[Russell Sobie]

I had read about this being the case, but until now I've never actually taken a look at example numbers. It seems like this system really quickly penalizes drivers for participating in as many races as they can in a series. Now, granted, I give zero shits about my championship standing in any races here on SRS. I'm in here looking for clean racing and to improve my skill base, and also have no delusions about being in the top 3 of any race that has more than 3 people in it. But as something of a rules lawyer it is hard to not notice a system that has negative side effects for doing something that I think should be encouraged.

Here's the rules as they are, for anyone reading that, for some reason, hasn't read the single page of rules here at SRS:

You can race as many times as you like during the week:
Up to 5 Races - Counts the best result (points including incidents);
More than 5 races - Average of all your races.

So the problem with this is that the moment you step into your sixth race, you are statistically likely to lose potential points for that week. 

Obviously this is designed to prevent people from grinding away at a particular series during a week until they finally get a top 3 finish with minimal/no incidents, even though the 8 other races that week they may have done dismally. Why reward people who show up for three or four races only and place first?

But for those of us with extra free time, it seems like the more important thing is to have populated races, rather than ensure that everything is super fair for the people with less free time. 
So with that, I am proposing an alternative: If you race more than 5 races, your new point total for that week is an average of the top 5 race results for the week, rather than all of the races. Some examples using my own numbers from the Ginetta series, of which I've had way more than 5 races in the last three weeks:

Brands Hatch: 69,75,81,74,81,98
Average Of All: 79.7
Proposed Average Of Top5: 81.8
Do a 7th race for the hell of it and get a 60? No change.
Do a 7th race and get first with 0 incidents? Goes from 81.8 to 87.4.

Donington: 90,80,84,90,60,63,87
Average of All: 79.1
Proposed Average of Top5: 86.2
Do an 8th race for the hell of it and get a 60? No change.
Do an 8th race and get first with 0 incidents? Goes from 86.2 to 90.6.


VIR: 92,63,67,90,76,81,102
Average of All 81.6
Proposed Average of Top5: 88.2
Do an 8th race for the hell of it and get a 60? No change.
Do an 8th race and get first with 0 incidents? Goes from 88.2 to 93.4.

As you can see, this solution still prevents simply "spamming" races in the hopes of squeeking out a podium finish since getting exactly that only raises the score a little bit from the current average score in each case. However, if you don't perform as well as you have already, there's no penalty.

Your presence could, of course, cause someone who might do rather well in a race to do really poorly if you happen to dive bomb them in T1 without having to worry about your points, since you already got 5 nice scores this week, but I'm not sure that should be a concern... especially since you can get suspended/banned for such things. More likely people will just be trying to improve their score (if they are paying attention to these points in the first place, of course).

As it is now, if they are paying attention to score, it is likely to their detriment to participate in more than 5 races a week in a series, unless they have done really, really badly all week.

Anyway, it was an interesting system to examine. If the rules are as they are now to just keep them simplified while also keeping this fair for folks with less free time, that's a perfectly good reason to leave it as is. I mostly thought it was an interesting thought experiment.

[Javier Malonda]

Plus one to this suggestion.

I care little about championship points, but that implementation seems fairer to me.

[Simon Meisinger]

I don’t think this makes it more fair. A little less fair even, in my opinion.

But it might make people attend more races, so I think it’s a good thing.

[David Brister]

a simple idea but logical it makes more sense, more bums in the seats racing is what should be the main result the group is after.

Some racers might not make a full 5 races due to low numbers on the server when they can race so they miss out all together, but the guys doing there 6th or 7th race could in fact help another racers reach there 5 race average.

[Russell Sobie]

I don’t think this makes it more fair. A little less fair even, in my opinion.

But it might make people attend more races, so I think it’s a good thing.

Less fair because it still allows drivers to frequent more races with no downside? That makes sense. But yeah, it seems like anything that discourages someone from participating at all is a bad thing. I'd be interested to hear other ideas that serve the same purpose (does not penalize someone for racing more than 5 races but also does not penalize those who can only concentrate on one MAYBE two races a week), if there are any available.

[Marek Vons]

Not a bad idea by Russell but who knows what SRS will say

[Russell Sobie]

You particularly would benefit from this, Marek... at just a glance I see that you typically don't go over 5 races once you've got 102x5. Coincidence, or by design?

[Marek Vons]

Well sometimes I dont even have a time and especially mood for more races, so I just do the 5 which are max. for championship counting if I dont want to get average