Indy 250 Feedback

So it's the day after the race - let's have some feedback on how your race went and what you think worked/didn't work.

Personally my race was ok, had good pace in some parts, especially the final stint but was too slow for some reason where it mattered. Now my thoughts on the event.

Good

For me the race distance was perfect, lasted around 1hr 40 minutes, probably would've been 90 minutes with less cautions (there were 9 in total, all in the first half of the race). In my opinion that's a perfect amount of time for the special events we're looking to do, one of the main points of them is that they will be longer than the main series races.

Generally felt the event ran pretty smoothly. Didn't seem to be any real problems, others may feel differently though.

Bad

I won't name any names, but I thought some peoples driving was a bit daft, mostly the racing was clean, but there were a few cases of people not giving enough space when side by side or with people coming up the inside going into corners. In oval racing the most important thing when racing is to have awareness of where other people are and I don't think people had enough of that. A big thing to remember is that it's a very long race, there's no need to go bombing into corners full speed trying to overtake as if it's the last lap. It's almost best to pace yourself in the early stages and just make sure you're in it near the end.

During caution periods there were some silly moments, people generally sitting all over the gearbox of the car in front when there's really no need, and people flying up at full speed when there's cars in front going at 80 mph.

A final thing was that pre-race we specifically said not to overtake before the start line as you'd get a drive-thru for it. It was annoying to see 1 or 2 doing it anyway.

General Comments

The only thing I'm a little undecided on is the amount of damage. Simon raised a great point after the race that it might've encouraged people to drive a bit more gung-ho as there was no fear of great damage. The only problem is that if innocent people get taken off then that's their race over. Can discuss that here.

I guess much of the points you mentioned in the bad part would be worth thinking about before we start F1 back up again too, in the sense that our GRL GPs and Oval races are both more of a marathon than a sprint so pacing and being cautious in the early stages will be important. Hopefully we can get it right early on so the standard of driving in both the league and future special events is higher and more people can finish.

...promise I'll start the next one too Need to fix my connection problems.

'Twas a good race, what I did of it anyway.

What's everyone's opinion on damage levels? More to deter people from being gung-ho? Or no damage at all so that nobody's speed gets affected? (I think that's why Eric was really slow just before he crashed out)

I thought it was a really fun race. Once a few people had crashed out and things calmed down, we had some really good, fair, close racing. Great fun!

Good

I agree with Lee on race distance, it would have been slightly shorter were it not for all the cautions, and special races deserve a longer race distance than the weekly ones.

Bad

Again, I agree with Lee here, a few people were a bit silly, but it was nothing crazy. I don't really have much more to add. It was a good race, it just needed people to be a little calmer and patient.

General

I think damage should definitely go up for the league races. We need that deterrent. People need to be punished for mistakes, and if that means a few people get collected by the mistakes of others then that's just racing.

For the special events though, I think a lowered damage rate is fine, because they're longer, one-off things, so people should get more of a chance to make a few mistakes and still make it to the end.

I think for the league races it's a bit of a given that it'll be the usual 50%. Maybe even up it further, something we can vote on perhaps?