rec.autos.simulators

Subject: Alex Koziol of ***-Racing has just booted me out of the
CRAC...  Computers Racers Against Cheating.  

Drivers:

I was just informed by ALEX KOZIOL that I have been dropped from
the CRAC list because a some drivers called me a cheater.  I
have spent thousands of dollars trying the fix the PAPRYUS software
so it would prevent cheating.  

If I am gonna be kicked off the CRAC list than I want to know
who is calling me a cheater and what proof they have? I still
believe in the justice system and I would like to face my
accuser's.  If any of you drivers want to step forward and explain
why you think I cheat than give me your best shot and I will
try and explain.  

All of the non-sense could of prevented if PAPYRUS would simple police
HAWAII...

Don Wilshe, IVGA

PS.     Maybe I should treat this as a status symbol.  You win and
you get accused of cheating..

Rich K.

*******************************************************
*Anti-spam: Change the "3's" to "e's" to write to me! *
*******************************************************

What is racing online about? I all depends on who you ask. There are
many racers out there that race online. Hawaii is more than a beta
testing division, it is a community. Those that have taken part in this
experience can understand what I mean. I have been racing online since
april of last year. I have meet many people online that I consider my
closest friends. I try to take an active part in the Hawaii Community by
bringing the news and ramblings that go on, to my web site, which I
update on a daily basis. It is almost a full time job. I am editor,
producer, graphic designer and president. I respond to each and every
e-mail I recieve. I spend 3-5 hours a day working on my site and enjoy
the attention I recive. My main goal when I started *** Racing
Sportscenter was to proudly report the acievments that the racers online
accomplished. I then created my top 100 driver list, at the request of
Don Wilshe, to honor those drivers that have showed how hard they worked
in their racing career. It was a great success. I even went as far as to
create bio's with complete backgrounds and pictures of these drivers. An
"in the spot light" kind of feel for the sport we love. And yes it is a
sport. I don't care what you say, this is real. I consider this a sport
because of the level of competition there is out there. But competition
has a drawback. There are people out there that thrive on this, like in
real life sportsmanship. And as in real life, if you have an edge on
your competition than you will excel. Is this wrong? It depends. What
are you calling an edge? There are no set guidelines for this. This
sport is in it's early stages. And like any sport that is just starting
out, there will be people out there that look for loop-holes and any
advantage they can get to become king of the mountain.

I have created an organization called CRAC, *** Racers Against
Cheating. There is nothing to keep us from cheating, but our honor as
racers. We have decided that honor and integrity is more important than
being labeled as someone that cheats. We take the game for what its
worth, we do not add to it and we do not disrespect our fellow
competition. The racing community can be assured that all the members of
CRAC will never under any circumstance do anything that will be
considered cheating. But what is cheating? Again, this brings up a
totally new issue. I am not going to cite exact instances of cheating,
but refer to it as a "whole". It is written in our mission statement on
our CRAC web site http://www.***-racing.com/crac.html

"The participants of CRAC have declared that by becoming a member of
this non-profit organization that they will adhere to the
following simple guidelines at all times on and off the racing circuit.
We at CRAC, hold honesty as our primary objective. Under no
circumstances will we use any other outside influence to increase our
performance in on-track racing. We will use the racing
Simulation that Papyrus has given us to the maximum ability we can as
drivers. We will not attempt to gain an edge on or competition
by cheating in any way. We will not intentionally use the game in any
other way it was designed. We will use the tools and resources
given to us by the base game and not add any other programs to increase
our racing performance. Our hard work and determination
is all we need to succeed. We assure you that when we race, it is in a
clean and sportsmanlike manner.

The secondary objective we will adhere to is treating our competition in
a respectable humane manner. We will not bad mouth
anyone for making a simple mistake. Be it getting into an accident or
causing an accident ourselves. No one is perfect, we are all
humans and we make mistakes. We realize that accidents are a part of
racing and no one needs to be treated in an uncivilized
manner for a mistake they made.

Finally, we will show our support for CRAC to our fellow competition and
urge them to become a part of this elite group of
individuals that have risen above the simple philosophy that "winning
has to be everything". We promise that we will not be tempted
to cheat, even if that is the only way we can win. Our honor as racers
is more important to us. Anyone caught for cheating will be
removed from CRAC and will be labeled by their fellow races as such.
This is a tight community we have here. I am happy to be part
of it and will continue to show my support for my fellow racers through
good times and bad times."

This is definately an issue, I look forward to hearing your comments

Alex Koziol
President *** Racing Sportscenter
http://www.***-racing.com

And with a little help from his friends (Nascar)  :)

--
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Brian Motisko

http://members.aol.com/bmotisko/private/index.htm
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     Having lived through the Fastlap96 controversy of extracting setup
information from the fastlap program without permission, and now Mr.
Wilshe ouster from a league, I think I like to add a couple of cents.
     1. Is there a difference between extracting a setup under the
        pretense of submitting hotlaps and....
         Extracting a setup from an individual under the pretense of
        forming a sim racing Team?  Volume seems to me to be the major
        difference.:)
        It's my opinion, based on observation that Teams are a major
        source of setup acquisition. Oh sure, the reasons for the
        formation of teams is always the ...track familiarity, share
        the track line info variety. But imo the bottom line was the
        slower teammate instantly got as  fast as the faster teammate.
        ( I'm trying to keep this light here..so :)  :) :)
          And O.K., I realize the "without permission" seems to be
        a point of contention, but on the other hand... if I knew
        someone only wanted to be my "teammate" to acquire my quick
        setups, I's tell em to get lost. So in that part of the
        matter I'd chalk it up to diplomacy,connivery, guile or
        social skill, whichever your poison;teammates or fastlap96!
     2.  Given all of that, what of the general consensus that a
         setup does not make one fast; that one man's setup is
         anothers' backmarker? I know I've heard that over and
         over in this group. So now I'm confused!
         On one hand, the acquisition of a setup is akin to thievery.
         On the other, setups aren't all that important; these two
         thoughts from the same mouths in this forum.

         So, I ask, in light of the fact that teams have never
         been fit into the equation what is Mr. Wilshe being
         dunned for?  The acquisition of worthless data or the
         method of obtaining the worthless data? Or the getting
         of valuable data and /or the method? Or the fact that
         that the data acquired wasn't done under the auspices
         of a team?
          Makes me laugh..the seriousness of it all! :))
          I realize the redundancy of the subject matter and if you
          find it offensive, boring,etc. don't read it.
          There is no intent to do anything other than stimulate
          discussion.

          Regards,
          Greg
          Gavel

Don, it seems Alex Koziol would rather advertise rip off leagues
than respond to email! At least he emails you!

Pete

Personally I didn't think you won that much Don  :)

Higgy

--
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~higgy/

If i was to give a slower teammate a setup to help him improve it is my
choice.The way i read your answer is that someone who gets help from a
teammate is the same as extracting a setup with out the user's
knowledge.I disagree with that for the simple reason that more than
likely people who end up teaming together race against each other for a
while before they team up.they will know the persons character and
decide from that experience.I dont see someone racing together for a
couple races then giving a slower guy a setup.Then i think you stated
something to fact that not all setups work for everyone which is true
but when you get a few hundred sooner or later you are going to find
something that works.I cant say Don is still a cheater but once someone
is recognized and admits he did cheat well then thats his own fault.

Just my 2 cents,

--
Paul Carillon
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~raven001/rmr/rmrframe.htm

     It's pretty slow around here this weekend with HAWAII down, so I
decided to hit the R.A.S. group to see who's flamin' who<g>. Finding out
that Ed Martin has left Papyrus is definitely the top story of the day,
but your removal of Don Wilshe from the CRAC list is a close second.

     When I first heard of CRAC I was concerned that a rather large can
of worms had just been opened. While I think I understand the reason for
it's birth, and recent growth, I have stopped short of signing on because
I had no idea how you were gonna determine who was allowed to sign on,
and who was cheating, and how they were doing it.

     While I'll probably never be accused of being a member of the Don
Wilshe Fan Club, I am concerned as to how, or what, you used to determine
that Don was a "cheater", and how he got on the list in the first place
(if indeed that did happen). I would rather not see us drop to the level
of witch hunts and unprovable accusations.....for whatever reason.      

     Another reason that I have not signed onto the CRAC list is simply
because there are several names on that list that I am more than a little
suspicious of, and none of them are named Wilshe.......I'm not gonna name
names, or point fingers for the simple reason that I CANT PROVE IT. My
only course of action then is to not socialize, or race, with people that
possibly are hacking the system in some way. It could be that they are
just better than me, that's certainly possible, and I give this short
example to illustrate.......

     A year and a half ago under closed Beta, speeds of 183 at C***te
were awesome, and at that time I was suspicious of those folks because I
could only pull 181's on a good day<g>. Now jump ahead a year and a half,
and literally thousands of laps later, and now I can pull low 186's in
hot laps, qual at mid 185's and have a race setup that will run low
185's. The pisser is now there are guys that are running 188 laps at
C***te...and I'm still suspicious of them cause I cant do it. In the
last several months I havent been able to increase my times or improve on
my setup in a way that allows me to go faster. So I've hit the ceiling
and am wondering how these 188 boys are doing it. It could be a better
computer system, better steering system, or they could be doing alittle
subtle hacking...you know.....just enough to stay out there a second
ahead of you, no matter how hard you try to catch 'em?

     I was online the other day and doing a fixed setup race with the
FAST setup at C***te and all of a sudden there are a couple guys, well
known in HAWAII, pulling 183's with this setup.....well I would bet
money, based on my experiences in the last two years, that these boys
were cheating. NO ONE up until then that I have ever raced with could do
much more than low 181's with that setup, at that track. The fact that
they left before qualifying added fuel to the fire of speculation.

      Bottom line is I cant prove anything. So my only recourse, as lame
as it is, is to just not race with people that I THINK are hacking based
on the fact that they're always able to stay "out there". I'm here for
the competition, door to door stuff, and although its a gas to stomp the
field on occasion, and win a race hands down, I gotta believe it would
get old quick to just be out front all the time with no one able to catch
me. So ya won.......again......whooopeee!   What's the point???

      So I guess my "point" in all this is to say that if I dont sign
onto the CRAC list does that make me a possible cheater in everyones
eyes? Does having people on the list now that I suspect of hacking the
system invalidate the list for me? Do you understand what I'm asking
here? You've put up a blank piece of paper, for anyone who wants to sign
it to do so, for a unargueably noble cause, BUT without some kind of
criteria for signing on or expulsion what validity does it carry?

      Again Alex, I think what you're doing is very noble, and I enjoy
the hell outa yer web page 3 or 4 times a week, but I worry that the list
will be used more as a weapon and less as a tool, and that would be a
shame and a waste.

      All I can tell ya for sure is that if you race with me, you'll be
raced fair and square. I'm here for the competition, and to find out how
good I am compared to everyone else.....I cant find that out if I'm
hacking the system just to win. I dont win enough for it to be a concern
of anyones anyhow<g>.....but I wanted to make that clear.

      Sorry for the length of this post but I'm really missing HAWAII
this weekend......and for all it's warts it's still about the most fun I
have these days because of the COMPETITION. That's what it's all about
guys....am I wrong or right?  Send replys, good or bad, to my e-mail
address.....I dont get around RAS too often.

      Take care everyone

      tom

 HAWAII resident since 9/19/95           1997"   8     8    8     8
 Owner/Driver of the Kingsford                  8888888    8888888
          Charcoal Monte Carlo                 8     8    8     8
 Rolling Thunder Racing runs with CNSRL       8888888    8888888
 http://www.racesimcentral.net/

    Hi Paul,
   Enjoyed your thoughtful response! I have to agree with  you in general that
people usually do race against each other for awhile before teaming up. So
I guess it's a character judgement call there. But I think also that Teams are
the way people fish for setups. I think it becomes more noticeable to me
when I see one person on four or five different teams.  And if ever I've
asked about the reasons for forming a team, strangely, I never hear setup
acquisition as being a reason. I kind of think it's the dirty little secret
of teams, personally.
    I'm sure those deemed of good character may also have the motive of
obtaining setups as well. Hmmm I guess it boils down to, other than trying
to simulate a "team", you know..sort of a makebelieve thing, I see no
reason for their being. At least according to the justifications I've heard.
   If I want to learn a fast line, I'll race with someone fast and watch
the replay. So the "learn the line " reason escapes me.
    Since track temps and weather affect all relatively, then the comparison
of diff. setups to weather is a non existent reason.  I dunno, there's probably
more to consider but it escapes me.
    I guess most are concerned with the way the setups were gotten, as I see
no difference in the end result from a fastlap program  or a little social
grease. :)
     Thanks for the discussion. I've more to think about.
regards,
Greg
Gavel

--
Paul Carillon
http://members.aol.com/sschevy454
http://www2.netwide.net/n2ros/hts
http://www.wf.net/~raven001/rmr/rmrframe.htm