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

NickF40 wrote: yeah but won't that not be safe for the computers?

Well, i have one that I am reinstalling the OS on soon that I keep on, I turn the others off for game night. its what I have to do to see everyone in the races.

Well watching the SBC replay didn't make me feel any better. Vindicated but still mad about missing what could have been an awesome battle with Aircooled.

I ran out of tire in the SBC race... my last three laps i didn't have anything left.

Can someone with the ability to upload pics capture some pictures of my awesome 130mph+ straightaway slides that i miraculously avoided damage from? I had two of them, and they were EPIC.

Graefin, i'm sorry for the smoke show you had to fight your way through in the SBC race. Wonder WHY my tires were done by the end of the race.

NP 92 Celica. That was all great fun. The SBC cars are the hardest thing I've ever tried to do with this game. The 110S Mazda will hit 140 at the s/f line sometimes but absolutely no traction, especially trying to use a controller. This set up made me learn how to drive with the stick though so I can make smoother corrections. Now, if there was a way to do that with the brakes and throttle.

Nick, what do you charge for lessons? My MX5 only has 159 hp but that doesn't account for 6 plus seconds per lap. Good job.

aircooled are you seriously thinking about changing Monza to rain next week? If so I'll give it a go but I already know that most of my time will be spent creeping around to the pits.

Sorry I couldn't stay for the MX5 race, but I had fun in the SBC race eventhough I didn't capitalize on Apex's shortcut penalty. I went off at T1 at the beginning of lap 10. Got back on the track right in front of Apex. Then proceeded to commit a series of mistakes adding about 7 seconds to my lap time. Tried for some heroics at the bustop and ended up doing some farming way out in the grass then got my own shortcut penalty. Somehow after hitting the grass at least 4 times in that race I suffered no damage and stayed out of the walls. It was nice to complete a whole race with no damage. I knew the start was going to be hairy starting out on the banking. I haven't watched the replay yet to see whatever happened to Dave. Too bad Nick couldn't stick around for the race, I might've had something for him for once.

Monza should be an Alpine and Europa fest. I think you guys have everyone else on top speed. Maybe the rain will be really heavy. Can't imagine the lack of traction these cars will have in the rain.

Do we get to run rain tires or do we stay on Comfort Mediums?

Graefin-for you, $1 I don't know why, I guess with me playing racing games my whole life, started with PC and mostly TOCA, then getting the PS2 and learning with the controller, I learned how to be smooth with the controls. I know now with the triggers had helped me a lot for sure. For the high speed sections I used left foot braking so to speak

TJ-yeah it sucks, honestly surprised it kept me in long enough to do the MX5 race and even stay in for the later race. It seemed to be nice to me last night, all it did was kick me out of the server like normal, stayed logged on. Hope that keeps up!! I have noticed that whenever someone "else" comes in the room then I have problems with staying in, i'm ok with all of you guys, well except Apex

and as for the rain at Monza, yeah, the rain tires are only for the R tires so all we got is comfort mediums which are like all seasons so they are rain tires lol but still with no grip, it'll be no grip racing. There will be lots of sliding and crashes for sure, doubt there will be any real advantage for anyone, it's just who survives

After doing a few laps there in rain last night, I am not so sure about my previous statement that it will be an Alpine and Europa fest. The rain is a killer. Not sure, but FWD may be an advantage since it is more forgiving of hamfisted throttle operation (no oversteer/drifting). The comfort mediums in the wet are a lot of fun (unless your idea of fun is a lot of traction).

Any idea how the weather works? I think from doing some of the A spec races that it really is variable. Sometimes is stays sunny the entire race sometimes it rains the whole time. Sometimes it goes back and forth. It looks like when the room is set up the weather can be set at the beginning to either sunny or rain, and there is an option to lock that choice in. Brad, what is the plan for us?

Graefin10 wrote: NP 92 Celica. That was all great fun. The SBC cars are the hardest thing I've ever tried to do with this game. The 110S Mazda will hit 140 at the s/f line sometimes but absolutely no traction, especially trying to use a controller. This set up made me learn how to drive with the stick though so I can make smoother corrections. Now, if there was a way to do that with the brakes and throttle. Nick, what do you charge for lessons? My MX5 only has 159 hp but that doesn't account for 6 plus seconds per lap. Good job. aircooled are you seriously thinking about changing Monza to rain next week? If so I'll give it a go but I already know that most of my time will be spent creeping around to the pits.

I think Nick is fast with the controller because he's using R2 gas, L2 brake, and he can modulate. Oh, and he's being lazy and using automatic transmission.

Personally, i think he's just a video game geek.

hahaha yes I am, well read above! and that has helped me tons and I dunno, manual with the controller is just weird to me and too much for the hands, real car and wheel yes, controller no

I get crazy push in the corners and NO traction so it ought to be interesting if I could even stay on course.....that's if my internet still works by then

I used manual transmission for our Indy race. My torque and hp peaks are about 1000 rpm before the automatic will shift. So I set my ratios up so that a simple downshift to 4th and a tap on the brakes at corner enterance and I was good to go. Then about a third of the way down the straight, shift back to 5th. It gained me about a second a lap over the auto trans. I cannot manage it on a real course though. Too many buttons to try to press all at once. Indy was very simple. Everywhere else I go with the automatic. If I had a wheel setup I'd go with the manual to get better shift points.

I'm still rocking the old school controls...

X for gas, Square for brake, R2 for upshift, L2 for downshift.

My girlfriend gets cross-eyed watching me work the buttons. She was getting into it last night, yelling at people.

haha exactly TJ

Ben which is why you go into crazy slides, hey just a suggestion LOL nice, well I know she couldn't have been yelling at me how'd she like your couple of straight D1GP drifts?

NickF40 wrote: haha exactly TJ Ben which is why you go into crazy slides, hey just a suggestion LOL nice, well I know she couldn't have been yelling at me how'd she like your couple of straight D1GP drifts?

She was yelling at the screen. NO NO NO NO NOOOO!!!!!

Then she was getting all sad for me when my tires finally gave up the ghost and i couldn't catch Graefin at the end.

Brad confirmed with me that it will be raining in Monza next week. The rain is variable. It was raining a lot harder when we started the practice then lightened up. Even the Europa has serious traction issues with the comforts. We do have the option for dirt and snow tires, so that might be something to explore.

Last Night: (I should be able to get some pics up tomorrow) The SBC started out very interesting. The race starts and OH CRAP!, the banking makes everyone take a hard turn into the wall. This did not give me the acceleration advantage I usually had so I ended up just ahead of the pack.

Into the 3rd corner, the Derve was right on me, so I broke a bit late to try to avoid the rear bumper assault. Derve seemed to avoid me fine, but got tagged himself. This kind of ended the excitement for me. Apex got close to me, but I kept well ahead in general. The Europa really liked that track, hit 151 on the straight a few times. It seemed like there was a battle going on for 2nd or 3rd, I will have to watch the replay.

The 1st corner was a killer, but I discovered it was reasonably easy to take if you did a light brake drag from about the finish line into the corner, rather then try to get set up straight and go hard on the brakes, which I had been doing previously.

MX5: The word of the day here for me was Practice... or the lack of. The MX5 uses a totally different line on this track and it cost me. What really cost me was over cooking the 1st turn braking and taking a big wall smack. I went to last, but managed to take back a few positions.

There was a lot of time to found on that track with the MX5 that I did not explore in practice. You can absolutely blast through the bus stop if you hit it right. 1 and 5 could be taken a lot quicker by braking a bit early to the outside and swinging in. I was able to keep 3rd in those, rather then go down to 2nd.

Anyone else notice that the games suggested braking point for #1 seemed to be a bit insane? As in, way to late. I think that is what got me in MX5.... well of course the fact that I was side by side with a rather fetching (pink?) MX5 probably added to that.

All in all, not bad. I was looking forward to a nice draft battle with Derve in SBC, but that was taken care of early. We seemed to be very close in qualifying (I did chase him for a while).

Oh, and I forgot to boot F40 in the MX5 race, so the little bastard won! Next time I will put a sticky up or something, that boy must be stopped.

Ben, LOL

aircooled- hahahahaha

and the funny thing I got NO practice either, played Shift 2 this whole time so literally I put in the game and threw down maybe 3-4 practice laps in the room

The braking is a little severe yes, I would start braking when I reached the outside wall, or where the barrier started mind you, for the first corner, I just left foot broke the whole time through it. Then again their braking points are for tires that have WAY BETTER grip then what we use

The bustop was all timing, I rarely had to lift and like you said for some of the corners, braking early and going wide to apex of the corner was key

I got tagged in turn 2 when a car tried to fill a spot that wasn't there, Aircooled was on the outside of me so I didn't have anywhere to go but to maintain my line and hope for the best. That threw my rear alignment off which makes the car completely undriveable so I had to pit.

I was running 2:20 and 2:19 laps for most of the race but couldn't catch up. I go frustrated enough that I just started overdriving the car since there was nobody to even race with.

The fact that the PASSING CAR has the responsibility of getting by cleanly needs to be reinforced. If the spot isn't there just be patient. It's easy to end a race on the first lap for yourself and somebody else.

I was pumped to take on Aircooled since our laps times were very similar. He was faster on the straights and I seemed to be a little quicker through the turns. Oh well, Monza!

I was running pretty consistent 2:20-2:21 in a steady state, but could turn 2:19 or less if pressed. I swear the car drives slower on line! I turned a 2:17 offline, but it didn't seem like I could do that online. No way I would have raced for a 2:17 pace anyway, that line is way too thin.

You are right on about being patient. I am guilty of getting way to eager to get "in there" in some races.. you just get the red mist. Fortunately I don't think I have punted anyone. It is pretty strange the stupid stuff you end up doing once you either catch up to someone or they catch up to you.

In this race it really was not necessary. If you are close in pace to another car (which is pretty much a given in MX5) all you have to do is pace behind them until the oval, then draft past.

I have to keep telling my self, "DON'T look at the map", DON'T look in the mirror", "It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing", "race your race".

Obviously when someone is next to you you need to keep an eye out but I believe I witnessed the "oh crap another car" panic a few times when I was coming up from the rear in the MX5 race. Follow them for a bit, they do something silly, go on past. I of course did it myself in turn 1.

Aircooled, at one point near the end of the SBC race I was only 6 seconds behind you. Must've been lap 8 or 9 or so. Not sure if you just slowed down since your lead was so big or if you got a penalty. It was all for naught however since there was no way I was going to catch you and/or challenge you for the lead. I could hit 142 max.

SOMEONE punted me in turn 1 in the MX5 race. Wasn't very hard, but it was enough to make my car undriveable.

We should race in Shift 2you can blow your engine, wheels and body panels fly off, you can flip your car, etc, THAT would be fun

T.J. wrote: Aircooled, at one point near the end of the SBC race I was only 6 seconds behind you....

I noticed that. I had a good 15 second lead, then someone left the race and put a note up to that effect. Stupidly, I read the note and proceeded to do a slow half loop near turn 2 desperately trying to avoid tapping the wall.

I picked it up a bit after that to get my cushion back, but you almost had a freebie there. I have to stay VERY focused in that Europa.

I really should ask Dr. Hess if his Europa drives like this one does, but I am pretty sure he would blame any wonky handling on "the O".

I always fall for those messages as well. They are hard to ignore.

Oh, another thing that I was going to bring up, kind of silly really.

Last night, someone was watching and did a little bit of message announcing during the race. It was a "white flag is out" comment which I thought was kind of cool (although text messages can be distracting in a bad way, see above). It would be interesting to try having someone who isn't racing do a voice commentary on the race. It might be distracting, but it would make it fun for someone who isn't racing for whatever reason and it would keep it interesting for those who are "out in the wild" during a race.