GRM - Gran Turismo 5 racing League - Series 2 (begins 3/2/11)

In reply to NickF40:

In the SBC car I seem to be faster sliding also. ac suggested I keep on the power in order to drift and he's right. This track will teach you to drift on these tires with a RWD car. The difficulty with that car though is that it is so easy to back off a little too fast and it will start fishtailing which I almost never recover from. I "get behind in my steering", as Darryl Waltrip says. However, I'm usually faster not drifting with the MX5. If it had just a little more power that would probably change.

Yeah, I love drifting this course, I feel so comfortable, it comes easy to me so to speak. I have always drifted here, it's so flowy and connected. I seem to do well, but in the serious race mode, i'm having trouble even putting down a decent lap when i'm not going sideways. I mean if you still want drifting lessons I guess I can help!

I'm keeping my fastest and average laptimes a state secret for now. Hoping that I can be consistent and not get damaged. Will need tires at some point though that is for sure.

I think the first lap with cold tires and the pack all bunched up will be the hairiest. The first lap is tough on an empty track.

Graefin10 wrote: The difficulty with that car though is that it is so easy to back off a little too fast and it will start fishtailing which I almost never recover from. I "get behind in my steering", as Darryl Waltrip says.

One thing to try is "flicking" the steering. This should be pretty easy with a controller. When the car starts sliding, give it a short quick full countersteer. This helps to avoid the "chasing your tail" problem in some circumstances (if its done quickly enough).

T.J. wrote: Brad, are you going to announce the starting order method ahead of time for this race or just pick like normal?

It is the last race... fastest first. If you spend the time practicing and get a good qualy lap, you should be rewarded.

I guess I should try and get some practice. Although it might not matter, I may end up having to work tomorrow night (I should still be able to host, so it will be a game-time decision).

Graefin, you still need to approve my friend request! (concealer404)

I have a present for you!

In reply to BradLTL:

That's what I was hoping to hear. Don't know where I will fall out in qualifying, but the inverse grid for this one would be a mess I think. My car is slow off the line, so no matter where I grid I will more than likely be holding someone up behind by the first corner.

Hope you make the race Brad. It would be a shame to miss out on the last one of the series.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Graefin, you still need to approve my friend request! (concealer404) I have a present for you!

same here lol except I don't have squat for you

In honor of aircooled's complete and utter dominance of the SBC series, how about a no-holds barred Samba bus series? They are pretty fun to drive and it would be pretty funny to watch an entire field of them going at it.

Assuming I did it right, I accepted all friends requests today. This was the first time I've used the PSN Home feature. I really don't know much about all the features. I just want to race.

T.J., since you're keeping your times a "state secret" that must mean you're really really fast. I'm sure you're right about the start. I'll be amazed if we all don't end up in a big wad.

ac, I know what you mean about flicking the steering but it's not necessary with this car. You just turn into the corner and get on the power . . . around comes the tail. Then it's just a matter of adjusting the power. Now I'm not going to say I'm that good at it but I try. There's just a very fine line in catching it in order to accelerate down the straights. I'm pretty sure if I "flicked the steering" with this car that I'd back into all the corners.

Hope you're able to make the race Brad.

I tried to practice a little this afternoon with the SBC car but it was a pain . . . some kids got on and started running into each other etc. I left them with it and went to someone elses' free run room. They were practiceing drifting. I watched for a while before joining them. When I got on track I focused on fast first then drifting. They all had tweaked Nissans and Subarus but because I was going for speed, only one was faster. At least this group wasn't trying to chat and would move over as I passed. Some of them were running together in pairs which was fun to watch. I don't see how the 2nd. place car does it because of the smoke. If you get back just a little bit you can't see a thing.

Graefin10 wrote: Assuming I did it right, I accepted all friends requests today. This was the first time I've used the PSN Home feature.

Shouldn't have to use PSN Home, just go to Friends / Messages, all the way to the right of the bar. You'll have messages in your inbox "Request to Add" or something like that. Then just choose Accept.

In reply to BradLTL:

OK, thanks. I used Home because I wanted to know what it was for. I still don't know and will have to be really bored to find out.

T.J. wrote: In honor of aircooled's complete and utter dominance of the SBC series, how about a no-holds barred Samba bus series? They are pretty fun to drive and it would be pretty funny to watch an entire field of them going at it.

Hey, I'm totally into that. The funkier the better. I have read you can get them reasonably fast.

Graefin10 said: ac, I know what you mean about flicking the steering but it's not necessary with this car. You just turn into the corner and get on the power . . . around comes the tail. Then it's just a matter of adjusting the power. Now I'm not going to say I'm that good at it but I try. There's just a very fine line in catching it in order to accelerate down the straights. I'm pretty sure if I "flicked the steering" with this car that I'd back into all the corners.

I wasn't really talking about flicking it into a corner (the Scandinavian Flick) but to flick it when the back end start to slide. The idea is to cancel the slide without generating another one. Only works if you do it just as the slide starts.

ac, yea, I do that to cancel the slide. It even works sometimes.

Graefin10 wrote: T.J., since you're keeping your times a "state secret" that must mean you're really really fast. I'm sure you're right about the start. I'll be amazed if we all don't end up in a big wad.

I doubt I'll be the fastest - just hoping to be consistent and put down steady laps. I should just drive my car into the wall and then practice that way since I seem to end up running more with damage in the races than without. I had to do some crazy setup changes to try to get my car to rotate for the hairpins. It is fairly unstable now, but it can get around the hairpins better than before. With my Trial Mt. setup I couldn't really give it any gas until out of the corners or I would understeer off into the sand. Now I can do big smokey front wheel drive burnouts. I will be leaving a smoke screen on every slow turn.

aircooled wrote:

T.J. wrote: In honor of aircooled's complete and utter dominance of the SBC series, how about a no-holds barred Samba bus series? They are pretty fun to drive and it would be pretty funny to watch an entire field of them going at it.

Hey, I'm totally into that. The funkier the better. I have read you can get them reasonably fast.

I bought one from the new car dealer and modded it with every option including soft race rubber. It ended up with a decent amount of power. Didn't try to drive it on sport or comfort tires though. The two tone paint job goes away if you paint it though. I made the same mistake when I painted my GT350. Unless you want it all one color, don't paint it.

The Samba bus has around 200 HP and 300 ft-lb of torque. Around Nurburgring GP/F it was about 20 seconds slower than my spec RM ZO6. But I only did one lap in the bus and 2 or 3 laps in the vette.

I actually had some people play last night during my SBC practice session. I learned that cars like a tuned 370Z or a HSR Concept car are faster than me aroung that track. I'm guessing they were both running right at the 207hp limit and probally had that much power all over the rev range not to mention much wider rubber. Maybe I should've set the HP limit to 167. I also learned that FD RX-7 make nice drift cars and that they are faster on straights than the Marcos they are slower in the turns when the driver is trying to drift and not go fast. It was hard to get around him since he was always sideways. I think at one point there were 5 people racing in the room using our SBC rules except damage set to light. Usually people enter, maybe do a half of a lap and quit.

My danger points where I am most prone to make a mistake are turns 1 and 9. The others are all more tolerant of mistakes (usually going in too fast). Getting those 2 turns just right without overdoing them seem to be the key to the best lap times for me. I think I will be slow in the long sweeper (T9) compared to a lot of you guys - not sure, but that's my gut feeling. I guess that comes with the 3 inch wide tires on my car. T1 I can usually do better in, but require a late apexing line that leaves the door open on the inside at corner entry. At full speed there is only one line I can take, so if you dive down on the inside of me there expect likely contact near the exit of the turn. I will not be able to adjust my line at all other than to understeer more and go off into the grass.

Oh, FD's make wonderful drift cars

I am going to likely miss 1 of the races tonight. Not sure exactly which right now though. I have a meeting scheduled for either 9 or 10 and that is Eastern time, so that is either 8 or 9 my time. Or right about the start of the 2 races.

I am going to sneak a bit of practice in today, I am only going to focus on SBC. I've run the MX5 in the B-Spec enduro event, so I have an idea of the settings. I am just going to hope for the best there.

It would just be lovely if I can even stay connected tonight

I think I am pretty much ready for tonight. As I mentioned previously, if it is OK with everyone I am going to leave the Europa parked, take a voluntary DNF and run a BMW2002 just for giggles. I will do my best to stay out of everyone's way.

The 2002 is interesting. At least the way I have it setup, it does not like to slide. Any significant slide results in a loop (maybe the issue others had with it), so in a way it is a lot like the Europa. It does seem to be a lot more stable under braking though. I have to say, it does not seem to be much slower then the Europa on this track, but the Europa really rocks in Turn 9, with more practice that could be the deciding corner for it.

I woulds set up a Samba bus and run that, but it would be quite a distraction on this course.

My MX5 seems to be setup pretty good. The MX5's are WAY faster then the SBC's on this course. I does seem like passing is going to be VERY hard though.

T.J.: Your note about potentially getting passed in turn one. The one thing to look out for there is if someone gets inside you for the corner and you turn in and get contact, you will get a ramming penalty. This is what happened to me with Apex in the last MX5 race.

For me, the critical corner seems to be turn 5. Getting that corner right can result in a lot more speed for 6 and 7. One thing to look out for (for those who have not practiced much) is there seems to be some sort of bump or off camber situation at Turn 6, which can mess you up if you try to run it at full power in SBC (depending on the car of course).

I didn't even bother practicing SBC for this track. The celica will be slow, but it'll be drift-nasty. Nick, you and i stay in the back and drift around the whole thing for cool pictures later?

hahaha exactly Ben and sounds like a plan, at least have some fun!

@aircooled: Do you think the ramming penalty gets applied if contact is made with the front of one car to the side of another?

I'll have to watch the replay from last week. In the SBC race Apex and I each got assessed a ramming penalty, and in both cases the car that was behind was on the inside and the leading car turned in on them. I thought that both penalties were assigned to the wrong driver at the time. Not sure if either had contact from the front of the car though. I'll have to watch out for that. Last night I'd ed up door to door with someone and sometimes get knocked off the track into the grass, but no penalties were given either way. I learned that if I get bumped coming out of T1, the instability of my car with its current setup makes it a real handful to get through T2 and T3 and be able to get the braking right for T4.

T5 is an important one, but I seem to be able to take that one more than one way and come out ok. I think it is because I am slow enough and low powered enough thatT6 and T7 are flat for me unless I am way off line. Went through T5 two wide a few times last night without any problems. Also saw a fiar share of RWD cars drift around T5 and end up looping around like they were trying to take the motorcycle chicane.