Important Announcement on Lobby Assignments
(Starting Next Week at Apricot Hill)
NOTE: The following "wall of text" will not apply until next week, but we wanted to announce early because participation in the time trial, which is already ongoing, could be advantageous although in no way required.
A more formal formula will be used to determine lobby assignments.
First, every driver that
confirms their registration will be ranked using an event specific handicap equal to the
minimum (best) of the following:
- Handicap from the official registry (driver does nothing, falls back on official handicap)
- Handicap from the official time trial (driver included in official time trial results)
- Handicap computed using an unofficial offline ghost lap replay
- Must conform to all time trial rules and be attached to a post in the online thread
- Submitted after TT deadline on Monday @ 23:59 GMT
- Submitted at least 8 hours prior to the event start time
- Handicap computed using the best clean lap of an online steward observed qualification race
- Tire wear set to off, but otherwise conforming to online regulations
- 5 lap race: 1 out lap, 3 timed hot laps, 1 cool down lap.
- Scheduled with steward ahead of time (plan ahead and request via thread)
- Completed at least 3 hours prior to the event start time
Second, we will sort the confirmed drivers 90 minutes prior to the race and divide them up evenly. If there are an odd numbers of drivers the extra driver will be assigned to the A room. At that point the stewards convene and assign a director and supporting steward for each lobby. Then at about 50-60 minutes prior to the race the room #s and driver assignments will be published to the thread.
Reserves: Drivers with
reserve status
at 90 minutes prior to event start will not be included in the lobby assignments, but will be listed with their applicable handicap in a reserve list. They will have to request on the thread to be added to a lobby and the assignment will be at the discretion of the stewards. In that case handicap will be used as a guide, but there are no guarantees last minute confirms/entries will get the room you want and in some rare cases may not get to race at all (e.g. if the room split is such that there is two full rooms or if the new driver would create an additional room that wouldn't be supportable with the number of stewards available). Reserves will be handled on a
first to request basis using the online race thread. Do not use the google form to confirm/register at the last minute, but use a thread post instead. If you are on reserve list or not listed at all in the lobby assignments do not join a room until instructed to do so.
Abuse: Because confirming guarantees you a grid spot it's important that nobody abuses the status. If you are fairly confident (80%) you are going to make the race sign up as confirmed ahead of time, but it's important you update your status as you get more information and for sure no later than 90 minutes prior to the race. At that point if you are not 99% sure you should be on reserve. This is a courtesy we ask, not only for the admins/stewards, but also for the benefit of other drivers that have accurately stated their status. We're going to use a three strike rule. A confirmed driver that "no shows" will receive 2 strikes. A confirmed driver that cancels less than 90 minutes of the race, but before race start will get 1 strike. Three strikes in any 8 week period and the driver risks being suspended from the online participation for 8 weeks. We know "stuff happens" and real life comes first so this allows some forgiveness, but we can't manage multiple rooms effectively if we don't know at least a bit ahead of time who is going to be showing up and we can't have people taking advantage of the system to guarantee their spot at the cost of someone else.
These rules will only apply for weekly Wednesday events where more than 16 drivers are confirmed. In the case of 16 or less the situation is more relaxed as the stewards just open up one lobby, all confirmed drivers are guaranteed a spot, and reserves are given grid spots on a first come first serve basis.
Goals of these rules?
- Creates lounges of similar paced drivers equitably without relying on honor based practice laps.
- Allows drivers that have improved beyond their handicap to qualify in a "faster" lounge.
- Allows drivers that did not have time to run the TT to submit an offline lap well after the official TT deadline.
- Allows drivers to run in an online setup to qualify if they don't want to deal with offline replays. These could be done during any of the practice sessions as long as a steward is present to observe.
- Allows drivers to fall back on registry handicap if they have no time to pre-qualify.
We hope/expect the vast majority of drivers are covered by their handicap or TT result and the other two options are only used in a few cases each week. Drivers who have not been official processed should take advantage of #3 or #4 or they will be "approximately" assigned based on our best guess of their handicap.
Also note that the above procedures will typically only apply to lobby assignments.
Within each lobby there will still be a pre-race qualification session to determine grid order.
👍
, that's some funny stuff. 
