ACO/FIA WEC 1000 Miles (or 8 Hours) of Sebring

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by ApexTurtle

I disagree with that personally. I've been to two WEC events now and they were both great. Very professional, yet also very accesible. Lots of stuff to do for families as well. If you wouldn't mind, could you explain why you include circuit choices in that list? My biggest complaint personally is the silly geo-blocking for the app which otherwise works flawlessly.

Maybe going a bit off-topic with my post, but you did ask.

I include circuit choices because nobody has ever said "yay, my favourite series is going to my favourite track! Bahrain!". The WECs own survey put Spa and Silverstone as fan favourites and they promptly dropped Silverstone before returning with the tail between the legs and re-instating it. The dropping of the Nurburgring wasn't well received either - not only was it well attended, but all 3 manufacturers involved at the time are run out of Germany (Nissan were involved, but never ran). The move from COTA to Sebring was a huge step up and required a rethink of the Grade 1 exclusivity.

When you have such a limited calendar, wasting races on Shanghai and Bahrain isn't the best, especially when the IMSA calender is probably the best in the world. We all know why Bahrain and Shanghai are there, but it didn't make them any more popular in the surveys.

Online services are generally poor. The website is badly made and doesn't display in many browsers properly. The website stores your password as plain text (don't use a regular password for the WEC site, you'll regret it), so it's a security risk. The website crashes at Le Mans every year, and despite it being a pay service it never improves. The app is badly made and requires an update for every race, presumably because SQL Databases were too hard for the app developer. The time conversion often doesn't work correctly and is sometimes backwards, especially during DST. You rightly mention the geo-blocking but remember the mess of that announcement. When they were saying on Twitter it wasn't geo-blocked when it actually was. How they interacted with the fans in breaking that news was less than optimal. And they announced this after Americans had paid for the service, who then had to try and claim refunds. Fans were certainly bottom of the pile during that interaction!

On the plus side, the app does tend to stay working when the website dies during Le Mans. And they've finally managed to get a decent commentary team. Years of listening to the fans complaining about how bad the commentary was finally caught up. There's only so many times you can listen to Toby Moody ask Allan McNish basic questions about multi-class racing and safety cars. And they've finally got a social media presence. The WEC Guy costume thing is a bit weird, but it's a good attempt. Same with the social media cartoon explanations. They're a bit weird but it's an attempt.

Better than it used to be for sure. Still got a long way to go. The move to varied race lengths also helps the calendar. Every race cannot feel like a unique event if you make them all the same - that's going to have a bigger effect than what it seems like on the tin.