IFCA Series News

Be advised that the only livery requirement here at the IFCA, is to have a racing number.  If you didn't race last season and earn a number based on your season finishing order then feel free to use any number above 16. 1-16 is reserved for those who competed in the previous season.

In chatting with several drivers on both ends of the rating scale it was interesting that they both had about the same feeling about how difficult it is to be competitive here at the IFCA.  And I think this is a good thing.  Because whether you are a fast guy or not you will have to dig down and put in some effort.  If you don't, and others do, it will show on the practice leaderboard and in the race.  And this is intentional.  We don't want anyone to be able to get by without trying hard.

For some perspective, I picked the Cobra knowing full well it wasn't going to be the #1 car to pick and started out running 2:13s in the Gold build.  Then, I got it down to a 2:12.500.  Then, after another week of practice and tuning, I got it down to a 2:12.000.  In all, it took about 3 weeks to shave a second off and hit the lap time I'm supposed to hit as a Gold level driver.  My point is, the more you work on your car the faster it will be.  The fact is, the more you carefully tune your car and the more laps you turn, the more tenths you lose.

This format doesn't lend well to the lazy driver because times are closer, racing is tighter, and everyone is fighting for smaller fractions of a second.  Gone are the formats where you can "pick up and play" and be relatively competitive here.  Even the fastest drivers have noticed this new paradigm and have had to increase their effort.

Many of you come from the ranks of public lobby racing and hot lapping.  What we've found is that even someone who can run a top 100 time on the leaderboards may only be a Bronze level driver here at the IFCA.  The difference comes from figuring out how to race fast and clean for an entire race.  Many drivers can run a good lap or two or four but then fatigue and lose consistency in longer races.  So it is an adjustment from hot lapping where you can stop at any time, and public lobby 4lap sprint races.

My advice?  Realize what you are facing.  Don't overestimate your talent and skill.  And don't exclusively rely just on your talent and skill.  Put some work into it and maximize what talent and skill you do have instead.

See you Wed 9pm EST for the final practice round.

For those of you who don't make the 24 man field, please understand how this works.  Every race there are no shows, especially in the opener.  And this season is no different. I know of at least 2 drivers who won't make the opener and there are probably 2-3 more I don't know about.  So, it benefits you to come to the race ready to race and see if you can fill a vacancy.  Otherwise, go get a head start on next weeks track @ Sebring.

Good luck!

There has been some talk about re-introducing teams to the present format in some modified way.  Not as a hardline end all be all focus, but more as way to openly allow drivers to freely team up if they want.  The suggestion is to allow 2-man teams to form of their own accord and even to incentivize these formations with a bonus point for each member of a team.

I like the idea of teams, always have, and I like the idea of it being a kind of side hustle or secondary competition to that of the drivers championship.  So, if you wish to form a team for Season 14 you may do so.  It will not be a requirement to race but there will be 2 requirements to form a team.  1.) You have to have a IFCA approved team name.  2). You both must use the same car and livery.  (That's right, teams are required to have an actual livery to include the correct race number on all 4 sides of the car, and the IFCA URL on all 4 sides, ifca.forumotion.com.  Do these two things and both drivers earn 1 bonus point for the season.

A separate team points table will be posted based on the  team members combined average finish only.  So, if you like teams, and like forming your own team, throw your hat into the ring and 'bring it!

GTDon2 wrote:There has been some talk about re-introducing teams to the present format in some modified way.  Not as a hardline end all be all focus, but more as way to openly allow drivers to freely team up if they want.  The suggestion is to allow 2-man teams to form of their own accord and even to incentivize these formations with a bonus point for each member of a team.

I like the idea of teams, always have, and I like the idea of it being a kind of side hustle or secondary competition to that of the drivers championship.  So, if you wish to form a team for Season 14 you may do so.  It will not be a requirement to race but there will be 2 requirements to form a team.  1.) You have to have a IFCA approved team name.  2). You both must use the same car and livery.  (That's right, teams are required to have an actual livery to include the correct race number on all 4 sides of the car, and the IFCA URL on all 4 sides, ifca.forumotion.com.  Do these two things and both drivers earn 1 bonus point for the season.

A separate team points table will be posted based on the  team members combined average finish only.  So, if you like teams, and like forming your own team, throw your hat into the ring and 'bring it!

Anyone looking to join a team will want to participate in the Team Penske driver lottery.  I have selected a number between 0-100, whichever driver comes closest to that number will be drafted into Team Penske for Season 14.  All are welcome to post a number between 0-100 on this thread.  The winning driver will be announced at the end of the race at Daytona, the Season 13 finale.

So, if you want to be a part of a strong team, a team that will make you faster, a team that has a great history of winning, post your number here.  And good luck!

37

official IFCA # is 7

69

papa creech172 wrote:Hey have you ever thought about the TEAM relay races for a season

Yes, all the time, but it's not easy to pull off. Especially with new guys. So, i thought maybe we can get people use to team participation first and then introduce them to the team relay format in Season 15.

okay myself and sox are teamed up for next season Tailwind Racing

TomC4t7 39 IS MY NUMBER.

Season 14 build sheets now available here:
https://ifca.forumotion.com/t6737p25-trans-am-master-car-list#139526

my guess is the #4

I wish I could watch full replays with audio for the races. Although I'm not racing, I'm still tracking how everyone is doing. I'll admit, I'm cheering for ZAR Eries right now because he's been so helpful with tuning!

I'm still practicing and trying to get more consistent before rejoining the regular racing. With some personal challenges (getting a new job) I'm not improving much racing because I'm having trouble focusing. Once I'm relaxed again I'm sure I can run a silver build more consistently and stay in that group

WritesCode4Food wrote:I wish I could watch full replays with audio for the races. Although I'm not racing, I'm still tracking how everyone is doing. I'll admit, I'm cheering for ZAR Eries right now because he's been so helpful with tuning!

I'm still practicing and trying to get more consistent before rejoining the regular racing. With some personal challenges (getting a new job) I'm not improving much racing because I'm having trouble focusing. Once I'm relaxed again I'm sure I can run a silver build more consistently and stay in that group

Unfortunately the lag out in race 2 all but killed my season, if only I had those 20 odd points. Sucks to lead a race aiming for 2nd and then lag out.

Regarding teams, yeah but no. There needs to be a rule of sorts otherwise it really is just a massive waste of time.

No sense for a chevy and dino to be in a team, it is what is fundamentally wrong with even considering teams. Chevy teaming with a bronze guy would make much more sense, same with any gold and above driver.

If all the top guys team with eachother, I can assure you, you will end up with three teams total.

Teams also needs to be a non choice for anyone above 1977 rank. You go with whom ever dibs you first. Thats the best way in my opinion..
There are wheel users that would love to be teamed with Don but he isnt available. Same with Chevy, dino etc.

Anyway who fking cares right ...

Like Donald told me step up or go home if 2 bronze guys are teamed against 2 platinum or even a gold or platinum.... the bronze guys have a huge advantage

TomC4t7 wrote:TomC4t7 39 IS MY NUMBER.

My new team number is: 38

You can get to the Group 8 build sheets here:
https://ifca.forumotion.com/t6796-group-8-build-sheets

Here at the IFCA innovation has always been a kind of mainstay.  We like to try new things, test, and experiment, to a point that brings out a benefit or reveals a weakness, and then we can make meaningful changes for the future.  

As many of our oldest OG's can tell you, even T10 has borrowed (dare I say steel) from us from time to time back in the day when it comes to league racing formats and organization.  We were arguably the very first Forza league back in FM1 which lead to many spinoff leagues including SimR and associated leagues which eventually became TORA.

With the advent of the IFCA Ratings Program we were the first and only league to numerically objectify Forza driving skill.  iRacing was perhaps the first to use a rating system in simulation racing and yes, we took note of this at the time.  And what the ratings do is identify what level of driving skill you are at in comparison to everyone else in the same ratings pool.  At a glance you can see who the strongest drivers are and who the weakest drivers are, objectively.  You can then rank them in order too.  

Over the years we have made minor tweaks to the program to try to fine tune the ratings results, not because they were altogether inaccurate or anything, but more as an effort to improve the accuracy and limit radical results because of bad luck or what have you.  For example, we no longer include or count a lag out in the ratings.  In this same sense we've been exploring ways and solutions for limiting outliers between seasons.

With your suggestions and input from folks like Eries, it was proposed that something needed to be done about how the last race of the season effects the first race of the following season in terms of ratings.  Even a highly rated fast guy can have a bad race, and if that should come on the last race of the season he will be underrated for the start of the next season which will affect everyone else.  

Some have suggested that the seasons need to be longer to fix this as well as several other changes. But what we came up with is a departure from these ideas.  Instead of keeping your current rating continually, treating it as a kind of lifetime batting average, we are going to start everyone from scratch each season.  That is, everyone will be brought as close together in ratings as the program and reason will allow before the start of a new season.  This enforced uniformity means that there will be no extremely underrated or overrated drivers at the start of a season to mess up everyone else's rating.  Everyone will be bunched closer to the center of the ratings scale, which is Silver/Gold. No one will start the season as Platinum, but some will still possibly start the season as Bronze.  In this way we can eliminate some bad luck, or any season to season sandbagging.  Not only this, but the change in the ratings will be more gradual at the start of a season.

The way it will work is everyone will be ranked according to where their rating places them.  Then, we will strip your ratings and apply the new ratings with the #1 ranked driver at the very top of Gold or 1995.999.  Everyone else will descend from there by -1.25pt increments.  Meaning that there will be a uniform 1.25pts between each and every driver from highest ranked to lowest.  Any new unrated drivers that may come in mid-season will be automatically assigned a provisional rating of 1973.000 which is the dead center of Silver.

With everyone so close in rating at the start of the season there will be mostly small gradual changes with most drivers staying within the skill level they are at for the first couple of races.  However,  Gold drivers have a stronger chance to jump to Platinum after the first race.  So while the fastest drivers have the better chance of winning the first race they will also have the better chance of going Platinum for race 2.  Whereas everyone else will basically remain within their skill level be it Bronze/Silver/Gold.

We think that this will produce closer racing and perhaps a clearer view or understanding of the value of the ratings and how they help to level the playing field.  We will implement this next season, Season 15.

With you on this one and as I said to Paddy being Silver now, it was a great achievement. You will be amazed how quickly you improve when driving a higher rank car and then a lower one.

Testament is me practicing my rear off in the plat car hitting times, I before hit in the gold car, I jumped back in gold and was immediately almost a second faster.

We get into a groove, so change is always good. Looking forward to this.

I agree with Eries. Since I’ve been practicing under silver specs, I’ve noticed my fast laps are crawling closer and closer to the top 10. I wouldn’t have been able to make the progress if I let myself continuously think I was just that good while being in a bronze car. Leveling up is a humbling experience, but you do end up learning way faster than you would think. Assuming you stick with it.

I think longer seasons with more tracks would be awesome more variety in tracks would make it harder to single in on one car for a season as in a 5 race race season I feel the track list will favor either handling or speed depending on the tracks also weather I wouldn't mind a couple rain races not rain the entire race but maybe half race as it adds a twist with setup and gear selection

Nurburgring full would be nice!

DinoGrumps wrote:Nurburgring full would be nice!

I do like the Ring even though I'm horrible there. The problem with it is that it is the one track that looks great on paper to do but in actual practice is quite boring.  It's boring because it is so big that it allows the faster guys to disappear from the field never to be seen again.  In fact, everyone gets very spread out so that there aren't a lot of close battles most of the time.  It's also a difficult track and one that is hard to cleanly pass on, and this too plays into the hands of the better drivers.  And, the faster the cars are, the more pronounced these problems actually become.  

Compare this to say any smaller track like Lime Rock for example (which I don't really like due to the incorrect scale of the track, same with Laguna) and you flip the entire script.  It's not boring, it's closer racing, the leaders are always visible even though they may be lapping you, there is traffic everywhere and close battles everywhere.  It's just far more exciting I have to admit.  So this is why we don't go to the Green Hell.