A quick comment on TC practice: I was presently surprised to find that I could drift the car slightly, not nearly as much as the GT or Saloon cars, but it is still there. The race was only two laps and seemed to have a lot of learning involved (and touching). I currently have two candidates for cars. I need to do some more testing on a variety of tracks to see which one I like.
ABS Note: ABS did seem to show up in a slightly negative way this week. As an example, when I was doing a bit of dueling with Bael in the Commodore, he was doing way better with braking and did tap me once because of this. Just try to stay aware of the ABS less among us, I think it might only be Hunter, Brad and I.
GT: A small turnout. I was pleasantly surprised to see Bael doing very well for at least the first few laps, made for some good racing. I eventually got in front of Bael and Grea. About half way through the race I was still very good with tires (maybe 80%) and certainly didn't NEED tires at that point. I decided to pit anyway so I would have fresh tires for the end and to keep it somewhat interesting. Well, it turned out that neither Bael or Grea was interested in pitting, so the chase was on.
I slowly pulled up on the two, and with a few laps left I could see the tires were starting to go. I got Bael and with 3 laps left I was on Grea. I was considering a dramatic last lap pass, but decided passing on the front straight with another full lap left was a more prudent move.
Saloon: Big showing for this one. I was a bit worried about a pile up in turn one, but most of the field held back on turn 1, so that was nice. The Audi of course shot ahead, and nearly as quickly ran off the course in one of the first turns. Grea got a great start with (I believe) Bael (another good run for him).
Grea and I eventually got a rather good lead on the pack and then things got interesting. I was right on Grea at about lap 6, just waiting for an opportunity. Then my driving issues started. I don't know why, but for some reason I was having a big problem taking that hairpin after the tunnel. I was following Grea into that turn and for some reason got way to close and tapped him off into the sand. I got front damage from this. I waited for Grea at the next corner, and fortunately Bael had falling behind enough that the did not pass us.
I expected to see Grea pull into the pits (I could see he had rear damage) but he pushed on (I expect to make the half way point). I almost expected to see him spin off a corner, but he was doing fine. I just paced from behind with my front damage. We both pitted at the same time and came out withing a second of each other.
I was doing fine until I got stupid on that same corner again and gave myself front damage again (!!!). I though I was done, but I did eventually catch Grea again and was right on his butt with a lap to go. All set to pass him on the front stretch... I got on the power too early in that last hairpin and half spun!! Argghhh!! It was going to be close, but I messed it up. Oh well, Grea ran a great race (I was worried his hands would freeze up) so he deserved it. But I was close!!
Tracks: I did do a quick survey of custom tracks and it's looking pretty good. I will try and document the names and configs later and post them for confirmation. Then I can see what sort of track list I can come up with for next season.
Shuffle: Another thing that I NEED to do is figure out what sort of pacing we can do for the shuffle (how long for the race, how long between races). If anyone wants to play with this, go for it and let me know what you find. I am far more interesting in a number of small sprint races than any races of length.