RDiR Autumn/Winter Series Announcement - Part 2

[Kevin Watts]

Last week we announced our first exciting series that would run during the autumn/winter months, this week we announce the second series that will run alongside it.

Just over 12 years ago Papyrus released a racing simulation that set new benchmarks for racing simulations. Universally loved by racing sim fans, Grand Prix Legends is still enjoyed by many today. Sadly Papyrus is no more but some of that team went on to form iRacing which again sets new benchmarks for racing simulations. Sadly we don’t have those exciting Grand Prix cars from 1967 but what we do have is a car that is considered by many to be a modern day version of those cars – the Skip Barber Formula 2000. The Skip Barber or ‘Skippy’ as its nicknamed by many iRacing fans can be drifted through corners with the same kind of finesse as those ’67 Grand Prix cars but just like those vintage racers the Skip Barber is unforgiving if pushed too far and many drivers have come away frustrated at not being able to tame it quickly. Given time though the Skip Barber can be a joy to drive and with the new tyre model its gets even better.



RaceDepartment has organised over 50 events this year alone and we’re proud to announce this new series that will run alternate weeks with the MX-5 series over the autumn and into winter and starts at the end of September. This six week series will feature a couple of new tracks that we’ve not run in a league format before and we start with round one at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course. Built in the 1960’s at Mansfield, Ohio this 2.25 mile course takes in 13 turns, let’s hope that doesn’t prove to be unlucky for our Skip Barber drivers!

Round two and we visit an old favourite – Laguna Seca. A popular, yet challenging track for rookie drivers in the iRacing service is possibly one of the best known US road courses around the world. The famous ‘corkscrew corner’ has challenged drivers in Indycar, Can-Am, Trans Am and is also the home for the West Coast Skip Barber Racing School.

Round three see’s the return of another RaceDepartment favourite in iRacing – Road Atlanta. Set just 35 miles north of Atlanta this track has a number of deceptively tight corners that some drivers have a love/hate relationship with as it can be hard to find a consistent lap time. At 2.54 Miles in length, Road Atlanta boasts a long back straight giving drivers a chance at a slipstream and then heavy on the brakes into the tight chicane at turn 10.

Round four takes us to Okayama International Circuit in Japan. Formerly known as TI Circuit Aida this track has hosted Formula 1 and many other high profile events. Since its introduction into the iRacing service this year as part of the base package it has proven to be a very popular and versatile track catering for all speeds of racing car. For this round of the Skip Barber series we’ll be using the full course.

Round five uses another track from the iRacing base package, this time it’s Lime Rock Park in its full course configuration. Finding a good line through turn seven is the key to getting a good lap time here allowing drivers to carry speed down the long start/finish straight. Lime Rock Park is home to the Skip Barber Racing School and also hosts rounds of the American Le Mans Series.

The grand finale for the Skip Barber series takes place at a historic European circuit. Zandvoort may not play host to Formula 1 anymore but it still plays host to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, Masters of Formula 3 and has also hosted A1GP. Given the similarities a lot of iRacing fans feel the Skip Barber has to the 1967 Grand Prix cars of Grand Prix Legends it seems only right that we end here on the Grand Prix configuration of this circuit where Jim Clark was victorious in the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix.



We have two single events to follow this series that we will announce in the next few months that will take us right up to Christmas, we hope you’ll enjoy these series and rest assured we are currently planning more events for 2012!

 

[Pedro van Baelen]

damn can't join this series
i'm already doing the escors endurance series and that covers 3 dates of this series

if there are spots free for race 1 and race 5 and 6 i'm happy to join those

 

[Jayblue]

Great! I just got the Skip and have most of the tracks for this league already.

 

[Phil Hopkins]

Man, you are making my year! I'm so pumped to be doing a Skippy series!

 

[Kevin Watts]

Sorry to hear that Pedro though it will maybe be one less car lapping me Jamie, Phil, we'll be opening up registration soon, hope to see you on the track!

 

[Kevin Watts]

Announced the series at the iRacing forums: http://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/0/1593367.page

 

[Pedro van Baelen]

kevin never driven the skippy so probably your the one that going to do the lapping

 

[Glenn Petersen]

Just curious...
The staff often asks members what we want to race and you guys even did a poll "Which cars are you most interested in racing at RaceDepartment?". While most answers were spread across the majority of vehicles there were some clear interest in the indy car. The Honda and GT were close behind. I understand the new cars had high interest, and understandably so, and it was fun to test them out. And there is a league planned in the future, but...
I (and a few others) were hoping you'd take the poll seriously and run an Indy car league. Instead, you set up a skippy league. There were 2 votes there.
Iracing offers up some pretty cool premier series cars. Cup cars, F1, Daytona Prototypes, Indy, V8SC's - some pretty awesome choices, I think.
I know there are skippy fans out there. That's fine. I'm not one of them.
Sorry, just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Bob Luneski]

Just curious...
I (and a few others) were hoping you'd take the poll seriously and run an Indy car league. Instead, you set up a skippy league. There were 2 votes there.
...
Sorry, just doesn't make sense to me.

+1

While I appreciate all the hard work of the RD staff, I'll pass on this one and run MMG F1's in the Race07 league.

 

[Pedro van Baelen]

i think the slower cars wil give us more of a competitive race

looked at the SM series alot of the racers spun there cars
and if u take the F1 of the indy car more people will spin the car en the field will be more spread out

i also dont like the Skippy, but i didn't pay for the car to be sitting in the garage

 

[Phil Hopkins]

As you could already tell from my earlier post, I like the Skippy. But I also appreciate that RD doesn't leave cars from the early levels behind when choosing for Series.

I'm not a fan of the MX-5, but I'm quite happy for that series for the reason Pedro suggests: close racing in a single setup car. Sort of like the old IROC races. The Skippy is a great race car. There's a reason it's used to train racers. Learning to go fast in it will make you a good driver. And now that it has the NTM, it's a great choice for a series. Of all the NTM cars, it makes the most sense, since the others still need a bit of tweaking (GT40) or are quite challenging to drive (GT40, CUP), with the possible exception of the Honda.

Some people prefer faster cars, I understand. Some prefer cars with downforce that are easier to master. I get that too. But those cars often stretch out the field in just a few laps. And I, for one, prefer racing to hot lapping, and that requires other cars near me. If I were faster and could compete for the podium in every race, then I'd be fine with any car. But only a few people in every race are going to be running close up front. The MX-5 and Skippy make it more likely to have close races all through the field.

I enjoyed the SM series, and I was a solid mid-pack finisher, and I spent most of my time on the track without another car anywhere near me.

I'm in, and grateful to the RD staff for offering carefully thought out and well organized series.

And no, i dont want to leave the Skippy, or even the MX-5 in the garage the garage is for the Jetta!

 

[Kevin Watts]

Just curious...
The staff often asks members what we want to race and you guys even did a poll "Which cars are you most interested in racing at RaceDepartment?". While most answers were spread across the majority of vehicles there were some clear interest in the indy car. The Honda and GT were close behind. I understand the new cars had high interest, and understandably so, and it was fun to test them out. And there is a league planned in the future, but...
I (and a few others) were hoping you'd take the poll seriously and run an Indy car league. Instead, you set up a skippy league. There were 2 votes there.
Iracing offers up some pretty cool premier series cars. Cup cars, F1, Daytona Prototypes, Indy, V8SC's - some pretty awesome choices, I think.
I know there are skippy fans out there. That's fine. I'm not one of them.
Sorry, just doesn't make sense to me.

I take exception to the remark I highlighted, we take all feedback seriously. The poll I put up was quite clear:

As our Star Mazda series finishes today I'm sure you'll be pleased to know we have a full calendar of events planned for our regular Sunday race day right up till the end of 2011 which we will be announcing soon. In the meantime we hope to see as many of you as possible for our summer events. As we look into 2012 we would like to get your feedback on what you'd like race and we'll do our best to put together another set of exciting race series. Of the current line up of cars (and the ones to be added in iRacing v2.0 which are you most interested in racing?

I've highlighted the important part of that poll question just to be clear on this point. The MX-5 and Skip Barber series were already well into planning by the time I had posted that poll up. As I said we have events now planned right up until the end of 2011 and the poll was aimed at giving us feedback on what you wanted to race beyond that into 2012. We don't just sit around and throw up events with little thought like some other sites do, we have in many cases planned six months in advance which requires co-ordination between numerous members of staff.

Since we started putting events together a lot of thought has gone into them, to start up a league it requires a little more thought than some other sims because not everyone has the same content as you would expect in a boxed sim. We've carefully put together events and series slowly adding a new car or a new track every few events to keep costs down while slowly building up a roster of cars and tracks that we then knew from participation levels that people had. We took this further and added a spreadsheet to allow members to tell us what content they had so we could effectively plan events that included as many members as possible. That is why I take exception to the remark that we're not taking feedback seriously.

You may well see an Indy series here in the future but that poll was for beyond what we had already planned for 2011.

 

[Glenn Petersen]

I take exception to the remark I highlighted, we take all feedback seriously.

You're right shouldn't have made that comment and I'll gladly eat those words. You guys work pretty hard and I thank you for that.
Hey, I'm just a big kid with all these iRacing toys and if I could, I'd play with them all the time (except the srf, skippy, jetta...). But I can't. And with my time that I do have, I want to race cars that I get a kick out of - as we all do.
And I don't want to go outside RD to race because I like racing everyone here, so I guess I'll be patient.
Carry on...

 

[Kevin Watts]

Thanks Glenn, unfortunately we can't make everyone happy all of the time. If you look back at the first MX-5 series and then subsequant events you'll see a pattern on how the club grew in terms of members content with a mind to keeping costs down. As someone who also has 100% of the content and has for some time it would be easy to just throw up an event and not consider everyone else. Our consideration goes beyond content, we've given members who have participated in past series a chance to pre-register on the Star Mazda series and MX-5 Series 2 so they get a slot because we appreciate the support given to us. We're scheduled right up to the end of 2011 for our Sunday events but our mid week events tend to be more flexible so perhaps we can put up something there like Indycars or V8's so everyone gets to race their favourite cars.

 

[C.J. Stout]

Hello everyone Just found out about this series today from a fellow racer. I am certainly interested in competing in a few races - if not all of them!

The Skip is my favorite car in iRacing and i have logged hundreds (if not thousands) of laps in it

Hopefully there might be room for one more in your series!

 

[Dazmaniac]

Hello everyone Just found out about this series today from a fellow racer. I am certainly interested in competing in a few races - if not all of them!

The Skip is my favorite car in iRacing and i have logged hundreds (if not thousands) of laps in it

Hopefully there might be room for one more in your series!

C.J,

To be eligible to enter RD racing series/leagues, you would need to submit an application to become a 'Licensed Member' (no fee involved).

Go here for further details - http://www.racedepartment.com/application-rules/

 

[C.J. Stout]

Aye! Thanks for the heads up

 

[Phil Hopkins]

Uh oh! Stiff competition!! :tongue: Welcome Charles! Looking forward to racing with you here in this series.

 

[Dazmaniac]

I'm not trying to re-open something we have now put to bed, but Kevin's post does clearly state that 2011 was fully booked and RD are looking towards 2012 to plan race series

As our Star Mazda series finishes today I'm sure you'll be pleased to know we have a full calendar of events planned for our regular Sunday race day right up till the end of 2011 which we will be announcing soon. In the meantime we hope to see as many of you as possible for our summer events. As we look into 2012 we would like to get your feedback on what you'd like race and we'll do our best to put together another set of exciting race series. Of the current line up of cars (and the ones to be added in iRacing v2.0 which are you most interested in racing?

I guess its just a case of people actually reading posts before replying and all will be good, lol.

 

[Eric Estes]

I think it was more of an aggregate impression. The last paragraph http://www.racedepartment.com/content/1372-rd-racing-club-2-0-announcement.html led me to also think that one of the leagues filling out 2011 would/might be Indy.

However, one good reason I could think of for running Skippy, is that it has the NTM now and we don't know when it might come to Indy. A tyre/tire model change mid-season would be difficult, at best. The NTM will get tweaked, but it wouldn't be as drastic as changing OTM to NTM and wiping out all setup work during the series.