebalance. But simultaneously, this may just be down to me not running a tune in the race but the racing was solid where I was, bar a few issues.

Qualifying was not clear tonight so a clear up in the explanation at the start would be much appreciated.

Making sure the hosts have a good connection as tonight proved very.... Laggy, even for the hosts connection. So making sure the host has a solid connection before, during and after the race should be critical.

The organisation needs clarifying a bit as well and a party chat would be greatly appreciated if Xbox continues to do nothing about the chat.

In short, tonight was like playing the 1998 game LSD Dream Emulator... I hope this is sorted for the next race and the championship.

LMP Dragon

Well as I already said in the Live Timing thread, communications were awful yesterday. It either needs to be split into to two partys or the lobby can't be bigger than 16 so that everyone fits into one party. Because game chat is definitely not an option at the moment .

If I had known that there was a safety car period in laps 2 to 3 then a collision caused by me or the people that were behind me could have been avoided in my opinion. But that was also an issue caused by the already mentioned problem with communications.

Either way, I'd recommend a complete restart when an accident involving two or more cars happened in the parade lap, within the first track sector in the first lap of the actual race or (in our case) a safety car period directly after (or even before?) the start.
And if it's lag related I would propose a restart up to the third lap of the actual race (except on LeMans or the Green Hell). Everything that happens afterwards should be considered as a race accident and the people involved should know what to do then. Otherwise they wouldn't be here since it's in the general rules of TORA and/or the Rules & Regulations thread of the series which both had to be confirmed as read by everyone before entering.
That's why we have the race chat or (if all else fails) the stewards.


Speaking of the RACE chat:
Yes, I had problems with it but I could still hear what people were saying (more or less). And 50% or more of what I heard was either not race related or an overlap of two or more people talking at once.
Keep your chat at a minimum at all times as long as you don't have a question or information for the host/organizer, a call out to the driver in front or behind you (e.g. "on your inside", "on your outside", "watch out, I'm going for the pits") or a general info for the lobby ("pit in", "pit exit", accident/pile up at a dangerous point of the track). And if somebody else is already talking, wait for him to finish or only interrupt him if you have a message of higher importance.


As already mentioned in my previous post, I hope we learned our lessons in the next race
See you soon.

Another positive: The US race was able to utilize party chat, and comms were not at all an issue. As a result, the race went smooth as glass.

You can expect lobbies to be split to accommodate party chat, as communication issues were the root of the problem yesterday.

Just one more note, I was easily making it to the end of the race with no stops, if I had of remembered and used my head I would have popped into the pits as soon as the safety car was called and I could have ran the rest of the race not having to put at all giving me a good chance of losing the least amount of time in the pits and finishing very strongly. Maybe the feature race could be slightly longer in the next series to force a pit stop, even with an early safety car. I would say safety cars are most likely to happen in the first 2 or 3 laps. An extra few laps could make tactics interesting in those situations.

I had a great time last night, these cars race really well against each other!

The only thing i would say needs addressing in my opinion would be the Start/Restart procedure whereby the lead driver just goes somewhere between last turn and start line and doesn't have to call out when they have bolted.

I was P4 for the Start and P10 or P11 for the restart and I couldn't tell when the lead driver had floored it and didn't get going until they had definitely crossed the line as a result. I think having it when the leader crosses the line (which everyone can see on the map) or having the leader call out when he bolts would be a better set up and might get us some better closer racing as I know I for one was seriously second guessing myself and I feel some of the contact behind may have been caused by this confusion of not being able to tell when the green was actually 100% waived.

Just my two Cents....

Just the one piece of feedback from me again this week. I have some issues/concerns about the how the handicap system is implemented throughout the event.

So how it was explained and run to us last night in Lobby A was that top 3 in Race 1 get the handicap.

They keep it if they finish top 3 in race 2. if you don't finish top 3 you loose it for race 3.

However if someone fresh finishes Top 3 in Race 2 they don't earn the handicap at all. So effectively its better for you to finish 4th in race 1 through sandbagging, win race 2 get no handicap and have a fast car to cut through the reverse Grid for Race 3.

I think it would be a lot simpler, easier to understand, implement and provide better racing if it was just the Top 3 from each race gets the handicap.

That way there isn't an advantage to be had by not trying your best in Race 1 like there is right now (Guaranteed non-handicapped car for the rest of the night)

I say going with the simpler to implement system that closes a sandbagging loophole has gotta be the best way to go to stop controversy in what is going to be a great series.

I think you are forgetting that Race 3 is a random number reverse grid (so if you win Race 2 you start on average 7th or 8th)

So in your scenario you would finish 4th (by sandbagging) in Race 1, finish 1st in Race 2, start ~7th in Race 3 and finish ~4th? = 221pts

I would say that someone going flat out would finish 1st in Race 1, ~5th (with handicap) in Race 2, Start ~2nd in Race 3 and finish ~1st? = 231pts

Going flat out still wins out points wise

My scenario was based more on if somebody had a clear pace advantage (Not Saying Tubbi would do it but he's a good example of someone whose usually faster than everyone by a chunk.) Say he finished 4th in Race 1, he would then have no ballast for races 2 and 3 AND have the pace to move through the field to win both races 2 and 3.

Your scenario assumes they don't have the pace to move all the way through a field on a reverse grid with no handicap, something many at TORA do when it's a full reverse grid.

Surely the scenario you pose would mean he would finish top on points anyway? Last night he finished 1st, 1st and 5th. In your scenario he would finish 1st, 4th and 1st? In affect he would have gained 1 point from sandbagging (risking being found out and given a race DQ or worse).

I also think that come the official series that the lap times will be closer together and therefore it will be extremely risky to sandbag (especially over 1 extra point)

Fair enough, like i said i wanted to make sure any potential loopholes were closed up for what i think is going to be a great series.

Just keep an eye out for that pattern, you'd be surprised how far an extra point can take you....