rec.autos.simulators

If you want a full field, you can always run NR2003 on the Sierra
server and join in a super speedway (restrictor plate) race. 300
to 500 players online depending on the time and day of week, and
several 35+ player races. The main reason it's so popular is
little racing skill is required. The only time you lift on the
throttle is to avoid rear-ending the car in front of you while
drafting. So the skills you learn are wreck avoidance, pitting
well, and getting lucky enough to get right back into a draft
after exiting the pits. Although all the cars are the same,
for wreck avoidance I recommend a "Dodge".

    Ditto.

    The dilution spoken of here is no different to real life. And like real
life, mods, sims and leagues will evolve and the better drivers will migrate
to the leagues that have the sims, mods and fields they want. Also, there
has been a lot of GPL F2s etc and seperate divisions at clubs. The F2s and
seperate divisions will now take form in different mods - we already have
FormulaIS (slow take up), F3 and trainers.

What I was saying has no relation to my rank, if you check GPL Rank, you'll
see that Kyalami benchmark is at 104.5% of WR, Nuerburgring benchmark is at
108.1% and Silverstone's is at 107.9%. If you check your own times, you're
at 104.3% at Kyalami (barely better than benchmark), 106.6% at the Ring and
106.8% at Silverstone (considerable better than benchmark).
Remembering them is definitely an advantage :)
Sub-8 is pretty difficult at 'Ring. Not sure where you got those 20% and
16% numbers. If you check statistics for the 'Ring, you'll see that 18.6%
of drivers are under 8:17.623 and 16.7% of drivers are between 8:17.623 and
8:28.663. However, that's not the right way to calculate it because it
takes into account laps in all cars, and BRM, Coop and other are obviously
harder to beat benchmark it. There's no option to select "best laps for the
driver", but let's assume everybody set their best time at 'Ring in Lotus.
Then we have 22.9% under 8:17.623 and 17.1% between 8:17.623 and 8:28.663.
So probably around 30% of drivers went negative at the 'Ring. If you also
consider number of laps slower than 9 minutes (I would assume those
haven't put any real efforts in getting a good lap there), you can get even
higher percentage.

Alex.

In real life the causes of the dilution are different, geographics and
money is the main one, so typically there're very similar series running in
different regions. And many of the drivers would love to migrate to F1 if
they could, by most part it's not their choice, they drive where they can
get a seat. In online racing, the class is individual's personal choice.

Alex.

Still it's a relatively small number of players that have done
this. I remember that the 500 second club (under 8:20) was considered
an accomplishment for most players that did it (including me).

How many laps do you think you've run at the ring?

After running NR2003 super speedways online on and off for a while, I
realized I wasn't developing any skills (other than wreck avoidance),
and decided to go for a sub 500 sec lap at the Ring, because it was
one of my goals I never previously accomplished. As you mentioned,
I spent about 2 hours one night, with enough gas for 3 laps, just
resettig and continuing if I ran out of gas or crashed, re-learning
GPL, the Lotus and the Ring. The next day, I got a 8:18.xx on my
first lap so I stopped for that day. I did another session for
about an hour or so to bring it down to 8:15.32.

Getting a sub 1:29 at Monaco took me almost as long, and I still don't
feel like I've figured out Monaco yet.

I looked for you at GPL Rank, no scores, but I noticed you were
Jason Moyer 40 Cloudy, a reference to NR2003 with the fastest
weather settings for super speedways?

Did anybody mention that beating benchmark at 'Ring is easy ;)
Monaco is a different kind of a track, and if you're running setup you
described in one of the previous posts, you're probably putting yourself at
serious disadvantage.

Alex.

I'll try softer springs, which seem to not require that I be as smooth
as the stiffer springs. Still not sure about the sway bar total, I'm
usually around 320 to 340 with the Lotus (like 160/170).

I see them now, some good times (better than mine at least). If
you spent as much time on the Ring as I did on Monaco (still
working on this one), you'd be well below 8:20.