ZakStunts

Drivers in numbers

We agreed with Mingva that I'll update his article. My additions can be seen in italics. -Zak

One day in chat after short talk with Alain, I decided to view how many rookies joined to our small community. And after some time, I had nice numbers on paper. So, let's review history of ZakStunts again. From nowadays drivers, only Zak and Kalpen brothers can tell to us the impressions of the first ZakStunts race (which was held on March 2001). In next race joined Zak's current team mate Bonzai Joe, and after half season - Argammon. So, we can say "Cork's Crew" is a team of Stunts veterans :-) OK, now back to numbers: season'2001 saw 28 drivers, who could compete in 9 races. In average there were 8.6 drivers per month.

The situation dramatically changed in 2002 when 4th generation of Stunts maniacs appeared. The total of 45 drivers took a challenge: 10 remained from previous season and even 35 new joined that year! Number of drivers per race jumped to 15.5 (without CPU opponents).

In following season we had almost the same ammount of drivers (47), only joined less new faces (19). But in other way, many drivers stayed for a longer time what was good for competition level and community life, I think. Also there were a bigger competition - in average 17.7 drivers per race.

Unfortunately, in season'2004 drivers number decreased to 39. Half of them (18) joined for the first time but only two became regular. Drivers number per race decreased to 16.5 as well. The competition core was those 11 maniacs from the year 2002.

In 2005 there was a huge driver gain. Their number reached 63, with lots of new faces. Some of them stayed with us for a longer time. The average drivers per race also jumped to 22.8, and it was almost each month more, than the previous season So it was the busiest ZakStunts season ever.

Fig.1. Number of drivers per race.

Not all new drivers are staying with us for a long time. Some of them just sending only one replay. Let's view how many drivers raced on 2 or more tracks in last three years. The numbers are almost equal: 30 from 45 in 2002 (67%), 33 from 47 in 2003 (70%) and 25 from 39 in 2004 (64%). So, only 2/3 of all drivers testing at least 2 tracks. As seems from fig.2, most of drivers are not staying too long in contest. Almost 60% racing only on 1-3 tracks. Nevertheless, year by year is increasing the number of regular drivers.

In 2005 only 33 out fo the 63 racers (47%) stayed with us for more than one race. This huge decrease (it was never below 60%) is scary, but on the other hand, the number of racers who race for 2-3 tracks decreased a lot, so alltogether 55% stays with us only for a shorter time, which is almost the same as in 2003 and 2004. This means the same percentage of becomes a regular each year.�
But what about regulars? Well, their number has fallen a bit, but if we combine their number with those who race more than the half season, we get nearly the same number (but a lower percentage!) again. The biggest gain is in the group of those who stayed for 4-6 races. We should encourage these drivers to stay for a longer time and become real regulars.

Fig.2. Drivers activity.

Now let's take a look to drivers geography. In the first three seasons they came from 18 different countries, while last year wasn't such colourful. The majority of drivers are from Europe (fig.3). It's strange that game originally released in USA haven't any Stunts addicts there! As anyone can expect, many Stunts drivers live in Hungary - approximately every 5th is hungarian. The germans are also active every year. The funny thing is Alan Rotoi brought many argentinians last year :-) But if you'll watch Pro drivers (top15), you'll find only 2 or 3 non-Europeans.

In 2005 the nation diversity became more varied again. Racers joined from 19 countries, including 5, where from no racer joined before. Hungary is still the most active country with 17 racers, but Argentina is catching up fast (12 drivers), together with the Brazilians doubling the number of drivers from South-America, giving now one.third of the drivers. Also they increased a lot in performance too, there were 6 South-American drivers in the top15, which is a great improvement compared to the three top drivers last year.