been in planning for a few months now. Since we posted this message
last Friday the response has been rather good - especially in Europe.
With a strong European contingent we feel confident that we can now
split the league into two divisions that race an independent season,
one scheduled for the European time zones, and one for the North
American time zones. At the end of the year, there'll be a "super
bowl" to match the top half of each league in a multi-race shootout
for the championship.
so keep your emails coming if you haven't announced your interest yet,
we have room for about 10 more drivers in each division.
The basic idea: we are all drivers who are on no record list, have less
time than what it would take to become hotshoes, but love racing these
(GP) cars on the limit. No FD or F2 racing for us - we want the real
thing, even though among the top drivers, we may be the "***ers" who
get lapped. We don't have time to learn every single track, so we'll
just race on those which we feel are conducive to good racing. Some
tracks will get visited more than once during the season to fill up a 16
to 18 race calendar that will spread from March through the end of the
year. If you can find 3-6 hours a week to race GPL, you're in our class.
We have a certain performance window that we will need to look at to
identify drivers. There's one easy reference to let you know right away
if you belong in our group, and that is your Monza hotlapping speed: if
you run laps regularly under 1:28.50, you are definitely too fast for
us. (We may make an exception if such a driver wants to volunteer for a
slower car to adjust to our level - email and ask - join us for practice
- we'll see). If your Monza laptimes are barely getting above 1:32, you
may want to consider a different league, because most of us are faster
than that. Right now we are in the 1:29.00 through 1:32 window and would
like to find more drivers who are at that level to practice and grow
together over the year. Certainly by the end of 2001 we should be faster
than we are now.
Some additional pointers: drivers are currently from Germany, Austria,
East Coast, US Central Time zone, Mountain and Pacific time zones. Our
race servers are generally online 24 hours a day, but scheduled events
will have to happen to suit all of us.
Most leagues in the US race far too early for many of us. It is very
possible we will have scheduled events starting at 9:45pm US central
time (7:45pm pacific. In europe we will adopt a schedule that suits
the majority of the drivers there; I'd also love to hear from people
who run servers in Europe, to possibly barter server time for our league
in Europe for server time on our servers in the US)
We have currently three machines online that act as dedicated or
on-demand servers, all of which are on very fast lines in the US. If you
have raced on a SpeedCenter1 or SpeedCenter2 server recently, you have
been on one of our machines. One of the servers is a win2000 server,
with http and ftp access to results and replays. In short - logistics
are not a problem. We just need to find the right group of people to
race with us.
In addition to racing via VROC together, we are also encouraging users
to set up a communications tool called "RogerWilco" (www.rogerwilco.com)
which allows for real-time voice-activated group communication during
racing. You may say "but this is 1967?" -we say - no, it's 2001 and we
want to have fun. Anyone who has ever been in a multiplayer race with
RogerWilco will see the benefit. Using RW is not mandatory.
Some additional details about or series: The points system will be the
CART system - points from P1 through P12, with extra point for pole and
most laps led. The CART-influence carries over to our track selections
(not 100% final), because we will have ovals in the schedule.
Monza (we all love and hate it - great racing, so 2 or
3 events there)
Spa (a no-brainer, 2 events planned)
Kyalami (decent passing zones, easier than others to learn
1 or 2 events)
Watkins Glen (classic Track, maybe a bit tight, but we like it,
1 event)
Mexico (good racing there - speed and twisties, maybe 2 events)
Silverstone (a bit edgy, but good racing, one event for sure, maybe 2)
Snetterton (or Snett67 when out, wide open track for side-by-side
racing)
Indianapolis (the mother of all ovals - 2 events there)
Michigan (more speed - 1 or two races here)
Nuerburgring (ok - what is GPL without it. One event, maybe
as a no-points event)
Possibe tracks we are still considering as alternates:
Anderstorp (just released - looks real good for racing)
Solitude (tough, but could spice up a series with too much Monza...)
Texas (allegedly great for side-by-side racing, have to test)
Talladega (we have yet to see if this is suitable at all for racing)
Rouen
Imola
Races will all be held in Intermediate mode (Advanced Damage model but
resets allowed), with distances in the 50-60% of full distance range.
Details on shift-R rules such as possible mandatory pit stops are yet to
be decided.
So, if you are seriously interested in this, please send email to me,
your Monza personal best, your desired car type, time zone, etc.
Many of us will be testing this week at the speedcenter VROC servers
which are currently not password protected. Join us generally after
8:30pm
Eastern. Monza and Indy are the core tracks for current
"get-to-know-each-other testing". Join us and let us now in chat what
you think. Tell your friends about this league - the faster we can find
a core group of about 40 drivers, the earlier we can nail down the final
format.
Peter