rF2 Caterham Superlight Team Championship (Cancelled)

[Connor Caple]

Name: Connor Caple
Team: Privateer
Number: 13 (if still available)
Reserve/Guest: Yes if needed

 

[Stuart Thomson]

All - I'm not around this Friday, so I've not put up an event for the Club for this week.

This Friday is, however, the skin supply cut-off deadline for Round 1.

If you haven't supplied me a skin by Friday 15th, you will not be allowed to compete in Round 1.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

All - I'm not around this Friday, so I've not put up an event for the Club for this week.

This Friday is, however, the skin supply cut-off deadline for Round 1.

If you haven't supplied me a skin by Friday 15th, you will not be allowed to compete in Round 1.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

All - I'm not around this Friday, so I've not put up an event for the Club for this week.

This Friday is, however, the skin supply cut-off deadline for Round 1.

If you haven't supplied me a skin by Friday 15th, you will not be allowed to compete in Round 1.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

The League server will be up from the moment I release the full skinpack - hoping for Sunday evening.

Once it's up please go on there to test stuff out.

If you don't check things out beforehand, and you find out on the League day that you have issues, then that is your misfortune, and you will miss Round 1.

I won't be doing any diagnostics nor torubleshooting on Friday.

 

[Toby Davis]

OK guys, I have a complaint. Well not really a complaint, but a suggestion or two.

I really really really don't like bump drafting. At all. It doesn't happen in the real Caterham series, and it's an overly aggressive addition to racing which adds unpredictability and the chance for groups of cars to just escape off down the road. It can also cause damage, incidents, and miscommunication leading to the above - crashes.

I cannot emphasize enough how much fun I had racing in the Cat club events, especially at Interlagos with Hermy, where we drafted each other multiple times and swapped places countless times. It was sort of naive of us not to think about bump drafting, but had we done that, we would have missed out on an epic battle. Sure, we may have come higher up the finishing positions, but that's not the point. Banning bump drafting would be easy to police, too - just ban intentional contact of any kind (already a rule at RD, I believe...) and anyone found to have been bumping would fall under the category of intentional contact.

I just think we could all live without it and the league would be a much better place. I really hope that it can be banned for the league. I just don't think it has any right whatsoever to be here, it just doesn't feel realistic and robs us all of a chance to be competitive in clean air, and also the chance to have brilliant ding dong battles.

 

[Toby Davis]

Stu - has Wrighty spoken to you about the slight helmets bug and talking about putting the helmets into each team's car folder so that it HAS to show up on the car?

 

[Stuart Thomson]

He has.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

There will be no rule changes with regard to bumpdrafting.

 

[Chris Butcher]

+1. I personally believe the excuse "It's impossible to police" is quite weak. In the test event I was right up with the front runners but I lost out to bump drafters, and twice I was barged out of the way. As Toby said, intentional contact is against the rules, and as we saw in the event at Dijon, it causes accidents too. The other problem with bump drafting, which we also saw at Dijon is that people become overly aggressive, barging people out of the way to get in the slipstream of a "bumping" partner.

We never used to see this kind of behaviour in the club events, so why should that change when we get close to a team championship? I don't race here to win. I race here because I enjoy the very close battles that we always used to have in the cats. Allowing bump drafting just removes the possibility of good battles.

The other thing is the rule saying you can't bump to overtake. At what point are you infringing that rule? Do you only have to stop bumping as you reach the car you wish to overtake? If you allow bump drafting it becomes much more complicated and more difficult to police. IMO much easier, and fairer, and in the best interest of the league, to ban any kind of intentional contact.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

After the discussions and points raised on here today, discussions and points that affect each and every team, I've decided to open this thread now, rather than after event 1.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

See my post above.

 

[Toby Davis]

OK, in which case I must ask why?

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I have considered the pros & cons and what I have in place is, I believe, the best solution and compromise.

So far only one team is complaining against it, which means that the majority are either for it, or don't care.

I say this without any rancour whatsoever - honestly, if it bothers you that much, and you cannot accept the rules as they are, just pull out.

Changing rules to suits a minority opinion would seem even more unfair.

Just to be clear - I'm not going to debate each and every decision of why the rules are what they are. I haven't picked these things out of the air on a whim.

 

[Toby Davis]

OK, well considering I had only brought it up for a few minutes and nobody has even had the chance to read it...
Can we call a vote on the matter?

 

[Chris Butcher]

I haven't picked these things out of the air on a whim.

You need to clarify the rules further then.

"b) You may NOT pass other drivers whilst in a bumpdraft situation. If you want to pass, you must come out of the bumpdraft to do so. This is to prevent contact and collisions that can arise."

At which point do you have to leave the bumpdraft? Because to me, if you leave it as you reach the car, you have still bumped to take that position

 

[Stuart Thomson]

The bumpdrafting issue has been extant, discussed at length and in the rules for a lot longer than your post. Teams are aware, have been for some time, again with no complaint to this point.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

OK - this issue clearly isn't going to go away any time soon.

To clarify - you cannot be in premeditated contact for the purpose of performance enhancement with another vehicle to pass a 3rd vehicle. You must leave contact before there is any vehicle overlap between the front car in contact and the car being overtaken.

Preventing the bumpdraft used to get there, means preventing the bumpdraft full stop.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

This would seem like the best place for Team Leaders to discuss the bump drafting issue raised by Toby in the Test event thread.

 

[Gregory Degreef]

just pull out.

lool
i heard that already i think...
you will drive alone if you stay saying that thing...