NASRL Pre-season

Ran an Alfa GTA tonight. Was between the alfa and the falcon westlake. I was running 25-26's in each car. I decided on the alfa due to tire management.
I qual'd in 6th with a 1:25... Ray and Mike where flying in Alfa's V's and qual'd with 23's.
Not much action during the race. Started 6th and ended up 6th. Had Gordo behind me for a few laps which made it intersting early on. 5th and 4th where running falcons and Trans am I think. I had 2 slight bobbles and 5 sec behind went to 15 secs really quick.
See you at O B next week.

That was great fun, first time out with you guys after some mishaps with the mod the past few weeks. Decided to go with the 2nd slowest of the 'stangs and to my surprise, the damn thing was pretty fast! Had a great battle with Tommy in the opening laps and soon got around him and pulled away. But I had nothing for those little Euro cars. This track was made for them :). I got a little lonely out there for the last part of the race but the car itself was so fun to fling around and slide that it made up for the boredom that I would normally get with a high downforce GT car :P.

Cya guys next time and hopefully we have a great start to the season!

Definitely loving this mod. Ray was giving me fits last night. We traded spots a couple of times in the first half and I had to take defensive lines at the end of the straight a couple of times. That Jag has some balls!

Around the mid-race point I was able to pull out a bit from him when we got into traffic and started lapping the rear of the field. The Alpha was probably better suited in traffic but once Ray got through he was all over me again and I couldn't fend him off anymore. My tires were getting pretty worn an had lost a lot of grip. I couldn't saw at the wheel anymore, my brake zones became longer and the car twitchy under braking. Ray passed me at around the 2/3 mark and didn't look back, pulling out 1.5 seconds per lap.

I finished 3rd to take the worthless pre-season series by one point over Mr Knapp. I had decided to be very judicious with my car selections and forget about trying to win races. I tried to pick cars that would give me the most championship points per rental point. That ratio is critical! Saving up enough for an Alpha V for the last race gave me a shot so long as I could podium. This is going to be a great series.

Wow, great race. Glad I finally made it for one of these. Had a stellar time throwing the Elite around. Man, I do love that car. Slow (max 110 before the chicane), but nimble and fleet in the twisty bits. I was really glad to see 2 others on the grid.

Qualied 9th, 1st of the under-2L GT class. Had a decent start, giving up only 1 spot to a Jag's bigger torque. Held my own following an Alfa, but he seemed to run off the track later in T1 and then disappeared (disco?). With 9th mine again, held on for a while til a moment of brain fade and had to recover from a near spin. Lost 2 spots, and almost a third, and started clawing my way back. Fought with Jerry a bit in his Abarth, but that car just doesn't have the oomph. Had an outstanding battle with Jeff and his TR4 for several laps. He'd pull away from me on the long fast parts, and I'd reel him in on the corners. I finally passed on a bobble he made. Wished he didn't have to gather the car up out of a near spin. I think the fight would have gone on for a few more laps. Outstanding racing with you. I ended up finishing in my qualy position.

This mod is the best thing in racing, in my opinion. Really wish there was a way to track all the classes running. I think I'm going to stick with the Elite for the regular season and forgo the rental-to-championship point budgeting. Gonna race with and against other cars in the same performance range (or same class hopefully) and look at results within that.

See you all in the regular season.

You know Pete, there's no reason why we can't track Class honours during the season. I guess the good news is that due to the points system, we will see fields consisting of both classes every race.

I'm going to get with Mike K and discuss the idea of running classes, or tracking classes independantly of the points / rental race. I'm not sure how many people would want to stick with one class for the season.

I think the points rental system has worked wonderfully to make the fields varied and the competition stiff. I wonder whether bonus points for finishing in the top 5 overall at an event while running a GT+2L class car would be a good carrot to dangle.

I really like that idea of class racing within the rental points system. It will really work well if we get full fields.
Another idea would be to have a spec race every 3rd or 4th race..abarths or elites or porsches... Winners get extra bonus points...
Slow down Bryce, season hasn't even started yet.

Some ideas have come to mind from this discussion. Here's a scenario I have just been considering. This is not a suggested way forward I am just throwing it out there.

- Score the classes individually at each event
- Assign rental points to cars within the classes independently of the other class.
- Venue points would be doled out by class placing, not overall placing.
- 2 driver teams
- A team with 2 drivers at an event must field a driver in separate classes.
- Team rental points are pooled and can be used in any way the team decides

It opens up many championship within a series possibilities:

- Team Overall P&G Championship (team total points)
- Class Championships by team (team class points)
- Driver Class Championships (driver class points)
- Driver Points Championship (overall individual points)
- Driver Rental/Points Ratio King (highest points-to-rental-point-ratio)
- Team Rental/Points Ratio King (highest points-to-rental-point-ratio)

Had a blast with you too Pete. the two cars were pretty well matched until you got by me and left me in your dust. I was surprised the TR4 could outrun you.
Had fun with Jerry as well. I would leave him behind and then make my usual brain farts and he got ahead of me. I slowly caught back up and passed him just before the chicane on the last lap! wOOt!

very fun last night guys... thanks to Hutch.

I like the thoughts so far about a multi-class system. I have a couple ideas about it as well, and even a possible solution for tracking everything. But I wonder if it's worth trying to rush something into the season coming right up since it's only 5 events long. Why not treat this season as further testing (but obviously an official points championship) and in the meantime work on ideas for next season?

You're right Pete, we're just firing ideas here. I think we would have a great series as it is.

We have always tended to chuck ideas out after a series finishes. In this case it was just pre-season testing that turned into pretty compelling racing. We're in for a dandy.