With our current series nearly complete, it's time to start thinking about what to run next season.

Here are my ideas...

• Run two different series concurrently, alternating each week. For example:

Friday, Feb 01 - Series "A"
Friday, Feb 08 - Series "B"
Friday, Feb 15 - Series "A"
Friday, Feb 22 - Series "B"
etc.

• One series hosted by me, and the other series host by someone else (to help cover the costs). Generally speaking, it's $24 to host a season. Split that in two and it's only $12 ea. I'll grant admin rights to said person so they can setup the 2nd series within our league. Any takers?

• One series could be road and the other oval / roval. Or one tin tops and the other open wheel. Personally, I'd like to host a Star Mazda series. The car is fun, fast, and easy to drive. Plus it has a very healthy (and competitive) official series which you may wish to run in parallel. For tracks, I would want to follow the official series tracks so that you can practice for both the league & official series at the same time. And I'd like to alternate our races with the Regulars league Star Mazda series (i.e we run our SM races on the opposite weeks the Regulars run. This might attract some more of their members.

The second ARMS series can be whatever its host chooses; hopefully something most members are interested in running.

• Naturally, the start of these two new ARMS league series will align with the start of iRacings 2013 Season 1, which is the week of Jan 28th.

• During Week 13 (when we don't have anything scheduled), I'd like to host a 1-or-2 hour endurance race with the car(s) we'll be running in our next series.

•We might also consider switching from Friday nights to Thursdays nights if our league continues to conflict with the CASC-OR league (providing a switch does not alienate any of our own members). I don't see any more races on CASC-OR's schedule, so I'm not sure what their plans are, but it would be nice to attract some of those guys to our league, and also be available to run in theirs if we wish.

Thoughts? Volunteer to help host?

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Maybe it was all in my imagination because I just looked at the past few months on the CASC-OR leagues calendar and didn't see any Friday races.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

CASC-OR ran their league on Monday nights. They are starting back up this week with a new format and a new night. The league is running on Wednesday nights now and they will consist of 3 short 15 minute sprint races all at the same track/night. There will be qualifying for the first race then the finishing order from that race will set the grid for the second race. The finishing order from the second race will set the grid for the third race. The third race is the only one that counts for points. They will be using the DP and Mustang's for all races & tracks.

Scott, you may not see it on the schedule because they are running it tournament style and not league this season.

I need to give it some more thought about what I would like to see for our next season, I'm pretty open to the ideas you presented but keep in mind I'm not sure how many of us actually parallel the iRacing series as we proved with the Caddy's. I think more of us (meaning new guys in ARMS) are starting to buy more content so the possibilities are looking better for a variety of cars/tracks next season.

Someone give me a reason to buy the Radical or HPD cars, they are two I don't own and thought about running them but never really had a good reason.

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Brian
VP, AMP
#51 Vantage Motorsports

I prefer the idea of a single series run every week with the same car per season. That is just a matter of preference, I don't much enjoy bouncing back and forth between cars.

I'm not big on ovals, so I would skip that kind of series. And I like the Friday race time, it works well for me.

Basically I would like to keep the same format but switch up cars and have a new roster of tracks to visit. That's about all I have to contribute.

I love the 3 15 min race idea. I find if the race gets strung out or if you have an incident and come out of the pits alone, its boring as hell, I just tend to not bother continuing, 30 minutes is a long slog lapping alone.

I'd love more tracks, ovals, whatever. I like variety. Even super oddball stuff, Late models on road courses (actually its the best car in the sim IMO).

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Paul

some low category single seater series (Skip Barber?) on road courses. That's my vote.

And only one series at a time would be nice

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"The sport is more important than anything. More important than any of the people in it." - Gilles Villeneuve

I could swear they were running Monday & Fridays nights when they first started up, but after looking at their past calendar I don't see anything on Fridays.

So we'll stick to Friday evenings then!


The Radical is a fun car, and similar in lap times to the Star Mazda. However, the Star Mazda is a little easier to drive (more forgiving) so I though it might be better to start with. I could easily be swayed either way though.



In the Regulars league, we run 20 minute races. Often times if I spun in the early part of the race, I found that I'd just be starting to work my way back up through the field as the race ended. Hence why I chose 30 minutes races... Give you an extra 10 minutes to get back up near the front.

The three 15-minute races sound interesting. I suspect it'd mean that any mistakes and your race is essentially done, but at least you'd have two more chances. However, adding a 3rd race each night increases hosting cost, so I'd need some help. Actually, I'd like to see a couple people step up and volunteer to help me cover hosting fees for next season. *hint* *hint*



Skip Barber could be an option. Honestly though, I find the Star Mazda is easier to drive.

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Ok, so it seems we're looking at a single road series, using a single seater (Skippy, Radical, Star Mazda, or HPD ARX), with two or three sprint races each Friday evening.

Any other comments / suggestions before it goes to a poll?

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Scott you aren't supposed to spin.

I'd like to run the Skippys again but since I'm only a part timer don't let me swing the vote. Was hoping the Regulars would run them but they got voted out in favour of the Radicals last season.

Brian if you want an excuse to buy the Radical come run a few of the Regulars events as we should be running another Radical series when the new season starts in a couple weeks.

I'm already financing one league but could throw few i$ your way Scott if that'd help with the costs (it'd be worth it not to do any of the work or make decisions ). If everyone that could spare it chipped in $5 that would probably give you enough to run the next couple seasons.

Thanks for the offer Ken, but you're already putting money into hosting the Regulars league. I was hoping one or two of our non-contributing members would offer to host some of our races. I could make them admins so they could setup some sessions within our league. Maybe even switch it up every season so that different people contribute.

Short of that, we could implement a $5 annual membership fee, putting all proceeds towards hosting costs, and use the surplus as championship prizes in the form of iRacing gift certificates. But I fear that would really stifle our growth, and we'd likely loose 1/2 our members immediately. So option #1 above sounds better to me.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Scott, I will contribute iRacing credits towards running the series. I certainly don't mind at all helping out.

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Brian
VP, AMP
#51 Vantage Motorsports

Thanks Brian. Much appreciated.

Ideally, I'd have you (and other contributors) simply host sessions within our league, as opposed to sending credits. That way no money changes hands.

Ryan and I performed an experiment this morning, to see if I (as the league owner) could edit a session he (as a league admin) scheduled within the league. My hope was that contributors could just create a bunch of generic sessions within the league and let me deal with all the scheduling and other details. But unfortunately that's not the case. I could not edit his league session.

This means that if contributors wish to help by hosting league races, they'll also have to setup all the session settings / scheduling / etc. Not a problem for me, but some people might not want the hassle.

So if anyone wants to contribute, but don't want to be bothered with the organizing aspect, then you can just send me an iRacing Gift Certificate via the Store. Or at least I think that's how it works...

Or you can run a whole series yourself, as Ryan plans to do! Thanks Ryan.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Brian generously contributed enough to host a full season, so he deserves a big thanks from all of us.

Also, Ryan has volunteered to host a biweekly MX-5 series for us. So a big thanks to him as well.

We'll run a single-seater road series in conjunction with Ryan's MX-5, alternating every week. I'll start a new poll thread so we can select a car.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

Regarding the "contributions" topic...

Thank you to all who have sent me iRacing Credits to put towards hosting the league. I've received way more than expected and now have enough to fund the league for nearly two years! So please, no more contributions.

Thanks.

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1997 Talon TSi AWD
2008 EVO X MR

A big thank you to those who contributed to my series as well. Between Scott and I, the ARMS league should be able to last until iRacing exists no more!

Now to get the series set up so we can get back to the racing!