AC US Club - Suggestions Thread

Lorenzo Bonder · Aug 31, 2015

Hey guys,

For those who don't know I manage the Assetto Corsa Racing Club for the US with James Perez (@JRP77), @Ryan Ogurek and @Dragos Haba and we provide regular races on a daily basis (this is being reworked on as we've had some inconsistency with the event schedule) for our US audience.

However lately we've been suffering from barely to empty grids in our US race events. While I can quote a number of possible reasons to why this could be happening, I've preferred to come up here and ask for your fellas guidance.

Now a days our current schedule goes from Thursday to Sunday, with the current schedule

Thursday - James
Friday (with the F-Renault 3.5 Fridays) - Lorenzo
Saturday (with the GT Saturdays) - Lorenzo
Sunday (TT Cup Sundays) - Lorenzo

We are still sorting out the other days (Monday and Tuesday), however this will be sorted out among the staff. What I come here for is to ask your guys opinion, because I'm motivated to see the US scenario to grow again. Just to throw a bit of information, the US is one the highest audiences on RD during our monthly basis, it tops with Germany and Great Britain only. And right now our numbers are small near stagnant and I wish to change that.

One of my goals is to make the US an active force in the RD Racing Clubs, make sure we can have equal numbers to the EU club. However I feel that I cannot do it without the community's help! So I want from you guys to tell me the following:

What would be needed to draw interest to the US Racing Club? What kind of events would be good to the Club? When? What timezone is preferrable to you guys? What should be the session limits (30 minutes practice, 30 mins quali, then race, i.e)? When should the Race Club begin and end?

These are some of the questions that if possible, I'd like to read answers below. Of course, I'm open to all criticism, suggestions and other ideas from you guys. All feedback will be directed towards the certain effort of making a bigger and a better Racing Club.

So for now that would be it. Thanks for reading this and please please comment below!

Cheers

Lorenzo

vbabiy · Sep 14, 2015

How do I find US Events on the calendar? Currently I only see events that start 18:00GMT witch is 2pm my time, I would need something that is much later like 8pm.

Thanks

St3fan · Sep 14, 2015

vbabiy said:
How do I find US Events on the calendar? Currently I only see events that start 18:00GMT witch is 2pm my time, I would need something that is much later like 8pm.

Thanks

The US events are on the calendar. They are just not clearly marked directly on the title of the events there. This week's US events:
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/dtm-90s-magione-tuesday-september-14th.110815/
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/mini-salvatore-tuesday-15-september-2015.110833/
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/gt2-imola-monday-september-14-2015.110906/
http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...-historic-wednesday-16-september-2015.110834/
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/touring-cars-spielberg-thursday-17-september-2015.110835/
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/toyota-gt86-zandvoort-thursday-september-17-2015.110574/
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/f-renault-3-5-zandvoort-friday-september-18th.110814/
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/gt2-3-silverstone-saturday-september-19th.110816/

CCL71 · Sep 14, 2015

I'm on the east coast in the states. I'd love to find a league but my problem is finding race times that fit my work schedule. The beauty of Iracing is having set times every week. Once you learn the series, youi'll also learn what times/days have good participation. Being a 9 to 5'er, it is normally close to 7pm before I"m home or at least able to sit in front of my wheel. Having a steady series of 1 to 3 races a week would work for me. I'd treat them like bowling or poker nights where I would make the effort to leave work on time

Maybe start off with 2 races, one during the week that is set a little later for east coast people then have another on Saturdays that is convenient to the west coast. I'm open to almost any car/track combination, even though, I don't do well with open wheel cars. I'm Captain Slow in road cars and Captain Slower in open wheels. lol

St3fan · Sep 14, 2015

CCL71 said:
I'm on the east coast in the states. I'd love to find a league but my problem is finding race times that fit my work schedule. The beauty of Iracing is having set times every week. Once you learn the series, youi'll also learn what times/days have good participation. Being a 9 to 5'er, it is normally close to 7pm before I"m home or at least able to sit in front of my wheel. Having a steady series of 1 to 3 races a week would work for me. I'd treat them like bowling or poker nights where I would make the effort to leave work on time Maybe start off with 2 races, one during the week that is set a little later for east coast people then have another on Saturdays that is convenient to the west coast. I'm open to almost any car/track combination, even though, I don't do well with open wheel cars. I'm Captain Slow in road cars and Captain Slower in open wheels. lol

I live in eastern time too and I think the current time schedule is pretty good (unless you have early morning schedule and can't stay up past 10pm).
I'm also slow and not good with openwheelers, but that doesn't stop the fun. On the first lap of my first AC openwheeler race I witnessed @Lorenzo Bonder literally took off right along with another car right in front of my eyes

After my 3 months free trial of IRacing ended, the only thing I'm missing about IRacing is oval racing and Leguna Seca. AC and GSC's road courses feel a lot more fun and satisfying than IRacing imo.

CCL71 · Sep 14, 2015

Good points St3fan. Any races between 7pm and 10pm are good for me. I keep my Iracing membership mainly because I like the online sytem and because I can't convince my buddies to try any other sims so it's only sim that I can "shake and bake" with them on. But Iracing is far from the best feeling sim for me. I enjoy the driving experience of other sims much more. I'll sign up for a premium RD account this week and see how if works out for me.

vbabiy · Sep 14, 2015

Seems like a lot of days don't match the dates

Lorenzo Bonder · Sep 14, 2015

Hey fellas, normally the late events are with my helm, because I'm trying to put my races on a timezone that could fit both eastern and western coast. Also, most of the races that we have go until 10:00-10:30 pm EST. If necessary we can adapt of course to our events. Also @vbabiy, check The Weekly Whip whenever you want to find our weekly events, in case you can't find in the calendar

.

JRP77 · Sep 14, 2015

Hey guys, as far as racing I usually try to start something on Thursday between 7-8 pm EST and run till whenever. I have started to list Mondays for 7-8 pm PST (3 hours later for EST). I normally find myself listing some of the odd stuff as to not interfere with the other things on the schedule but try to do what seems to work for the EU and AU guys.

As far as racing, I'm certainly not the fastest but enjoy racing the sports, GT and GT2.
I will get some more stuff listed for the next couple of weeks soon but if there is a specific car/track combo you want let me know.

speed_steward · Mar 29, 2016

I'm new here and was hoping to find current information re: a US racing club. Last post appears to be September 14th last year. Has it moved somewhere else? I'm in NY and would gladly join any current racing group that works for us sim racers in this part of the world.

Lorenzo Bonder · Mar 29, 2016

Hey @speed_steward,

not at all, it's still going man

,

We got races ranging from AC to Automobilista, all in the EST timezone. If you have interest in ever joining a race check our Weekly Whip and our Calendar. But if you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask here ^^. The links for both features are in the bolded words.

Also if you want to keep yourself up to date with your favourite games, let us know which one and we'll make sure you get your taste of race

Glenn Briden · Mar 31, 2016

So input time:

Keep things short and simple start at 9PM and be finished by 10:00 or 10:15

Split time 2 races per week eastern time 2 races western time.

Minimum 1 race per week OPEN you need to get people racing before they will pay for premium any other system will eventually FAIL.

Use weekends for more serious racing keep weekday more relaxed tailor things towards new drivers with driving aids at least 1 or 2 events per week.

What it comes down to is you need to spend the VAST majority of your time building your foundation the rest well they are already there. It sounds a bit callus but this is the best way to develop a sustainable community.