TASCAR 2017 Announcement

For those that didn't attend tonight's round at Road Atlanta, DarthMario has announced that he will be stepping down from his organiser role and from racing in the TASCAR series after the season finale in two weeks time.

I'm sure everyone who competes or has competed in TASCAR will want to thank Mark for running such a fantastic championship for the last few years! It's going to be really strange to be racing without him next year!

On a related note, I'm excited to confirm that I will be stepping up to the TASCAR organiser role for next year! I want to thank Mark and the rest of the staff for allowing me to take this opportunity and I'm looking forward to next year already!

I'm hoping to address a few niggly issues that we've had this year, particularly around the oval racing. I'll be listening to any and all suggestions from the community to try and make next season as good as it can possibly be!

More information about season 6 will be released in the New Year!

I want to thank everyone who's made the TASCAR series popular and a staple here at TORA for the past 5 seasons. 6 if you count the "TORA Stock Car Series" back in 2010, but I wasn't in charge of that back then.

It's been a fun 7+ years here at TORA, joining in April of '09. First got word of the organization from ForzaCentral when a driver was trying to get a team together for TORA GT season # i'm forgetting at the moment. Grabbing the B lobby win in my first event, after an A-lobby Qually run and a flubbed Sprint Race result. I can remember the 2nd round Qualifying/Sprint Race session and joining the A lobby for the Main Race and hearing ATR DAN, asking, "DMR SWITCH, Who are you?!" - Getting my First official TORA win at Laguna Seca in the then called TORA Le Mans Series, by using pit strategy to beat ATR DAN and PLOW TheButcher. Fighting with Dan once more in that same GT season at Sebring ALL-Race-Long to finish less than 50ft apart. And there are far more memories, But i dunno if I should share them all, and make this one long post. Bigly

All in All, the racing i've been involved with has been great. But it's time for me to step back, and take time to take care of me. I have chosen Jordan to become the new TASCAR organizer because he has been racing in the series the longest, outside myself and Craig (FranchittiFan), and has seen what goes into things on the back end. And the talks of whats to come for next year sounds exciting.

My stepping down doesn't mean i'm leaving for good. I'll probably roam the forums from time to time, and one day I may grace the virtual track with you all once more. When that day is, I do not know. But I believe I'm leaving the TASCAR series in good hands with Jordan, and wish him nothing but the best for the following year(s).



Enough of that. Onto Homestead in 2 weeks time!

I had to read this to see what was happening as I don't venture here much..

Best of luck in life and hopefully the last three races I streamed and commentated (with jordan for the finale at Motegi) on forza 4 was enjoyable for you and to all those that tuned in.

Wish you could stream tomorrows race for old time sake Zeta got a feeling I'm not going to make A lobby. So I won't be able to race with Mark and Chaddy in their last race on TORA.

Glad I got to the race, after a system update almost ruled me out of things today!

Many thanks to Mark for hosting TASCAR over the years and to his work as a TORA Staffer! Hope you enjoy your time away mate.

I want to thank Matt and all the other staff members + all the drivers from 2008 onwards for the racing and fun over the years. Time to look at other things for me to get up to! I might be on iRacing again in the new year, depends if anything motives me.

I wish you all the very best and hope Christmas and New Year is a blast for you all!

Big thanks again to both Mark and Chaddy for their last few years on TORA. You guys have been great and I'll miss you both! (Come back soon!)

In the meantime, really happy to see so many entrants in the final round this year! Hope the excitement continues into next season! Not too long to wait

I know I didnt do much of the races so my suggestions can be debunked if they aren't worthy (and they arent worthy):

Single file restarts, just because NASCAR do it doesnt mean we have to, and I believe we can get less restarts if we do what every other championship does.

Points for first parts of oval races, if you're going to split up the race into blocks, like v8 supercar races, they should at least count for a fraction of championship points, maybe not 50%-50% over two heats, but enough to encourage people to take part in the first part of oval races.

Five lap warning on ovals: instead of reruning into green-white checquer, if a FCY happens with 5 laps or less to go, the field bunches up and doesnt restart until there are two laps to go, this will save time setting up another lobby, and would keep competitors from departing (this is where I left on both occasions), and there has to be a LEGITIMATE reason to go to FCY within the last 5 laps of the race, if it can be reviewed on the replay that is, and if it wasnt legit then you can penalise the person that caused the phony caution. If we get a FCY with 2 laps to go, we race to the line, and is FCYd for the last lap.

Noted, Adrian - We've got a new restart system for next season on the ovals, it should greatly reduce the amount of restart incidents we saw this year. I'm confident.

As for points for the prior stints of the race, we won't be adding that. If Forza allowed us to run the full race distance in one then we would do it, sadly we can't. The motivation for competing in the first two segments is that if you don't you can't race for the win, it also gives you a good grid spot for the final. Motivation shouldn't be an issue.

I do like your five lap warning solution. I'll give that some serious thought! Thank you for your suggestions mate!

Also if anyone has any solutions whatsoever please feel free to post them! I want to make TASCAR 2017 as good as it can be so I want as many suggestions as possible!

actually we can run full races on forza...

Also one other thing that really bugged me. Can we make it start at an earlier time? 5 p.m. is just to late of a start for east Coast racers as it does cut into dinner and the Oval races get done between 8 and 9 for us which is really inconvenient.

3 P.M eastern would be my preferred choice

Care to elaborate Zeta...? Do you mean timed races? Sure that'd work but then there could be some more complications because of that, like late cautions etc.

And Darkside, I understand the races are late, we start at 10PM our time and oval races don't finish until gone midnight, but any earlier and we eliminate Australian competitors. The start time will always be bad for someone no matter what we do, so I'm inclined to leave it as it is.

If it's any help, the race distances for the ovals have been shortened a touch to try and get the events done quicker. Also the new start/restart procedure should eliminate a lot of the cautions we see

JGROVES1996 wrote:Care to elaborate Zeta...? Do you mean timed races? Sure that'd work but then there could be some more complications because of that, like late cautions etc.

And Darkside, I understand the races are late, we start at 10PM our time and oval races don't finish until gone midnight, but any earlier and we eliminate Australian competitors. The start time will always be bad for someone no matter what we do, so I'm inclined to leave it as it is.

If it's any help, the race distances for the ovals have been shortened a touch to try and get the events done quicker. Also the new start/restart procedure should eliminate a lot of the cautions we see

nevermind it doesn't work on fm6 on fm5 there was a setting that let you race without time you could keep going to said lap
it would save a lot of time

Just want to say again on here a massive thank you to Mark for all of his hard work over the many many years he's been on staff and raced at TORA.
The TASCAR series, long with IndyCar has been a big success story for us and it's brought the US profile of TORA right up. I have absolute faith in Jordan to bring his expertise and enthusiasm to the role Mark now vacates.
Roll on the next exciting TASCAR season.