Racing is fun until...
Racing is fun until somebody has the fastest cars. I go to the So Cal Originals meetings but they are far and few between nowadays. One of the things I realized that if somebody has the fastest racer, then what's the point in paying a buck to enter a race when you have a very slim chance at winning?
People can only keep buying and trying so many new racers before they decide that it isn't worth it. New members or those who infrequently participate don't have a chance.
My favorite race were/are the 'theme' races. This way, nobody would have a ringer ready to go. The category could be a model ('57 chevy), color (green), or even a general theme (military).
I noticed that you recently had a poll and members picked who they thought would win the race. Now this is more interesting because nobody can run away with the points just because they locked up the fastest racers.
I play poker and occasionally buy lottery tickets but that's the extent of my gambling. From my limited knowledge of horse racing, it would seem to be the best way for people to participate. It would be fun to try to pick who would win in certain matchups. Visitors could use the Stats and make fairly knowlegeable picks and they have a chance. Anybody who comes in now will find out that the best cars are probably locked up in a garage.
I assume that this Fantasy League is a program that was available and you adapted it for diecast. I applaud you because it fun and interesting to me! But if you're going to do a long season, the winning crowd thins out quickly.
The weekly matchups are also time consuming for you. I doubt that I will be doing any changes to my garage because my internet time is very limited right now. I wouldn't mind a once or twice a month, quarterly season. We pick cars for our garage for the quarter and people can still use the trading option. With a shorter season though, you may need four categories to increase the ability to create point differentials. They don't even need to be categorized. Just have exclusive models to each bracket.
After the quarter/season, if there were any dominant racers, they should be retired. To be honest, unless they are retired, I would not continue participating as explained above.
I would gladly donate racers if you adopted these suggestions. I would not send any ringers because the fun and challenging part is to pick the ones that are competitive and make for close races.
1. Short seasons (3-6 races, quarterly)
2. Dominant racers are retired.
Thanks and have fun!
Discussion
Wow! Very nice! I didn't know you custom built the game 
I didn't know you were doing a 10-race season. For some reason, I thought that it was going to be longer. It's not too bad but we agree, shorter may be better.
As for the number of races that you have to do, I am well aware of the amount of work that it takes. Thanks!
With you having the web developing background, the website/races can only get better!
Hmmm... It's good to know somebody who has web developement skills. I'm working on a new project as I type. I didn't realize that it took me over an hour for the last pics and posts. I was supposed to be working on my project! No, it's not a website but I do birthday parties for kids so I will need another website soon.
Brian has put a ton of work into this fantasy game, and this first season will work great as a what to keep and what to toss experiment. I have to agree that it can't be just about who has the fastest cars because it spreads the pack too far apart. Ideally it would be awesome to have a bunch of racers competing for the top spots without one or two teams leaving everyone else behind. It looks as though v2 will be far more competitive and a truck load of fun.
Thanks once again Brian for sharing your love of Hot Wheels with us in this way!!!
PS: let me know if you're interested in any of the FTEs I showed you. I'd love to donate them to the league.
I race each month at the local mall and it's funny how fast even the youngest of kids can pick up on the fastest cars as well as the fastest lane. So I've had to change my routine accordingly.
I bought 10 plastic school pencil boxes which holds 8 cars each. After each race I switch to a different set of cars. I try to select cars that are evenly matched as much as possible.
I have 4 poker chips numbered from 1 to 4. I am also running a 4 lane track. The chips are face down so they can't see the number. I shuffle the chips and each kid picks a chip. #1 chip gets first choice of the 8 cars and also gets lane 1. #2 chip gets second pick and lane 2 etc. A fair system on who gets to pick first and what lane that end up in.
But you are right the themed cars are the most fun to race. Right now I have:
Soda cars - coke, pepsi, dr. pepper, sunkist, sprite, mountain dew, 7-up
Candy Cars - Hershey, M&M's, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger
Marvel Heros - Superman, Batman, SpiderMan, Hulk
Police Cars - Whole bunch of them
Rescue Vechicles - Fire trucks, ambulances, etc
67 Cameros
Pick-up Trucks
Monster Cars - Mummy, Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman
Funny Car
2009 FTE
2010 FTE
The list is ever changing and its fun for me to track down the different cars to keep the kids guessing. Right now I need another Marvel Hero to add to the mix. The JL Spiderman is too fast and needs some competition.
Wendell
Thanks for the post, Mark, that's some great insight.
Everything pointed out is absolutely true and many of them will be addressed with Fantasy League 2.0 later this summer. If it works out and plays like I hope, v2 will offer a little something for everyone. The bulk of the "action" will be picking winners in the bracket...and since they will be brackets, there will absolutely be themed races. I have plans on making several themes to cycle through, so having the ringer cars will be less of an issue from race to race.
The length of a season is up for debate. I pulled 10 weeks out of a hat for this first season of the league and given the format, it is a little long. Maybe it's just because I'm the one shooting 120 cars down the track every week, but it's kind of dragging at this point. I think I may drop it down to a 6 or 8 week season as you suggest. It will keep things interesting for everyone, including myself!
I'm also hoping that shifting the gameplay to more of a lottery model where it's more about your winning picks and less about the cars in your garage will pan out. I think the idea of taking your winnings from brackets and using it to buy cars that will increase your odds in the lottery is a good one. I hope others find it fun too.
It makes me happy to see that a lot of your comments line up with what I have planned for the next version of the game. With any luck, the next version will be in place for a longer period time. I think v2 is more open and should allow for more players to get involved. It should be a little more fast-paced. This first season was a great experiment that so far has worked out pretty well...it's done its job of being fun while showing what works and what doesn't.
Also, I wrote the Fantasy League "program" from scratch Custom designed and built. I'm a web developer by trade so finding a fun way to combine my skills with my Hot Wheels hobby has been awesome.
Thanks again for all the thoughts. They'll definitely help make the Fantasy League even better.