We're still here!

Strangely, we have more league members than ever and less folks racing. Eh?

Perhaps I need to do more here - certainly I'm slack at the blog bit at the moment, life finds a way and all that... (to get in the way it seems).

In an attempt to pick myself up I went on a crusade across youtube, and this is something well worth a watch, if only to marvel at how a beard that big can get so rich (oh, and it's about Porsche)...

Finally, they say white men can't jump, well, I'd say old men can't drift (we drive sideways, there's a difference), but I am so very tempted to do similar to an old bike...

Quick update

Just a quick update to keep the blog alive.

Last week we played with the GT590 class cars - check the right hand side of this blog for the car classes that we regularly race with.
The GT590s started as Japanese only racers in GT5, but with GT6 we've extended into any race car with 590pp to reflect the European and GT3 class cars that are in this space.

And didn't BMWf30328i make good use of that! BMW' dominated the night, leading from the outset and whilst boost kept the field close there was only one race (If I recall) that wasn't won by BMW'.

And whilst this may seem cruel, it was good to see that 'Pops wasn't a country mile out in front. In fact I think his car choices helped put him well back down the grid on many an occasion, it's where real racers sit chap! ;o)

I'm not racing this week, kids holidays etc, but we do have a club area, and I recommend a message out from a regular to the others to set up a room, or of course do your own thing...

On my return we might have a night with the 587pp road cars. For a time it was the staple car of the league and there are some very fast cars indeed in that class. Fully exotic and no mistake!

One of the first online races

The Good, The Bad (ass) and The Ugly (!)

Stoooooooooop!

Not as fast as in red.

Night racing fun!

So we have a fine pedigree in these cars. The rules for these are:

• Road Car (no racers, concepts or stealth) - essentially that which you could buy at some point.
• 587pp
• Racing Soft Tyres (yes, the sticky ones, they need it).
• Errr that's it...

Practice on folks, it can be great racing!

Coming Out...

Noooooo, not the closet, not coming out of the closet, don't have a closet. Errr have manly clothes on rails in the middle of the room me. No closets.

Eh?

Nope, coming out of Boganshire I reckon. Time I fessed up and told you all what I drive, behold:

Notice how I've coloured the number plate so that you don't recognise it... haha!

Anyway, so now you know. I like driving it and no mistake, and it's a country mile from my old dog ute which if I'm honest was trying to kill me with it's lack of grip in anything the wrong side of moist...

Of racing - we have a number of new members kicking around, so let's hope that next week we have a reasonably full grid. I'll post up some race ideas for then - so we know what to test'n'tune.

Another replay

Another replay folks. Mostly as the PS3 is in the room with air-con...

Anyway, this one is HRC460, so 460pp road cars with race/hard tyres and 1990 or before.

Enjoy (except Evan, who will cringe at his hero>zero moment);

That TCR550 Race @ A1 Ring

And here's the reply of the race at A1 Ring in the 550pp V8s. The epic race if you will.

I'll say apologies to Kudos straight up, I slammed you at the end of the start/finish straight, and I'm just glad I changed your braking distance rather than an outright spin.

But overall an excellent race, I know boost helps, but the racing is so close and on the whole very tidy. Pops, you did an excellent avoidance move in the last lap which I think cost you a place or two, very sporting.

Anyway, here's the reply, and here's to more racing in the league.

I think going forwards we'll use the normal lobby system, as everyone is friends with me it's easier to find the room that way, and really the club stuff is a load of effort with little return. I'll put a news item up on the club page saying as much.

Old dog racing

I might wax on about Grid Autosport all the time, and truly the single player and two up online racing with AI cars is great. But I can't go past old car racing in GT6.

Last week had us racing the CR400s - old 1970 and before 400pp cars on sports hard tyres, and such great racing it is.

Certainly it's not about the win, and if I were to be a mile out in front (unlikely) I'd hang back just to get in the mix - that might be a hint for the rest of you to wait for me eh...
As I think Hoggy said, these cars are all about tactical racing, there's not enough power to pull away or overtake easily, so it's about planning moves and waiting for the opportunity. I might have waited too long...

But of the night's racing, we saw another guest driver for the evening, if we had all racers in the club join we'd have a full grid - and that would be awesome.

For those that missed it, here's a replay:

The Dark Side...

We all love GT6, even if we've got a bit tired of late - numbers are down a bit, but that's OK the racing is still excellent.

But, tempting the dark side is (to paraphrase the little green man).

Evan took advantage of the $25 price tag on Grid Autosport at the weekend and so last night was a test run of online racing.

Oh my...

Physics remain "different". But the online aspect is excellent. With an option to have AI divers in the online race we had a full 12 car grid, and with them set to 'medium' we had our hands full.

A top night's racing and very much great fun. What's more the mics we have worked too so we were able to chat away as we raced. Excellent fun!

http://www.gamesradar.com/grid-autosport-review/

I also downloaded the drag racing pack $8 or so...
That too is an eye opener, damn that's fast!

550pp RM V8 4 door Adjustable wing

Following another great night's racing of this class I thought it worthy to share not only the cars I've got that are suitable but also the cars that may be in the game.
It's fair to say that we'll race them again, so time to spend some pennies...

Some I've tuned, some not, spot the wing time:

Classic all rounder car. Aussie Icon.

Ballistic in a straight line, class car.

My Go To car, love the look and it's no slouch.

New this week! Glued to the road. Maybe too slow.

This is the later model S4. Early ones were not V8.

Even I couldn't put a wing on this - so wrong.

Note this is the early S6. Check those cylinders!

Not a bad TC500 car - looks great too.

Great car. Handling questionable.

Great, but too slow once tuned.

A winner for some. Certainly works in this class.

Fast in corners. Slow at top end it seems.

Can this have a wing added? Not sure.

Prototype car - somewhat not allowed really.

So that's the list as far as I can tell. Not a crazy amount of cars by any stretch, but certainly plenty to make this class a viable one. Not sure I like the idea of pickups in the racing, but really I doubt very much they're a viable racer in what has been some very intense racing.

To reiterate the rules for this class:

• 550pp
• Road car
• Four doors
• Racing Medium tyres
• Adjustable after market wing fitted
• V8 engine (Check car info)
• No race cars - i.e. no sponsor liveries (fit a number if you like).

And that's it, any era any make.

Have fun and see you all online!

Upgrade Time

Second time if I'm honest...

Having bought an 80Gb PS3, I upgraded the drive to 150Gb a couple of years ago. And promptly filled it. No matter, call it budgeting...

But, I've been reading up on how faster drives makes for better load times, and we're all about driving faster here - had to be done.

As always, the thrill of the chase is better than the event - so lots of research over the various merits of 7200rpm versus Solid State drives.

And it boils down to this:

• 7200rpm is technically slower but your PS3 won't notice as it's got a slow interface.
• SSD is cooler. Allegedly.
• Price per Gb is huge though, expect 2-3 times the space for your dollar with 7200rpm.

So 7200rpm it was. Though I must confess that I was tempted to go the SSD approach - my PS3 seems to be working so very hard to stay cool these days.

That was until I got gifted a free 500Gb 7200rpm drive. Win.

So to fitting, there are lots of guides online, but not one that brings the whole set into one place, I'll cover the salient points here, look up the rest...

• Backup is a pain 150Gb takes four hours to complete.
• The USB ports on what I'll call a "Normal" PS3 are not enough to power an external drive of any note. I ended up using a dual USB cable and plugging the power feed into a seperate device give it juice. This worked, but it was a half hour before hand of trying to figure out why my external drive wasn't being picked up.
• Make sure you have a USB stick with the latest firmware update on it. In the correct folder structure.
• Make sure you have your PS3 charging cable handy (it requires a direct connection on restart with new drive) and it's not being re-purposed to connect your backup drive. Doh!
• Expect another 4 hours on the way back in.
• Don't bother resetting sound setup etc if you use an amp, the backup brings across all settings.

And ultimately that was that. I now have a 7200rpm drive in my PS3 with acres of space. And you know what I can't tell any difference in load times at all. Perhaps I'm honest (compared to the myriad of posts out there) thanks to the fact my drive was free and I don't have to justify my spend...

Anyway, time to sit back and enjoy new downloaded games and continued greatness of my PS3.

Grid Autosport Replays

So, in light of the fact that we were a bit slim in the race numbers last week, I thought I'd post up a better replay of Grid Autosport gameplay.

Interestingly, I've found the force feedback on my DFGT wheel better in Grid Autosport than GT6 since it's feedback update - go figure, am I moving away from GT6?

Certainly I'm enjoying the gameplay more if not the physics, and one can forgive some of that when the racing is so excellent. Some, but not all. I need to enjoy racing in GT6 again ASAP!

Anyway, here's the replay, Bathurst in "proper" cars if you will...

[Edit] 

And here's one of the A1 Ring in an E30. Intense racing actually, great fun!