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Originally Posted by GarySheehan
That was cool watching your vid. I saw 3 things we did differently. I downshifted to 3rd in turn 1 where you stayed in 4th. Your line in 5 is a bit tighter than mine and finally, I downshifted to 3rd in the hairpin and you visited 2nd for about a second.
Looks like we're taking turn 6 identically. I think you've got me beat in turn 5 more than I've got you beat in the hairpin. Everything else looks the same.
You DID figure out the trick to that car  That understeer's not so bad, is it 
Gary
Sheehan Motor Racing
www.teamSMR.com |
The shift into 2nd at the hairpin was actually a misshift... I was about .2 ahead of my 0.679 and went too deep into the hairpin, then over tapped my downshift and ended up in 2nd. You'll notice I popped it back into 3rd immediately. The reason I kept driving after turning that 0.603 was because I knew there was a 0.5xx, maybe even a 0.4xx, in the car... all I needed to do was duplicate my 0.603 lap w/o screwing up the hairpin.
The line in to T5 was what made all the difference in my lap times. I took the idea that the straight between T5 and T6 is so short, there's no reason to try to keep my speed up, so I started trying to extend my top speed run down the back straight into T5 as much as possible. Turns out you don't really give up much, as I was still getting into 5th gear before T6.
T6 is still the hardest corner for me. It seems like sometimes I'll drive it exactly the same way, but the car pushes and won't come back to the 2nd apex, othertimes I'm all over the curb too early. It takes very tiny input differences at turn in to make huge differences in what you can do with the car on exit. I think that corner would be a lot easier if the game allowed you to turn your head and look at the track-out of the corner... it's hard to make those tiny mid-corner corrections based on the track directly ahead of the car. Same goes for the hairpin.
Driving aids suck... according to the game, they use the ABS system to control traction, understeer and oversteer... so by definition you can't be as fast with them as you can be without since you're turning some of the power that should be accelerating the car into hot brakes. Even spinning the wheels, you seem to accelerate faster w/ TC off than with it on. And the push/spin assistance just makes the car react inconsistantly IMO. I always turn them off. However, the rules of the challenge allow people to turn them on if they want 'em. Same goes w/ the auto tranny... it's there if you want it, but I think it slows you down in the long run.
The Miata is a really fun car in GT. Low power, so you *have* to be smooth. Plus it oversteers very consistantly and controlably... but don't drift it too much or you can't accelerate! It's all about finding the optimal slip-angle for each corner so the car will turn well without bogging and losing power. The only thing I really wish we could change is the shift time between gears... shifting mid-corner takes so long the car decelerates, shifts weight forward and starts to oversteer!
Driving the Miata at Seattle is going to be a hoot... the bumpy busstop over the railroad tracks is going to make keeping the rear of the car behind the front a challenge!