Proposed Rulebook for Forza-Tuning.net GT400 Cup

[fndrbndr]

Well, here's my first attempt at the rulebook.  I feel like it's a little disjointed, and could stand to be reorganized a bit, but the main ideas are in place.  For those who don't want to read the whole thing, here are the highlights:

1.  Code of Conduct.  Basically, these are a few guidelines for clean passing and a requirement (inspired by another forza ruleset I saw) that no driver take a position due to contact he/she was part of.  In other words, all passes must be clean.  We were doing really well at this when the Clio Cup started, but it's fallen off in recent weeks.

2.  Race Stewards.  I expect this system to be imperfect, but it's a first effort.  Basically, the host (one member of the Rules Committee) acts as a race steward.  (Or, if a committee member wants to watch over the race and there's an open slot in the room, that's OK too, but I wouldn't want to do it, so I'm not willing to ask anyone else to.)  And lest anyone worry that I'm going all "Big Brother" about this, the qualifications for being on the rules committee basically consist of wanting to be on the rules committee.  We're pretty good around here about self-governing, so I don't really see any reason to change that.

3.  Qualification races.  Qualifying races are run for 10 laps with collisions off.  Basically, most consistent car wins the pole (finishing order).  Qualification races are currently going to be unscored.  I'm open to change on that, though.

4.  Scoring table.  I laid out a new scoring table based on the  lobby points system.  It's probably also pretty similar to the 10-lap Clio races. 

Edit:  I added a flag system and a "one-move" blocking rule.
Anyway, I'd love to get some feedback.  The full document is attached.

[Spiny Anteater]

The first thing which stood out at me was that you're only allowing 5 minutes to finish the race after the leader. While that will probably be ok for the shorter races, I think it could lead to lots of non-finishes in the longer races (which could easily last over 3 hours). Is it worth extending that time limit to, say, 10 minutes?

[fndrbndr]

The longest end timer the game will allow is five minutes.  Otherwise, yeah, I'd probably allow a slightly longer time, but there's no way to do that within the confines of the game.

[Open2nd]

Good job fndr.  I wonder though, is there no penalty for blocking an obviously faster car?  I don't mean closing the door in a corner, I mean swerving to prevent a pass in a straight or otherwise.

[fndrbndr]

Hm, good point.  How about the standard "make one move and keep that line" sort of rule?

[Open2nd]

That works.

[Hoplee]

blocking once is "racing".

blocking twice is "asking for it".

If I get blocked once, no big deal. If I get blocked a couple of times on the last lap, no big deal. If I get blocked twice on the same straight-away by someone who's obviously brake-checking me or worse, I might just offer a "chrome hand-shake" to that friendly racer, as a gesture of 'thanks'.

I should post my patented "Thirty Second Safety Speech". I think Bimmer's just about got it memorized...

[bimmerlovere39]

Odd how it never seems to apply to you and I 

[Drift2XL]

I know that this complicates it. But I would like to see if we could rebuild the engine due to track choice.

Not make missles, but lock in a set HP and get +/- 5HP. Like go from a torque build to a rev build for tracks like Nurb or RAmer.

I know bad idea. But I'm still intrigued with engine build per track.

[Hoplee]

http://forza-tuning.net/index.php/topic,970.msg18051.html#msg18051

here's some of my rules for reference.

Interesting to watch this section develop. I'm waiting for a series to involve the 'Rust Brigade'...

[fndrbndr]

Drift, this is what I really wanted when arguing for the allowance for multiple builds.  I'm not sure that there's an easy/effective way to do this, though.  Not sure whether the +/- 5hp thing would be workable in practice.

[fndrbndr]

There was another question brought up in a conversation, and I want people's take on it here before adding it to the rulebook.  What do people think of yellow flags?  Basically, in the event of a crash, a driver can call for a caution, go to the back of the non-lapped portion of the field, and everyone takes the lap at 50 mph, pits open.  The part of the field on the lead lap would bunch up.  It allows for the possibility of getting to pit under yellow (though you'd probably lose more positions and less time), could lessen the impact of crashes a bit, since this will allow the chance to get non-aero damage fixed, and should add another dimension to the race in general.  By bunching up, I also think it would help avoid the feeling that we're all just driving 50 laps of Maple Valley, and happen to have shown up at the same time to do it.  We'd go back to green at the start/finish line.  Thoughts/concerns?

[Open2nd]

Maybe have it set up in such a way that only a multiple car incident is yellow-worthy?  Otherwise, a slower car could just run off the track and call a caution to bunch the pack to try to stay with the leaders.  Just a hypothetical of course, but its plausible.

What if you were to also implement a "lucky dog" award for the last car a lap down?  It might not even come into play on some races, but it could potentially keep things interesting..

[BarbecuePete]

I like the idea of yellow flags, I was just reading some posts for a DTM series run over at Exodus, they even had Red flags too... Im not quite sure on the details but it sounds like a Yellow was thrown for 'minor' incidents where the cars could still be driven and return to the pits for repairs and a Red flag was thrown if cars were damged and couldn't move and / or were stranded on track in a 'dangerous' position to allow them to be pushed round to the pits...

Red flags may not be such an issue though with this series as you said about turning the damage down from Sim... but a Yellow flag would be good to bunch the feild back up again... Could we even allow (like they do in F1) for lapped cars to un-lap themselves and rejoin at the back of the pack under a yellow?

I would suggest though (as I see Open has as well) that a Yellow can only be called if 2 (or more) cars are involved in contact and not allowed just for messing up...

[fndrbndr]

Yeah, I phrased that poorly.  I'm assuming either a multi-car incident or perhaps a major one-car incident.

Edit:  As an aside, I considered the possibility of steward veto, but since the steward is usually also a driver, that seems difficult.