Round 6 Valencia Ricardo Tormo - Sun Mar 21, 2021

To be perfectly honest its fine and all to say always stay within the white lines but having that rule is a real pain in the ass to enforce. It's far easier just to let the game enforce the limits for you. This would however require some testing before the tracks are announced to make sure that they all work properly although i suspect substantially less time than trying to review everyone's race. To me it seems poor planning to include a track with huge tarmac run offs and no track limits at all.
On the plus side i did just do a few laps with utterly no regard for limits at all and only went 0.2 seconds quicker so it ain't that bad.

 

Well the whitelines rule has been since day one and its perfectly fine, atleast people try to stick with it.
Else it will be total cutting competition, specially chicanes...

 

Thats because there isn't many tracks where you can extend and actually make up time lol.
Most limits are enforced by a very strict wall or a slightly less strict grass.
The tracks where extending some corners could gain you a very small advantage like spa have very strict in game warnings.
By putting some thought into what tracks get raced you no longer need any intervention from stewards for track limits.

 

We havent had issues with track limits at all. I think this track just called for it in the heat of the battle but i think majority wasnt on purpose.

 

From my seat about mid pack in GT3 I didn't really see anyone intentionally abusing track limits. Maybe some were, but I certainly didn't see it.
Maybe one or two places one could gain a tiny bit by exceeding track limits, but for the most part I don't think there's much to gain.
I almost certainly went 'off track' a few times but can definitely say I didn't gain time in doing so. If anything, the times I was beyond the lines, I lost time. Porsche sometimes doesn't like curbs so much.

Were cuts turned off or something? I could swear I remember running this track in the Porsche Cup car not too awfully long ago, and for some reason I recall getting a DT for cutting during that race. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it's a strong memory so I'm thinking that's not the case.

 

I do agree i didnt see anyone extending in a way that would gain them any advantage.
But since the admins were complaining they are having to view 20 peoples prospective of a 90 minute race im just trying to offer solutions to stop it happening again.

 

The rules are to have 2 tires on the track. Where you are missing the picture is that, if you don't have 2 tires on the track, you are not on the track and you are not racing the track. You say you are not gaining time, but if you had to have your tires on the track you would have to lift to stay on the track and your times would be a lot worse.
I saw LMP's off track limits on the entrance to turn one, almost every lap I was there. Why are you off the track on the entrance to the turn?

 

Get the fast bumps set right and kerbs aren't a problem. Its the pressures, Once they get high enough the Porsche doesn't grip and just slides around. Then the same corners the following lap it bites with loads of grip. I got caught out by this turning into certain corners. (T6/7 I think, left right S's before the last hairpin) I had slid wide the lap before so I turned a bit earlier on the next lap and it gripped way more than previous and it dragged me over the apex kerb.

I really don't like the Porsche.

 

Well this appears to be a touchy subject. However i would like to apologize to the admins i do understand how much time and effort does go into organizing these things however there are certainly some improvements that can be made. I do have a way with words and sometimes can be a bit blunt however...i would just like to respond to the "do those excuses hold up in real life" and yes they certainly do no one and i mean no one would get a penalty for running wide at a track a losing time because of it and i can find hundreds of examples of extending in almost all forms of motorsport i'll start with FE at this track at T1. (if you actually wondering what they are doing, they run wide lose time but keep a higher speed for the braking zone which helps the battery) i'm sure i could find more examples from "normal cars"
https://gyazo.com/d64ad4c3d28777409731a10b2a3394f1

Most tracks have solved the problem by putting massive curbs in place, gravel, grass, strips of astro, bollards etc which effectively punish you immediately for straying.
In my opinion stewards should never have to intervene with track limits ever they should be enforced by the track itself. Unless someone is just taking the piss and is just cutting corners completely.
In every race briefing i've been in IRL there's always one person that shouts "what about track limits" usually followed the by a reply along the lines of "what, you plan on driving on the grass?"
I do agree that in an ideal world everyone would stick to the white lines however in the competitive environment everyone wants to push the limits just a little and you do need a way to keep it in check. However handing out post race penalties just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. If they were live then yeah i wouldn't mind.
Going forward if you want this sort of thing to stop either choose your tracks a bit more carefully (lets be honest here a motoGP track probably wasn't a good idea) or a far clearer clarification in the form of a pre race announcement on the forums along the lines of we understand that in the last corner and t1 you might be able to gain a small advantage by running wide, include photos of whats acceptable and whats not.
I know everyone is going to go "JuSt sTiCk To ThE wHiTe LiNeS" but clearly that isn't the case since apparently people who have only gone a little wide get away with it. What is a little wide needs to be fundamentally clear to everyone before the green flag. If it was me deciding for that race i would have said keep all 4 wheels on the blue painted bit. Any further than that and you will get a penalty. This gives everyone a little bit of wiggle room and a very clear definition of what is allowed and not.
At the end of the day the rules only purpose to promote fair competitive racing and by extent fun racing who cares what they are as long as its fair on everyone including the poor admins which have to watch all this shite back.

Edit: im not sure if the image was showing so i put a link to it

 

Can you upload the replay pls?

 

You knew there was a problem with drivers regularly exceeding track limits, and despite numerous warnings and evidence that it was continuing you decided to proceed with the event. Now that you have been proved right you have decided that the event is not worth the effort. This is very disappointing. It does send a message, particularly now you've set this precedent. If SRO are going to arbitrarily cancel events after the fact what possible justification could SRO give anyone to spend their time participating in a future SRO event? Just because you've had nearly 1300 successful events, past performance is no guarantee of future conduct. 'Hoping' that something won't happen is not an effective strategy.

 

I agree somewhat with JoeB. A possible solution is just have a rule that if you exceed the limits a certain number of times/lap averaged over the whole race you are disqualied. Makes it a lot simpler. You have already investigated a race and have all the data for 25% of this race.
Pick a # of exceeds/lap, boot those that exceed, make it a rule and move on. If SRO has to review a race again, the reviewers just have to check the replay till they hit that number, then that driver is done, disqualified. The # could be an amendment to the rule, so everyone can see it.
Due to this track not having cuts installed in the system, I wouldn't see a problem with applying this new rule. SRO already had a rule against cuts, this will just clarify the SRO rule.
It's pretty obvious that certain drivers don't like rules. I think a majority of drivers try and stay on the track, obviously sometimes there are problems though, like suspension damage till they make it to the pits. It might eliminate some of the 'dash and crash' activity.

 

Answers in order

Delaying this event so that the files can be changed & the sim registers track limits more accurately, a change of track or some form of driving standard being applied? The Liveracers page has a handy stat for number of clean laps completed. Require people to reach a required minimum number of total laps with a set percentage of clean laps to participate.

Not throwing it out, commenting on you actions.

So every participant is penalized regardless?

Unlikely. The people who repeatedly offended in this event may leave or modify their behaviour, but this will fade in to memory very quickly and you will face this scenario again.

Again, past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

Have you put something (either a process or procedure) in place to try and mitigate a future reoccurrence? If not, then you are just continuing to hope for successful outcomes.

 

Why was a track with no cut track limits used? If it was going to cause such a problem why hold an event on this track?