by buspor63 » Sun Feb 19, 2017 7:14 pm
I don't think we should fix what may not be broken. It was the first ever proxy, some first time participants and some first time host. Perhaps we should consider a fine tune of the formula. The GT cars from Carrera are great cars and there were a few that I had never had the chance to drive.
The C7R is a good car out of the box and the C6R is good with some work. That doesn't mean the other cars won't be as good with the same attention. I don't think it's fair penalizing either participant or car just because they run well. Going forward, I just may try an Audi, Aston or BMW.....I love Porsche's, but I tried that road years before.
The only other series of cars that I think would be good are the DTM's. All of the cars are the same and Carrera seems determined to release more and more. That's important so we don't have too many, ahem yellow Corvettes in the same heat LOL.
The beauty of Carrera cars are that they are plug and play. Some work is needed, but I don't think in our infancy, we're ready for chipped Slot.it's, NSR's and scratch builds. I was thinking the emphasis was on getting new racers and host involved. Part of that equation is I think the cars should have lights, a D132 car comes with them. I may have gotten more body float had I not had to contend with the bulbs in the light nacelles and routing the wires.
Timing and scoring. I think we all learned a lot. My first round I was plagued by a bad data cable. I tried to use a friends app connect and iPad, but saw it wouldn't do what we needed. I was lucky enough to have a back up plastic track to run on, but it only had a BB, old lap timer and first generation pit lane. We could only place the cars over all by comparing lap times at the end of the night. Also, we couldn't use fuel, because some cars didn't have lights. To fix my track, I bought the right data cable and used the software a lot before hand. When I did run my race, I had planned on fuel, but I set the races too short for it to be a factor. Lesson learned. Familiarity with the Yingling software is a must. I can't imagine trying to score thirteen cars again any other way. My whole track has been a science experiment, my brother reminds me of that often. I have discovered that the more I use it, the more I understand it and the smoother my night runs. A good track call system is important, I just added the Big Red Button to mine. Ed Magner designed it, he has instructions on SCI. Using a track call also allows you to stop the race clock for any reason, very important when running a proxy where all the cars are scored against one another, but may not actually run against one another.
Ghost/Pace car. I'm all for it. We raced four cars and could have used a ghost. It's hard on my track because it's wood, the car has to go pretty slow. On my brothers track, I chose not to because I quickly rescheduled and didn't want to through anything new in. Any time a ghost is used, you really need to have a good track call system such as the BRB.
The race format is good, I wonder if there aren't ways to improve it though. It may have been this way, but two drivers is barely a digital race, definitely with a ghost car if that's the case. Perhaps longer heats too, gotta hit that fuel window.
Performance settings. The more I use these, the more I've learned how they effect the car. I always use less brake, fifty percent or so. Max speed I've been turning down on Carrera cars too, makes them easier to drive and faster around the track. With decreased max speed though comes more fuel consumption. I understand that the CU only reads the controller position. Less max speed equals more max throttle and fuel consumption, or so I think.
Who's next?