I will try to be online for Thursday evening and I will see if I can get some time in on the car before then...I will be a backmarker with an attitude!!

Wheel is back...shifter is working...microphone is amped and ready to verbalize...

Schweeet!
Even if you're not ready to race we'd love for you to do a live commentary on the racing, although it would probably lead to us crashing more due to laughter!

_________________
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."-William Gibson
1989 Van Diemen - Formula 2000 Continental

did some practice on indy last nite. managed to get down to a 1.11 somethin with 1.12's consistant

_________________
2001 Bullitt......Not Mine, I Just drive it
2012 ARMS Regional Autoslalom 1st Place Overall
2012 1st SM ARMS
2012 ASCC Autoslalom 1st Place Overall
2012 1st SM ASCC
2009 ARMS AutoSlalom Top Novice
2009 1st ESP

I'm out for the next race, see you all on Sunday.

_________________
2003 Buell Firebolt XB9R 1:19.6 around AMP Shubenacadie.
2009 Yamaha R1 1:21.7 around AMP Shubenacadie.

Anyone awake and want to help me out with this GT car and my set up???

I am online in my lounge just putting down some laps.

I'm awake but at work....

How is the car driving?
What are you having issues with?

_________________
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."-William Gibson
1989 Van Diemen - Formula 2000 Continental

Most of the issues are on my end...damn triple monitor set up and the sign in and.........

..."one of these days....right to the moon"....

Anyone using the green and yellow car or at least I think that's what color it is ?

I found i had to stiffen my suspension and have my diff fairly neutral (sort of middle ground) for the car to not want to do anything crazy on me. But i am a bit of a lead foot and need to work on my throttle control. Also i have my brakes set quite high, 8 fwd 4 rear IIRC, i played with them lower but for me it just didn't work out all that well, might be i just need to work on my basic skills and lines.

Had a great time last night as well by the way. After hanging back from turn one i saw a great big opening, everyone had either gone wide or tight so the middle ground was wayyy open, so i took it and it payed off. I was in first! then i came to that bloody tight double hairpin and came in way too hot and put it off. So i had dropped from 1st to 5th i think...then i managed to just stay on track and make up back to 4th. Rob and i had a back and forth pit battle and somehow i came out in 4th for the rest of the race. I was really trying hard this time to keep it on the track. I've had issues with damaging my car by being overly zealous in the turns so i paid particular attention to how i was getting through the course and it's amazing what happens when you don't have to pit every 4/5 laps becasue of a blown engine/suspension damage. My fastest lap was a 1:12:09X which was a great feeling after i was only able to get a 1:13:2XX when setting the car up, couldn't quite get down to the 1:11's but hey, it's all practice right?

See you guys sunday!

Hmmm...for some reason I can't keep signed on to the playstation server ?

If I release the internet to auto it will stay connected but not if I set it manually as need it to act as a server for the other two PS3's.....

Hmmm...kinda like'n these PX5 headphones...very open and adjustable.

Belly says it's time to eat....

...Boy...sony just don't make it easy to play on three monitors...way too many hoops to jump thru.

Well at least I'm on the server now...suffere'n suckatash!

Hmmm...what's a respectable time on Hard tires for Monza (dry) ??

...."sweet jezzus, this things a handfull".....

Was a better race for me. Apparently I did the first race with no downforce, so I made an adjustment there and it helped. I still don't have the overall pace that you front guys have, my best lap was a 1:12.4, so I needed a lot of consistency and a different pit strategy.

Hey...a big thanks to Varga for lending me an ear today on GT5...getting my headset working and showing me how to drive these open wheel cars...with a sense of humour!!

...one small error and your 17 seconds behind the person that was along side you but a moment ago...sheeeeesh!!

Monza...1:25's on hard tires...1:28's with both front wheels bent!!

I'm going to have to get some laps in to get the car a bit more stable for me. It works great on medium tires, perfectly stable and predictable. Put softs on it, and it's like they forgot to put air in the rears. But I'm losing around 2 seconds a lap on the mediums to faster drivers, to much to be gained back with the added laps between pit stops. This is to long of a series to be a back marker every race...

It's too bad the "boost" can't be only applied to those cars a lap or more down.
"Boost" affects all cars except the leader.

We tried "boost" on high the other night at Monza, and with crashing / off courses / sand traps / etc all 3 cars finished within 0.045 seconds of the winner. At one point the car in last place was turning laps 8 seconds quicker than the lead car, that's totally unrealistic! It makes for some close racing, but it's a crap shoot who is going to win.

I'd be willing to test a full GP (non points race) with "boost" on LOW, just to see how much it effects racing.
Again to go back to my main point where I don't think the cars on the lead lap should get "boost" but I see it being an advantage to those cars that are lapped. I'm just curious how much LOW "boost" would effect racing.

_________________
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."-William Gibson
1989 Van Diemen - Formula 2000 Continental

Hmmm...not that I enjoy being a "backmarker" but I don't see the point of boost being used...you may as well just shorten the race and have done with it...just my opinion!

If you want a close race...just reduce the PP or run ovals or make it that the 3 leading cars have to fill their gas tanks everytime they pit...and call it K.e.r.s for the pits ???

I'd disagree about the ovals being close, I think that the Daytona NASCAR race was the biggest spread in any race I've been in yet. I won that race a full lap ahead of second place. One spin on an oval, and you are minimum a lap down because of loosing the draft. Not to mention if you get damage.

I find that with the FGT's if you have one spin and get no damage, or at least drivable damage, you can stay on the lead lap. Any more and you are a back marker. I am getting close on my setup, but so far I am either fast, or stable. Never both. If I'm set at fast enough to keep up with the leader's times, the car is so close to the ragged edge that I'll lose it every 2-3 laps, and have to pit with the tires having at least half wear left. When it's stable, I'm losing 2-3 seconds a lap. Most I'm ever gunning for in a race is top 5.

"WOW"...made a big difference...more consistent times and less likely to crash = better race for Kev.


BTW...The car is about 1 to 1.5 seconds per lap quicker with a close to empty gas tank (100 liter tank) and much easier on tires.

Here are some of the things that I'm doing that might help you out JB:

- Turn up the downforce, I have mine set between average and highest. Once your tires are gone it is the downforce that will keep you on the track, irregardless of how long the straight is. You can use the downforce to get out of corners quicker so that you don't loose a lot of time by the end of the straight.
- Set your traction control to two at the start, turn it off by the time you get to the first corner. If you have your traction control turned on you will go backwards in a hurry, with worn tires the traction control will slow you down even more.
- Use soft tires, you cannot overdirve this car, so the soft tires will last longer anyways.
- Don't run with a full tank of gas, the sooner you can get down to half a tank the better, that will give you 1-2 seconds per lap. Just don't forget to look at the gas gauge once in a while.
- Brake first before you do your downshifts, otherwise the back will step out on you and you will wear the rear tires out. I used to not care, but this car is very touchy if you are turning and downshifting at the same time and your going quicker than the rear tire is spinning.

_________________
2003 Buell Firebolt XB9R 1:19.6 around AMP Shubenacadie.
2009 Yamaha R1 1:21.7 around AMP Shubenacadie.

I'm running the rear downforce at max, and the front around medium - high. The car was crazy twitchy with soft tires on it, but fast, and stable as a rock with the mediums.

I do have the traction control on, but it almost never engages, so I guess I could turn it off. I run quite a few laps on Monza last night with weather with the ABS and TC turned off. I wouldn't run a race with the ABS turned off, but it's really helpful to have the ability to see EXACTLY where the fronts lock up (over braking, or coming in to hot)

I was getting quite a few more laps out of a set of mediums than the softs, and was just to twitchy to go with softs.

I'm always able to make up the most ground at the end of the race by taking the most fuel at the first of the race and then none at the end, and I've never had to worry about fuel. I don't want to fix whats not broken...

I always run a car like it's a Kart, no braking or shifting in a turn, get into the proper gear to come out of the turn immediately and use up none of the tires grip for anything but the corner. The only time I'll shift in a turn is if I'm in a low speed turn and the car won't come around fast enough, I'll drop a gear while off the brakes to get the car to rotate better.

That should be a good picture of how I run my races. Alek, thanks for the advice, I'll try the fuel strategy tonight and see what happens. I'm only running a 1:24 consistently on the mediums, so I'll have to be pure strategy to have a chance at a podium.

I think a big reason why I'm always having spins while racing close is I tend to be a later braker than most of you guys, and I'm always caught off guard coming into the turns, and try to dive around to avoid the hit. I generally try to follow the leaders as close as I can when I get lapped to study the lines, but I always end up watching the other persons line to much and end up around!!

Well, that was a long post...

Hmmm...don't really matter how much practise I get...when everyone is on the track at the same time it's a mess for me as my braking points are way different then most and usually never the same twice!

I have to pick the girlfriend up for 8pm I can be back here for 8.20PM...if thats a problem I'll just watch the race tonight.

..."it just started to rain on my Monza track...bummer!"


BTW...how do you alter the amount of fuel you start with ???

I don't think you can... but I could be wrong

You can't alter your starting fuel.... and we'll wait for you Kevin.

_________________
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."-William Gibson
1989 Van Diemen - Formula 2000 Continental

no go tonite. too tired

_________________
2001 Bullitt......Not Mine, I Just drive it
2012 ARMS Regional Autoslalom 1st Place Overall
2012 1st SM ARMS
2012 ASCC Autoslalom 1st Place Overall
2012 1st SM ASCC
2009 ARMS AutoSlalom Top Novice
2009 1st ESP

Did everyone get booted or just me? It's saying error in the lobby server (268) when I try to get back in...

The internet Gods are not happy tonight.
We are going to postpone Monza for another night.

_________________
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."-William Gibson
1989 Van Diemen - Formula 2000 Continental

Well that sucked. I've never had a problem with being booted before. Monza is one of my favorite tracks, and I was even doing decent....

Yes that was a bugger of a night. I kept getting the same error Jason, each time i cleared my cache and i hard reset my router once, and it seemed to work but then no go. So i'm not sure what the issue was, maybe i'll sacrifice a goat to the interweb gods or some such before the next race. I was able to get on for our fun race but then was booted on the second lap...so ya, things were a mess tonight. I guess we'll have to give it another shot soon.

For the record, either Inter's suck or i'm just a god awful driver in the rain....more inclined to support the latter...

Hopefully next time guys.

Huh. Well, at least it wasn't only me. What are you using for internet? Bell or Eastlink? I'm on Bell. I did do some sleuthing and found that my puppy has gotten a hold of my ethernet wire to the router, I'm lucky to have any internet at all right now. But if it was the wire, I wouldn't have been able to get on and run for a while.

I noticed that Alex and JB would always drop at the exact same time.
What is your guys internet service provider?

I did some investigating last night and found that people all across Atlantic Canada were having intermittent internet issues, probably the same issues that plagued us. Reminds me of the old days when we used to have "netsplits".

Anyways it was a piss off.

_________________
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."-William Gibson
1989 Van Diemen - Formula 2000 Continental