Enduracers Flat 6 Pre-Season Discussion

One of if not THE best car sets for rFactor 2 and it's free.

10 Rounds starting a week or two after the Toyota AE86 Championship is concluded. Twin Sprints, inverted grid for Race 2, rolling starts.

I'll be getting to work on the schedule this week.

Now is the time for track requests, I'm thinking Europe minus UK for a number of reasons.

I've been chipping away at track selection which has shown me that offline at least the AI aren't nearly as good with the Flat 6 mod.

Adding AI to the Toyota AE86 series is a band aid that happily seems to be working but I doubt that AI will be a solution to fewer than 10 cars on the grid with the Flat 6 series, if even we considered adding them.

I need everyone to step up and formally register for this series as soon as registration is available and, more importantly, do some recruiting if we wish for this series to proceed. It expect that every one of us knows at least one person with rF2 and a sim rig that either isn't racing at all or is racing somewhere else.

Our participation peaked with the BTCC cars and his been in decline ever since, impossible to say whether it's due to us or Studio 397 making one problem after another that has soured people on rF2 or that Sunday evening is not great for the majority of sim racers. If we can't get people to show up for Enduracers Flat 6, it feels hopeless.

Lets hope Flat 6 attracts so wheels can still keep spinning.

I can't add anything other than the few I've come accross that sim race are not on rF2 but iRacing. But I can mention two very active facebook groups I'm on - sim racing and sim racing market sale/exchange - very little is mentioned about rF2. If you do, its someone saying its teh best physics available. Its all iRacing and Assetto mostly then maybe Project cars, Automobilista but rarely hear rF2. Except apparently there are a lot of people out there with direct drive wheels, Heusinkveld peddles and motion rigs running Forza....... yep..

I was expecting this series to feature the last of the good rF2 tracks that we haven't used yet but in the interest of maximizing participation, we're going to go a different direction with the track selection and focus on tracks that race well and are familiar to most including considering crossover with iRacing.

I personally enjoy new tracks but appreciate that new tracks are more likely to contribute to a larger field spread.

The iRacing 2021 Season 3 schedule isn't out yet but I looked at the 2021 Season 2 Miatas, BMW GT4 Cup and Porsche 911 Cup for track overlap with rF2 to maybe factor into the Flat 6 schedule. While I was at it, I checked what it might cost a new driver to run the full season in those iRacing series.

iRacing Fanatec Global Mazda MX-5 Cup (Rookie)is 12 races, zero car cost, zero track cost, ~$33 membership cost ($33 total, $11/mo), 8 rF2 tracks, ~1 of those 8 tracks that I would guess would be acceptable if not necessarily great for Flat 6.

iRacing BMW 12.0 Challenge (D License, BMW GT4) is 12 races, ~$12 car cost, $90 track cost, ~$33 membership cost ($135 total, $45/mo), 9 rF2 tracks, ~4 of those tracks that I would guess would be acceptable if not necessarily great for Flat 6.

iRacing Porsche iRacing Cup (C license, Porsche 911 GT3 Cup) is 12 races, ~$12 car cost, $150 track cost, ~$33 membership cost ($195 total, $65/mo), ~7 tracks that I would guess would be acceptable if not necessarily great for Flat 6.

The iRacing Season 3 schedule will certainly be out before we have to finalize the Flat 6 schedule so I'll look at it again in a few weeks.

It's tragic that Studio 397 failed so miserably with the UI as it looks like rF2 use has been in a steady decline since. I've checked stats for Steam a couple of times this week, comparing rF2 to Assetto Corsa to see that there are at least 10X as many on AC at any given time. 

I'm guessing that I need to be in-game to see stats for iRacing if at all, I can't find anything as far as current users when logged into the members site.

My theory is that the "gamers" migrated to AC, the majority of "racers" migrated to iRacing and what we have left are those like us who understand that rF2 has the best feel throgh the wheel, is a far better value and are willing to live with the annoyances but unfortunately the numbers on that have a 24-hour peak of 1091 rF2 users vs 8497 for AC for comparison's sake. I'll check again before Official Practice and after our races for a Sunday evening perspective.

I'd really to keep it going, maybe worst case we keep it as a way to practice together as a TEAM and race somewhere else. As far as running a league and series, I'll need to step down if we don't have the numbers as it weighs on me too much. I can accept the work to fun ratio if it's fruitful but at the moment it feels like failure.

Seems we or I have run these before, I have setups for some tracks. I like the mod and maybe we can get more participation.

Based on our post-race drivers meeting last Sunday, I made good progress on the track selection candidates. 

In no particular order:

Portland
Laguna Seca
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez 1988
Circuit of the Americas
Sebring
Road Atlanta
Road America
Watkins Glen
Mid Ohio
Virginia International Raceway
Daytona
Canadian Tire Motorsports Park

I was assuming a 10 weekend schedule but I need to project the dates out to see what is possible between the Memorial Day and Labor Day holidays.

I had a lot more to say but I fat-fingered a key combination, lost it all and don't have it in me to re-type any of it, just doesn't matter right now.

Projected calendar:

May 23 - Toyota AE86 finale
May 30 - OFF or Official Test
Jun 06 -  Flat 6 Round 1
Jun 13 -  Flat 6 Round 2
Jun 20 - USA Fathers Day OFF
Jun 27 - Flat 6 Round 3
Jul 04 - USA Independence Day OFF
Jul 11 - Flat 6 Round 4
Jul 18 - Flat 6 Round 5
Jul 25 - Flat 6 Round 6
Aug 01 - Flat 6 Round 7
Aug 08 - Flat 6 Round 8
Aug 15 - Flat 6 Round 9
Aug 22 - Flat 6 Round 10
Aug 29 - OFF or Special Event or Official Test
Sep 05 - USA Labor Day OFF

We can insert an OFF weekend between Jul 04 and Aug 29.

You'll be missed but it's for a good cause, beer raised in toast of farmer Mike.

Getting close with the schedule, expect to finalize it next week pending testing and discussion tonight but here's how it tentatively looks:

1. Watkins Glen
2. Canadian Tire Motorsports Park
3. Road America
4. Mid Ohio
5. Virginia International Raceway
6. Road Atlanta
7. Daytona
8. Mexico City
9. Laguna Seca
10. Portland

While it's fresh in our minds and as a good test for a rear-engined car dynamics (Turn 1-2 complex and 130R), I'll have Flat 6 @ Suzuka through Tuesday night this week and probably as an Official Test on Sun May 30.