Weather forecast: http://www.myweather2.com/Motor-Racing/Italy/Imola-Circuit.aspx
Hot and sunny.

If you're one of the people who's reinstalled Windows or Steam and you think your GUID might have changed, PM me your new GUID (from race.ini).

Here's how the ballast worked, to good effect, in our old netKar PRO league, fro your information. This is what I'll be doing in AC as well, when we decide to use ballast. This is a proven technique that worked well for years in our netKar PRO league. We won't necessarily be using ballast every season.

The important stuff

In a nutshell, the faster you are in a race, the next race you will carry more ballast to slow you down. If you're not so fast, you might lose ballast. Your ballast changes from race to race (not round to round). The more often you adjust the ballast, the more accurate it becomes.

At the end of each race, my program works out the average fastest race lap time for each racer, who was within 6% of the fastest lap time (this excludes lap times of people who are too slow, so that everyone else doesn't get masses of ballast piled on). Basically, the faster your best lap time is compared to the average, the more ballast you get. The slower your best lap time is compared to the average, the less ballast you get.

How much ballast?

The amount of ballast you need to achieve a certain percentage slow down in lap time varies from car to car (as cars are different weights). This base amount gets set by experimentation before round 1 of a season and then gets refined each round as we see how different people are slowed down, on average, by the ballast in practice. Some people will be slowed down more by the same amount of ballast; some less, due to driving style. It all gets average out.

Bonus points

The ballast tightens up the field, but people who are carrying more ballast get bonus points, e.g. 0.5 points for every 25kg of ballast. This way, faster people are still rewarded on the leader board.

The fine print

If a racer didn't get to complete 4 laps or more in a race, their ballast won't change for the next race, because they haven't done enough laps to calculate a decent average. This avoids unexpected skewing of your ballast.

In the first two rounds, your ballast can jump up and down a bit before it settles on an average. To "smooth out" ballast changes after the first two rounds, your ballast changes are reduced to 70% of the calculated ballast change. This stops your ballast from jumping too dramatically up or down. E.g. if it's calculated that you need 100kg of extra ballast after the first two rounds, the program will only give you 70% of this i.e. 70kg. Likewise for decreases.

An example

Here's what happens in my program after a race:



The average fastest race lap was 1:47.639. Looking at Guybrush's line, his best time was 1:45.691, which was 1.948 seconds faster than the average. As a result, he gets 46kg of extra ballast for the next race (he started on 0).

The people like Rob who were slower than the average (0.272 seconds slower, in Rob's case), lose some ballast from their starting weight.

2 x 12 laps

Qualifying at 8:30pm Eastern.

Choose either the GTC or the GX in race 1, then drive the other car in race 2. When you join up for race 1, try to choose a car that evens out the numbers on the server so far.

2 x 11 lap races.

In the first race, everyone will be in the Lotus 2 Eleven.

For the second race, the slowest half of the field, going by race 1 qualifying, will take the Lotus 2 Eleven GT4, while the top half stays in the Lotus 2 Eleven. Keep an eye on where are you are in the qualifying order - it will be up to you to choose the correct car for the next race.

Again, the idea is to refine your season 8 car vote if you want to.

This is the first of 3 season 8 car trials, the idea being to try the three front-running combos in the poll and then allow people to adjust their votes if they want. They'll all be at Vallelunga.

Abarth 500 EsseEsse S1 at Vallelunga Club (20 laps), then at Vallelunga (10 laps, reverse top 10 from qual 1).
Normal tyre wear and fuel.
Qual at 8:00 Eastern.

RSR rank times:

http://www.radiators-champ.com/RSRLiveTiming/index.php?page=rank&track=13&car=52&rank_type=all&tyre_type=all&controller_type=all&community=all&friends=all

http://www.radiators-champ.com/RSRLiveTiming/index.php?page=rank&track=7&car=52&rank_type=all&tyre_type=all&controller_type=all&community=all&friends=all

Four options (or classes) to choose from. You can choose up to two of your preferred options.

1. Pagani Zonda R
Fast, race-spec car, lots of setup options, soft, medium, hard tyres.
Single make series.

2. Lotus Evora GTC and Lotus Evora GX
Mid-range race cars, pretty much the same in performance.
Drive each car for half the  season.

3. Lotus 2 Eleven and Lotus 2 Eleven GT4
Handicap option: The top half of the starters get the slower Lotus 2 Eleven, the bottom half of the starters get the faster GT4. This is pretty much like ballast in a single make. There's roughly 2 seconds difference in lap time over a 1:40 lap. There's usually much more than a 2 second gap between fastest and slowest in our races.

4. Abarth EsseEsse Step 1
Slow road car with enough power to slide.
Single make series.


We can have some trial races in any of the options to see how they pan out, and people can change their votes. AC 1.2 may well surface this month too, so the timing on that might have a bearing on how many trial races we have before the season starts.

Race Results and Charts
Season Standings

Round Points
Matthew111    72
StanDaam    67
Marty    65
Freezer    64
Jeremy    63
Phil.8    58
Wally    55
Bafs17    48
Joe    45
Grubbet    45
christopheraser    38
JamieP    38
Imperious    35
Rob    32
Bacchulum    13
Ysu    10
Gratulin    9

Congratulations to Matthew111 on a clean sweep: the round win, pole, and 2 race wins.

Season Podium
1. Matthew111, 423
2. StanDaam, 408
3. Phil.8, 331

With one triple-points round to go, can StanDaam steal the crown from Matthew?

Team Points
Struggle Street Racing Crew are just in front of Achilles Heels, 722 pts to 703.