Wow, big night, and I don't know where to start:
1) Let me start by saying thank you to everyone who turned out, if even for a little while. At one point, we had 14 drivers. I was really not expecting that. I do apologize about the courses. They would be fine for the cars we had with the usual turn out. That turn out was very big. Saying that, though, I personally wasn't stuffed by anyone other than myself, and I only tapped a few people, never enough to knock them too far off their line.
Well, I can't apologize for London. It is just a crap course, but it fit the theme. If I only pick courses I like, we will do Monaco and Fuji all the time.
2) We were beset by lots of problems. That comes with 14 people I guess. We had communications problems from everyone not having headsets, and headsets not always working. We had some technical delays and some starting grids that didn't go as they should've. I'm sorry. I can't help these things. If we are going to have 14 people on a regular basis, then I may just drop it to five races.
3) The parity system isn't perfect. I want some feedback to make it better. But before I do, I want to wax about the purpose of this system:
There are clearly some very good drivers. If we all get into a race together, you have your favorites and your long shots. It is easy to make book. I'm going to pick on Diabolic for a moment. If the two of us are on the track, bet your money on him. In the same car, he will beat me more than nine times out of ten.
The point of the parity system is to confound the bookies. He beats me soundly the first race, so we adjust parity and grid. Will he beat me the second race? Maybe, maybe not. At some point, after adjusting and adjusting, it gets to the point where the books are even. That is the point. The cars are in a tighter pack and there are no clear favorites.
Having said that, there are points being kept the whole night. There are clear favorites for the points. I can't help that, and I don't want to. Diabolic may not be able to beat me every race, but he will beat me in the points. He beats me in the first race to give himself a head start, and on the rest of the races he is more consistent. At the end of the evening, it is still obvious who is the better driver, but over the course of the evening, we have closer races and... get this...
we have loads more fun!
4) Yes, the system can be gamed. No, hanging back just to get a parity bonus for the next race won't help you in the long run. You should just fight for every position that you can in every race that you can. Basically, your average place matters more than anything. And last averaged with first is just middle. last half averaged with near first wins.
The way that the system can be gamed is be not being honest about your PP adjustment. I can't, in a timely manner, police that. And you know what, I don't care. There is a driver that I think isn't honest. And I don't care. So what, he pulls away from me when I have 15 more PP than him and I'm in his draft. I get over it. There are other drivers that I know are being honest. They are drivers that are better than me on most nights, but that I can keep up with on nights like this.
And they are drivers that I'll be more friendly with and invite to events like this and others. They are drivers that I'll hang out with during practices. They are drivers that I'll give a little extra room to in the corners.
And if there is a driver that needs to cheat to win something like this, something with no prizes and no real goal other than making the racing closer, well... I feel sorry for them.
5) Man, I suck so freaking bad!!!! The last two races were just epic fail all over. Before those two races, i was doing well in the points. But at the end of the evening, I am again last. The only people that finished lower than me are people that didn't run all six races. And there are drivers that didn't run all six races that still beat me. I'll publish the results in just a moment.
We have been doing points based on number of racers. But I want to recalculate real quick and compare awarding points based solely on position (first always gets 16) just to see how that would change things. I'll publish both for comparison.
6) Again, thanks to those that came. I do hope to see you next week. I do hope we make this better. Next week, we have tracks with more open space, but we do have cars that are a bit faster. Yes, the BMW is probably the best car, but I hope some of you challenge yourselves and pick something other than the BMW.
I'm thinking of taking the Maserati just because it looks fantastic.
I forgot all together what day it was.
