RBR RaceDepartment League

[Rick Bamford]

Updated rules 30/7/2010. Changes in red.

After many weeks of work and the help from Warren, Senad and others RaceDepartment is going to host an RBR Rally League.

In this thread you will find a draft of the rules for the league and over the next week (untill August 6th) we will take suggestions from members on final improvements. On 7th August the final draft will be posted and final, so get your ideas in.

These rules look complicated but they are a simple statement of most of the rules we already compete with. It has been writen in a way to made dealing with any future disagreements simple and quick so they SHOULD cover everything.

RaceDepartment Rally League

Format

The RaceDeparment Forum Rally League will be run over a 7 round championship. By comparison to the RaceDepartment rally club these events will be endurance events running between 8 - 12 stages per rally. Stages will mostly be used twice each rally and BTB stages may also be included. All rules from the rally club and RSRBR will stand unless they are superseeded in this forum. The RaceDepartment Rally League will use reduced car damage with the cars being automaticlly repaired after each stage.

Schedule

The RaceDepartment Forum Rally League will run once every 4 weeks in place of that weeks Club Rally event starting on September 13th/14th. As with the rally club 3 times zones will be made available (EU/US/OC) with the times being combined to find an overall winner.

Championship

Drivers in the RaceDepartment Forum Rally league will be split into 2 classes. Both classes will compete on the same stages at the same time and will be separated in the points table. Drivers wishing to score points in the championship will have to register by posting in the Rally League thread. Points will only be awarded once the driver has registered. Car choice must be made prior to the first round that the driver contests and may not be changed for the duration of the season unless the drivers class changes. Drivers wishing to score points in the league must be registered members of RaceDepartment Forum.

Class 1 (A) league

"A" League drivers are competing for the outright or overall rally and championship win.

Drivers in "A" league must drive cars from Car Packs A8W03, A8W04 and A8W05.

Class 2 (Premier League)

"Premier" League drives will compete for their own champioship within the series as well as being able to score points for the overall championship

Premier drivers wishing to score points in the league must compete in at least 1 Club rally event between each league rally and prior to the league begining.

Drivers in "Premier" League will drive cars from car packs N4-1 and N4-2. (Note: Lancia Delta, Ford Escort and Skoda Octavia will not be eligable)


A Driver will automaticlly be classed as a "Premier" League driver unless

1/ The driver has previously won a Rally Club event
2/ The driver chooses to compete in the "A" league
3/ The league "rally directors" deem it necessary to promote a driver in the interests of fare competition.

Note:- If a driver disagrees with their placement in "A" league they can publicly request (in the league thread) for a re-classification to "Premier" league. This will allow any other league driver to object or support them. However the rally directors'decision will be final.

A Premier league driver will be promoted to A league if:

1/ The driver wins a Racedepartment Forum Rally league event outright
This will go into effect from the event where the win happens and from then on

2/ The driver finishes in the top 5 on 3 separate rallies in one season.
This will take effect from the start of the following season

Teams Championship

In addition to the 2 drivers championships a "Teams"'Championship will be conducted. Each team may consist of no more that 2 drivers and MAY NOT contain more than 1 "A" league driver. It is possible to have 2 premier league drivers in the same team. Should a team's driver be promoted from "premier" to "A" league, only the points from the highest finishing team member will be counted toward the teams championship from that event untill the season end.

Points system

Outright :

1st - 25
2nd - 18
3rd - 15
4th - 12
5th - 10
6th - 8
7th - 6
8th - 4
9th - 2
10th - 1

Premier :

1st - 25
............
25th - 1

Teams

Points from the outright positions and premier league will be combined with the highest points score per driver being taken. Points will only be awarded once per driver per event.

Parc Fermé

In the case of a protest or complaint from competitors a drivers stage replays must be emailed to the rally director apon request. All protests must be recieved within 5 days of the results being posted on RaceDepartment and the protesting driver must ALSO supply their stage replays. The ruling will be by the rally directors and will be final.

Note : should the protest concern one of the rally directors themself, another seperate un-involved member will be brought in to judicate

 

[Cam Wedgwood]

Not to worry...

 

[Rick Bamford]

Will this take the place of the current club events?

Let me get the rules up first Cam, lol.

Schedule

The RaceDepartment Forum Rally League will run once every 4 weeks in place of that weeks Club Rally event starting on August 16th/17th. As with the rally club 3 times zones will be made available (EU/US/OC) with the times being combined to find an overall winner.

Not a problem Cam

 

[Nigel Roberts]

Sounds great my only concern is the amount of stages to be driven in 1 night, thats a hell of alot of practice, I would prefer less events, but I am new to the whole RBR online concept, I have joined 1 rally online so far that was 8 stages, I had to wait 8 mins for my attempt and then the same again for the next stage is this the way it normally goes or was I doing something wrong? but if it was correct I could see 15 rounds taking up at least 2 hours or more in a night and thats too much for me.

 

[Warren Dawes]

I propose one additional elligibility rule :

All drivers in this League MUST be registered members of Racedepartment Racing Club.

BTW, I've made this a Sticky Thread, to keep it up top. Hope that is ok Rick?

 

[Rick Bamford]

Sounds great my only concern is the amount of stages to be driven in 1 night, thats a hell of alot of practice, I would prefer less events, but I am new to the whole RBR online concept, I have joined 1 rally online so far that was 8 stages, I had to wait 8 mins for my attempt and then the same again for the next stage is this the way it normally goes or was I doing something wrong? but if it was correct I could see 15 rounds taking up at least 2 hours or more in a night and thats too much for me.

You don't have to wait for the clock to count down between stages. You can start each stage straight away once the rally begins. Also, it would be only 7 - 8 stages, just repeated. like in the real world

 

[Rick Bamford]

I propose one additional elligibility rule :

All drivers in this League MUST be registered members of Racedepartment Racing Club.

BTW, I've made this a Sticky Thread, to keep it up top. Hope that is ok Rick?

Warren, you have made this coment to me in the past. The only way to find the password is to be a member so it really is a mute point thas why it wasn't in the rules.

BTW: sticky is good.

 

[Jakub Sulej]

I'm for 100% in!

 

[Nigel Roberts]

You don't have to wait for the clock to count down between stages. You can start each stage straight away once the rally begins. Also, it would be only 7 - 8 stages, just repeated. like in the real world

Ok so your saying its only 8 different layouts but repeat them twice? if this is correct and God forbid I attempt some maths, if we average each stage out to 5 mins and some are certainly longer than this for me infact all stages , and then allow 5 mins in between for rest and regather, rejoin and setups etc, that is working out to 10mins each stage so 1hour and 20mins you are only halfway done? Maybe if you are a machine and churn through you could do in 60mins, or am I way off here. I find RBR pretty intense and after a stage I need to have a slight break to regather myself. I think if you can keep the whole thing to approx 1 hour maybe a little over would be more realistic for me, well maybe not real world rally realistic I guess, but more keeping out of the dog house realistic

 

[Senad Subasic]

Judging from the last club rally, 40 minutes for 8 stages, without breaks, so that's ~1h10m for all, without breaks. Since other events regularly take up to two hours, I don't think that's too bad?

I usually just do the stages one after the other. If I wait, it's mainly to see how my nemesi (spell checker underlining nemesi, bastard) are doing .

 

[Damien Jones]

The current events take more like 1 hour+ if you include the time between joining the server and the event starting as well as the friendly banter between stages.
Definitely too long a time commitment for me, those of us with families may find it difficult to take part.

 

[Sebastien Levret]

Championship

Drivers in the RaceDepartment Forum Rally league will be split into 2 classes. Both classes will compete on the same stages at the same time and will be separated in the points table. Drivers wishing to score points in the championship will have to register by posting in the Rally League thread. Points will only be awarded once the driver has registered. Car choice must be made prior to the first round that the driver contests and may not be changed for the duration of the season unless the drivers class changes.

Teams Championship

In addition to the 2 drivers championships a "Teams"'Championship will be conducted. Each team may consist of no more that 2 drivers and MAY NOT contain more than 1 "A" league driver. It is possible to have 2 premier league drivers in the same team. Should a team's driver be promoted from "premier" to "A" league, only the points from the lowest finishing team member will be counted toward the teams championship from that event untill the season end.

Nice to see a championship coming for RD.

For my feedback from what I have done on over French championship:
- I think that 13-15 stages seems to much, maybe 12 stages as a maximum sounds better.
- Use the weather for the stage, like we can have in the real life. For example, if we have 12 stages devided into two days. The weather of the first stage of the day one can be fog, at the end of the day one, we can find dusk or night stage, etc...
- Does it mean that the event for the championship will also be available like a RD club event. And if a driver is not registrated to the RD championship, he can do this event but will not have impact to the race result for the championship ?
- is it possible to start the championship in septembre, because in europe, it is summer holiday ?
- for the team championship, why the lowest, it will be a disadvantage for the team to only score with one car and not with the best one ?

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

great idea, I will definitely join and team Blue Flag will probably field two teams, we just need to find one more freak

I also think 9-12 stages is reasonable enough to find out who is fastest and most consistent.

September start would be great, since many in our team are holidaying atm as well.

Could one also do one or two events with cumulative damage?

 

[Sebastien Levret]

I don't know, if it is possible, but it will be nice. (if we stay with the reduced damage to not have to much retired)

If I can't make a Project D team, I will tell RD drivers if I was a free agent

 

[Rick Bamford]

Ok, it seams the feeling is for shorter events (I would prefer an event that takes 4 hours+ but thats me). 1st point is made. See fisrt post.

Yes, as far as the weather goes, it would run as in real life. maybe fog or rain in the first stage then wet roads minus rain then the second pass would be dry etc. I am waiting to see how Warren's club rally runs next week for the dusk, i have had problems with this as well. I will be looking at a curtain real life rally championship and its weather for the conditions on each event.

Teams Championship : The lowest driver being used only was a idea when i was awarding the same points system for A league and Premier league. Now the Premier league points distribution has changed We can take the highest finisher as the points taken. See first post
(if you haven't figured it out yet, the best option for winning the teams championship is having 2 premier drivers. That was done on purpose

I wanted to make ALL events with realistic cumulative damage, however it was pointed out that that would mean some drivers would NEVER finish. Another option was to run the A league and Premier league as different events, A league running realist cumulative damage and Premier running reduced. That is a lot of work and could cause other problems. It was easier to make everyone run under the same rules, but if there are enough drivers wanting to run cumulative damage it can be done. It is still preferable to have the premier league run reduced though as it give those with less time to practice and test as chance at having fun without TOO much challenge.

 

[Rick Bamford]

BTW, it can be a one person team

 

[Sebastien Levret]

I saw on the game, that sometime, the event can have cumulative damage with a possibility to repair every two stage. So like on the offline, you only have to run 2 stage with the same car.

I said that I saw it one time, but I didn't know how to do it. BTW, I don't find how to create an event.

I am agree with the cumulative damage only if we can repair the car every 2 stages. Instead of that, it will be not realistic and a lot of drivers will be retired.

 

[Rick Bamford]

I am agree with the cumulative damage only if we can repair the car every 2 stages. Instead of that, it will be not realistic and a lot of drivers will be retired.

LOL, a true child of modern day rallying. I was thinking run the morning stages, service, afternoon stages, service, start day 2. Either way it makes it harder for some to finish.

 

[Rick Bamford]

The current events take more like 1 hour+ if you include the time between joining the server and the event starting as well as the friendly banter between stages.
Definitely too long a time commitment for me, those of us with families may find it difficult to take part.

Simple, get rid of the family. Whats more important anyway? Hope you prefer the reduced number of stages.

 

[Pedro Lima]

Regarding the rules of the league I completely agree.

Just disagree with the pack of cars chosen. Since in reality the rally will suffer modifications.

In my opinion changed Class A to pack S2000 and Class B to pack N4_1 and N4_2.