Man, I'm still laughing... I spent like 3 hours after I saw your time trying like 30 different lines through the esses trying to make up 2 seconds. :lol: I think I shaved off like 2 tenths. :lol:

But now that we're on to the new rules, those 1'27's aren't gonna cut it. I think the winner of this challenge will be in the low 1'22's. The car is actually quite a bit harder to drive with the extra power and lower weight... not so much due to the power, but more due to the higher speeds in the corners. The esses used to be a simple foot-on-the-floor ride, but now you're carrying so much more speed, you have to really nail the turn in points to be able to stay ahead of the turns and flat foot it. And I've found that the last sweeper before the hairpin really needs a tap of the left-foot to turn in hard enough to keep the speed up. Just getting that one turn right or wrong can swing my lap times by 2 or 3 tenths!

Anyway, I hope to see some more lap times from you guys soon, I need some motivation to get my times down. :devil:

Sorry about that Scott.

Are you adjusting the cars speed (which changes the gearing) that may help you on those turns.

I went the traditional route of picking a top gear speed that matches the top speed I'm actually seeing on track, which IIRC is the 260kph setting (two clicks left of default).

The problem is that T2 is now two downshifts instead of 1 which makes the corner a little harder (plus the higher entry speed up the hill moves the braking point earlier so you have to trail brake in). Also the esses require a shift to 6th inbetween the 2nd left and 2nd right. But the carousel is now in a better rev range in 4th than it was previously, and the two hairpins are now 3rd gear turns instead of 2nd. So overall I think the gearing is better a little shorter.

3 hours? Damn you're hardcore.

Dammit. I finally find a group of people who are as willing to waste time perfecting a video game as I am, and everyone's playing a game I don't have on a system I don't have.

shit

Ever since I whacked my head on a shelf in my parent's garage over Xmas, I haven't been able to sleep. Even with a dose of Tylenol PM in me, I can't get to sleep before 2am. Hell, last night I was up until 5:30 or so in the morning just laying in bed awake.

So I figure, I might as well play some GT. :lol:

Less Crack.

I'll sell you my old PS2 on the super-cheap... but you're gonna have to get your own copy of the game and hope the CD drive doesn't try to scratch it like it did to my copy.

...but hey, cheap PS2, and it's got the network card, so you can pretty easily mod it w/ a hard drive in which case the intermittant issues w/ the CD drive aren't a big deal.

Wait, WTH aren't I modding it, hard drive load times are like 100 times faster than the CD... :?:

Seriously... I think I fucked something up... I can't fall asleep anymore, and once I do I wake up often, then when I have to get up, I'm dead tired and can't function. It sucks.

...'course I probably just need more exercise or something, and it's not related to the concussion.

you lost me at "mod it"

If it doesn't have tires, I don't know anything about making any kind of modifications...

I've been asked a hundred times why I haven't "modded" my X-BOX. I have no idea WTF this means. I just play games...

Me too, which is why I bought a second PS2 instead of adding a hard drive to it. :lol:

Careful dude, if you don't start sleeping you might end up here:

http://ignatz.brinkster.net/cimages/cfightclub14.jpg

I've been clicking off nice 1'33's.:lol:

I'm still a noob GT4'r, how do I get the session record screen to show up, do I actually have to run a fast lap?


I set it for like 15 lap races. My hand cramps up with the controller.

I'm losing a lot of time in turn 4.

Wait, which track you on?

Go to arcade mode and pick time trials. Then go to the track and you can run unlimited laps with the ghost car that echos your fastest lap. On the menu in TT mode you can see your fastest lap time (like my screen shots) and save it as a replay.

check.

where's my T4 advice?

Just to make sure we're on the same turn:

http://www.rennieclayton.com/DSRForu...eralMap.lg.gif

T4 sucks... downhill, slightly off camber... it's not easy. I tend to just "throw" the car down the hill. I come off 3a, but don't stay totally to the left. I'm usually just about to the top of 4th gear when I get to the braking point. Then I brake, down shift and throw the car into 4 on an early apex, almost in one motion. I usually clip the curb on the enterance to the corner (like I said, way early apex). Then I'm back on the throttle, wide open, and let the car run down the hill to the exit curb. The key is all about nailing the braking and turn in points... it's not easy. Once into the corner, the car kinda drives itself since you just let the wheel unwind as traction allows.

Yep that's the one. I do like that turn I just mess it up a lot.

I mess it up alot too... but that's *why* I *don't* like it! :lol:

１：２３．７５３

That turn is tough to hit right, but when you hit it right, it's awesome.

I finally got time to try again last night with the new rules and I'm only throwing down 1' 27's. :( I'm shifting manually now too, and although more challenging, it's way more fun. :)

Hey Sperry, since you're our current leader and obviously know quite a bit more about racing than me...I find myself wanting to see a vid of one of your better laps. I understand if you want to wait till this challenge concludes (so as not to give away all your secrets ;) ) but if you can, a vid would be sweet.

Shifting gives you way more control on the turns. Last night I was in the 126's pretty consistantly. I'll try again today and mess around with the top speed settings a little more. I doubt I'll be gaining 3 seconds though. I keep coming in too hot on turns 2 & 3 which is where I am losing most of my time.

T2 sucks! It's hard for me to know where I am since it's a blind corner.

Actually I attempted to film my 1'26 lap, but my camera doesn't really like to sync up with my TV. Plus my digicam takes uncompressed AVI footage, so I didn't think anyone wanted to download 200MB for 1'30 movie.

I'm gonna run some more here in a bit, so I'll set up the tripod and record my best lap, and re-encode it as a DivX or something before posting it.

Oh, and climbing the hill through turn 3a is a great place to make up a bunch of time if you get lucky and hit all the curbs just right.

Most of the time I just engine brake the damn thing, I can't drive auto in GT4.

If I had a reason to record my sessions (for humor perhaps?), I would VHS it and then hook the VCR to the tuner card in my desktop. If I capture with high res MPG, I can convert it to DivX with Dr DivX and get a nice looking yet small size file.

Just get under 25 1'24.806. Where the hell can I shave off another second?

I ran a 1'22.898" earlier today, I recorded a video that'll I'll upload later tonight.

Could only get mine down to 23.5. I just cannot do both turn 2 & 3a correctly in the same lap.

You guys are all fast. I haven't gone under 25 yet. If I get some more time late tonight I'll give the wheel a try - my thumbs hurt!

Here's the video. I'll go over the room for improvement later, but I think a 1'21.xxx is in the car (but probably not the driver).

Tease...

Fuck... the network went down while uploading it... :roll:

Edit: looks like my attachment got lost, I'm FTPinng it up... it'll be there in like 30 minutes... our upstream isn't huge, and the stupid network is slow tonight.

:P

Bam!

http://www.seccs.org/gallery/Car%20P...1_1-22-898.wmv

Your a god damn Jedi.

LOL. After watching your video, I realize I'm short shifting at 6.5k.

:lol: Actually the more I watch that lap, the more time I think there is to make up:

T1: Could be closer to the wall (driver's left) to shorten the length of the track. (Worth maybe .05s)

T2: Could have carried a touch more speed, since I didn't need all of the run-out. (Another +.05s.)

T3: Same as T2, there's more room on the exit than I used, so I must not have been going fast enough. (+.05s)

T4: Turned in too early, missed the apex. (+.1s)

T5: Took it flat out, no real mistakes, I just didn't line-in to T6 correctly. (+0s)

T6 (the carrosel): Off line on entry (enterance is actually mid track according to Skimonkey who used to work at the track and has a *ton* of miles there). I also apexed too early, and didn't get close enough to the curb. The correct line is to come off 5 mid track, then trail brake down the hill, apexing right at the start of the curb on the left, then washing out all the way to the exit. Doing it right would make a huge difference since it leads to a long straight. (+.3s)

T7 (1st hairpin): I blew the braking point, and was way hot into the corner, missing the apex. This should be an early apex, followed by a late apex into the esses. At least I got my exit pretty good, so I didn't give up too much leading into the esses that are taken flat out so they're really like a long straight, making T7 very important... maybe the most important corner on the track. (+.2s)

Pre-esses (not numbered): I did pretty well over the curbs. It's flat out, and you cut as much as is "legal" (two tires on track) to straighten it out. You can cut the split curbs a lot more than I did, but it's risky... sometimes the car stays flat, other times you get unsettled a lot and lose time. Since I had a good lap going I too the lower risk of not cutting too much. The whole goal is to come off the split curbs to T8 at the right angle so you can flat foot it through 8 and 8a. (+.05s)

T8, T8a (the esses): I cut over 8 pretty well, sometimes the car bottoms out as you com off the curb, and it makes the turn in to 8a skittish. You sorta just have to get lucky. I waited just a millisecond too long to turn in to 8a, missing the curb. Also, I must have scrubbed too much speed in 8 because the car wasn't moving fast enough to need all the washout on 8a. When done right, you should squarely drive over both the curbs in 8a, then carry all that speed through T9. (+.2s)

T9: This is still flat-out through here. I'm not totally sure what line is fastest. Sometimes I stay right to get a better line in to T10, but I feel like I'm having to cover an awful lot more distance, so I sorta started just driving down the middle of the road. There's probably not much time to be made here, you either got it right already or you didn't. However, setting up for the T10 right hand sweeper is very important. (+.05s)

T10: I was late turning in. When done right, you drive over the curb on an early apex. But if you're too early, you end up in the tires on the corner's exit, and if you're too late, the car won't ever get to the curb (kinda like in my lap). If you nail it the car can stay at about 6200 rpm through the turn, and you'll get a *huge* run down to the final hairpin. This corner makes and breaks my laps all the time. I've been .5s up on my ghost lap, then just barely miss this turn and lose it all. One trick to getting this right is to give the car a tiny left foot brake tap as you turn in to help the front end bite. I'm actually pretty violent on my turn in as well, since I'm trying to get the rear to rotate a little so I won't have to lift to avoid the dirt on the exit. (+.2s)

T11 (second hairpin): I think the fastest way to make this turn is in 3rd gear. A traditional out-in-out line should be fastest, and you need to use every bit of track available. Keeping the car in 3rd is hard, because if you slow too much it boggs. Since I knew I had a good lap going, I went for the safer 2nd gear turn. I also turned in a tiny bit too early, but was also going a touch too fast so was still able to make a good exit. (+.1s)

T12: Just like T1, I could have hugged the wall a little bit more. IMO if you stick to the dark "line" on the track, you're just driving too far. You can hug the wall all the way from the exit of 11 and go straight off 12 heading for the S/F line. (+.05s)

So anyway, by my count there's about 1.35s out there to pick up. The only problem is that a perfect lap is impossible. The goal is just to know where you want to put the car and just drive enough laps. Eventually you get every corner pretty close to perfect all in one lap. Just guessing I think I probably ran about 100 to 120 laps over 3 days to finally put this one together. And in another 100 laps I'll probably get another one this good, 'cept maybe I'll fix T6, T7 and T8a, and get into the 1'21"s. :devil: But for now, I'm tired of Sears Point, so I'm gonna stop running laps unless one of you guys beats my time before the challenge ends.

1'25.841, after running laps for about two hours. That was at about 3AM, so I might try again tomorrow when I'm less fatigued, but I don't know if my thumb and the thumbstick will allow me any more finesse than I'm managing now. I want a wheel :P

Turns 2 and 3a are the bane of my existence.

My comrade!

Or, Scott, you have way too much time on your hands!

Nicely done. I'm gonna give one more try before Tuesday with the wheel; but I can't touch that time.

I think we need some live races. It would be easy enough to bring a console and a couple of controllers to a meet.

Scott, what kind of time do you get when using the controller instead of the wheel?

I bet I could break into the 1'40"s... just barely. :lol:

I *totally* suck with a controller... the only game I can handle a controller with is Rally Sport 2 on XBox. At least the XBox has the long-pull triggers for the gas and brakes... the PS2 controller is just impossible for me since it's impossible to have analog steering, gas, and brake, and be able to left-foot brake.

Oh, and the reason I'm so used to a wheel is because I've been racing with one since about 1997/98 when AtomicLabMonkey and I used to race online in a NASCAR 2 league. :devil: You *had* to have a wheel to be competative, when the alternative was the keyboard. :lol:

I don't feel quite so bad about my time, then. ;)

Man, if I had any place to mount it, I'd have one of those Logitech GT4 wheels already. I do ok with a controller, but the range of motion on the thumbstick is too short to steer with any real accuracy. When I watch your replay, it's obviously much smoother than mine.

That's the main trouble I'm having with turns 2 and 3a - I know where I want to be going, but I can't make my thumbs do it.

Something that helps with 2:

Try to stay wide out of one then cut it back in towards the burm on the left up the hill, kinda like I did in my recorded lap, but even moreso. The idea is to get a really straight run up the left side of the hill so you can brake in a straight line, then turn right over 2, rather than the whole brake while turning left up the hill, then throw it right manuver. 2's hard enough because it's a blind apex, you might as well make the braking/turn-in a little easier.

The same goes for 3/3a. Although the hill isn't as fast or as long, it's still a very similar turn. Also be careful of the curbs in 3/3a... you can clip them, but if you hit 'em hard, you're gonna be in the grass.

Also, even though you can go flat out up the hill after 1 and at 3, it's okay to give up a little speed there, since exiting the next turn is far more important than carrying speed up the hills.

And just like driving in real life, it's a huge advantage if you can imagine the track up ahead. You know what the road looks like over the hill, try to imagine it one corner ahead and let your brain automatically drive the car there, rather than just looking at the 6 feet in front of the car that you can see and try to react.

Yeah I started doing that and got much faster on the front section.

I like that sequence now.

23.165, still can't break into 22

That's still really good...just not good enough, unfortunately. Sperry should be disqualified or somthing. :P I only managed to break into the 26's. :(

We should just force him to use a controller instead of a wheel. ;)