Season 20 July 15th

Now that we know when FM8 arrives (Oct 10th), Season 20 (July 15th) will be our swan song season for FM7.  Season 20's finale and end to FM7 will be September 2nd.  

Our testing of the three Group 6 cars and the three Group 12a cars has gone very well and we will be positing the builds very soon.  Chances are very good that we will not likely have any series ready to go any earlier than December 1st.  We will probably all need a couple of months to get a handle on what is possible with the new game is why.

The announcement is ... 20 July Thats my Birthday! Big 50!

Although it may be the case that we will no longer use our ratings program when FM8 arrives, we are still adjusting its parameters to help us classify everyone's driving skill to a finer degree for the last FM7 IFCA season.  This past season we went with a very conservative formula to limit the numeric exchange of ratings points between drivers, so that everyone stayed in their respective skill levels longer.  

Upon the end of the season review, we believe we went a little too light in this regard.  This did have the intended effect of keeping everyone from bouncing up and down the skill level range each race, but it also prevented drivers from earning what they actually deserved too.  For example, a medium to low Silver level driver had no fear of ever reaching Gold.  And this was because only fractions of points were being exchanged rather than full points.  And it went the other way too, a medium level Silver driver who performed badly would still remain Silver in most cases.  And this was not exactly what we wanted to see. 

For our last season (Season 20 July 15th) we will use the new revived formula which includes a new skill level scale that is wider between skill levels.  This enables a greater number of ratings points to be exchanged between drivers while at the same time preventing too much skill level movement too fast.

The new scale looks like this:

Palladium	2012	and above
Platinum	2000.000	2011.999
Gold	1987.999	1999.999
Silver	1975.998	1987.998
Bronze	1963.997	1975.997
Copper	1951.996	1963.996

Everyone will be resorted and balanced before Season 20 begins based on your Season 19 performance.

Just a quick word from the Race Director,

I want to wish all of you the best of luck this season.  Thank you all for throwing your hats in the ring and having a go at the last FM7, "IFCA Forza Masters Trans Am Championship."  

Thanks also goes out to all the behind the scenes people in our test module, points formula, support staff and Team Leaders.  But most of all I want to thank the patrons of the IFCA.  The everyday Forza sim-racer who is here week in and week out, season after season.  It is because of you that we can do any of this.

So good luck to all of you this season, and give the new guys a brake when you can. ;-)


Your Benevolent IFCA Dictator, 
Founder, 
Race Director, 
Recruiter, 
Competitor,
IFCA Champion, 
and all around good guy, 
GTDon.