GT5-GRM Racing League

yeah I think the downside (or fun factor) of Tokyo is that the track is fairly fast, has no runoff, and I always think I can go faster than I really can through some of the corners. Also, I can't give a practice lap time because i don't have time to practice until the 2 hours before the race. This school thing really cramps my videogaming life!

I'm gonna be running a practice session in my lounge thingy until the real room opens up. You can join me if you want (and are my psn friend! if you aren't, just send a request and i'll accept it)

I may try to find you. I will be running on very little practice, although, thankfully I am pretty familiar with the course.

I will open the room in 30ish minutes. Finishing dinner currently.

Room is up at....

1472-6681-3716-3557-4705

that was fun as always! GRM started pretty exciting with me and apexcarver swapping places a few times. part of the way through the 2nd lap he tried blocking me and for some reason the game ghosted him. Maybe he would've hit me? I guess we'll never know. either way it was fun. I reverted my engine mods to the previous set up with less mid range torque and hp peak a bit higher in the rev range, as it seemed to help me out on this course (at Fuji the torque was nice out of the corners, but I couldn't keep up on the straight even in a draft). I also got an oil change before this race so I didn't end the race with a 330hp car lol

For CM i set up my mustang purely for that kink on the straight, and I still never made it through without lifting! I did try on the end of the last lap and, well, i'll just say it didn't go so well...

Interesting racing tonight. I won't be able to post any pics until Friday, I am off to DC for business in the morning.

Final round is Suzuka... Anyone done the championship standings taking drops into consideration?

have fun in DC! i'll miss your pictures! Unfortunately I only saved the 2nd replay.

GRM race

I screwed the pooch on my launch, but was still able to be in a position to fight Aircooled in the yellow RX7 for the lead. At the 180 before the main straight on lap one I missed my braking point completely and damaged the front passenger side of my car. The damage dealt me a steering pull and some funny tendancies under braking. I knew I had to face a decision, pit for repairs and keep my pace, or limp it until halfway counting on Refledt (chimp) having to pit. Knowing that my tires would never last I decided to hold out until I thought I could make race distance to pit for tires/repairs. After making the decision to hold it with the damaged car, I did my best to put on a good race vs Refledt (chimp) to hold him until I pitted thinking that it might give me a shot at taking him back after pitting. Hence the blocking maneuver (lets face it, a blocking strategy is a viable strategy which while not the most honorable, is common practice in professional series in this type of circumstance). All I can say to that is DAMN GHOSTING! I think that is acceptable racecraft (versus ramming which would not be). Long story of the rest of the race short, I pitted about lap 6-7 and couldnt get my pace to where I needed it. I did notice that he pitted late in the race and after pitting he had opened up about a 15-16 second gap. I had not had the opportunity to practice since mid last week where I was lapping in the 1'56"--1'58"s range, but owing to lack of practice to keep myself sharp and fatigue from being in classes from 11am-8:40pm I could not consistently do much better then 2'00"s which was not nearly fast enough to really threaten Rufledt in the latter part of the race.

CM race

I have discovered something hateworthy.. you can adjust the braking on the car via a knob on the steering wheel I am using. When the race is starting the settings revert to natural from what you had adjusted to. Instead of 1f 0r I had 5f 5r and worked the brakes into T1 expecting the other settings. Locked it up, completely sideways, and by the grace of whatever deity of choice didnt smack the wall. If I had been able to practice for the race and been a bit fresher I probably could have threatened Rufledt, but as it was I ended up having to just focus on staying under control instead of speed here and there. I think the Vette might have the performance to down the mustang, but I failed the car. Rufledt was able to slowly build a gap on me that I was unable to diminish.

A good race by all! hopefully I will get the chance to practice up for next week and not be so worn out for the race.

after thinking about it, I would like to propose that for the next series we have a spec class. Much of the performance gap for some of the racers is car choice related and it would be nice if one of the events were isolated from that. Perhaps as well from the tuning aspect. Stock Miatas perhaps?

Yeah I did pit about lap 10 in the GRM race. I didn't really have to, but I figured my gap was big enough that I could get fresh tires without much risk to my position. I generally drive in tire save mode instead of i-wanna-go-fast mode, but fresh rubber never hurt anyone I have also felt weird brake sensitivity things like you mention. I think it's because of my wheel/pedal set up. Sometimes it decides to no longer be calibrated, and when I push the pedal halfway, it give me full brakes. It's kinda annoying, but it goes away.

I was also thinking of suggesting a spec class for next season, too. a class like "stock miatas" is difficult to enforce, but the same miata with a power limit would be possible.

Also, as far as 'acceptible racecraft' goes, i try to stay out of people's way. I agree in pro racing blocking is totally acceptible, I just choose not to do it in videogames.

I was hoping to run the GRM race in tire conservation mode as the Type R is really easy to drive around Tokyo, but idiot me I slid wide into a wall just a few laps in, and the tap fouled the front. Got to the halfway point before pitting for tires and repair, gave up 2nd spot in the process, but I don't think I could have held off a faster car in damaged state.

The Lancia was tailhappy and spinny but fun at Fuji; in Tokyo it was just horrible. No room to correct on something that likes to swap ends so eagerly, it just kept getting busted up. After the second pit stop for repairs I just drove it into the ground, using walls to turn.

Tom was kind enough to lend me his wheel, but I didn't have a chance to set it up in any meaningful way before last night. Hopefully this weekend I can engineer a solid mount and have some actual control before the last race. For the Lancia, gonna try dialing in as much toe-in at the rear as it will allow, or something...

Apex, so that is why you went wildly sliding past me into the first turn! I was thinking "what the hell is he doing"? I looked wildly aggressive and I was sure you smacked the wall good (there was a huge cloud of smoke).

I think it was you I hit in the first corner a few laps in. I was trying to catch a draft off of you and chimp but could not. Apparently I got a little draft right near the end of the straight which shot me past the braking point was faster then I expected, I didn't want to rear end you so I cut inside, I don't think I messed you up much.

That course has an interesting rhythm to it that can be very rewarding when you are on it. When you get off, it can be quite terrifying.

That damn kink in the straight was a killer in CM. Did they HAVE to put a bump right before it! As chimp noted online, I had to do a slight lift to get through it. A few laps in I tried not lifting and ended up in the wall (and the pits). Didn't hurt my position though, the leaders where way in front and the magic spinning doorstop and Brad were keeping the rear in order (and the walls well inspected apparently).

I agree with Apex that it would be fun to do a spec series. I choose the Camaro in CM mostly because it's such a nice looking car, but apparently it is down about 200 hp from the 2nd gen mustangs (not sure why, what? no one has ever made good power out of a 350!!). I think an original IROC series would be great, but there are no lower HP rear drive Porsches in the game (I hear they may add them though when a competing licensing agreement ends).

Anyway, fun times. Not sure if I am looking forward to Suzuki. I have never really liked that track for some reason. That high speed kink and chicane will be fun times in CM.

I am really starting to get a feel for the car (in GRM at least). With the rear set up loose and very gentile throttle and brake control I can get the car to oversteer slightly on turn in with the brakes and oversteer slight on exit with power (I am a great admirer of oversteer). Like I said, you have to be very easy on the peddles, and having the brakes turned down helps a lot. Getting distracted is very bad!

Yeah, that T1 slide worked out by the skin of my teeth! I dont think I could do that on purpose if I tried, it must look awesome on replay though...

I thought I was getting a good feeling for my s2k in GRM, then we came to Tokyo. I have no idea what was going on, anytime I would touch the brake pedal the car would snake side to side even with zero wheel input. This behavior resulted in many end swapping incidents and 4 visits with my put crew. It was awful. I felt bad about taking space up in the race track.

Oddly my Mustang drove pretty good. It wasn't fast but it was stable. The biggest compliant was huge understeer that I wasn't able to correct with ar bars. Yes, I did just complain about understeer in a CM car! I wasn't fast enoungh to run up front but only fell a lap down to chimp on the last lap. Ran consistent 24s all race and only tapped the wall like 2 times without damage.

I am up for a spec series. Miatas aren't my favorite car but are GRM popular. So we can run those and the SBC. I'll spend some time the next couple days putting together the rules and schedule. We'll start a new thread to avoid confusion between the leagues.

BradLTL wrote: . I'll spend some time the next couple days putting together the rules and schedule. We'll start a new thread to avoid confusion between the leagues.

Is it possible for events to be Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays?

(I get out of class at 8:30-40pm. drive 15 min home to catch the race and get up at 7am for an 8am electronics and instrumentation class)

Apexcarver wrote: Is it possible for events to be Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays?

+1 Wednesdays wold work better for me, too. Taekwondo classes Tues & Thurs until 8CST & Mrs RMD is at guitar lessons on Wed nights.

Anyone object to Wednesday? Doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

yeah I actually like wednesday better, too, though with the thesis thing starting to heat up I may have to take next season off (or just be an occasional interloper ).

I am going to have to start playing this in a few weeks... I am going to the six day week schedule (like the one in the xkcd comic) because I will be working 6pm-6am sat, sun, and mon nights....

wednesdays will be wholly free! :)

Any objections to moving the league to Wednesday's starting this week?

I think I can swing wednesdays for the near future at least.

Wednesday will work for me. Keeping the races to a total of two hours is also highly preferred.

So it's wednesday then?

Btw still waiting on some awesome pics of the last race! If I get some time i might try to get some from the CM race but I didn't save the GRM race replay (dang!)

Yes Wednesday.

I haven't been able to get any pics yet... Baby boy had his first week at daycare and brought home his first case of the crud. he is finally starting to feel better tonight.

Maybe tomorrow?

I did a couple practice laps waiting for a pizza to cook and here's what I got: 2:28's for the 14,680 monkeypower mustang (adjusted to motoiq's redefined monkeypower equation) and some 2:20's for the 6980mp RX7. I only got in about 5 laps with each on the settings I used for Tokyo. I could probobly nock quite a bit off of those if i tried to relearn some of the corners (i always go wayyy wide on that tight hairpin about halfway through) and did some adjusting, but I got another busy school week comming up so I might not have time.