General Chat

Ok guys... I appreciate your patience and wanted to fill everyone in with what we have discussed and where we want to head at FMC, both in this series and others.

FMC was created as an offshoot of GLR to give us a place to explore some races and events not found elsewhere. Most of us have also raced at other sites including IFCA, VMRL, TORA and more recently VM. By design we have taken a lower key position with regard to regulations in part because we could because most of us raced at sites who had established rules and expectations that we already followed. Unfortunately if we don't follow some of those expectations then some drivers can be disadvantaged and that leads to disinterest in racing here which also isn't what we want.

Catalunya is a tough track because it has some zones which if allowed, cutting can result in huge differences in lap time. When you are working hard to stay in contact of drivers in front it is easy to relax your standards if you have made an error elsewhere to recover. That is not a precedent we wish to foster here. VM has established rules on cutting. It is expected there to keep the majority of your car on the track and between the white lines throughout. Not just two wheels but the majority of your car. Of course that is VM and not FMC but I have always driven with that in mind.

This past week we had concerns from a few drivers that excessive cutting was occurring at Catalunya. We do have race officials here and we do have a process to deal with race related issues. That has now occurred so I wanted to share with the FMC drivers what we found. There was indeed excessive cutting and something we would like curbed.

I Looked at both racing lobbies and all drivers. I predetermined that I would look at the first 10 laps and turns 1,2 and 13,14. I used VM standards and also looked at how frequently all four wheels left the raceway. I graded each driver on those four corners for 10 laps. With teh GT1 car I watched for the inside channel on the undercarriage and whether it crossed the white line. for the GT2 car I used the inside edge of the license plate area. These markers insured that over 50% of the car was outside the boundaries of the track (that is I gave additional leeway to everyone and it allowed me to be as consistent in my grading as possible). If a car kept those marks inside the white line on those turns they were graded a 0. If those marks crossed the white line they were graded a 1. If a car completely left the tarmac (daylight between the car and the white line) that was graded as red 1. ON the right side is the tabulation for each turn and each driver, first with times (out of 10 opportunities) where the majority of the car did not stay on the racing surface, and the second the number of times the entire car left the raceway in a turn.




You can dissect that however you please but I think it is clear that we can do better in some instances. 10 of the 14 drivers had more than half the turns analyzed with more than half the car off the raceway. We then had some clearly egregious transgressions where the entire car was off the track and done so consistently. That has to stop.

Since we haven't officially published any standards we have decided to give everyone a pass this time. If cutting is brought to our attention again we will apply the following rules. If a representative sample shows a driver consistently goes off the raceway (4 wheels more than 50% of the time) they will be disqualified from the race and receive zero points. If a driver leaves the raceway 25-50% they will loose between 2 and 5 position points for the race. If a driver consistently transgresses they will also risk disqualification or expulsion from FMC. By these rather liberal rules, there would have been a lot of penalties handed out in this race. You have now been warned and I know we can all do better.

Wow! I didn't realize how bad I was. I'm disappointed that I cut the track so many times. That's something I'll be more aware of now.

Viper, that must have taken forever to watch all that!

I would like offer my apology since it appears that I may have been too aggressive. I sincerely thought that as long as I kept 2 wheels on the track I would be safe within the regulations.

Yes Dragon it quite a bit of time... which is why I hope not to have to do this regularly It was instructive for sure. And Insanity, as I talked to the other race officials it was not an uncommon belief that we had to keep two wheels on the track. The fact is that we really didn't have a standard at FMC and despite the standard being >50% of the car at VM that is why I looked at the four wheel ruling. It was that lack of a standard that led to the general pardon and let us all look to a cleaner tomorrow.

Thanks for all your hard work and effort Viper, I know I always try to keep my car within the lines when racing and will be more studious in trying to maintain my vehicle on the racing surface at all times.

Couldn't see it anywhere but what assists are allowed for the series... I usually drive with everything off but a braking line would be nice! And i think i asked this once already but cannot find the thread i asked it in.. Stock build and tune right? What can be changed?

Virality wrote:Couldn't see it anywhere but what assists are allowed for the series... I usually drive with everything off but a braking line would be nice! And i think i asked this once already but cannot find the thread i asked it in.. Stock build and tune right? What can be changed?

Hiya buddy Stock Build and Stock tuning setup. You can use whatever assists you wan't.

Awesome. Cant wait.

Hey guys sorry to do this but I am going to have to back out of this series. Sorry and thanks!

I would like to back out of the series please. 4th of July we postponed the race and the week after not enough people showed up and the week
after that not enough people showed up (i would have missed last weeks anyways)

But honestly i do not have the time on Wednesdays anymore and since i have not race in this series since June 27th due to a variety of issues with
the series and personal life.

Sorry main reason is personal but at the same time not enough people.