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 JimFMRacer |
Forum Administration Discussion |
Lead | |
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Posts: 1267 (02/23/00 15:52:44) |
Hi, this is the first of what I hope are many discussion threads about Formula Mazda racing and the car. My desire is to see many drivers, owners, dealers, observers and the factory interact to promote the class, encourage clean racing and share information for the betterment of the class and the sport.
Let me know your thoughts and opinions by contacting me at jimfmracer@aol.com |
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Todd TCE |
FM | ||
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Posts: 852 (02/25/00 20:46:46) |
Well, it was only a matter of time. I thought about it myself. I am here- who am I?
Todd Cook: Star Series Director of Competition. Fancy title for Tech Dude (per Suzi) Yes, I am the one who has started the ball rolling on the recent Star Series rules changes and take full resposability/blame. I would like to know who the Web Master is- rather than just JimFMRacer. The use of full names only will add to the creditbility of the site. Please ask all to do the same. This site should also be linked to the Star site. Todd |
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Unregistered(d) |
FM | ||
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Posts: 0 (02/27/00 07:13:26) |
Glad to see this get started! Hope it will pick up some momentum ....
Bill Haney Potomac, Maryland '99 FM |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: FM Forum | ||
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Posts: 1267 (02/27/00 08:51:28) |
Hi Todd
Welcome aboard. We hope you can add insight from your perspective as series administrator. My name is Jim Nichols. I live in Connecticut. I am just the driver/owner and have no hidden agenda with this forum. I just recently started racing a 1995 Formula Mazda which I purchased from Jim Hall II in California. I will be racing in the Northeast National and new STAR Mazda FM series. I hope by starting this forum we can help promote the car and series to get more drivers involved. |
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Todd TCE |
Getting to know you | ||
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Posts: 852 (02/27/00 09:02:44) |
Hi Jim;
Glad to know who you are. I know the car you bought as it was run here on the West Coast and I had a local driver interested in it also. For the record; I am a former participant in FM (back when it was still Formula Russell) and worked for Russell for five years on these cars; have a prep shop in Phoenix with two FM customers; do mostly FF work and fab projects; and I am not a full time employee of VMC or Star aside from being hired to perform tech duties on a weekend basis. This is too help the competitors be comfortable in knowing they are dealing with a private party rather than the Factory as their decission makers. I think if you ask around you will find me to be a fair person to deal with and quite honest about my information. I will never share specific information about another teams car of setup etc, but will try to point you in the right direction if you need help. I can be reached via phone at the shop anytime at: 480-967-7901 Thanks for starting the forum, now we just need to get the word out. Todd |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Getting Word Out About the Forum | ||
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Posts: 1267 (02/27/00 15:22:29) |
I am planning a major web emailing and web search engine notification very soon once I fully understand some of the issues with modifying and using the ezboard tools.
Please, Everyone can help get the word out so the forum will beocome an active support and information tool for all of us. |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Forum Main Topics | ||
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Posts: 1267 (02/27/00 15:30:04) |
I had some questions about why so many main forum topics. My reasoning was to help separate the top level categories instead of having them all mixed together. Maybe it is my engineering sense of logic or whatever. I felt there is enough difference between SCCA and STAR racing to warrant the category separations. I guess where you race and in what series can make a difference as to what rules and issues are important to you. I can group them differently now while the forum is getting going but it will be a major task later on.
Any thoughts? |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Forum Administration Discussion | ||
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Posts: 1267 (03/05/00 03:03:55) |
I have deleted the STAR RACE SERIES Topic area which was not recieving any new postings. I moved the announcement of the new Northeastern Series to the Star Rules topic area. My thinking is that any Race Series issues can be addressed by the current groupings.
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Forum Topic Restructure | ||
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Posts: 1267 (03/07/00 07:38:40) |
I have combined a couple of the forum topics into the present structure. Simplifying the structure should make access to the topics faster. Hope you like it.
Keep those questions, answers and race reviews coming. We have something going here. BE SURE TO SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT THE FORUM TO ALL FM RACERS. |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Race Results and Stories | ||
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Posts: 1267 (05/04/00 10:08:08) |
I am interested in knowing how FM Forum members feel about a new Main Topic called: "Race Results and Stories" or something like that.
I had asked the web administrator of the Starmazda.com website about posting results other than the Western Series and they replied fine BUT there would have to be a charge to update the website. At the least I think Valley Motors should pick this up(at my suggestion at least they listed all the Series race dates in the Schedule Page) My reason for this topic is that I feel that the West Coast racers and the PRO Star Mazda series gets great coverage but the rest of us are left as unknowns. I do not think this is fair and does not contribute to getting more new FMers across the country when many think all the action is on the West Coast. How untrue as evidenced by the January National races at Sebring and Moroso. Hey, we all bust our butts not to mention our wallets to make a race weekend and I think some reporting about our weekend results/efforts are in order. This type of coverage should at least include all the STAR Series from across the country and could even extend to non-Star National & Regional races. Each Series Administrator should want to promote their Series to entice others to come on out and join. What better way than to read about the wheel to wheel action in their race series. Lets get to know some names of the new drivers leading the FM charge across the country. This might even encourage a few FC racers to convert and join a money paying series when they read about our Series. I hope I have not really stirred up a can of worms here but fair is fair. To help create a sense of national community amoung FM racers and get new FM racers East of the Great Divide, I think this would be beneficial to all and this Forum may be the best place to get the news out quickly to all interested parties. Any closet race reporters can now step forward and be heard. |
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Todd TCE |
Participation | ||
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Posts: 852 (05/04/00 20:47:02) |
Jim;
In some ways I agree with you completely, but I have to tell you that the participation of drivers from the East, South and Midwest on weekends hosted (read paid for at great cost) by the Star Series, simply put: sucks. Now in my fourth year of helping the Series with tech, I have yet to see a real decent turn out of cars at events the West comes over to participate in. We have staged races at Atlanta, Watkins Glen, IRP, Hartland Park and Sebring with few local drivers showing their support. Sure, I have heard all the rumors of 'the cheaters' etc, but truth is many of these young kids are just damn good drivers and do more testing than many drivers do in a season of racing. I can tell you first hand that Gary will continue to support the whole US as a matter of commitment to Mazda. However with the continued poor turn out at many of these events it becomes harder to justify. It has seemed there was always an excuse as to why the turn out was lower than expected from conflicting races to travel time to administrative differences and more. But, you guys are the drivers here and if you don't support what is being offered how can you complain? I continue to be baffled by this and can tell you that some of the rules changes I put together were to try and promote more participation by the smaller teams who seemed to think they were missing something. My posts on maintenance show my continued interest in getting you guys on track to race with the rest of us. Most of the recognition of the Western Series competitors is well founded when you look at the big picture. I am not saying that other parts of the country cannot field a good car, only that if you fail to enter how will you ever know? Can I count on seeing a healthy turn out of 20 plus local cars at Mosport or Atlanta?? |
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Seattime |
Race results | ||
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Posts: 96 (05/04/00 22:31:09) |
As webmaster for the Starmazda.com I have included all information that has been provided to me from the series and as such I have listed race schedules for all the regions since we took over the site at the beginning of last year. I have also updated the schedules when notified of changes by the series administrators such as the recently revised schedule for the North Eastern Division.
I have updated the results for the Best Western and Western Series since this time as well. Admittedly, it is easier for me to post these results as I attend all the races while working for one of the teams competing in both of these series. At these events, Star Race cars, as administrators of these series, has a person in charge of press releases, provides me with the results and the images from the event and has agreed to compensate me for the time it takes to update the site with the information they provide. My e-mail response to your request asked you to have the series administrator from your region contact me, and that I would speak with Mark Rodrigues as well, so we can figure out a way to get the information from the different regions and that I, as webmaster for the site, would receive payment for the time spent updating these results. Now if that means having the series administrators for each region make arrangements with Star Race Cars to pay for the updates, so be it, however the administrators still need to contact me so we can figure out the method of getting the results and race stories to me, unless they want to fly me out to all the events (I could use the frequent flier miles!) I appreciate all that you have done on this forum, and it has been good watching more people post and get involved, I hope the link I have provided has helped in that regard. I hope you understand that I am willing to update the information for all the regions on the website, provided that it comes from a source authorized by the series administrators to ensure the accuracy of that information, and that there is an agreed upon payment schedule in place, which, you must agree, is only fair. |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Race Reports | ||
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Posts: 1267 (05/05/00 06:37:44) |
Hi Eric
I too appreciate your enhancing the Starmazda.com site with the link and race schedules. I do think it has helped as we are getting over 50 plus page views a day. I really don't have a preference if race reports are posted here or at your site(maybe both). I think it would be great to have an "official" report and local racers giving their own account of the race. My point is that more awareness of what is going on in the rest of the country needs to be published. I hope the Series Administrators view this reporting as integral to the success of their series and owe it to the racers involved. Thanks |
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Seattime |
Results | ||
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Posts: 96 (05/05/00 07:17:07) |
Jim,
I agree that having the results from all regions would only enhance the site. I believe this site would be the proper place for personal race reports and that the series administrators should post the official results through starmazda.com. I would be leary of posting information from other sources on the official site, as we have seen a couple of wild posts (thankfully few) here regarding aspects of the series, and I would not want to legitimize those posts on starmazda.com. Hopefully action already underway will help get the results we both desire, no pun intended, and the official results from all the regions will start making their way to me. Eric McCombs |
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JimFMRacer |
User Administration | ||
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Posts: 1267 (11/01/00 12:14:43) |
In an effort to get people to become Registered users and for existing users to contribute more regularly, I have implemented an ezboard feature which assigns a name under your User Name on a message based on how many posts you have made.
Example: Unregistered user will earn the label of "WANKER". Your first posting will earn you the title of "Regional FM Racer". The progression goes all the way up to "F-1 World Champion". If you have posted before , on your next posting your new Title will appear. Check out mine here. Hope this helps to stimulate the conversation and keeps things interesting. Let us know what you think or if you have any interesting Titles to suggest. Remember to keep it clean.  |
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JimFMRacer |
Using ezboard "Emoticons" | ||
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Posts: 1267 (11/01/00 12:21:44) |
You may have noticed at the end of my last post that there is a happy laughing face. This is called an "Emoticon". There is a complete listing of these when you select Help and How to Post a Reply.
Have fun |
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JimFMRacer |
Using Posticons | ||
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Posts: 1267 (11/01/00 12:35:05) |
I have also enabled some other features to the Forum. Notice above the Lightbulb Posticon Symbol. When ever you write a Reply to a Post you will have a menue bar to select these to show what the Post is about.
Hope you like them. |
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JimFMRacer |
Rate The Topic | ||
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Posts: 1267 (11/01/00 12:42:37) |
I have enabled the ability to rate the Topic you view. It is at the bottom right of the topic page. Just select the number of stars to give a topic.
Hope you like it. |
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JimFMRacer |
Polling Feature | ||
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Posts: 1267 (11/01/00 12:55:42) |
I have enabled the new Polling Feature. In any Main Topic Area you can create a Poll to find out what everyone thinks about a certain subject.
I suggest that many of our key topics could have a Poll and hope that Valley Motors reviews the results to help us keep FM racing the way we want it. Please tryout the new FM Forum Poll to voice your opinion. Please don't go crasy and make ever Topic into a Poll. :lol |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Forum Administration Discussion-News Feature | ||
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Posts: 1267 (11/16/00 08:36:57) |
Ezboard.com has added a EZNews feature which I have implementedat the top of the opening page to the Forum. Obviously I choseMotorsports news.
Hope you like the new feature. |
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JimFMRacer |
Re: Forum Administration Discussion | ||
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Posts: 1267 (06/18/01 16:51:14) |
FYI
Since 6/13/00 Page views: 48,608 Message Posts: 1,081 Guess there is some interest in FM racing out there. LOL |
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