Rules of engagement

I blame Prescott Hill Climb.

This is where I originally got my love of motorsport, and ultimately what I see as a bit of niche that’s exploitable in GT6, the thin ribbon of tarmac up the hill…

This article outlines an approach.

1. Tracks

Ingredients:

• Don’t link up the track – it’s a single ribbon up the hill…
• Narrow track width - <9m is good.
• Keep it short. A sub two minute run is ideal, dependent on corners/straights etc.
• Not too many jumps – it’s easy to have crazy over crest stuff in the track editor but that’s not real life.
• Limit the downhill – harder than it sounds, but essential.
• Get some chicanes in – shorten your straights. It’s about the bends.
• Careful on the switchbacks – if you go past vertical and start a downward bend you’ll have an over crest launch pad.
• Make sure you add scenery to give brake marking points etc.

2. Cars

Best way here is to build up classes to race. We use our league classes (on the right) but in slowest to fastest (all with no aids other than abs unless otherwise stated):

1. 400pp – 1970 or before road cars on sports hard tyres.
2. 460pp – 1990 or before road cars on racing hard tyres.
3. 525pp – 1970 or before US V8 cars on sports soft tyres.
4. 500pp – Non-race cars on sports soft tyres.
5. 590pp – Race cars on race medium tyres.
6. 650pp – Race cars on open tyres – traction control allowed.
7. Open class – all open. All aids allowed.

In fairness we’ve skipped a few of these classes in the interests of completing a night, err, in a night. But this is the dream list assuming we’re all online and racing from 7pm…

3. The competition

Due to the limitations of GT6 you’ll have to run a practice/race configuration and basically not run an actual race.

The challenge then is to run ever faster classes, and the lead time is posted up on the track for all to see. 

Things that make it harder are that there’s no queuing on the grid, so players will have to be sporting about taking turns up the hill – a microphone for each player really helps with this.

Also, there are no grid lights, so cars need to be up and running straight away, bad if you’re in big turbo 4wd with four gears as you’ll bog badly on the line…

In terms of racing, it’s pretty competitive once it’s up and running not only are you trying to best the posted time but also your own time, which is recorded for you of course (as a practice lap).

What does affect the racing a lot though are ringer cars, the Tommykaira ZZii is manic, and will win at the 500pp and 590pp classes – if you can ban it then all good. Others may beat it, but it’ll be a proper struggle to do so. And every class will have something similar in it, so  some gentlemanly agreements over the cars that should be avoided should be implemented.

Another option is to run single make cars – it would work, but misses a key part of this racing which is the tuning of the car per run to perfect it’s performance (I read that out loud and need to clean the screen now).

My tracks

Long, decent set of switchbacks. Big climb.

Very standard track. Good reference if a bit short. Great bus stop mid run.

Two very good dip/chicane sections in this great all rounder.

Super long hill climb. Good For stretching the car.

One of the better competition hill climbs.

Ugly because of a couple of nasty bends. Otherwise a great race.