The ABL is a championship of friendly car-building amateurs that welcome any new entrant. The idea behind this challenge is just this: simplicity. It’s a very flexible but uncomplicated league that allows for creative thinking but also allows a beginner to stretch their limbs and gain experience designing competitive cars. In the end, we’re all in it to have fun. This challenge is a tribute to the hopefully temporarily fallen ATC.
Here are the rules that will always be the same across almost all years of the ABL:
There will be a penalty for winners to handicap new/inexperienced players through a time penalty or a certain construction requirement, it is still under contention whether it should be instead a cost, engine, weight or tyre size penalty. We have now also started a half-intensity penalty for the winners of the past two rounds.
There may be a severe disadvantage to using new and complicated technologies like DOHC. For this, there will be maximum capacities depending on the type of valvetrain chosen.
The body cannot be more than 10 years older than the year in which this race takes place
There will be a maximum tyre width
Maximum cost ceiling
Minimum safety rating
Minimum average reliability figure will be required
Minimum cooling for engine required
No aero components will ever be allowed
And remember to keep cars realistic: use head- and taillights and door handles. Exhausts too. Engine clipping should not be visible.
Please don’t use Barth bodies.
Here’s a few things never to forget, should be common netiquette:
Don’t send viruses or any unnecessary crap to the racemaster or host.
lua mods are not accepted.
We prefer open beta
###Who does what? Racemaster: @FrankNSTein is pretty much the brains of the operation. He recieves the entries and scrutinizes them. The racemaster also sends cars around the tracks chosen and records times. He announces winners and handles issues. Writer and secondary racemaster: @Nomade0013
Temporary Challenge Host: me, @ramthecowy
I pretty much keep the challenge running, and help the racemaster answer questions and handle issues. Together with the racemaster we listen to the community to decide on rules and regulations. It’s my job to verify the racemaster and all participants behave appropriately and create a safe and positive environment. Advisor: @Darkshine5 he will be providing me, Nomade0013 and FrankNSteinwith tips and information on how to keep a challenge running smoothly with his experience of running two of the most popular challenges of Automation history.
###Scoring system
For now, there will be a simplified scoring system in place where the top fifteen get points, where the amount decreases by one every position down:
1st place - 15p
2nd place - 14p
3rd place - 13p
…
…
…
14th place - 2p
15th place - 1p
16th place - 0p
This scoring mechanism is very basic and may be changed in the future, however, any changes won’t be made until the first season of the 80’s
###Round 1: 1970/1971
I could imagine balance of performance(experience) system. Like if you won the first Year you s get somekind of a 1s penalty the second a 0.8 and so on. Or you had to biuld a complete new car with other engine. So something like the jericho had to improve alot over the years, or had to be replaced
I liked @AirJordan idea, think it should be worked a little more, but it is interisting. Maybe we could took the 5 bests and put to a above category, or something like that at the first round, then every round 2 guys go up and 2 that are at the above category go down. So we would have two categories.
Or this time penalty system, both are interesting.
I think we should definitely do something like banning really advanced tech like DOHC until we reach an era where it becomes more prevalent. DOHC in the 70’s is a little overkill.
Alpha Romeo used Dohc in the early 70s if i make no mistake. So i think it is not to uncommon in this period of time. But they used it on smal engines. So i think DOHC should have a size limit like 2-2.5L. OHC a max of 4L OHC 4,5L and push-rod without limit.
That’s true. At the 60’s DOHC was crazy, but to the 70’s this rule sounds fair.
What else do you guys think? I think there should have a weight limit and, maybe, a budge limit, since is a begginers league.
I know I’m not a beginner but I find this track time challenges amusing so…I thing two leagues would be a mess and wouldn’t put competitors closer together. Banning people from competition maybe really is not the right way… Penalties sounds better in my opinion, maybe similar to how WTCC does it, with weight. So if we keep the lowest weight, the first 2 get 10%, 5% increase.
If we set a specific safety rating the minimum weight could be different, but i think with the different engine sizes and the needed engine bay volumes (needed bigger bodys). I think it could be balanced.
And i really would like to see smal DOHC engines against big push-rod engines.
So i just build two cars. The First a 10L V8 Push rod Americans style car. It needed basic safety to get to a rating of 30. The smal british coupe with a 2.5L I6 DoHC engine needed advanced safety fo a 30 rating. Both cars are pretty simialr biuld. The big American was at about 15000 the small one was at 11000. But as you can see the lap times matched really nice.
I don’t think that is a very valid point there. You have 2 different chassis with different cd, weight, weight distribution, tyre size…and there is suspension tuning that can affect seconds… so actually levelling pushrods to DOHC migh prove a bit more complex.
Maybe at least try that on same body for start
Maxmimum Engine size:
DOHC 2.5L (only inline engines (so only 2cam would be needed, a v would need 4)
OHC 4.5L
Direct OHC 5.0L
push-rod without limitation.
The reability should be over 50
the safetyrating over 30
Maximum cost 20000 at 0%
psst, don’t multiple post. Just use a line break to signal an end to what you’re talking about and then use tags to address specific people like this @personyouwanttottag
I think penalties could be given not only on weight, but on total cost, engine or tyre size. WTCC, BTCC and all others use weight because it’s very simple to measure and to change, where as measuring the money spend and engine capacity is impractical, if not impossible, in a racing situation, as for tyres, irl there would be logistical issues. But automation has none of that, so there are 4 possible, effective penalties that can be given.
I think they easyest way would be weight or time. because every car could use need a other tyre size. And if you say you have to become some kg heavier you just could use a radio or other seats, so the weight would be placed kinda central
And i run another car with 3 different engines. Same Tire size …
Again a 10L v8 push rod
a 4.5 ohc 32v
a 24v i6 2.5L
Brakes Tires are same, cooling and gearing was tuned. Suspension set to sport new per car.
is pretty much the brains of the operation. He recieves the entries and scrutinizes them. The racemaster also sends cars around the tracks chosen and records times. He announces winners and handles issues.
