AC Your Feedback -> Events & New Racing Club Staff

Georg Siebert · Sep 3, 2014

Hi everybody,

before July of this year, events for the EU Racing Club for Assetto Corsa were organized either by Bram Hengeveld or Rupe Wilson. Both of whom have a plethora of other responsibilities on this site as well and managed their time & efforts to the best of their ability to do so. However, around June/July the situation was not looking good and Bram posted this message below, in order to look for assistance:

Bram Hengeveld said:
Hi guys,

Lately I am running behind on posting events for the AC Racing Club (euro zone) due to the fact I have too many other tasks here on the forum that need attention as well.

With the holiday season coming closer it would be nice if we can add an extra organiser to the racing club staff.

You:

Have time to setup events on the forum and server

Like to hang around on the forums

Are a team player

Don't have a temper

Got a thick skin

Is this you and you'd like to give some of your free time back to the community? Then please get in contact with us

The community responded and five additional people were chosen to function both as moderators for the forum and event organizers for the Assetto Corsa Racing Club:

Georg Siebert said:
Yes, as of today

Akis Kevrekidis
Frank van Oeveren
Ryan Ogurek
Simon Knight
and myself

will complement the staff and help out moderating the forums and posting, organizing and monitoring US and EU Racing Club / League events.

We will particularly focus on getting the EU Racing Club up and running again as soon as possible! The World Cup ends on Sunday night as well, which I hope will motivate more people to race again.
Right now is like 'the first day at work' for us - you'll be hearing from us soon!

Since then, we were hard at work to familiarize ourselves with our position as staff and posting events for the (EU) Racing Club again.
Now, after almost two months, we would like to ask you for your feedback about how we managed it so far. In detail, we'd like to hear feedback on:

The car & track combos
Event thread contents, style & layout
Time between event date and thread posting
Ratio of Kunos/mod tracks
Ratio of Kunos/mod cars
Amount of Formula events & their timing (F_Abarth, Exos/S1, GP2, F1)
Amount of endurance, multiclass events & their timing
Engagement of organizers with participants in/outside of the event threads
Quality of organization: understandable event info, timely password pm's, etc

Are you content about what you've been seeing so far? Are you not and what could we do differently about it? This is your chance to make your voice heard and to affect change. We can't promise to include every suggestion you make, but we will listen and consider it. I'd like to remind you to keep the discussion civil and if possible to include examples & evidence in your posts.

We eagerly await your responses!

cheers

Herbie · Sep 4, 2014

Someones got to be first

First of all i appreciate very much that you dedicated yourself to this and i am very satisfied with the work you did so far!
Foremost I´d like to highlight the diversity you bring in the club races! I and i think also others were afraid that AC will become another GT3 only sim

It is great that you try bring as much different cars as possible to the club! Especially you @Georg Siebert brought some, as it unfortunately turned out, unpopular combos and failed

This was a shame in my eyes!
So to sum up: Very satisfied with cars (only maybe there could be an event with Abarth 500 again

)

Tracks: It is cool that there are quite some tracks available as mods and that they are used for club. Only i don´t have the time to learn all this tracks

But that´s of course a personal problem. So i kind of avoided events with mod tracks a bid. So can´t give to much feedback there...

Event threads are totally fine! Especially your effort @Georg Siebert giving this extra information on track and car was extraordinary!!

But as i thought from beginning this would be too much work to keep it doing for a long time...

Additionally i like the mulitclass events very much!

Finally i appreciate very much that the races are tending to start a little earlier now! This makes the compatibility of this hobby and my family much easier

So to end: THANK YOU VERY MUCH GUYS!!!!

Ernest Aubert · Sep 4, 2014

Well, I appreciate all the time and effort you officials put in to provide fun racing experiences for the members; this is really cool. Thanks!

I keep looking for car/track combinations that interest me. I much prefer open-cockpit cars, especially the few without wings (Lotus 49 & 2-Eleven). But I also like the Ferrari 312T and the new Kutch. My favorite tracks are Mugello, Mid-Ohio with chicane, Imola, and Virginia, but I like others also; I don't like Monza at all, which seems to be a favorite, or Nurburgring GP. The timeframes also matter to me; I'm in the eastern US, but the races for that timezone are too late at night for me. I keep watching and hoping...

Frank · Sep 4, 2014

@Ernest Aubert We race at 3 time zones, none of them fits you? What time zone is eastern US? Isn't that EDT, -4 GMT?

Ernest Aubert · Sep 4, 2014

Yes, Frank: GMT - 4. The start time for all the races I've seen for that have been at 23:30 eastern time; that's past my bed time.

The Australian start times are too early for me. The European races are at a good time for me; I'm waiting for a combination of car and track that I like. Ideally, I'd prefer single-model races...

mms · Sep 4, 2014

Ernest Aubert said:
Well, I appreciate all the time and effort you officials put in to provide fun racing experiences for the members; this is really cool. Thanks!

I keep looking for car/track combinations that interest me. I much prefer open-cockpit cars, especially the few without wings (Lotus 49 & 2-Eleven). But I also like the Ferrari 312T and the new Kutch. My favorite tracks are Mugello, Mid-Ohio with chicane, Imola, and Virginia, but I like others also; I don't like Monza at all, which seems to be a favorite, or Nurburgring GP. The timeframes also matter to me; I'm in the eastern US, but the races for that timezone are too late at night for me. I keep watching and hoping...

As @Frank van Oeveren mentioned, we usually have east-coast races since a few weeks (not sure what happened with this week's race though), these races are Wednesdays and the races start at 21:45 eastern time (booking at 20:00 eastern time). So hopefully we'll see you on the next race.

Ernest Aubert · Sep 5, 2014

I'll keep watching... I've just looked back at the U.S. races, and all but two on the first page were at 23:45 eastern.

Herbie · Sep 6, 2014

Come on guys!! Nobody else has something to say?

These people do everything so that we can have fun on track for FREE! and they ask you to help to make it even better! Take your chance

(...and show some respect while you're at it

)

zAmboni · Sep 6, 2014

For the most part, I am content with the way things are going. I am a little bit disappointed with the turnout on some of the US races though, but I am not really sure if it has to do with anything lacking from the RD staff.

I am a bit flexible in the times that I can race. The west coast US races, I can be free to race, but the race itself doesn't start, for me, until midnight. So it can be tiring to stay up and race. It can be doubling tiring because the west coast races seem to be a bit longer...and start to become tedious instead of fun. In a recent race we had some a kinda low turnout, and during the race, one had connection problems and two didn't finish the race.

I can also do east coast US races, but because of booking/practice/qualifying it can cut into family time. Again there are problems with turnout for the races, but I think it has to do with AC not being as popular in the US as it is in other areas of the world.

I really like it in the situations where a race finishes early enough and we can sit around and chat a bit. If a server admin is around, we may do another short race or just set up a server and have fun. But this is only really possible if a server admin has time to do some of these things. With the US races, I feel we haven't reached critical mass to keep things picking up. It may help to have races scheduled a week in advance if possible. I am pretty sure that there are some who wait to see if there is an interest before throwing their name into the hat.

I also try to pick up an EU race every once in a while. On the weekends they are usually a good time for me (races starting at 4pm local time), but weekdays it is hit or miss if I will be able to get home in time for booking...and is one of the reasons why I may be a late addition to some races.

Ernest Aubert · Sep 6, 2014

Yes, the time of the race is a huge factor; 11:30 p.m. is just too late. And most races seem to be on tracks I don't like.

Frank · Sep 6, 2014

You should try a combination you don't like, the event itself might surprise you in terms of fun!

Benni Strunk · Sep 6, 2014

I just did a handful races with you guys, but i must say joining Racedepartement was a good decision for me so far. Some feedback on the points @Georg Siebert listed:

The car & track combos

Perfectly fine so far for me. I love to learn new tracks and cars and for me, the class or track doen't matter that much. I just race everything that's offered from the organisation team

Event thread contents, style & layout

Nothing to criticise. The style and layout is clear and i could always find any information i needed in the first post, so very good work here.

Time between event date and thread posting

Perfect! For me, everything up from half a week before the event is fine to plan my free time arround this.

Ratio of Kunos/mod tracks and Ratio of Kunos/mod cars

As i said earlier, this doen't matter that much to me, because i love most of the existing cars and tracks

Amount of Formula events & their timing (F_Abarth, Exos/S1, GP2, F1)

I'm happy with the GP2 events on sunday. Would love to see that being continued, maybe with a variation between the cars mentioned above!

Amount of endurance, multiclass events & their timing

No criticism here, i like it so far.

Engagement of organizers with participants in/outside of the event threads

Could't be better. Keep up the very good work guys!

Quality of organization: understandable event info, timely password pm's, etc

Could't be better. Keep up the very good work guys!

I thought quite a bit of time if i find any points that could be improved, but as you see there is nothing to complain about from my side. So i give you all a big *thumbs up* and thank the organisers for the great effort they put in these races

Matt Horst · Sep 6, 2014

I think staff is doing a fine job but right now i think it's a up hill battle finding a way to get numbers on the grids.The game is still no were optimized so i think a lot of people are just focusing on other sims,and waiting for ac to develop.The game needs all the things that make a sim a sim.That's important for me because right now it just lacks to much,so my interest is just not there yet.

It's a good time for sim racing with all the choices we have now,but that comes with a price too as the community gets fragmented between all the sims available.I think what can really help the ac racing seen is some kind of staple racing.Something that a wide range of differing skill levels can enjoy and provides close competitive racing.Run a race once a week the same night each week,maybe even twice in the same night to accommodate for different timezones.I will use once more the example of the mini Fridays for race 07.Those events had a cult following for so many years and i know people looked forward to those races all week long.It may take some time to get a fallowing but if the car/tracks combo is sound then i think interest will grow and hopefully spill over to other events.

Dexter · Sep 7, 2014

Event should be offset with a 1h ... to Eastern European Time is too late...
if possible

Edit: and it would be great an event at Albert Park, Imola, Monza, Silverstone, Nurburgring F1 car

GS mod-edit: consolidated for you

Georg Siebert · Sep 7, 2014

F1 events are on the horizon, after we had quality time with the GP2 car.

Torben Sauthoff · Sep 8, 2014

thanks for organizing these races. couldnt take part in as many races as i'd have liked to, but those i did were good fun.

just a suggestion as there are no pitstops/damage yet: liked the idea of having 2 or 3 shorter races instead of 1. iirc akis did that one evening: short qual -> ~10 lap race (depending on the track) -> another ~10 lap race with reversed grid.

Miguel Santiago Carou · Sep 8, 2014

I only raced 2 or 3 times here so far and have nothing to complain about. I'm running in a GTR2 league currently, where I need to practise quite a lot to be on the pace. Whenever I have a hole and the cars/track are nice, I try to join in. I certainly like the mixed grid races as the focus is even more on the fun and less on the final outcome or position.

If it fits my schedule, I'll be stoked to see another close Abarth 500 race!

Keep up the good work!

Kristoffer Somby · Sep 8, 2014

I voted no solely because of the car/track combos, as I would like to see more T125 s1/F1 and Kunos tracks.

The organization has been fairly good so far. Can't ask more from a voluntary-based establishment.