IFCA Team Meeting Notes and News

The next Official IFCA meeting will be Saturday Jan 6th noon CST


Only 1 representative from each official team is required to attend.  Generic team representatives may also attend but are not required to attend.


Notes of change after the meeting will be posted here for everyone to see what was decided moving forward.

When you come to the team meeting be prepared.  Have some things written down that you would like to address.  The idea of the team meeting is not to dictate, but to moderate how we will proceed.  Not every suggestion will be fully acted upon, but every suggestion will be considered and have the appropriate influence and intended effect if not now, then later.

IFCA Items on the docket:

1.How far to take "Spec Kings" with or without the FM8 release date?
2.Format suggestions for series events
3.Penalty structure for teams and drivers
4.Recruiting goals and commitment
5.Reversing qualifying, and changing it to a open qualifying where we qualify early in the week, like Sunday, and then post practice laps all week long.  In this way the grid is already known by Friday/Saturday, and the race can be on time, every time.  It was suggested that this might help speed things up, be easier for Eries to tabulate, and place more value on your practice laps than your qualifying time.  It may also help to keep everyone  more interested during the week.

Each team meeting will be like this. IFCA suggestions/issues and then team leader issues/suggestions.  This approach will keep the team meeting brief and to the point(s) so as not to waste time just shooting the bull.

I've posted this in advance not to solicit a response here, but to let everyone have some time to soak in how we will proceed and what is going to be discussed in the meeting.

Please also include the attendance

In attendance and representing IFCA teams, Team Penske I&II, WC1, Tailwind Racing, and Division 1, was GTDon2, ZAR Eries, paddyw69, WhiskeySix1, Papa creech172, and AAR OneShot. Our "fly on the wall" was S150nCoilz who simply wanted to listen in.  Our team meetings are not intended to be exclusive.  It's just easier if we only have 1 representative from each team to talk to.

IFCA Items on the docket:

1.How far to take "Spec Kings" with or without the FM8 release date?

It was agreed to continue "Spec Kings" as intended with the 4 remaining races bringing us to April 27th.  Then there will be a 2 week break after which we will resume our 7 week Trans Am series racing beginning May 20th.  No actual date has been set yet.  But the program is to do at least 2 more seasons before the release of FM8 sometime in the fall.

2.Format suggestions for series events

There are no changes and were no proposed changes for Trans Am series racing.  However, we will be asking everyone who wants to be a part of testing cars to be earnest and produce useable results in conjunction with IFCA testers GTDon and Eries.  We will begin with a smaller core group of cars and add to them as we go from one season to the next.  In the past we started with a large group of cars and whittled them down, this time we are going to start with a small group and add to them.  So, there will only be 4 cars to test for the resumption of Trans Am in May.  2 classic Group A cars, and 2 late model Group 12 cars.

3.Penalty structure for teams and drivers

It was proposed that we add a secondary layer for penalties in order to properly equalize the wrong drivers do sometimes.  The idea is to penalize your grid position for the following week if you do something that earns a points penalty in the previous race.  A calculation will be made that deducts time from your practice lap and qualifying lap ratio, which will then cost you 3 positions on the next grid you compete on.  We will call it the dirty driver penalty.

4.Recruiting goals and commitment

All teams agreed to an incentive bonus program for recruiting.  Anyone who brings in a new driver who completes a full season will earn a bonus point for himself, as well as a team bonus point, even if the new driver ends up on a different team.

5.Reversing qualifying, and changing it to a open qualifying where we qualify early in the week, like Sunday, and then post practice laps all week long.  In this way the grid is already known by Friday/Saturday, and the race can be on time, every time.  It was suggested that this might help speed things up, be easier for Eries to tabulate, and place more value on your practice laps than your qualifying time.  It may also help to keep everyone  more interested during the week.

We had a lengthy discussion about this issue and hammered out a new proposal that we will begin to implement this week.  We will use Wed as our primary time to qualify.  This can happen before or after the Wed night practice race for our native drivers.  Those of you who are in the far eastern time zones will be able to qualify with ZAR Eries on Thursdays. Anyone who wishes to qualify earlier may do so with an IFCA Official or an IFCA veteran not affiliated with the team you represent.  We will no longer qualify just prior to the race.  Your practice lap leaderboard time remains as is.  You have all week to run your best PLB time until Friday 6pm CST.

Our thinking is that this will allow us to get started exactly on time every race, and place more emphasis on practicing than qualifying.  It's a throwback to the days when we would set up a 4lap qualy room and practice  running mock qualifying runs until you were ready to make a real run.  It was quite fun and adds some extra pressure to be sure.

Greater lap transparency was brought up as an issue and though we have nothing definitive to fully address the issue, GTDon agreed to start posting his own screen shot lap times on the IFCA for all to see. 

We have agreed to a Drivers Meeting before the start of a new season to help orientate everyone especially the new drivers.

We agreed to adjust the IFCA ratings formula in 2 ways.  We don't want anyone to jump 2 skill levels, and we are going to shrink the Silver class so that more of us end up either Bronze and Gold.

And this was about it for now.  It was a good discourse, everyone seemed happy to get their issues out on the table, and no team felt the need to use their Veto power.

Thanks to all the team leaders and representatives for showing up.  It was a very productive meeting and has set us on a more productive course.

Our next meeting will be a drivers meeting May 13th 1pm CST.


Your Benevolent Dictator,
GTDon

Just a quick note to add to what has been agreed to.  The IFCA has decided to disallow any driver to use a build that is higher than his skill level.  For example, A Silver level driver is no longer permitted to use a Gold build, or a Gold level driver can not use a Platinum and so forth.

It's been repeatedly proven the higher the build skill level the slower the car no matter what car we use.  So it doesn't help anyone to be in a higher class than what their rating dictates.  It also negatively effects ratings outcomes with inconsistent results, and hurts team competitiveness too.

Something we will be discussing is how to better handle the penalties when they are deserved. The proposal is that GTDon and/or Eries no longer acts as the arbiters, and that we move to allowing each driver to file a protest on the protest thread.  

When we had a smaller group it was easier for GTDon to watch the approximate 1.5hrs worth of replay racing, but as we have gotten larger this is no longer as viable or efficient.  To actually watch 24 different drivers each for 20 minutes is equal to a maximum of 8hrs, and just isn't possible to do.  So, we are going to talk about how best to let you the driver file an official protest in the future.

GTDon2 wrote:Our next meeting will be a drivers meeting May 13th 1pm CST. This is an open meeting to all IFCA drivers.



This is an informational meeting and not a grievance meeting or a debate session.  We are not soliciting ideas in this meeting.  We are going to answer questions and adhere to the subjects listed.  Should take less than 45min.


The purpose for this meeting is primarily to make sure every driver has some idea about 1.how the points work, 2.how the format works, and 3.how penalties work, both for the teams and individual drivers.


It is critically important that every driver understands these 3 things fully so that they can be at their competitive best.  We've seen too many drivers get lost in the weeds, get discouraged, or not have enough information to care one way or another, and we aim to reduce this problem.


The IFCA is not a "pickup and play" league.  If that's what you want, then you might have to go elsewhere.  At the same time, the IFCA has made an effort to minimize the rule set and simplify the format so that drivers are able to quickly understand how best to compete here.  Switching to the team format is an example of this.  Through team support each driver can be better prepared and  informed through their teammates on what to do and what to expect.


We understand that drivers often don't take the time to read everything we put out, or simply don't want to read everything because they just aren't readers.  This meeting is an effort to verbally reinforce what has been written, that perhaps many drivers have not yet read.


So if you are one of those guys who can't be bothered with reading about how things work, or, you just prefer a more verbal explanation, this is the meeting for you.  WE invite and welcome ALL drivers to participate in this meeting.

On the docket today for the Season 19 drivers meeting:

1. Rolling start/pace lap procedure

2. Penalties for drivers/teams and what to do if you are involved with hard contact

3. Livery rules and format clarification 

4. Review of race points

5. Clarification on practice lap-qualifying lap grid order, and performance bonus

6. Explanation of new participation bonuses for drivers and teams

7. A vote on switching qualifying from Wed/Thur nights, to a Saturday deadline 1hr before the race on or before 5pm EST

For those who were unable to attend the driver meeting the following is what was affirmed:



1. Rolling start/pace lap procedure

Do not accelerate to 100% throttle before your front bumper reaches the start/finish line.  Everyone will be replay checked for compliance.



2. Penalties for drivers/teams and what to do if you are involved with hard contact

We will be watching the entire first lap for contact, but after that any hard contact that happens to you, you will have to file on the IFCA for replay review.  Request investigation for what happened and on what lap it happened here:
https://ifca.forumotion.com/t6813-log-a-request-for-investigation



3. Livery rules and format clarification 

Black hoods are no longer required.  All that is required is the name of the team on both sides, the IFCA URL on all 4 sides, and a # Plate on all 4 sides.  Team livery designs have to be the same, but may use different colors.


4. Review of race points

The point system we use is from the real IMSA league.  The points format for the teams will now only require the top 3 drivers of a team to score team points for the team bonus, or regular team points.



5. Clarification on practice lap-qualifying lap grid order, and performance bonus

In summary, the formula rewards practice lap effort slightly more than qualifying results.  The performance bonus rewards the higher rated drivers slightly more than the lower rated drivers, so that there is no incentive to tank your rating at all.


6. Explanation of new participation bonuses for drivers and teams

Because all of our race points are only mostly separated by a single point, any bonus point(s) offered has a bigger impact than you would expect at the end of the season.  Case in point, on average over the last 3 seasons, an average of 4 positions were determined by a single point up and down the order.  This means that 8 drivers on average will be separated by a single 1 point difference.  The reason for adding this participation bonus is simply to entice and encourage everyone to participate 100% of the time via a small but not insignificant incentive.


7. A vote on switching qualifying from Wed/Thur nights, to a Saturday deadline 1hr before the race on or before 5pm CST




The vote was in the affirmative, we will move qualifying to a deadline of 5pm CST on Saturdays 1 hour before the race as your last chance to qualify.  You may qualify any time earlier than this throughout the week; and as GTDon2 and ZAR Eries are available.

Next team meeting July 8th 1pm CST


Only 1 representative from each "A" rated team needs to attend.


On the dockett so far...

1. Rules adjustments
2. Team Points
3. Ratings points
4. Length of races
5. Finale car vote
6. Trump car rule

updated

Some fun and exciting things I want to propose for the final season.

1. Trump card (single use excluding final)
2. Team points (No matter your team structure ratings, you can win)
3. Timed race rather than lap, 1hr leader takes it, (2 pit stops)

Then something I want us to talk about, just a new fresh something else, cause we dont know what FM8 is gonna bring.

Little more information regarding the team points structure:

Gone are the days where the top 2 teams run away with points as they occupy the top 6 or more positions on the race results.

This time round I really worked hard in getting each and every racer a positive input to helping the team be competitive.

The points are way closer and a lot less per racer, but it remains each racers duty to do the best they can. By this meaning if 10th is the best you can achieve you will rank in good points for your team.

Let as look at some examples old vs new:
Old:
1st place - 33 race points also used for the team
2nd place - 32 and so on.

New:
1st place - Were you expected to be first and what is your rating?
2nd - Same as above.

Here is where it gets better. Let us assume according to rating you were looking at a 10th place finish. But in the race you got 9th, this is great, you contributed more than what your team expected you to get, and thus they will get more points.

I will do some old vs new scenarios so you can get the jest of it.

You now, especially if you are lower rating, have a better and greater opportunity to make the team perform well.

More to come ... !

Some more titbits to share:

Working hard on the team aspect.

What we ultimately want to see is a "I feel important".

It can be super frustrating for any racer to just be mid pack week in and out, not experiencing standing on an after season podium.

Although the individual competition will always be filled with the top performers, on race results, we now have something fresh and it might just bring that worthiness factor back for some.

The teams competition will be a total different competition, not as in the past linked to individual point performances in the race.

I simulated an entire season using the results from season 19 and slotted it into what season 20 might likely be if all approve this new team championship format.

Could only use 4 teams as season 19 only 4 teams had continuous participation. So herewith the comparison.

S19:
1st WC - 462pts
2nd Penske - 458pts
3rd Division 1 - 345pts
4th Tailwind - 247pts

Simulated S20 using S19 race results:
4th - WC - 121.93pts
3rd - Tailwind - 125.78pts

And 


2nd - Penske - 127.53pts

And yes, it is now possible for a team filled with lower rated drivers to walk away with the cup!

1st - Division 1 - 128.41pts

It is now more than ever possible to win!

Before you feel that this is tiered and favours lesser rated racers / teams nope, not at all, it just gives each an equal playing field when looking at performance and contribution towards the team from each racer in that team. Top 3 performances for each race are counted (this hasn't changed),.

A higher rated driver will gather more points than a lower rated driver if they perform as suggested by their rating, but this is off set by the ability for a lesser rated driver to perform above their expected more easily.

Example:
Top rated driver finishing 1st - up to 6.1pts and 7.1 in the final.
Lowest rated driver finishing 24th - 5.05pts and 6.05 in the final.

More to be discussed, but I hope everyone is as excited as I am!

Now you dont need to go find an alien, to stand a chance, you can fill your team with friends, and on a team aspect run side by side with the top racers / teams.

Oh and something interesting, of the 3 teams sporting 4 racers each only two drivers out of 12 had all their performances (all 7 races) count towards their team points, and these were .... Wolf and .... Tomcat!

Proof that no matter how high or low your rating your contribution counts!

Very exciting eries!  Essentially, if any racer does what they are expected to do, every race, then they will push their team right to the top!  Falter or sandbag even a little, and you will hurt your team. Over perform, and it's a big win for your team.  

Although overperforming will net you substantial team points gains, the top drivers have less margin to gain while the lower drivers have more margin to make gains.  For example, TomCat is now a huge team asset because he is almost always going to perform as expected, but, can be a major team contributor even if he finishes just 1 position better than expected.  Whereas Lightning for example has no opportunity to gain because he is expected to win.  So Lightning can't actually gain extra team points basically.  He has to finish #1 every race that he is expected to, or he will lose points for his team. Genius!

This is  a game changer.  It really does make the team championship aspect as important or more, than the individual championship. It gives every driver motivation and incentive to try their best even when they are not in the hunt for the individual championship. Awesome!

GTDon2 wrote:Very exciting eries!  Essentially, if any racer does what they are expected to do, every race, then they will push their team right to the top!  Falter or sandbag even a little, and you will hurt your team. Over perform, and it's a big win for your team.  

Although overperforming will net you substantial team points gains, the top drivers have less margin to gain while the lower drivers have more margin to make gains.  For example, TomCat is now a huge team asset because he is almost always going to perform as expected, but, can be a major team contributor even if he finishes just 1 position better than expected.  Whereas Lightning for example has no opportunity to gain because he is expected to win.  So Lightning can't actually gain extra team points basically.  He has to finish #1 every race that he is expected to, or he will lose points for his team. Genius!

This is  a game changer.  It really does make the team championship aspect as important or more, than the individual championship. It gives every driver motivation and incentive to try their best even when they are not in the hunt for the individual championship. Awesome!

Well not really lose team points, but just contribute less. Everyone gets points, top 3 counts.

My driver rating makes more sense now.

Just my daily add on the team points for S20.

Sporting a full compliment of 4 racers in your team would benefit you as it opens the top 3 performances counts.

If you only bring 3 racers, each will have their points count and it doesnt give your team any leverage on allowing for a single slip up from one of your team members.

Remember that any team can win, all the racers need to do is what the team expects them to, and perform at the level they are on or above. This way a 10th place might be worth more than a 2nd, depending on the rating of the driver and their performance expected.

A 10th when you are the 12th rated racers bags more points than a 2nd if you are too top rated racer. However having a higher rating weighs a bit more and performing on or above will always be worth more if you have a higher rating than another racer performing on or equally above to what you have.

Oh and also remember that you WILL net points regardless of good or bad performance. If those points will be used is up to whether they are top 3 for your team or not.

The difference between best performance for finishing and worst is less than 18% of points available, 6.1 vs 5.05

Till next time!

ZAR Eries wrote:Just my daily add on the team points for S20.

Sporting a full compliment of 4 racers in your team would benefit you as it opens the top 3 performances counts.

If you only bring 3 racers, each will have their points count and it doesnt give your team any leverage on allowing for a single slip up from one of your team members.

Remember that any team can win, all the racers need to do is what the team expects them to, and perform at the level they are on or above. This way a 10th place might be worth more than a 2nd, depending on the rating of the driver and their performance expected.

A 10th when you are the 12th rated racers bags more points than a 2nd if you are too top rated racer. However having a higher rating weighs a bit more and performing on or above will always be worth more if you have a higher rating than another racer performing on or equally above to what you have.

Oh and also remember that you WILL net points regardless of good or bad performance. If those points will be used is up to whether they are top 3 for your team or not.

The difference between best performance for finishing and worst is less than 18% of points available, 6.1 vs 5.05

Till next time!

What needs to be clearly understood here by all the teams, is that the formula is designed to enable every team to be competitive regardless of the skill level of the team members.  That is, simply by performing as expected based on your rating, you and your teammates will be competing for the Team Championship all season long.  The catch? Attend every race, and never under perform.  

The team formula is such that it doesn't ask that you over perform above your rating in order to equally compete.  No. It says, do as expected consistently, every race, and you will be a competitive threat at the end.  Someone like TomCat for example becomes a real team asset  to any team because he can never under perform as long as he is expected to finish last.  And should he even slightly improve he will net his team extra points that are not as easy to net if you are higher rated.  At the same time, because the highest rated drivers find it harder to over perform and easier to underperform, they are awarded a tiny additional fraction of a point more.  Because, if you are rated #1 you are expected to win, and can not do more than this.  

So, while the faster higher rated drivers have a more difficult task, and the slower lower rated drivers have more room to improve than the faster drivers, the faster higher rated drivers get a slight bump in points since they have more to lose or, less to gain.  

In this way the Team Championship eliminates sandbagging and equalizes teams not by outright skill, but by expected performance.  In other words, if you are not expected to win the race, it is not counted against you.  If you are expected to finish 20th, and then finish 20th, that will be the equivalent of the #1 driver finishing 1st. The #1 driver will still gain a small fraction more but only because he can not do any better than first place unlike the 20th finisher who could finish 19th.

We are very excited to see how this kind of team equality pans out this season, and how each team member's performance is equally important to the team.  It will be interesting to see how the teams react and come together knowing that all they have to do is match their expected performance each race to win the championship.  Some teams will probably be less forgiving of someone who doesn't want to show up for practice or the race.  It will motivate teams to enlist only those drivers who will commit and contribute positively.

Look, let's face it, no matter how we try to fairly handicap things, we all can't compete for the individual championship, this is understood.  It takes a lot of practice, time and skill to get on the podium.  And there are only 3 top spots.  But, in comparison, every team will be competing for the Team Championship each and every round.  Having a team of aliens sets an incredibly high bar and make things exceedingly difficult for a team.  But having a team of TomCats can lower that bar to a certain extent and easily put you in the winner's circle!


Good luck!

I simulated with Dons recent post about possible scenario, and well Team Sunoco would be leading the team champs if those were the results!

They had 3/10/16 as their best three, and Penske had 2/4/7 and yet they beat Penske due to them performing better than expected, and Penske worse.

Using Season 19 data, Division would have won. Penske lost their way with 3 high rated drivers only and Eries poor performance at yas marina. So it really is such an equal playing field, whether you are the fastest or slowest. The lead also changed week by week, race after race, thats how tight it was.

ZAR Eries wrote:I simulated with Dons recent post about possible scenario, and well Team Sunoco would be leading the team champs if those were the results!

They had 3/10/16 as their best three, and Penske had 2/4/7 and yet they beat Penske due to them performing better than expected, and Penske worse.

Using Season 19 data, Division would have won. Penske lost their way with 3 high rated drivers only and Eries poor performance at yas marina. So it really is such an equal playing field, whether you are the fastest or slowest. The lead also changed week by week, race after race, thats how tight it was.

but by your earlier statements only the 3 top performers would contribute to the points anyways. would that be the top 3 drivers 1-3-4 or would it be the top 3 performers would the lowly bronze guy who made up 2 places shield a platinum driver who lost 5 places in the race

FlavoredAtoms wrote:

ZAR Eries wrote:I simulated with Dons recent post about possible scenario, and well Team Sunoco would be leading the team champs if those were the results!

They had 3/10/16 as their best three, and Penske had 2/4/7 and yet they beat Penske due to them performing better than expected, and Penske worse.

Using Season 19 data, Division would have won. Penske lost their way with 3 high rated drivers only and Eries poor performance at yas marina. So it really is such an equal playing field, whether you are the fastest or slowest. The lead also changed week by week, race after race, thats how tight it was.

but by your earlier statements only the 3 top performers would contribute to the points anyways.  would that be the top 3 drivers 1-3-4 or would it be the top 3 performers  would the lowly bronze guy who made up 2 places shield a platinum driver who lost 5 places in the race

Top 3 in each team of 4.

So lets say your team members gets the following TEAM points in the race:
5.621
5.432
5.354
5.543

Then For the team I will not use the 5.354.

Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Plat, Pal doesnt matter, every racer gets a point for the race. It only matters when two racers have the same performance. Then the higher rating gets a fraction more, like in 0.005 or so.

If you Atoms are the 5th highest rated driver for that race and you finish in 6th, your point might be lower than your team mate who is rated 18th and finish in 10th place.

It is all about performance and not about how super fast you are for the team comp. 4 members in the team race, I look at the 3 best performers in each team. Performance is not equal to how high you are in race finishing order.

So look again at the numbers in my post. Sunocos members came in lower finishing order in the race than penske, yet they got more points. Thats because the 3/10/16 was such that performance expected for those 3 drivers were 4/12/18, and penske who had 2/4/7 was expected to have 2/3/6, they performed worse.

Individually Penske members will have on average higher points, but this is NOT the individual competition. This is the TEAM competition total different point structure.

To your Statement would a bronze shield a plat who lost places. Might yes, and thats why is it critical to have all team members race. If only 2 members race, you seriously negatively impact team points, as I need 3 performances for your team, where is the 3rd or 4th? I use a default 3rd in such a case, -6. The Plat guy losing 5, is -5. So very simplistic 
The Bronze guy got +2
Plat guy got -5
Missing 3rd member -6
Missing 4th member -6

So +2, -5 and -6 are the best 3 performers in the team. This gets added to those three racers calculated team points. Let us assume the 3 best performers got a total of 15 points, I will -9 from that. Total team points for the team would then be 6 points.

You now see how vital participation is no matter where you finish.

GTDon2 wrote:Next team meeting July 8th 1pm CST


Only 1 representative from each "A" rated team needs to attend.


On the dockett so far...

1. Rules adjustments
2. Team Points
3. Ratings points
4. Length of races
5. Finale car vote
6. Trump car rule

The meeting went very well.  I like all the input and enthusiasm that everyone brings to the table.  It really brings out the creative power of the teams and drivers.



1.) There were no rules alterations as they pertain to violations or penalties.

2.) Eries discussed in detail how the new team points formula works and will be providing/posting the actual spreadsheet results each week for everyone to look at.

3.) GTDon explained how the new driver ratings scale and formula has changed so that more points can be exchanged between drivers while at the same time limiting skill level jumps.  There will be greater fluctuation in ratings changes this season, and only slightly more variance in skill level changes.

4.) We put to a vote the length of the races, everyone agreed the races would add 5min based on lap count, this means that Watkins Glen will be 26laps long rather than 23laps.

5.)We put to a vote the idea of having a spec-like car for the finale race 7 that everyone will use at Indy oval.  Everyone agreed it will be the 2016 Ford Shelby GT in an upgraded form.

6.) Everyone agreed to employ the new "Trump Car" option rule.  Which means that each driver will have the one time option to use a skill level build below what their normal rating indicates during the regular season. You can not use the "Trump Car" option for the finale race.  Only during the regular 6 race season may you opt to use a superior build.  You must notify the Race Director GTDon of your intention after the race on Saturdays after he posts the latest rating results.


For any and all other questions concerning these changes please see your Team Leaders.  It looks like an amazing season is shaping up thanks to all the creative thinking and heavy lifting by the Team Leaders.  Let's hope that when FM8 arrives we can still put together fun formats like this in the future.

Good luck!
Your Benevolent IFCA Dictator