Rally - "The Lightweights" - Mon 28th February & Tues 1st March 2011

James Knowles · Feb 24, 2011

Oh, wait a second...

James Knowles-tannat-

May I request a Tuesday 10:45 GMT time yet again?

Aaron DeMarre · Feb 24, 2011

Marcel Visscher said:
I like it, that way i can see if I can drive acceptable times to participate in this event

All times are acceptable to participate! These club rallies are casual and geared to be fun for all and inclusive for all skill levels. In fact I use them more for practice and seat time than anything else, when I have the time to run them.

Troy Ament · Feb 24, 2011

First impressions, FWD drives SOOOOOO much different than the Escort, dare I say these are harder to drive. Regardless this will be a blast.

Terri Buenaflor · Feb 24, 2011

I think the point of the shakedown stage is:

how we measure up to the rest of the crew before a rally

having that vital info we can push our self harder(or the car) to gain more time because just practicing alone and having no info about how the other competitors are doing won't give you encouragement to practice more/improve the time.

take for example formula 1, there is a practice session where all teams can see where they are, then improve their performance to at lease get the same result like the other teams.

so shakedown session is not there to see if you need to join the event or not but rather gets you motivated to practice more and see the result of your hard work in the main event, now that is fun.

since RD rally club have different car each event this can be helpful

though the shakedown session will or might be just an spoiler of who will win the event but we will never know what will happen in the main event, also applicable in real life(think some of the red bulls 2010 pole's but the result are not the same)

*thats my understanding about the shakedown.

Terri Buenaflor · Feb 24, 2011

Troy Ament said:
First impressions, FWD drives SOOOOOO much different than the Escort, dare I say these are harder to drive. Regardless this will be a blast.

but I think this one is better than the honda

Dariusz Swiderski · Feb 24, 2011

Dariusz Swiderski - swider- EU

Warren Dawes · Feb 24, 2011

James Knowles said:
May I request a Tuesday 10:45 GMT time yet again?

USX now included.

Hans Sneep · Feb 24, 2011

Hans Sneep- PeHaEe- EU

I hope Sweet Lamb will work, last rally we did with this track it won't load (for me !)

Warren Dawes · Feb 24, 2011

James Knowles said:
Warren- I have a suggestion for Rally Club events. I think all of us would like to know how we measure up to the rest of the crew before a rally. I think it would be great to include a shakedown stage in the event posting. Whaddya think?

I'll give it some more thought and see what others think, BUT:
My first reaction is that I'd rather not.

1. The Rally Club Events are just for fun, not meant to be seriously competitive. They allow us to try out new cars, Stages, weather etc, and more importantly, are meant to be a way of attracting new drivers to RBR and our friendly Rally Club atmosphere. I see the RD Rally Championship as the more serious, competitive side of our RBR activities.

2. If it gets too serious with "aliens" posting very fast times pre-rally, it may put some other drivers off joining, feeling they are not good enough or feeling demoralised.

3. Did you have in mind for the Shakedown to be set up on-line or people just run it off-line? On-line would create problems of various timezones and admin. Off-line may not be very indicative of what someone's actual rally time might be anyway. Drivers could use multiple restarts if they have a crash or retire. If they did crash and posted that result, it would be meaningless info anyway. I find that my "practice' times can vary hugely from my actual Rally times depending on how brave I am prepared to push. Just because someone posts a very fast time in a shakedown, it may bear no resemblance to the actual rally time.

4. Setting a "typical" Rally Stage for a shakedown can be misleading, some stages vary greatly throughout a full Rally, especially if we use multiple surfaces or weather, as we do sometimes.

However, if people want to setup practice rallys, they are free to do so, Daruisz has often set one up and posted it in the Rally thread.
Also, WRT to drivers trying to find how hard they should push (via practice), I believe that is best achieved off-line. I think drivers should find their own limits, not desperately try to match another drivers time. I just push myself to find my own limits balanced with my ability to complete a whole rally. If I push beyond my comfort zone, I might be able to get close to the faster guys times, SOMETIMES, but will most likely crash out on one stage through a mistake.
Rally driving is about balance and consistency across all stages, not matching a super quick time on one stage.

A long winded answer, I know, but these are my initial thoughts.
Occasionally people post replays / videos of their "practice' runs, I have done this myself, maybe these are helpful (but beware, even some of mine involve restarts) and can show more info about driving lines and styles.

Thanks for the ideas James, worth more thought.

Warren Dawes · Feb 24, 2011

Hans Sneep said:
I hope Sweet Lamb will work, last rally we did with this track it won't load (for me !)

Hans, can you run it off-line?

Anyone else having problems with it?

Hans Sneep · Feb 24, 2011

Warren Dawes said:
Hans, can you run it off-line?

Anyone else having problems with it?

Will try,after the trouble in the rally I did not try it

Found my car Susuki Swift S 1600 (nice) lol

Nigel Atkins · Feb 25, 2011

Warren Dawes said:
Hans, can you run it off-line?

Anyone else having problems with it?

runs fine off line for me although i want to rename it "Sweet & Sour lamb"

and as for posting our shakedown times, it would be a waste of time for me as i always do worse in the events than in praccy. ie: i`ve done a 1:25 at the rally school stage but i`ll be lucky if i`m in the 1:30`s for the event propper lol

i actually find watching peoples videos more helpfull than seeing how fast they can go

Nigel Atkins (Marmiteman) - Europe

James Knowles · Feb 25, 2011

Warren Dawes said:
Responses below IN CAPS

1. The Rally Club Events are just for fun, not meant to be seriously competitive. They allow us to try out new cars, Stages, weather etc, and more importantly, are meant to be a way of attracting new drivers to RBR and our friendly Rally Club atmosphere. I see the RD Rally Championship as the more serious, competitive side of our RBR activities.

AGREED

2. If it gets too serious with "aliens" posting very fast times pre-rally, it may put some other drivers off joining, feeling they are not good enough or feeling demoralised.

YEAH-I CAN SEE THAT. BUT THIS ALSO HAPPENS AT THE END OF RALLY WITH THE RESULTS

3. Did you have in mind for the Shakedown to be set up on-line or people just run it off-line? On-line would create problems of various timezones and admin. Off-line may not be very indicative of what someone's actual rally time might be anyway. Drivers could use multiple restarts if they have a crash or retire. If they did crash and posted that result, it would be meaningless info anyway. I find that my "practice' times can vary hugely from my actual Rally times depending on how brave I am prepared to push. Just because someone posts a very fast time in a shakedown, it may bear no resemblance to the actual rally time.

STRICTLY OFFLINE, AND YOU ARE SPOT ON WITH YOUR SENTIMENTS. AS WITH PRACTICE IN ANY FORM OF MOTORSPORT TIMES ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF TRUE RACE PERFORMANCE. I WOULD HOPE EVERYONE HERE KNOWS THAT-MAYBE NOT.

4. Setting a "typical" Rally Stage for a shakedown can be misleading, some stages vary greatly throughout a full Rally, especially if we use multiple surfaces or weather, as we do sometimes.

YES-YOU ARE RIGHT.

However, if people want to setup practice rallys, they are free to do so, Daruisz has often set one up and posted it in the Rally thread.
Also, WRT to drivers trying to find how hard they should push (via practice), I believe that is best achieved off-line. I think drivers should find their own limits, not desperately try to match another drivers time. I just push myself to find my own limits balanced with my ability to complete a whole rally. If I push beyond my comfort zone, I might be able to get close to the faster guys times, SOMETIMES, but will most likely crash out on one stage through a mistake.

YES- I FULLY KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN

Rally driving is about balance and consistency across all stages, not matching a super quick time on one stage.

A long winded answer, I know, but these are my initial thoughts.
Occasionally people post replays / videos of their "practice' runs, I have done this myself, maybe these are helpful (but beware, even some of mine involve restarts) and can show more info about driving lines and styles.

Thanks for the ideas James, worth more thought.

This is your 'baby', Warren. Its really up to you. Just a suggestion.

Cheers,

james

Yann Laprevotte · Feb 25, 2011

I was wondering, has anyone tried the cars in detail so far? If yes, what are the main difference between them all?

I had a go with the whole pack on Rally School and the Swift seemed to be the fastest of them all, but this might not be so much reliable of course.

Aaron DeMarre · Feb 25, 2011

I know the swift is popular in my stable. I have not played with the S1600's so YMMV.

Łukasz Demolin · Feb 25, 2011

Good idea for "shaking down" a new car is to find a stage OTHER than rally school and make it your personal proving ground. RS is extremely short and good times often come from quite deep cutting rather than real pace (also any small mistake wont get "ironed out" over the course, and the actual difference in pace might not show up there).

About Sweet Lamb - Hans, I'm almost sure that setting the RichardBurnsRally_SSE compatibility mode to XPSP3 will fix it for you.

Hugo Barbosa · Feb 25, 2011

sign me up please
Hugo Barbosa -Unhas-EU

and if possible I request Tuesday 22:30 GMT time

As we gonna drive S1600 cars I don't have A K1 available? The better cars from this class.

Regards

Kevin Hopkins · Feb 25, 2011

After much many hours of talks with all manufacturers it has been decided that i will be driving for Opel in one of their new S1600 Corsa's for this rally.

Both sides are looking for a great result and have been delighted with the testing times so far.