Don: you're absolutely right. In our book, every 8W competitor is a winner.
Considering the fact we've had approx. 20,000 hits since starting the game in May '98 there is only a very small percentage daring to compete. Most visitors are playing the game privately. That's OK with us since 8W is strictly an amateur effort. The formost reason for us extending the new game until late January is us wanting to relax during the Christmas break!
BTW, what would a Jack Brabham Trophy look like? ;-)
Marcel: you did a sterling job and I'm sure you'll be in the middle of things with the Millennium game. After all, people, Marcel was one of the first on the 8W podium back in 1998...
On writing those extended Why's: the reason we created the Trintignant Trophy and McLaren Cup is just because of that. Not every one has the time or motivation to go and write ten stories. Just six of them would save you some time. Furthermore, they don't have to be Capps size, i.e. two to five times bigger than needed to score the full three points!
I'd like to point out that we generally have the Why answers split up into six half points with a few of those given for directly race-connected information (the obvious stuff, such as first pole, last win, debut appearance, etc.) and some for some interesting details on for instance the car, the driver's career or the constructor history, or even the track, and also the links between the several pictures (like the Straight/Seaman/Maserati connection). The picture will dictate what is most important, i.e. the Reutemann picture was primarily interesting for the debut pole story, while the Crossley/Kelly story would center around the Alta marque and its history as a constructor and engine supplier. Most of the times it's fairly obvious.
So there is no need to try and cover all possible aspects of a picture (as some players do, as a way of "being sure" of those three points!). The actual story of the picture plus some interesting details, presented in a fun-to-read way, are enough to get you those three points. For example, Hans Swart, who received the Why of the Month award for the Cogan pic, didn't much elaborate on Cogan's Indy career or his huge Indy smash (which combined would have been a certain point) but instead told us something about the ill-fated Ligier-Curb project, which no one else did. Coming up with such a detail we ourselves overlooked will also dig us out those points. So there you have it...
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