Idea for monthly RLD tournaments, roll-over racing seasons

redlinederby Wednesday, 6/24/2015
Site manager

Had an idea for my monthly RLD tournaments and need your feedback and thoughts...

Instead of having a new set of rules/theme each month, the same rules would govern an entire season, say January-October. Each year the rules may change...2016 could be 60g max, 2017 could be 80g or whatever. And that's the setup...

The first tournament of the season (Jan), everyone would send in their cars and a bracket would be seeded at random. The next tournaments (Feb-Oct) would race the SAME CARS unless the entrant wants to send in a new car as a replacement. Bracket seeding would be governed by the previous month's standings...but if a person sent in a new car, they would go to the bottom of the seeding.

New entrants could join at any time and get a bottom seed to start...kind of like a big pick-up game of racing. The tournament format would be the same each month and could vary per season as well. Ideally, there would be prizes for each month and then a "big" prize for the season champion.

I was also thinking we could do this with stocks too. People send in their unmodded cars but follow the same format, setup and rules. In this case, the championship prize would be every car entered during the season - so it's cumulative racing for pinks. So there would be 2 tournaments every month, one mod and one stock.

Scoring would be basic and simple, like 1 pt per win with bonuses for a bracket win. Person with the most points at the end of the year is champ.

One variant possibility is having 2 seasons per year rather than just one. Say a season lasts 4 months, 4 tournaments to decide a winner. Then a break and then the second season could have different rule set. This could offer some more variety to what would otherwise be a long season.

All in all, I think this achieves a few things. 1) I think it'd be cool to see (generally) the same cars every month but qualify based on previous success. 2) in theory it would save on shipping costs for everyone. If you're happy with your car, no need to send in a new one...and even then, you probably won't be mailing a new one every month. 3) it could save on rush building, depending how much effort you want to put into the season 4) it allows new people to jump in and get some immediate gratification with points and standings...and if the build well, they could pose a threat pretty quick.

Right now this all sounds like a decent plan that is very doable. It would not interfere with any of the other tournaments/series happening throughout the year. 

Good idea? Bad idea? Other thoughts and feedback is appreciated.


Discussion

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KandORacing 6/25/15

I like this... but why not make it a points series and have a Championship trophy at the end?


  • It is points-based. Trophy...prize...TBD. — redlinederby
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CrzyTrkrDude 6/25/15

( the info gained by running stock cars, could be stored in that fantasy league database as well, right?)

I'm liking the idea of a stockers race. 

Recently, I have come to the conclusion I just don't have the time to build to race. Only for the shelf. 

Stockers would be a cool deal for me!!

Good idea!!


  • I'm on the lookout for more, too! — FOTF
  • Same here. I'm going to try and do more stock brackets, just easier for folks. — redlinederby
  • we could actually mail in 4 or 5 cars at the same time, labeled for different months to be entered in a race. hmmmm — CrzyTrkrDude

All new entrants lose (likely) their first race to the fastest car.  I guess if there's a losers bracket they can get out of the bottom.

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redlinederby 6/26/15
Site manager

Hmmm...good thought on sending several cars in a once and prioritizing them. Puts a little more work on the host (me) to keep it all straight but a new ID form can help solve that. 

I'm not sure there would be a loser's bracket...guess it depends how many entrants there are overall. But just because someone loses in the first month's race doesn't mean they'll lose in the next month's. And I think that's part of the "game" is when do you decide to replace your car rather than let it ride and see if it gets better as the seeding changes. 

Good thoughts, guys...keep em coming.


  • idea: use the free USPS priority boxes, labeled by month. our cars should be labeled prior to mailing — CrzyTrkrDude
  • sort upon arrival, race the new cars in the new month. lock them in order, less confusion for Bryan. — CrzyTrkrDude
  • if one didn't do well one month, maybe the next month, the next car will do better. — CrzyTrkrDude
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cliffordshaw 6/27/15

I think this format may work well for stocks, but I'm not so sure about mods.  I get it that modding a new car every month is difficult, but my concern with this format is that a dominant car will become king of the hill and impossible to dislodge.  if you look over the last year of races, there's a pretty good mix of winners, which I think keeps interesting.  gotta have hope that you'll "get it this time", right?  But as you look at the individual race series, you'll see a pattern that the top one or two cars stood out fairly early and never looked back, regardless of new hosts and tracks.  Racing the same successful cars month after month could potentially become stale.  the nice thing about changing the field with every race series is that you are up against totally new competition and it is ever changing.  For instance, my Cops and Robbers champions are now getting slapped around in HWRL and my Beater Truck champion is an also ran in Truck-O-Rama.  I would vote for month by month variety, even if that means I cant make every race.  my $.02

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FOTF 6/27/15

My only objection to this is that stock cars should be raced out-of-the-package and for something other than pinkslips; what's the point of spending money on a supposedly-fast car, only to have it turn out to be a dud and be given to someone else, when you could at least have it shipped to your own house and have it be worth something (or have it do well somewhere else, which it wouldn't ever have done had it had an axle slide to the side or had a bad race)?  Otherwise, keep up the good work.  I like the monthly idea, whichever way it goes.

I don't think this race is "for keeps".  And I don't think slow cars are worth anything ;P



  • You kidding? You wouldn't believe the junk collectors will buy, ha-ha-ha. — FOTF
  • Look under RLD's "I was also thinking we could do this with stocks too." title on the first post. — FOTF
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