I was scooting around Bathurst last night and nobody was around. No big deal, but I started getting bored and a little frustrated about my own setups ending up with a lot of busted up cars.

I jumped on ARCA and couldn't find any servers I wanted to run on. The sim is still pretty new so there are a lot of empty servers...and the open servers with people had either started a race or were already in quals. No good for me since I need some practice at a track I haven't run.

So I go back to rFactor and look at the servers with some people in them. Oh! Found a server running Meganes...cool! I hopped in and there were about 30 people running Meganes at Sardian Heights. Could get tricky but I've run here enough I think I'll do okay. Qual'd 11th and was driven into at the start by the car behind me to promptly put me at the back of the field. Only being a 20 lap sprint I knew I had some work to do. Worked my way up through the slower cars and wrecked cars to about 12th where I finished. Not so bad I guess but I was fighting my way the whole time.

Next race was at Mills. Qual'd about the same and after three restarts I was run off the track again and ended up at the rear. Started working my way back up but there were some real unfriendly types who would rather put you into a wall than allow you to pass. I still made it around a few of them and was doing okay until another guy came crashing into me at a corner and put me back to the rear. By now I'd had just about enough and exited. Not sure if some of these guys just didn't know how to drive the quick little Megane or if they just didn't like being passed, or were trying their hardest to either win or get up front from the rear.

To be fair, a lot of the other drivers were also complaining about a handful of the crappy ones. I think I had raced this server before and it was good racing. Just not last night.

Back in the old Papy NASCAR days I'd hopped in a server or two with people like this, but hadn't experienced anything like this for quite a few years now. I've run on open servers with rFactor and normally everyone is pretty decent and aren't trying to wreck you. Last night was just no fun at all...and I'm glad to be able to run here at SimHQ and a couple other servers that don't take crap like that.

Just felt like venting. All better now.

Well said, Weasel. My initial on-line racing adventures were with Grand Prix Legends on the VROC servers. I never had a bad time there, and folks usually raced clean. But that was in the days of dial-up and it wasn't the greatest racing experience from that perspective.

My next foray into sim-racing was with NR2003. Not being part of a league, I had to opt for open races. Man, talk about hit or miss (literally). Some races included very saavy types who raced very well. Other races, especially at the super-speedways (Daytona & 'Dega) usually were un-raceable due to intentional wreckers spoiling everyone's fun. I also ran into a fair share of cheaters, who would turn 300 mph laps until they were booted.

Next was GTR, where I experienced much of what you describe in your post above. Lots of wreckers, lots of newbies who try to take the lead in turn 1 and then wreck most of the field. Others would spin, then quit the race because they knew they could not win so would not even try. I had many a race I won only because the other 12 drivers all quit out. No fun in that...

So, I share your frustration with open on-line races. And that is why racing here at SimHQ is so special.

In the beginning it was just me, guod, tpmxyz007, and Spool. We had a great time just turning laps and talking about racing, setups, techniques, etc. Soon we had 20mm with us, and a few others popping in and out of our race sessions. Good stuff. Over time I think two things evolved: 1) An established atmosphere centered on hobby enjoyment and comraderie, and 2) the established atmosphere attracted like-minded sim-racers that we share the server with today. If you stop to think about it, we really have something special, perhaps rarely repeated in the racing leagues out there. And having tasted it, it's hard to want to go elsewhere.

I am glad to be a part of SimHQ Motorsports and share my hobby with so many like-minded folk.