◆ SNAIL [Spec] Racing - Join now to win a Digit Racing EDGE Masterclass enrollment!!Open

[TexasJDC]

I've always been curious what the statistics are for how many drivers:

Request to join
Take the test
Run the time trial
Division placement
Show up to race
Race one season
Race three seasons

For as much data a SNAIL collects, any chance it includes some of this?



I was never attended the race craft workshop, but do remember those who did tell how eye opening some of the information was. Such as what was considered proper overlap needed to gain cornering rights. Maybe we could have a workshop every once and a while?

I would like that aswell I know it could definitely benefit the lower divisions not to mention it adds expose for snail

 

[vsfit]

Ideas are good and welcome. It's just a matter of sorting out the logistics of any idea to see if the juice is worth the squeeze.

We also tried at one point having a race craft workshop for those that reached a certain level of probation through IRs. We even made it a requirement to work your way off probation. I think we may have conducted two of these and then it became almost impossible to get enough drivers to show up to make it worthwhile. It was a good idea and a really informative format but the logistics of getting enough drivers that were on probation together at the same time just made it a pain to execute.

I remember those race-craft workshops. It was structured in a way that it was myself asking @Dragonwhisky interview style questions in a private lobby in GT6. He would then take a minute or two verbally discussing various aspects of the questions then take the group or a small group on the track and set up different scenarios while others might be watching from one of the cam views. We had plans to invite other drivers from D1 and D2 then expanding on it as needed, it fizzled out though with the scheduling. The really interesting part that everyone really liked was actually speaking to one of the senior stewards and getting first hand instruction on the track on everything from choosing an A, B, C race line and practicing several lines, apexing, corner speeds, starting techniques...everything and anything we could think of and they threw at us.... It was tons of fun and informative.

You might be talking about something that was before my time in SNAIL though.

 

[Raw10_2u]

My review of the 9 incidents on file are complete!

 

[Bud__Greene]

I remember those race-craft workshops. It was structured in a way that it was myself asking @Dragonwhisky interview style questions in a private lobby in GT6. He would then take a minute or two verbally discussing various aspects of the questions then take the group or a small group on the track and set up different scenarios while others might be watching from one of the cam views. We had plans to invite other drivers from D1 and D2 then expanding on it as needed, it fizzled out though with the scheduling. The really interesting part that everyone really liked was actually speaking to one of the senior stewards and getting first hand instruction on the track on everything from choosing an A, B, C race line and practicing several lines, apexing, corner speeds, starting techniques...everything and anything we could think of and they threw at us.... It was tons of fun and informative.

You might be talking about something that was before my time in SNAIL though.

What about something like this, but rather than being for people with too many points against them participation is voluntary. I know I would sign up to learn pretty much everything @vsfit mentioned. It could also be something that's only held every so often rather than weekly or monthly to ease the instructors' work load and to ensure that there's enough participation for it to be worthwhile.

 

[stelephant]

Has the BOD ever considered a "Rookie" division for new comers? This league is outstanding, but can be and become very overwhelming for some. It takes practice, racing and time to get the "lay of the land" and how all of this works, and that's just the racing part. Throw in some duties, and I can see where it may get very daunting for some.
The reason I ask about a "Rookie" league is simple. Being a D4 guy for my entire Snail career so far (9 months) I have seen countless drivers complete the pre-work, be assigned to D4 (or any other division) race maybe 1, 2 or 3 weeks, never to be seen or heard from again. I can think of at least 6 D4 members who fit the previously described criteria in my 9 months.
I would envision a "Rookie" division for all new members (who have not been previously a part of Snail), no matter how fast they are, to learn how to race in this league. There is a lot to remember, and if you don't have someone to take you under their wing (@stelephant, thank you!) to explain how everything works, it can be very confusing. This may be adding to a drivers frustration level to where they feel the need not to return.
The "Rookie" division could have a full time manager and steward assigned (either permanently or on a rotating basis) who would not necessarily race, but host the races, watch the races, offer up constructive race criticism and feedback to newer drivers, teach and guide them on how to host, how to manage the division, how to score-keep, perform data tasks and texting. From there, I would see the Rookie manager and steward then offering up promotion suggestions to the BOD for placement the following season.
Just a few thoughts that came to my head as I was reading the past few posts...

thanks for the shout out. I really enjoy helping others out when/if I can. I remember my first couple races when @Die_Birdy_Die helped me out. I thank him for taking away some of the stress of not knowing what to do. Even after thinking I read the OLR and would know what to do, it came race night and I was panicking. Having someone to help navigate a bit of the race night jitters is great. Then on Thursday practice some of the Snailiens (@MikeGrove) even helped out where they could. I am pretty sure @TomMang_68 told me that I was divebombing corners to help me out too. Either way, it is a great community of guys who help out.

Snail is great fun!

 

[DesertPenguin]

The good ol' days

I remember when I first joined SNAIL and it was nothing but support and encouragement. What was really helpful was the multitude of other series running during the week. Just more ways to get some racing in with your fellow SNAILs to help grow as a driver and as friends. It was nice to see what we could do outside of the Sunday night format. Never a shortage of ideas and that continues to be the case. I'm sure you guys will come up with something cool.

 

[todally_lit]

View media item 2540Race Date: Jan. 27, 2019
Currently tracking 9 Incident Reports​

We have at least one prize winner with a racing incident being investigated by the stewards. This may, obviously, change the order of the prizes to be selected. All winners are asked to refrain from making selections until the Weekly Steward's report has been posted.
The target deadline for the Steward Reviews, this week, is Wednesday night by 10PM Eastern. The Steward Summary will be posted as soon as possible, following completion of reviews.
:@: SNAIL Stewards, please make your way to The Incident Review Scoring.​

The IR Submission Form is now closed.​

All potential prize winners will be included in a conversation in the next few minutes which will contain instructions and deadlines.

@todally_lit @DublDee @Herimopp89 @Bologna_Duc @TomMang_68

The second and third prize winners are clear to make their choices. This means that @todally_lit is on the clock to choose to use or pass the freeze.

 

[Neutty]

View attachment 796167

That... is.... awesome.

 

[Neutty]

What about something like this, but rather than being for people with too many points against them participation is voluntary. I know I would sign up to learn pretty much everything @vsfit mentioned. It could also be something that's only held every so often rather than weekly or monthly to ease the instructors' work load and to ensure that there's enough participation for it to be worthwhile.

You could place it as a suggestion to half your points by attending and answering 3 questions at the end to prove that you spent the entire time in the room. I know if I was in trouble I would definitely join, maybe learn something along th way as well.

@JLBowler what if there are a bunch of IR’s filed on a newbie on their first night making a class of sort a requirement to proceed with the league. This gives them a chance to prove themselves on their first night and maybe learn something after if it didn’t go well. This may help the vibe in some of the lobbies. I can say that I divebombed in a race and firmly felt as if I “outbraked” them. Looking back at it now with the experience I have learned along the way, it was definitely a dive bomb.

We could even have a lobby and chat open along with the replay and discuss where things went wrong. Maybe a streamer could pull the replay up and then discuss it in a party chat or on stream and again have 3 questions to answer to prove that they were paying attention. On both YouTube and twitch we can set it up to save a video of a streamed session and they could have 1 week to respond to the questions in order to race the upcoming Sunday.

 

[Neutty]

Endurance Stream up early.

 

[JLBowler]

View attachment 796167

I will assume this means you are freezing the car.

That would mean that @DublDee is up to choose a track.

 

[Nick Cannella]

“Mandating” a class to continue racing would probably turn people away and they’d quit, in my opinion.

 

[Drifter1171]

I have read the first post and would like to join

 

[nmcp1]

How do ya sign up for snail

Directions for joining are in the very first post of this thread.

 

[Drifter1171]

Mu bad

 

[TexasJDC]

I have read the first post and would like to join

Well well well looks like another ARL driver is coming in to join snail lol glad you decided to join man really good group of guys here you'll enjoy the racing

 

[nmcp1]

I have read the first post and would like to join

@Drifter1171

Here's your official SNAIL Welcome Post!
​

Thanks for your interest!
Here's what you need to know (and do) in order to join SNAIL Racing League:

We run a clean league by enforcing a strict penalty system based on the SNAIL OLR (which is a modified version of the GTP OLR). We also expect all of our drivers to know and follow The Good Racecraft Guide. Please become versed in both if you aren't already. Once that is complete, please follow the steps below to complete your entry into the league:

1. You start a conversation and add @CoachMK21, @JLBowler, @nmcp1,@zer05ive ,@Rednose58,@MajorBlixem & @SAMHAIN85 as participants.

The conversation title should be "Request To Join".

2. SNAIL Administrators will respond with specific instructions on what you need to accomplish to join the SNAIL [Spec] Racing.

3. Place the following links (URLs) in the favorites (or bookmarks) in your web browser for quick reference. Please make every effort to read and understand the following links. Over the years a great deal of time and effort has gone into creating this league and we would like nothing more than to have you but we ask that you take the time and effort to do your homework. 99.9% of any question you may have about SNAIL can be found in the posts below.

• Original Post
• Drivers List
• SNAIL OLR Policies and Guidelines

4. You drive fast and clean on Sunday 👍

Again, the original post has everything you need to know about what to expect on Sunday night and what you will need to have completed in order to be competitive. If you have any questions, please feel free to post your question on the thread. If you have a preference for car/wheel colour and racing number, please follow the instruction contained here.

During the week we run a number of different events, we encourage all SNAILs to join as many as possible.
Welcome to SNAIL

 

[Drifter1171]

Sweet, this is the kind of thing ive been looking for, the whole gt planet community

 

[Bud__Greene]

“Mandating” a class to continue racing would probably turn people away and they’d quit, in my opinion.

That's what I meant by make it voluntary. Make the workshop purely educational with no punitive aspect to it at all. People with a lot of IR points might just attend as well. Trying to force some education on them isn't likely to open them up to what you have to teach. If it's a rare opportunity that they're fortunate enough to have been invited to attend on the other hand, they just might. Plus I'd like to go too.

 

[JLBowler]

Steward Prize Update​

The stewards have completed enough reviews to declare the 1st prize winner this week.

That prize winner is @Bologna_Duc and he is now clear to make his selection for prize A.

Now, back to the ongoing discussion. The talk of a steward or race craft workshop has given me an idea that I will propose to the rest of the BoD once I read some more and flesh out some details I haven't figured out yet. I will say that the previously used format was very time consuming to put together and rather time intensive to conduct as it took a couple of hours to administer the workshop. The new idea is a little more interactive with topics being driven by driver submissions and / or questions. I just need to work out some details as to how it will be done administered and drum up some help.

 

[vsfit]

Steward Prize Update​

The stewards have completed enough reviews to declare the 1st prize winner this week.

That prize winner is @Bologna_Duc and he is now clear to make his selection for prize A.

Now, back to the ongoing discussion. The talk of a steward or race craft workshop has given me an idea that I will propose to the rest of the BoD once I read some more and flesh out some details I haven't figured out yet. I will say that the previously used format was very time consuming to put together and rather time intensive to conduct as it took a couple of hours to administer the workshop. The new idea is a little more interactive with topics being driven by driver submissions and / or questions. I just need to work out some details as to how it will be done administered and drum up some help.

I'll help if needed.

 

[JLBowler]

I'll help if needed.

You don't need to volunteer, I had already planned on you and the other stewards being "voluntold" that you're going to help with this if I can get it off the ground.

I also forgot to tag the stewards and thank you all for your quick attention to the IRs this week. @vsfit @Raw10_2u @TomMang_68

 

[Mully465]

Steward Prize Update​

The stewards have completed enough reviews to declare the 1st prize winner this week.

That prize winner is @Bologna_Duc and he is now clear to make his selection for prize A.

Now, back to the ongoing discussion. The talk of a steward or race craft workshop has given me an idea that I will propose to the rest of the BoD once I read some more and flesh out some details I haven't figured out yet. I will say that the previously used format was very time consuming to put together and rather time intensive to conduct as it took a couple of hours to administer the workshop. The new idea is a little more interactive with topics being driven by driver submissions and / or questions. I just need to work out some details as to how it will be done administered and drum up some help.

I was thinking you could have a Q&A thread where stewards posted info with video clips explaining good/bad race craft. With suggestions and things to watch out for. Since the stewards are already looking at the replays, they can post clips on what they have seen. Drivers could post questions also, just thinking.

 

[MajorBlixem]

Calling all the budding artists in Snail!

Is there anyone that could make me a decal from the attached jpg?

It would be very much appreciated.

 

[JLBowler]

I was thinking you could have a Q&A thread where stewards posted info with video clips explaining good/bad race craft. With suggestions and things to watch out for. Since the stewards are already looking at the replays, they can post clips on what they have seen. Drivers could post questions also, just thinking.

That's almost dead on the nose but we will want to stay away from video clip of our races. Photos and videos could be staged as examples but any type of Q&A thread would need to be kept anonymous and not use actual incidents.

I've proposed the idea to the BoD and hopefully there will be a discussion and a launch of something in the relatively near future.

 

[Bubdub804]

I have read the first post and would like to join GT Sport endurance series and combo

 

[SAMHAIN85]

Some great ideas posted here today.

@TexasJDC you make some good points, and ironically some of these same things were brought up as recently as yesterday between the BOD. And I have to commend you again for you and @Nick Cannella on doing such a bang up job in D4. (not to take anything away from any of the other friendly D4'ers) I wish someone gave me the crash course when I first joined like you guys have for newcomers in your D4 thread. Because lets face it, the SNAIL OLR is a lot to digest for a noobie. But its also there for a reason, to keep the kiddie game down the street because this is the big leagues. There are many rules in place that we all must follow.

So when you guys reach out to newcomers I think it helps ease them in to this, because everyones got those first night jitters. And by doing so, they're more likely to stick around and not get discouraged and never be seen again.

I was never around for the racecraft workshops but I think thats a fantastic idea. We all could use a refresher on something like that, including myself. Its one thing to read about racecraft on a computer screen, its another to witness it firsthand in-game with an explanation. Maybe the stewards will also take something away from it, and recognize those that understand proper racecraft and might do some recruiting of their own if they need the help going forward. I'm not saying they're looking for the help. But I'm sure they'll appreciate the ones that do understand it.

Something else that can fall into the workshop category is to have a designated night once or twice a month where people can learn about how to handle duties. Namely Scorekeeping and Data Entry. While these arent difficult to master, they do take some time getting used to. So it'd be a great night for newcomers or current SNAILs that are interested in learning (and collecting $hells) and helping their fellow division mates. A date and time could be coordinated where everyone can hop into a PS4 Party chat together and they can go through step by step how to do it with a mock score/data sheet.

Some other things off the top of my head that I've brought up to the BOD:

Coaching - A driver looking to improve can reach out to those that are willing to offer some guidance. Reviewing replays, spectating one another and explaining their approach to that specific combo, etc etc. Students can send $hells as payment for their time (or maybe they'd do it for free just to know they've helped someone improve)

Suggestion box - Somewhere in the OP we have a google doc that only the BOD has access to viewing the responses. Theres been plenty of great ideas shared here over time, but maybe someone wants to share one anonymously. Or maybe they have something in general they want the BOD to read, but wish to go unnamed. Thats the place you can do it.

hey is there somewhere I can look to check out next week's combo so I can practice up

@zer05ive 's results post will help explain whats going on. Right now, next week's combos are still up in the air. So keep an eye on this thread as the prize winners announce their selections which dictates what we'll be racing. But dont forget, there is no racing this SuperBowl Sunday. And our Square Pool isnt filled yet... AHEM Click here for the 2019 SNAIL Calendar to see which dates we dont race.

Anyone who wants more squares may buy them now. Just tag me how many more you want and send the appropriate amount of $hells. I am buying 5 more as we speak. @Grandpa Money @Nick Cannella @Neutty and whoever else I forgot that I know wants to buy more squares. The sooner we get it filled up the quicker we can draw numbers.

 

[Nick Cannella]

@SAMHAIN85, 5 more random squares please.
$hells transferred.

 

[Bologna_Duc]

Further thoughts from a relative snail newbie starting in October. (skip this post entirely to my next one if all you want is prize A)

My objective from the outset has been to be a better driver. In my opinion, snail events provide that opportunity in a way that GTS daily events can't. The rules and the IR process are crucial to that experience.

While waiting for prize announcements I used to spend my early weekdays reviewing replays and the IR spreadsheet to critique my own driving and help me better understand what events other drivers might flag as snail violations. I should, but haven't yet, cross reference that with the stewards report to understand how the stewards view an event. I can't find the IR spreadsheet anymore. This may be unintentional.

I have signed up to the OLR, race craft guidelines and penalty provisions. The replays are posted. I can't hide. So why shouldn't we be publicly reviewing a specific event when a brain fart causes me to park my front left bumper in JLBowlers lap? There are race incidents that are much less clear cut, a gamble, or "aggressive braking" but actually dive-bombing. The stewards still have to make a decision (and thank you for doing it!). Why aren't we transparent about that process and what anyone might learn from it? I would bet it's talked about it in separate chats, conversations, etc. And the driver in question may not know, learn or change.

I think workshops are a great idea but personal schedules may be tight. Is there a specific reason steward decisions and rationale can't be publicly viewed? If documented this would seem to offer a learning opportunity that any driver could review as their schedule allows. And if your feelings get hurt, don't make mistakes.

I appreciate the BoD is considering options.

 

[Bologna_Duc]

Prize A (Duc is stunned)

Dragon Tail - Gardens II
Time: Evening 16:30 Clear
BMW Z8 ‘01 (166,000 credits)
395HP, 3549lbs
Tires: SS (N400)
Lap: 1:48.5

Still not sure how to represent ‘mid division lap’ time. Time noted is after 10 laps.