Wow, Zero, so many changes going on, you gotta have your hands full! Now, perhaps I'm a touch off base, but when I joined the league, the I in S.N.A.I.L. was intermediate. Since then a slew of great racers have signed on and things have changed dramatically. However, I think one of the key points to this league was that it wasn't aimed at the hardcore elite racers. I'm starting to get the feel that this is now where the league is headed. I think we are getting away from some of the things that made the league a success to begin with. It is easy to get into the races here. It's not complicated and so rules stricken that you have a 5 page OP to go through. The premise was easy, get the weekly cars. break them in, then race on Sunday. Then the addition of a third division (I have little doubt we will see a fourth soon), rules began to become amended. Some I feel are in the best interest of the group as a whole. The new points system, the addition of the steward network, and looking at a new prize system to compliment the expanding league are great things. However, I think some things are starting to take the league away from its roots and may put it into a class that the lower division racers may not care for.
One of the things I think that is important to keep is integrity from Division to Division. The rules and regulations shouldn't be changed at you move up the ladder. I feel this is inline with the TCS discussion about 100 pages back. Even a simple system may overly complicate the process of moving up, getting rule confused. And as the league grows and more divisions are added, are we then going to expect a whole new set of rules for all the divisions below D1? It would leave to many things uncertain.
Now, I know that I was originally for penalties off, as a trial run (glad to see that its getting a shot tonight, I may try and make it tonight to check it out) but others have had a good point. Its great at policing up drivers. Its always looming, you cant escape the eyes of the penalty system. Even flawed, its always watching. As a steward, I can tell you, its possible to miss this kinda stuff as your on the 5th race and you've just watched every race before hand 10-12 times. your eyes get tired and you miss stuff. Penalties on takes care of a lot of that, and makes it so we only have to watch whats needed for a grievance.
As far as penalties and ghosting are concerned, here's my take. Unless we plan on going into a full stewardship situation where all races are watched and all incidents are noted and investigated, leave them on. See, with them off, everyone is going to have to be watched, someone who pulls away from a group will probably be able to start cheating and never get caught, because they can't be seen. Of course we have replay hawks out there taking pics and videos, so in the end they may get caught, but the opportunity and temptation are there. Same for someone in the rear trying to catch up. With ghosting, if someone in the midst of a pack suddenly losses it for whatever reason, they probably won't be collecting that whole pack up and depositing them off track, into the gravel, and stuck against the tire wall. Pro. And we all know the con. you get hit from behind, now you get the collision penalty and have to slow down for a few seconds. ( at this point I would like to point out, a penalty generally sounds worse then it is. Usually you get the penalty in a corner, and at least half of the penalty is spent correcting yourself and getting back on course, and another quarter of the penalty after that negotiating the corner, and you never stop, so its not like in a 6 second penalty, your actually losing 6 seconds, maybe just a second or two).
Now damage falls inline with this flow of debate as well. Though, while the pros and cons of penalties are more equal, I feel damage is a little heavier on the cons side. A pro, Everyone will be far more cautious with their driving. Con to that pro, it will no doubt deter some of the D3 and D2 racers as well as "intermediate" drivers looking to join. Hmmm, And I can't really put a finger on another pro. Cons, the races are to short. if you gotta pit to repair, thats the end of your race, period. why even bother making the end race times 2:30? not like your gonna catch up to the pack in 2 or 3 laps. Now with penalties off. Someone misses their brake point for whatever reason, and then proceeds to plow into 3 or 4 cars, collecting them up and taking them out too. 3 or 4 racers are now out of podium contention because the offending racer didnt get ghosted. And if the offending driver allows all of those people to go ahead of them, then there will be no foul against that driver. I have issue with that. Light damage is great though, along with weak penalties. Ghosting may allow people to drive through you (this is against OLR btw, if your not in a penalty situation, then other drivers should treat you as if you weren't ghosted, I think this should be added to our OLR and be a punishable grievance, and if you did get a penalty, then you shouldn't be in the racing line anyway, ALL the way through your penalty), but at least it helps in minimizing collateral damage.
So in conclusion (take that english professors!) I think one league, one standardized rule set, and damage and penalties should stay the same.
