United States & Canada

[Dave Stephenson]

Koronary, I manage fine with a desk setup, I have the wheel mounted really low on the deskt and use a canvas camp chair to sit in which gives me a low slung but supportive driving position. I made a little A-Frame to raise the padels slightly which means I'm horrizontal enough to comfortabley heel/toe despite the awkward G25 pedal set.

 

[Sean Vohs]

I'm thinking I need to use my stimulus check + tax return for a G25 and a playseat. Tempting. Tempting.

 

[Eric. K]

I have the same setup as Marty with a 120" screen Love it!! (of course I am still pathetically slow)

 

[Eric. K]

NA forum future

Hey guys,

I did some thinking (yes I do that on occasion):laugh2: I also had a few hallway conversations with some of you on this subject. Why do we need a NA forum hidden deep on RaceDepartment main page? We all speak English? we all play the same games? we race with people from all over the World? so, why don't we mingle with everyone on the main forums and have a unified community?

I suggest we move all of our threads to the main GTR/rFactor, small chat, etc, etc... forums and continue our conversations on there? I believe that change will help us grow throughout the North American continent. If you think I am completely wrong and clueless voice your opinions. If not I will have us moved in a very near future.

 

[Yves Larose]

if i ever manage to ge the money for one, i'm aiming for Obutto Ozone one

 

[Mitchell Phillipi]

I honestly don't understand the reason for the NA forum? Since English is the primary mode of communication why would we want to limit ourselves to just NA? I think it's much more interesting to intermingle Just navigating to the NA forum is a PITA LOL.

 

[Bob Luneski]

I tend to agree that they are redundant. No need to 2 english language forums. It's a pain to have to check both places for info and threads. It creates an artificial and unnecessary separation within the community.

 

[Bob Luneski]

if i ever manage to ge the money for one, i'm aiming for Obutto Ozone one

This looks really interesting. Do you know anyone that has one?

 

[Timothy Miller]

Seems that the order of things is to eliminate the NA forums. Go for it. It's all about the democracy right? Really, though, I have my way of navigating through the forums, so, if we intermingle in the GTREvo threads, then we might get more attention. DO IT!

 

[Eric. K]

Seems that the order of things is to eliminate the NA forums. Go for it. It's all about the democracy right? Really, though, I have my way of navigating through the forums, so, if we intermingle in the GTREvo threads, then we might get more attention. DO IT!

Tim I dont know if it is about democracy in this case, but what makes sense. Splitting English speaking communities can't be good for anyone in the long run.

 

[Yves Larose]

to be honest i'm against the idea, do i want to go thru 30 page of threads to find what members of the NA have to say.... not really. don"t forget that the majorities of the threads in the NA forum will be merge with already excisting threads in the GTR-Evo forum. another point is if we have to ask our members for there opinion on a subject beeing in the big forum will make things way too difficult as everybody from around the world will now participate in the discussion to something that don't really concern them. another thing how would people from NA knows that a new members have join us, to find out we will now have to go thru the introduction thread where all the parts of the world do it, again more reading.

i honestly think that merging with the main forum will make the NA community as we know it disappeared cause lets face it, we are what 20 active members ( probably more ) and the EU community have like 3000 active members so its easy to see that the NA members will get lost in the main forum and that after awhile we won't know who is in the community and who is not. if thats what our members want then thats what we'll do.

 

[Eric. K]

Yves,

1. I just checked the main GTR forum and the 1st page covers posts from 1 day to 1 week old. To find someone's post you certainly won't have to go through 30 pages. It is more like 1 at the most 2.
2. "the world will now participate in the discussion to something that don't really concern them" It is the wrong attitude. We should not want to stay in the darkness of the cellar, but come out and integrate in the larger community. We might learn some new things and share some of our knowledge. I just scanned through our posts. I don't see many that could not pertain to a larger audience. Finally, we already have MANY Europeans regularly posting in this forum. I cant see anything wrong with that.
3. "we are what 20 active members ( probably more ) and the EU community have like 3000 active" There are about 400 racing members. Not that many are active on the forum.

Bottom line is RD should not be an European nor a US destination, but a place for all Sim racers to get together and enjoy the same hobby.

 

[Matt Alpeter]

eh, I'm with Yves on this one. this is like our little area...the NA area. if we migrate to the RD GTR-E area there's no doubt we'll get lost in the hundreds of posts. when i click on the NA forum, i know the topics are going to concern me, as i'm in North America, and we're like a small family so every topic in some way effects everyone else. so i check here for NA info and up to Evo to "the rest" ..and wow there are a lot of others. i could agree with maybe trying to recruit in that area, but throwing us up there would be like taking a tightly knit group of people and tossing them into a crowd of 500 and saying, "mingle" ...no one is going to mingle.

perhaps this would be a better idea if the majority of us were consistently posting in the Evo area. no one is, so best not to make them.

 

[Marty Pierce]

Not sure I understand all this. I Know I enjoy NA comunity because Its familar to me and I know everyone here. Not sure about what the impact on our group would be or how it may change things. As usual Im a little lost on this.

 

[Eric. K]

perhaps this would be a better idea if the majority of us were consistently posting in the Evo area. no one is, so best not to make them.

Should I remind you how no one was posting before in the old NA forum? At times it was inactive for weeks. How about you trust me on the fact I will have live NA topics in the main forum? same as I am doing here? and make sure everyone contribute

 

[Chris Vick]

A few thoughts:

1. If we tag the threads like the race club events are tagged (ie - US) then it makes it very easy to see the threads that are specific to us.
2. Many of the discussions would benefit from outside input. BUT...

3. We do not want to lose our particular sense of identity and community. SO ...

4. I have been thinking that we might consider merging the NA forum, but reactivate the PanAmerican Racing Team. Then we will have a more private place to hang with our buddies from North America (and virtual North America). That way we can have chats about practice sessions or help each other out in prepping for League races, etc., and just have friendly chats if we want, while much of the general sim racing discussions (seats, monitors, wheels, etc.) goes on in the main forum. I for one, miss the more active team forum, and I know that several of the other team forums are very active. I was thrilled that Yves set that up, and got it going, and have been sad to see it decline.
Besides, I love the skins that Yves and Tim did!!:thumb::worship::thumb:

Just my $.02! :wink:

Chris

PS - Special thanks to Yves and Eric for driving so much organization and working to build an RD community in North America. Whatever we decide, we need to work together to preserve the huge progress that has been made!

 

[Eric Nelson]

Tim I dont know if it is about democracy in this case, but what makes sense. Splitting English speaking communities can't be good for anyone in the long run.

Kinda like spiltting up CART to make IRL? IMSA and SCCA PRO?:bad:

But could we still have some affiliation as NA members? Could we still have NA sanctioned events? If you are proposing to make our voices heard more widely then please feel free to send us into the main arteries!

My only concern would be not continuing the NA membership.

 

[Jarrod Keen]

Hello from JC Racing

I wanted to stop by and introduce myself and a group of guys that will be joining the racedepartment family in the next week or so. I've raced with JCRacing.net for over a year now and we've ran several leagues and nightly run informal races and practice sessions for our league. We've ran mostly in the GT Pro class and we drive from 8 pm eastern to around 1 am eastern standard.

We are shutting down the JC Racing site and about 10-12 guys will be joining up with the Racedepartment community. We're all clean drivers that just love the competition of racing, and we are a pretty friendly crew. We'll be organizing a gt pro league in the near future that begins around 9:30 est on a weekight. Be on the lookout as we'd love to have a full 25 driver grid for our season.

You guys have a great community here. Thanks for having us.

 

[Eric. K]

Hello again Jarrod!! Nice to have you guys with us.

 

[Bob Luneski]

We have a lot of smart people here! We should have the general topic threads posted in the main English language forum because their discussion will benefit all english language members. On further review, I agree with Chris and Eric-2 that we shouldn't completely loose our regional identity. Whether that means keeping the NA forum. but restricting posts to NA specific topics or by shutting the forum down and reinstating the PanAmerican racing team. It seems the best of both worlds can be easily attained.

A few thoughts:

2. Many of the discussions would benefit from outside input. BUT...

3. We do not want to lose our particular sense of identity and community. SO ...

4. I have been thinking that we might consider merging the NA forum, but reactivate the PanAmerican Racing Team. Then we will have a more private place to hang with our buddies from North America (and virtual North America). That way we can have chats about practice sessions or help each other out in prepping for League races, etc., and just have friendly chats if we want, while much of the general sim racing discussions (seats, monitors, wheels, etc.) goes on in the main forum. I for one, miss the more active team forum, and I know that several of the other team forums are very active. I was thrilled that Yves set that up, and got it going, and have been sad to see it decline.
Besides, I love the skins that Yves and Tim did!!:thumb::worship::thumb:

Just my $.02! :wink:

Chris

PS - Special thanks to Yves and Eric for driving so much organization and working to build an RD community in North America. Whatever we decide, we need to work together to preserve the huge progress that has been made!
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