GRM - Gran Turismo 5 Racing League - Series 4

GT: The first few turns of the GT race were pretty wild and wooley. I didn't know whether to back out and let the pack sort itself out or to try to get up front and see if it was possible to get some breathing room. The big yellow Avant shot forward as expected and as it turns out the M3s launch well for a RWD car. 4 cars got through the pack with no major damage. On L2, T7, it was decided. RMDs M3 got squirrley on him and turned head on into the outside wall and the car was still quite solid when Nick arrived to broadside it. I glanced at the track map and the pack was gone. When I was sure about it, I dropped it down just a bit and kept tire conservation and safety on my mind. I was still running decent laps and knew I'd better because I knew that someone, or ones, would recover and be after me during the last laps. And so it went to the end. It was Bael who came out in P2 and began to take time off my lead. I think it went from a max. of :57sec. to :10 or so at the end.

Saloon: Air, great strategy and execution for the win in Sal. It didn't even occur to me to try SH tires. The last time I experimented with them was in HH and I couldn't make it work on that car on those tracks. Air, RMD, and I got to the front and I realized right away that Air was going to run away with it if I didn't get up there and start trying to challenge him. I finally caught up with him on L7 but I didn't make my first pass until L8 and then we exchanged the lead several times until I pitted from the lead on L 10. I foolishly anounced that I was going to do that on the forum. This may mark the collapse of communism. . (See Air's post on the subject) I sincerely doubt that I could have run Air's pace on SH tires though. It was all I could do to run him back down and pass him on SS. When he didn't pit by L12, I knew what was up and I tried to push as hard as I could without throwing it into the wall. It wasn't enough. I think the difference was over 6sec.

Anyone practiced at Madrid/Reverse yet? I ran a few laps in each car this morning. This will be interesting . . .

GT was good, until the crash with Realmini. It's alright, it was a racing incident haha I saw him get squirly and then snap and lose it....right in front of me, locked up the brakes and slam! I limped it back to the pits and the stupid game didn't accept I did that so I drove through the whole pits at speed and got the message AFTER The exit >:( so I had to limp it around AGAIN, which cost a lot of time. I still placed fine though, so it wasn't that bad. GT is close!

Saloon-i'd rather not talk about that. The Jaaaag at least sounds nice and looks classy. According to Ben it's as quick as the M5's and up to pace there.

Afterwards did some practice with Celica at Madrid, I like this track personally, he didn't lol Mustang did well....and it's a good drift course

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: I ran 30 laps at Madrid last night. Not ONE of them was clean. I can't do it.

One thing's for sure, you had the fastest car @ HSR last night . . . . in a straight line. I think Air's RX8 was the second fastest. It just took it a bit longer to get there.

NickF40 wrote: GT was good, until the crash with Realmini. It's alright, it was a racing incident haha I saw him get squirly and then snap and lose it....right in front of me, locked up the brakes and slam! I limped it back to the pits and the stupid game didn't accept I did that so I drove through the whole pits at speed and got the message AFTER The exit >:( so I had to limp it around AGAIN, which cost a lot of time. I still placed fine though, so it wasn't that bad. GT is close! Saloon-i'd rather not talk about that. The Jaaaag at least sounds nice and looks classy. According to Ben it's as quick as the M5's and up to pace there. Afterwards did some practice with Celica at Madrid, I like this track personally, he didn't lol Mustang did well....and it's a good drift course

Your fast saloon lap was less than a second off of Graef's fast lap.

Graefin10 wrote:

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: I ran 30 laps at Madrid last night. Not ONE of them was clean. I can't do it.

One thing's for sure, you had the fastest car @ HSR last night . . . . in a straight line. I think Air's RX8 was the second fastest. It just took it a bit longer to get there.

Yeah, i think if i had bulled through the pack at the beginning with the draft instead of hanging back and nailing Spyhunter on lap 2, the outcome would have been drastically different. I was literally off the gas for half of the first lap trying to keep a little distance. Looking back at the replay, i could have cleared the pack by the S-turns i think.

Practice was pretty funny with Air tailing me for a lap or so. He'd come up on me in those tight S turns, come up a little more on the last corner, exit a little faster, and then i'd start pulling away again.

I'm pretty sure i was geared high, too.... i was set up to hit 215.

Interesting night guys:

First off, I posted the room number in the John Stossel thread!!? Of course that room crashed (maybe why ) and I put the right number up.

GT: Clearly these cars are easier to drive! I was burning up the track pretty good and manage a 105.8 for the pole (zoom zoom baby). The start made one thing clear... no torque baby! I got passed by most of the field by the first corner. That first lap was pretty wicked (I will have to see if I can get a video of the first few laps). I was hanging on near the back of the pack when the T7 Curse hit. I got tapped (pretty lightly really) from behind which pushed me into someone else, this resulted in left rear AND right front damage. This track does not work will with rear damage, I had to pit (2-3 lap).

I thought my race was over until I noticed a massive CF in T7! Not long after that I was in 2nd!! I caught the Grizz driven Shaguar Mens Cologne sponsored Jaguar and we had a few laps of some good dueling. I did notice the glitching though. At a few point I thought for sure he crashed into the wall (which is what I was seeing), but then a few seconds later he was right back on me. This was taking WAY to much of my attention, so when I entered the tunnel, I took a glance back, and when I look back front I was too wide coming out of the tunnel. This resulted in an "oh crap" moment where I ran directly into the pit divider wall!! No, grizz, there was no contact at all, the only fault of yours was that I was watching you do weird glitching things. I did this when I was in 2nd!! Major screw up. I still ended up doing some good dueling for the rest of the race, so it was all fun. Major carnage though.

Saloon: Yes, a major strategic victory for me going with the Sports Hard tires. Of course I had NO idea I did that!! I am a bit surprised that that worked though. In the past going with the harder tires seemed to result in much slower times with little reduction in wear.

The start of the race was basically Grae and I going out to the front and having some pretty crazy back and forth action. The only real place to pass on this course was the straight, which was a pretty easy draft and even if you need to go by on the 1st turn, that was pretty doable. I was getting a bit suspicious of Grea though, I was thinking he was messing with me! He would mysteriously slow down around T6 which would cause me to go past him into T7, he would then conveniently draft past me for the lead again!! Sneaky little bastard! I was on to you! If that continued, that would have made for a very interesting ending (both of us trying to be in the last into T7).

I was a bit surprised when Grae did a little slidey thing in T6 again around lap 10 and went into the pits. I wasn't sure if he did that on purpose or not, I really wanted to continue the dual. I was still pretty good on tires (having no idea of the master strategy I apparently had implemented). At that point I had to think if I wanted to pit for tires or go for the finish without. Pitting would have likely put me right with Grae again, and I was considering doing it just for more dueling fun. I finally decided to stay out and try to conserve on tires (more of a non-decision actually). This worked out pretty well, but it got pretty slippery on the last few laps. Grea was making up some serious ground on the last two laps as I was trying to avoid wall contact at all costs, but the lead was too much for him (it started at around 30 seconds, and went below 10 by the last lap)

Some thoughts on driving the course (since I seemed to have the fasted time in the RX8):

T1 and T2 are of course all out. For T3 I found that hitting an early apex, drifting (not tire smoke style) a bit out towards the wall to slow down then hitting the gas (very carefully with Saloon!) to point back in seemed to work best. For T4 and T5 I liked to get into T4 tight and slower if possible (drifting into that corner was very easy to do), to get as late an apex into T5 as possible.

Coming out of T5 you are basically pointed at the tunnel wall entrance, so drifting a bit to slow down, then hitting the gas to point away again seemed to work best (again, very careful on the gas).

T6 and T7, the terror of the course! I would try to get as late an apex into T6 as possible (warning: not paying attention here can result in hitting the pit entrance at 100+mph ). The tactic I used for T7 was to come into it as low as possible braking, allow the car to drift up towards the outside and hope the drift would slow you down enough (the scary part) mid-corner to point back down towards the inside of the exit. So basically it was "make two corners out of one" approach. Touching the bricks on the outside of course was death (I saw F40 demonstrate this with great effect at one point). Getting on the gas too early of course was very bad.

Grea, when I followed him, seemed to favor sticking to the banked part of the corners and using that to maximize traction. This seemed to be a fast fairly safe method. With my approach to T7, I would not exit the corner any faster (maybe a little because I could get on the gas earlier), but it seemed like I could get into it a lot faster. This of course meant that it was good when I was in the lead, but bad when following (I couldn't brake later since he was occupying that space).

Anyway, good races. The points race is looking pretty close so far! We may have to figure out how to break Grea's ridiculous tendency toward consistency or he might run away with it!

I should join you guys when you practice together. I can fly around without a hitch, posting mediocre, but very consistent times, when I run alone.

GT: I'm pretty sure it was L3, because the laptime from the previous lap was the best time I had turned and that's not possible on L1, when T7 got me. The backend got out just a wee bit too far and when I tried to correct, it snapped back violently. I felt bad about catching Nick in the fray. Nice that the pit entrance is before that corner. From there, I kept having issues with the wall(s).

Saloon: Holy berkeley, the M5s are fast. Things were going OK for my Avant, until I got on the bricks. I didn't notice the default Sport Hard when I pitted, so I couldn't figure out why my car was handling so slippery for the next couple laps. It was only when Celica pointed out the most of us were on SH, that I got it sorted out. By then, though, it was all over for me.

Re: Grizz's connection getting glitchy - you can see the car jumping from side to side instantly for quite a while mostly on just one lap. Grizz, what was it like driving it during that time?

Air, I actually was thinking about just laying back and using the draft to stay close to you. However, RMD's yellow submarine got involved and you were slip slip slipping away. So I almost lost the draft and you were running some very strong laps. I used so much of my SS tires trying to catch back up that I knew I'd end up crashing if I tried to do a no pit stop run. I was still doing fine when I pitted but I thought overall I'd make better time to go ahead with fresh tires and try to run hard for the end and hopefully your tires would go off enough by then. Like I said before though, it was not only the added durability of the hard tires but your ability to run that fast on them. Even if you HAD planned to do it that way it was a very good move. How about trying that again @ Madrid. The "little slidey thing" you spoke of was in fact my tires going off. The stop after L10 was my plan so I stuck to it.

You're right about my choosing to run up top in T7 and T3. I couldn't do it every lap, especially when traffic was involved but I found during practice that I had much less tendency to spin out if I stayed up there and therefore off of the shiney slicker low line. I just had to be careful to stay off of the "bricks" as you call them.

RMD, I was surprised to see how fast you were @ the start of Saloon. On top of that, you made that sucker turn going through T4&5. I don't know if it was your set up or if you were e-braking it.

Grae, re T4&5, in Saloon: pure luck. The Avant wants to understeer, mostly. I've been playing with F/R torque split. Working with braking and diff settings as well, trying to get the rear to loosen up so it doesn't push if I give it too much throttle too soon.

I meant to ask, do any of you know who GTP SpyHunter is? I wondered if it was GTP Kamakaze in an alternate acct. Whoever he is he's got spuriants. He had at it until crashing I think on L2.

GTP_Spyhunter ran with us during the first series, glad to see he made it back. It's not Cam.

RealMiniDriver wrote: Grae, re T4&5, in Saloon: pure luck. The Avant wants to understeer, mostly. I've been playing with F/R torque split. Working with braking and diff settings as well, trying to get the rear to loosen up so it doesn't push if I give it too much throttle too soon.

I can send you my RS4 to compare setups on. I spent a lot of time tuning it to be as nuetral as possible... it went down hill when I drove in anger though. The RS4 launches hard, understeers a bit if you come into a corner too fast, is nuetral in the middle and then oversteers on the way out. It's not perfect, but it is something that you can use as a benchmark to tune your RS6.

Brad, that would be cool.

I am GTP_SpyHunter. I will try to make as many of the races as I can. I was planning on doing the Saloon, but a buddy who is going to be in another race league showed up, so we went to work on those cars.

I had a great time. I had JUST caught the rear end from being tapped, but was late for braking into the next corner, and looped it bad.

Looking forward to the next one!

HunterJP wrote: ..I will try to make as many of the races as I can. I was planning on doing the Saloon...

I wasn't sure if you were just showing up for one race. I will add you to the entry / results list. I believe the car you are running in GT is an BMW M3, right? Let me know what you want to run in Saloon when you know.

As a reminder, you can change the M3 as much as you want throughout the series (as long as you stay within the power and weight restrictions of course) but you cannot change cars.

P.S. You did pretty damn good for just showing up and having 5 minutes to prep the car!

Thanks. I did do a couple laps earlier in the day in it. Really need the suspension dialed in, though. Was a real handful coming back onto the front straight. Rotated nicely, though!

The other car is a M5. Whichever is the premium model.

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Our visit to Spain is right around the corner. Plenty of places to crash there, eh guys?

I've been giving a lot of thought to how to avoid the biggest CF in GRM racing series history at T1. I think if the game could allow us to have realistic peripheral vision it would be a lot easier. Single file is the obvious answer but . . . well, you know how we are.

I am going to say, that tenatively, I might be racing with you guys this week. I expect to be a backmarker since I haven't turned on the PS3 in weeks.

I played GT5 for the first time in a couple weeks yesterday. Ended up doing the 200 mile Laguna Seca endurance race with the DC5 from the hot hatch series. That was a lot of laps and with race tires the AI cars were just in the way. Maybe I'll join in Wednesday as well, we'll see.

Graefin10 wrote: Single file is the obvious answer but . . . well, you know how we are.

HEHE

Graefin10 wrote: Our visit to Spain is right around the corner. Plenty of places to crash there, eh guys? I've been giving a lot of thought to how to avoid the biggest CF in GRM racing series history at T1. I think if the game could allow us to have realistic peripheral vision it would be a lot easier. Single file is the obvious answer but . . . well, you know how we are.

I have though the same thing also about the peripheral vision. Although not "realistic" it would be nice to have some sort of blob show on the left or right when someone is beside you (the larger, the closer). Probably easier would be to put extensions on the rear view mirror that showed the sides.

As it is, the only way to do it now is to keep an eye on your rear view and notice when someone disappears to your right or left. This of course can be distracted driving and may result is things like running directly into the pit entrance at 120 mph

My only suggestion otherwise is, if you can be sure you can fully pass someone, just drop behind. Of course if there is already someone already behind...

In general, it is a cost benefit bet. You risk how much you want based on the perceived reward. There may be a few pit stops on this one, lots of walls.

This course will be an interesting change for these cars. I am interested in seeing if the 4WD car (s if brad shows) will do a bit better here since there are more slower corners to that they can use their accel traction advantage on.

The "Virtual Racing Organization" is planning a "Corvette Challenge" if anyone is interested>

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/virtual-racing-organization/39357/page1/

It uses the Z06 of which we all have a bit of experience with. Some may not like the fact that they allow TC and ABS. I plan to try it out.