Race #16 Season Finale

Well it's here folks, and I almost forgot!

As has been the past few races, it's the endurance cars. So more of the Le Mans 650pp racers. But that's OK they're good cars right. Expect them to have a lesser focus in the next season, I'm a bit over endurance racing at the moment...

The track

Suzuka. nuff said. Here's Senna hammering an old NSX around the track.. 

But please, turn the sound down and make brrrrm noises in your head, the music is straight from "I have a hangover and I want to lie here and have nothing move me in any way shape or form, emotionally or physically" - it's a catchy album, unlike the music.

Official Details
Clubman
Host: Andrew (Andyc709292)
Lounge: FCT GT5 Andrew
Date: 01-Aug-2013
Track: Suzuka
Start time: 9:00 PM
Laps: 2
Cars: Fixed
Tyres: TBC - Wear Off.
Boost: High/Low

Championship
Track: Suzuka
Start time: 9:15 PM
Laps Per Race: 20
Cars: GT650Open
Tyres: Open - Wear On Fast
Boost: Low/Off
Notes: Rain Possible

Other news

I've decided on my car - it is indeed going to be the S15. I dabbled with the xsara but it's just a bit slower than anything everywhere, it would never be a contender in any race I think. Still, looks nice:

This is the car for me, it's the S15, RM spec. Nice, albeit a bit of a handful in the dirt, and probably the wet too... 

I'll figure out a more static page for these cars somehow and put some details around why I like this car up on that.

Other other news

But this week, I've mostly been playing WRC3 which is downloadable for a small price (compared to a real WRC car). I'm really enjoying it, even if the pics aren't as nice as the ones above...

Some nice stages

Great pace notes and plenty of rally action

Rally GB, with extra mud

Lakeside Historic Racing

Andy and I checked out the historic race meet at Lakeside on the weekend.
Lakeside's a neat little circuit at 2.4km and can be quite unforgiving in places.  Lakeside held 2 Grand Prix(66 and 69) and held Australian Touring Car Championship rounds until 1998.

There was a great mix of classic cars including Mk1 & 2 Escorts, Torana's, Commodores, Camero's, RX7, E30 BMW's, Cosworth Sierra's etc.
Jim Richards was the headline act driving his recently restored champion ship winning HR31 Skyline.

There's a pretty good article on restoring a similar Fred Gibson skyline here


Pics via slideshow below:

[Andy Edit] - The day was epic. Loving the euro boxes as I do, seeing the E30's racing around was great. The skyline (Chris, fancy running your purple thing again?) was fantastic, it didn't look overly quick but in the dry smashed everything and in the wet (we had a race of rain) it was only bested by the 'stang.

Overall, a legendary bit of racing, pit walking and carcinogenic hotdog eating.

Next? Well I'll be going to lakeside a lot more now, it's only an hour away from me. There's also the Noosa Hill Climb and try and do a racers meet then. It's not until November, so plenty of time to plan. Details here

What's this GB' Malarkey then?

Right, update time...

One of the good things about our league is a regular shuffling of the classes, opening up other aspects of racing and making use of other cars in the game - HRC460 is a classic example of this, getting the RUF into the racing amongst other things.

So, what's the GB - as in the previous post, it's Group B - or rather something like it.

Rules
I've done a bit of testing, and as a result of that and some feedback here are the new proposed rules:

1. Cars are submitted at the start of the year for 'scrutineering'.
• The car submitted remains the same make/model throughout the year.
• Cars may be tuned.
• Cars may be substituted for another same make/model car. E.g. If you have one car for dirt and one for street all good (though why not just tune).
• Where a car is substituted - the same aero package must be used - i.e. look the same (to stop scrutineering on a car with a wing, then running with none).
2. 500pp Max
3. Tyres to be used include:
• Racing Medium
• Dirt
• Wet tyres
4. Cars must have adjustable aero features (i.e. an adjustable wing or more)
5. No cars with 'prototype' or 'concept' in the name title. I.e. cars must be:
• A race car based on a road car; or
• A rally car based on a road car; or
• A road car (err based on a road car).
6. There is no age restriction.
7. There is no specific power restriction.
8. There is no specific weight restriction.
9. Not the same as someone else's car! - First in gets the deal. My advice is to submit your preferred now and change it later if you need to, that way you secure your car.

This all sounds a bit full on, but in reality it's get a car make sure you can adjust the aero on it, put dirt tyres on it and then tune it to 500pp. Easy!

Scrutineering

How're we going to do that - easy...

Take a picture of your car, share it out as a pic (in game is fine I can pick them up from there) and email me a short description of the car (why you picked it etc, no need to give away tuning secrets unless you want to!) - I'll post a blog update with the cars for racing before next season. That becomes your car for the season!

Races

The races will be something along the lines of:

• 2x Dirt/gravel tracks - slipstream turned off (so it's easier to pass).
• 2x Traditional circuit races.
• 1x Wet race.
• 1x Street race.

If the season works out longer I'll keep a similar ratio - essentially I'm trying to get a balance of off/on road so that there's reasonable racing for both 4wd and RWD cars. We'll see!

Cars

I'm supposing for some it'll be possible to run a TC500 car in this class. This in fact has good heritage when you consider that the Ford RS500 Cosworth did both touring and rally as did the E30 M3 BMW. Perhaps we need to have more power for proper Group B racing, but I think that the dirt tracks in GT5 let us down a bit.

Anyway, here's the results of my testing...

Great fun - here's the real deal!

To mad for me.

I put a lot of time into this - OK on dirt, epic on street of course.

Could be a class winner...

If it wasn't for stuff like this. Modern Group B madness really.

So there you have it, an eclectic mix of cars. Note that RM type cars (full list here) can have dirt tyres, or at least some can, so you can build your own Group B monster, and of course the track time will be better compared to a road car.

p.s. I'll be submitting one of these shortly... prob by Thursday so if you want one of these submit early!

The final settings are not made yet, so happy for testers to give me advice on best options. 

Cheers

Andrew

Race #4 Results

I need to get back into this - the enduro races seem to be harder to write up for some reason!

Race roundup

Clubman
What was I thinking! Really!
But then, NASCARs around Le Mans became interesting didn't it - they were as fast as our Le Mans cars (who'd have 'thunk' it) down the straight but marred by an inability to stop or corner - Barge...
What was evident was that if you managed to tiptoe around the corners you were sorted, as Callum demonstrated with a pretty convincing win. And with that the title for clubman is sealed now, richly deserved it is too.

Championship
We seem to have drama at this circuit every race. I think we all don't like the night racing, but I can honestly say I think I've enjoyed that race the most this season. The strategy, the drama of crashing at night or running out of fuel made it an exceptional race - I don't mind being down the points either, I deserved that with my splash, dash and crash strategy, I can see how I can make a place next time too (with more fuel in fact). George, special mention to you for fighting up the front for so long then being wiped by fuel so near the end - I re-watched your last few laps and the lap before you were pretty much running on empty, harsh!
Chris your Peugeot may be back on form, but I reckon it's dominance isn't what it was last time, you only just got the win really, interesting how the racing has developed...

Official results

Clubman
1. Callum
2. Paul
3. Evan
4. George
5. Andrew
6. Chris

Championship
1. Chris
2. Paul
3. Callum
4. Evan
5. Andrew
6. George

Next week (this week now)
Thrash night folks - though I will say I've had some fun on dirt tracks in GT5 since the Qld Rally this last weekend - Evan and I went along to the super special at Nambour. Great stuff.

Next season
And as a result of some extended testing, and a change in the folks who race (we're all mature racers eh) I'm proposing we scratch clubman in favour of....
GroupB style racing. - GB480
Now what you might not know is that Group B was conceived to be a bit more than rally, whilst that's what everyone focused on, it also had (in fairness only a little bit of) heritage in track racing too. A look at the list of cars shows some of the cross-development they had, the 959 is a prime example:

Le Mans!

Not Le Mans...

So what does this mean in our league?
Here are the rules...

• 480pp (I've found this pp sits cars around 300Bhp, good for rally)
• Racing cars OK.
• Must be able to take dirt tyres.
• Racing medium tyres will be for circuit racing.
• Must have adjustable aero (i.e. a wing at least)
• Car is nominated at the start of the season - and kept throughout.

So, we pick a car and tune it, then race it on a variety of tracks including:

1. Dirt racing.
2. Endurance racing.
3. Wet racing
4. Street racing.

The question, to be 4wd or not to be 4wd. A rally car will be spot on for off road and wet, but endurance races (think tyre wear) could be bad, tight street racing could have issues too. Does one opt for more boost and less wing? It's an interesting class.

Do let me know if it's a goer and I'll add it to the charter and set up next season with this.

And what about GT6?

We'll run another season in GT5, we don't know when GT6 is coming, and I reckon we have some racing left to do in this game yet. Next season might be a bit longer too, with no down weeks, or only a couple to cope with outages and delays. I of course welcome your thoughts as a bunch of mates who like to race!

This. This is what excites me about GT6...

This picture...

Source. Why this picture? Well, one certain reason - it's Goodwood Festival of Speed Hill Climb.
The conjectural reasons? Firstly it implies linear tracks rather than circuits, so essentially hill climbs are in. And if we extrapolate that, Pikes Peak (which has been in a GT game in the past) is possible.

Magnificent.

See you tonight folks!

Race #4 - Le Mans Endurance

Another race folks!

Firstly an apology, things have been a bit hectic here, so not enough of the good updates and uploading of content is going on. I will say, anyone is welcome to contribute to this blog - drop me a line and I'll add you as an editor. The theme is easy - GT5, GT6 (well it had to happen) and all things motorsport.

But to racing...

It's another endurance race folks. This one though is Le Mans - which means lovely night racing along with tyre wear and all the trappings that it might have. The question on most people's lips has to be will we have the same level of intrigue as last time, drop outs, Luke's 'factory' car running out of fuel. A proper great race it was too.

The track.
You know it, in fact, here's a couple of vids of us racing it as a reminder. The 587pp cars racing here has to be a 'career' highlight for me (though not a points night!)...

Dirty Internet Connection? Simply Race and Repeat (lest we forget).

And 650Open Racing at Le Mans

The Cars

Will we see a return of the Peugeot from Chris? It dominated here last time, but was shizzer at Spa.

We are racing more laps too, so maybe that'll change things? Certainly having tyre wear on Fast will make for a few interesting pitting strategies. What's more, for the sake of cruelty I'm thinking we'll have catch up turned off - certainly if we can muster a good crew we will.

Official Details

Clubman
Host: Andrew (Andyc709292)
Lounge: FCT GT5 Andrew
Date: 11-Jul-2013
Track: Le Mans
Start time: 9:00 PM
Laps: 1
Cars: Fixed
Tyres: TBC - Wear Off.
Boost: High/Low

Championship
Track: Le Mans
Start time: 9:15 PM
Laps Per Race: 15
Cars: GT650Open
Tyres: Open - Wear On Fast
Boost: Low/Off

Finally
... I used to be something you know...

This is an 'in the rules' 587pp car doing a lap of Le Mans in 3:54:08. Tyre wear was turned off, and the tyres were racing/soft. Other than that, as per the race rules. I stand by this being a top lap for that class, anyone want to rise to the challenge (and then I'll go on about Deep Forest...).

Do you even drift bro?

Crazy time...

Race#3 results

Super quick post today folks - I'll do a race round up and some imagery later.

Results on the night.

Race round up

Season Standings

Points are updated on the right folks - Callum, shock jump to the lead... George, Internet is not your friend chap!