New TORA Race Number System

New Race Number System
As you may have already noticed, our system of having a global race number was pushed beyond it's capable limits and even with clear outs we've still managed to fill them. From now on there will no longer be a global race number, and instead, you will have a separate number for each series, because of this there will be no need to request a number before registering to a series (you will still be required to have a licence but this can be arranged when signing up to a series). How this will work is detailed below.

1.0 Registering for a series
When a new series is released, you will register for the series in the same way as before, except this time you will be able to request a number for this series on a first come, first served basis, following the guidelines set below.

1.1 Drivers returning to the next season of a previously ran series
The race numbers of the participants of the previous season will be reserved for a set amount of time, where only the returning driver can claim this number. Should the returning driver request a different number to that which they ran in the previous season, their old number will be released for any other driver to claim.

1.2 Current drivers registering for a new series / a series they haven't previously raced in before
You will register for the series using the same process as before with the exception that you will also need to choose a car number which is not already reserved / taken by another driver.

1.3 New drivers who haven't raced at TORA before
You will follow the same rules as defined in 1.2, with the addition of you completing the additional information (refer to the first post of the registration thread for the series you're signing up for) so that we can also add you to our licence sheet, new drivers have to register themselves and cannot have someone register on their behalf.

1.4 Endurance races
This will follow the same rules as any other series with the exception that, those drivers who haven't raced before will need to post in the registration thread also so we can give them a licence and verify they're actually on the forum.

1.5 Restricted / Special Numbers
The numbers 1, 2, and 3 are reserved meaning nobody can select these for any series, these are reserved and may be used only by drivers who are returning to the series and won the previous season. Said driver will still register into the doc with their own number, and not 1, 2, or 3 so that their own number is still reserved for the following season.

If anyone has any queries to this or thinks I've missed anything from the above please post below to let me know and I can clarify this and update the points above.

Interesting new format, should work just fine i think!

i think its a neat idea, only downside is creating the number decals all the time if your into the whole custom number look.

SRT NOS wrote:i think its a neat idea, only downside is creating the number decals all the time if your into the whole custom number look.

Just remember for this though, if you have a custom paint job on a car you're using for the following season your number will be reserved for you at the start of the season, if it's a new season though just make sure you get your entry in quick and you should be fine

When will this new system go into effect? I’ve been waiting for a number so I can start racing in ASCC. With this new system how would I go about registering for ASCC under this new numbering system?

A Glazed Almond wrote:When will this new system go into effect? I’ve been waiting for a number so I can start racing in ASCC. With this new system how would I go about registering for ASCC under this new numbering system?

HCR TJSteel wrote:
From now on

So basically as from the time I posted this message the new system is live, as you haven't already got a number just refer to point 1.3

Just post in the ASCC registration thread with your entry, and also make sure to also fill in the additional information so we can add you to the licence doc (this is basically for tracking which active drivers we have and also tracking other details such as stewards etc)

I'm gonna throw my two cents in on this.

I do not like this idea.

There are people who are dedicated racers and the reason that the spreadsheet keeps getting filled is that clearouts are not frequent enough. There are people who will register but then never race. This is not entirely fair to people who have raced with their numbers for years now and want to keep them because now it's a free for all.

The logistics of this do not seem to be very practical for drivers who want to race. So what about current/existing championships? What of those? Are we going to keep the same number for that for those who have registered? Is there a limit on what number you can have?

It seems to me that it's just a poor track of keeping a record of who has been active and who hasn't. There are some that no longer race any more, or did one race and buggered off. And the old system was great because it meant everyone had an identity and was easily identifiable through this.

The license system was implemented a while ago and it made very little difference to how the organization was operated. But this changes absolutely everything. The reservation helps but it's still not ideal for people who have raced with the same number for years that instinctively sign up with that number these days.

I am going to guess everyone will fit into the new system eventually but the concept seems like a poorly executed rushed decision in an attempt to reduce tracking load. Maybe I'm more of a traditionalist. It just makes everyone's life harder trying to figure out what numbers are free and what numbers aren't and getting people to register that way. No doubt there will be brawls over who has what number now.

That's just my two cents. Whether this goes heard or not I don't know and to be honest, I am sure some others may feel the same way.

LMP Dragon wrote:I'm gonna throw my two cents in on this.

I do not like this idea.

There are people who are dedicated racers and the reason that the spreadsheet keeps getting filled is that clearouts are not frequent enough. There are people who will register but then never race. This is not entirely fair to people who have raced with their numbers for years now and want to keep them because now it's a free for all.

The logistics of this do not seem to be very practical for drivers who want to race. So what about current/existing championships? What of those? Are we going to keep the same number for that for those who have registered? Is there a limit on what number you can have?

It seems to me that it's just a poor track of keeping a record of who has been active and who hasn't. There are some that no longer race any more, or did one race and buggered off. And the old system was great because it meant everyone had an identity and was easily identifiable through this.

The license system was implemented a while ago and it made very little difference to how the organization was operated. But this changes absolutely everything. The reservation helps but it's still not ideal for people who have raced with the same number for years that instinctively sign up with that number these days.

I am going to guess everyone will fit into the new system eventually but the concept seems like a poorly executed rushed decision in an attempt to reduce tracking load. Maybe I'm more of a traditionalist. It just makes everyone's life harder trying to figure out what numbers are free and what numbers aren't and getting people to register that way. No doubt there will be brawls over who has what number now.

That's just my two cents. Whether this goes heard or not I don't know and to be honest, I am sure some others may feel the same way.

I fully understand your concerns and initially shared them myself. But having tried to keep up with numbers registration became a total pain in the arse as we keep running out of numbers. This is fully a side effect of the growth we have been experiencing over the past year.

We tried clearing out those that have not been on the site in 12 months. That gave us 4-5 weeks worth of numbers for new members. When that ran out, we moved the date forward a few months. That gave us a couple more weeks worth of numbers.

One issue is people sign up for a number, race a few times here and there, get sidetracked for a while miss the clearout, and reapply for a new number when they return.

Another issue is we also have teams in which one or two people are active on the site, and they register blocks of teammates, and post "In" for their whole team. That really affects the whole "who is active on TORA" situation, as the teammates may have one or two posts on the site itself, a year ago, but actually have been racing regularly at TORA the whole time.

In the end, I realized most series see somewhere less than 100 entries, so the new system can really improve the overall look of the grid, as random three digit numbers will be a rarity rather than the norm. And if you want your regular TORA number, all you have to do is preregister for the series to reserve it. You'll have a whole week to do so. If you care that much about using your number, it should be really simple to keep it in the series you wish to compete in.

I think Mikey has covered it all to be honest but just to help clarify.

LMP Dragon wrote:This is not entirely fair to people who have raced with their numbers for years now and want to keep them because now it's a free for all.

This was a concern pointed out by various staff members when this system was proposed, but to combat this, we will be automatically reserving numbers for those who previously raced in that series before so you won't have a problem keeping your number in that sense, the only place it may be a problem would be when a new series is released as there won't be a previous season to reserve the number from, but as there won't be 1000 people registering to each series the likelihood of your number being taken if you register as the series opens is low.

LMP Dragon wrote:The logistics of this do not seem to be very practical for drivers who want to race. So what about current/existing championships? What of those? Are we going to keep the same number for that for those who have registered? Is there a limit on what number you can have?

The limits on the numbers will be the same as before really, 1,2,3 reserved for previous season winners, but your specific number from the previous season will be reserved meaning no-one can choose that number (unless you register to the series and select a new number, releasing your old number).

LMP Dragon wrote:
It seems to me that it's just a poor track of keeping a record of who has been active and who hasn't. There are some that no longer race any more, or did one race and buggered off. And the old system was great because it meant everyone had an identity and was easily identifiable through this.

Unfortunately there isn't a field on the forum we can use to track when you last raced otherwise we would have just removed the drivers who haven't raced in a set amount of months. But then again, what about the people that only race in 1 series, say for example you run in TCC, don't come back again until the next year and find you'd lost your number because there was over a 6 month gap and your number had expired? Because of this problem the most frequent we could do clearouts would be once a year. To actually do a clearout you need to go through each series doc and then work out which round each driver last raced in, and on what date that was, then update the central licence doc, I mean something as complicated as that wouldn't even be easy to write a script for, and to do it manually wouldn't be something you could do in a few hours even with the help of scripting. Now the best thing for TORA as I see it is the less admin work the staff have to do, the more time we can spend on on creating and running events so as this new system removes pretty much all of the number admin and completely eliminates the issue it's a bit of a no brainer really.

LMP Dragon wrote:
The license system was implemented a while ago and it made very little difference to how the organization was operated.

From the front end it may seem this way, but from the staff side, it actually helped massively, with the new Licencing doc we are able to track SI's properly and it's made it a lot easier to remove repeat offenders from the grids and justifiably give the right penalties, increasing in severity for repeat offenders.

LMP Dragon wrote:
I am going to guess everyone will fit into the new system eventually but the concept seems like a poorly executed rushed decision in an attempt to reduce tracking load.

I can assure you that we did actually debate this over the course of a few months, we've been keeping an eye on the numbers since before Christmas and trying to clear down and keep up with the increase in members but the system literally fell over as we completely ran out of numbers meaning people couldn't sign up to a series because there was literally none left to take.

LMP Dragon wrote:
That's just my two cents. Whether this goes heard or not I don't know and to be honest, I am sure some others may feel the same way.

I can't keep up with everything on the forums, I'll admit that as there is a lot going on here, but when it has anything to do with the way the docs work, I do try my best to keep up with that, I don't even have the time spare to race anymore, but I know how much of a benefit to the site the docs have been and I know how much time they do save the staff here so everything I do on the docs is done to benefit the community. If there is ever anything you have problems with on the docs, be that in the layouts of the standings or anything, how the sign in systems work, or literally anything else to do with them just let me know and if it's a change that would benefit everyone I'd do my best to make it work

HCR TJSteel wrote:New Race Number System


1.1 Drivers returning to the next season of a previously ran series
The race numbers of the participants of the previous season will be reserved for a set amount of time, where only the returning driver can claim this number. Should the returning driver request a different number to that which they ran in the previous season, their old number will be released for any other driver to claim.

I'm cool with this new system, but I would like this rule to be elaborated on, please. Will there be a thread that shows what numbers are available for a given series? And do the number reservations expire after Round 1 of a series, or are they good until the end of the series(if unclaimed)? My only concern is picking a number and spending a lot of time in the paint shop only to have a previous driver come in after round 3 or something and claim it, and then I have to re do my paint.

Chief Tokembowl wrote:

HCR TJSteel wrote:New Race Number System


1.1 Drivers returning to the next season of a previously ran series
The race numbers of the participants of the previous season will be reserved for a set amount of time, where only the returning driver can claim this number. Should the returning driver request a different number to that which they ran in the previous season, their old number will be released for any other driver to claim.

I'm cool with this new system, but I would like this rule to be elaborated on, please. Will there be a thread that shows what numbers are available for a given series? And do the number reservations expire after Round 1 of a series, or are they good until the end of the series(if unclaimed)? My only concern is picking a number and spending a lot of time in the paint shop only to have a previous driver come in after round 3 or something and claim it, and then I have to re do my paint.

To check if a number is free you would just check the current entry list to see if anyone has taken it already, if not, and you post before anyone else to request that number then it shall be yours. The idea I have for setting this up is to copy the entry list from the previous season but then remove the team names, car choice etc, leaving only their name and number to show that it's "taken", but once a preset date is passed they will be removed from the entry list freeing up their numbers if they haven't registered which should be before the season starts / before round 1.

Hope this makes sense

HCR TJSteel wrote:

Chief Tokembowl wrote:

HCR TJSteel wrote:New Race Number System


1.1 Drivers returning to the next season of a previously ran series
The race numbers of the participants of the previous season will be reserved for a set amount of time, where only the returning driver can claim this number. Should the returning driver request a different number to that which they ran in the previous season, their old number will be released for any other driver to claim.

I'm cool with this new system, but I would like this rule to be elaborated on, please. Will there be a thread that shows what numbers are available for a given series? And do the number reservations expire after Round 1 of a series, or are they good until the end of the series(if unclaimed)? My only concern is picking a number and spending a lot of time in the paint shop only to have a previous driver come in after round 3 or something and claim it, and then I have to re do my paint.

To check if a number is free you would just check the current entry list to see if anyone has taken it already, if not, and you post before anyone else to request that number then it shall be yours. The idea I have for setting this up is to copy the entry list from the previous season but then remove the team names, car choice etc, leaving only their name and number to show that it's "taken", but once a preset date is passed they will be removed from the entry list freeing up their numbers if they haven't registered which should be before the season starts / before round 1.

Hope this makes sense

Fair enough, sounds good. Just wanted to be sure that the reserved numbers will be posted, so that we can know what we can't pick.

Chief Tokembowl wrote:

HCR TJSteel wrote:

Chief Tokembowl wrote:

HCR TJSteel wrote:New Race Number System


1.1 Drivers returning to the next season of a previously ran series
The race numbers of the participants of the previous season will be reserved for a set amount of time, where only the returning driver can claim this number. Should the returning driver request a different number to that which they ran in the previous season, their old number will be released for any other driver to claim.

I'm cool with this new system, but I would like this rule to be elaborated on, please. Will there be a thread that shows what numbers are available for a given series? And do the number reservations expire after Round 1 of a series, or are they good until the end of the series(if unclaimed)? My only concern is picking a number and spending a lot of time in the paint shop only to have a previous driver come in after round 3 or something and claim it, and then I have to re do my paint.

To check if a number is free you would just check the current entry list to see if anyone has taken it already, if not, and you post before anyone else to request that number then it shall be yours. The idea I have for setting this up is to copy the entry list from the previous season but then remove the team names, car choice etc, leaving only their name and number to show that it's "taken", but once a preset date is passed they will be removed from the entry list freeing up their numbers if they haven't registered which should be before the season starts / before round 1.

Hope this makes sense

Fair enough, sounds good. Just wanted to be sure that the reserved numbers will be posted, so that we can know what we can't pick.

Yeah definitely, otherwise it'd be a free for all which we don't want lol

Is this where race numbers are assigned?
If not where and how does one get a number?
It is very vague on the website....

Please visit this section to apply for your TORA Race Number

this is what is on the website, go there nothing but posts. nothing about applying for a number.
so what gives?

Justin Tyme wrote:Is this where race numbers are assigned?
If not where and how does one get a number?
It is very vague on the website....

Hi, to apply for a number, you just go to the specific series you wan't to run in. After you found the one you like go to it's registration page. Here you have a template for Team or privateer. You can choose any number ranging from 4 to 999. You can look at the entry's wich numbers are allready taken. Hope this informs you some more!

Hi,

I have yet to get a number, I did want 28, but if this is not available could you assign me any.

Gamertag forzaMC

Thanks

Hi i lost my account info so i had to create a new one. Can i still use my old number? It was 708

Hi, read the post at the top of the page for info on the new number system here at TORA. Race numbers are no longer issued for the "year", but rather are now selected during series registration. You will be able to use that number when you register for a particular series as long as no one else has already requested it.

I will take 708 if not already taken

TCC Race number for me please 316 if possible??

TUS Dunc wrote:TCC Race number for me please 316 if possible??

Check the registration thread of TCC and add the number you wish to have in the template when you register.

Absolute noob to alp this.. where do I find the registration thread to assign racing number??

Could I have number 44?

scoopNshooter wrote:Could I  have number 44?

You need to register for a series to use it.