GT Academy Open

Round 2 is at Apricot hill in a 370Z.

Actually fun. Ran my best times without any aids on. Just losing time after the back straight into the 180 right. I don't know why I can't seem to get the entry right.

This one is looking like its going to be a lot more fun than the last. Better track, better car, way faster and just more interesting. I even like the placement of the "Stop cutting the corners" cones. They are all placed where it makes it hard, but not impossible, really nail the apexes. (You can't "flatten" the corners the way you sometimes can in GT6) Going to have fun with this one. I spent about 15 minutes on it and am within a few tenths of silver. It's going to take some real work to squeeze out those last few seconds for gold. At least for a mere mortal like me. (Cue Spoolpigeon with "Got it on my second try." )

Hahahaha!

I won't really have any time to try it until this weekend, so you have plenty of time to make a good lap. Besides, your laps in the academy and in the seasonals are always very good, so don't sell yourself short!

Did a few laps last night before the race. The Z car is so much more fun than the leaf.

Go to online rankings and press select. That will take you to the top of the leader board, and if you hit X on one of the top 10 you can watch their replay or even save their ghost replay if you want to run with it. It helps a ton to see what the fastest guys are doing differently.

New one opened today, it's pretty tough. Unlike the previous challenges I don't know this course all that well, so it's been ugly so far. I got gold, but there's easily another couple seconds in there.

The new one is frustrating, but in a different way than the others. The whole track is outlined with a white line on both sides of the track. DO NOT PUT 2 WHEELS OVER THE WHITE LINES. Took me several laps just to get one that wasn't invalid lol.

Spoolpigeon wrote: The new one is frustrating, but in a different way than the others. The whole track is outlined with a white line on both sides of the track. DO NOT PUT 2 WHEELS OVER THE WHITE LINES. Took me several laps just to get one that wasn't invalid lol.

I'm having the same problem. I have enough trouble getting around this track without touching the walls. Add the white lines and all the fun magically disappears. I noticed some curb touches also invalidate a lap. I had a flyer going (for me at least) and touched the inside curb on the last corner. Lap invalid.

Polyphony and Nissan, killin' the fun since, what, 2010?

Yeah, the curb thing is annoying. I had a great lap going and had one wheel on the curb in the second to last corner, but apparently there's a gap in the pavement between the end of the curb and the track that my rear wheel hit and hit me with a DQ.

You guys are crazy. Running the Leaf was actually quite fun! I love momentum races like that.

So I got gold on lap 4 but the Spool ribbon is almost out of sight by the finish line.

Like it was said before. A few seconds in it left to be found.

I ran a few more laps last night and the white line thing was getting me frustrated. I ran a 2:16.5xx, but had wheels over the white line in the tight section at the top of the hill. I'll run a few more tonight and see if I can make that official, the couple laps I ran after that were a bit red misted.

GT Academy really puzzles me, I don't consider myself a expert in racing, but sometimes I see the highlights of the top rated drivers, and I can't conceive them driving a real car they way they do electronically. It reminds me of TopGear where they drove the same electronically as they did on the race track and the outcome was different. Anybody else have thoughts? Hopefully in the newest academy they don't choose someone who does not know how to drive a car and stick shift.

It is all marketing I don't remember any really ugly guys on the show. It has been a long time since the actually driving was all that mattered in professional racing. They are all good drivers/racers for sure.

I think if you have big money of Polyphony/Sony/Nissan in pocket it opens doors to join good professional teams and that team can make good drivers even better. So the whole GT Academy just reinforces that money is still what matters in professional racing success.

Think of the low cost of having your megastar 3 time Lemans, 2 time WEC champion, and 1 time JGTC winning driver on the payroll for lifetime promotion of your product from the start of their career. Then you don't have to pay big money to Vettel or Sebastion loeb or anyone to cameo in the game or sell your cars or electronics.

Still the chance to live that racing career is a fair exchange in my mind.

I don't expect that it's a direct translation, but the top people do have a solid foundation. Hopefully they've been complimenting it with some actual seat time, but if you watch them and how smooth their steering inputs are and whatnot those skills do translate. It will take some time and development to get them to be able to compete wheel to wheel, but they're looking for the best base they can find. I agree completely though, the people who can't drive a real car at all are a bit of a disappointment.

And I also agree that this day in age skill alone won't get you to the upper ranks of racing drivers, but it's that way in almost anything that involves being in the public eye. They aren't really choosing a racing driver, they're choosing a marketing piece. They want the most that they can get from it, which is why part of the process is interviewing with a journalist, etc. In conclusion, I'm with Advan, the chance to live that racing career is a fair exchange.