Racing tonight

Hi Folks,
Better late than never, here's the schedule for tonight's points racing:

As an aside, but a bit of a disaster. I have the placings for the clubman races last points night, but not the two CR400 races (I'm sure I won both, even the one I ducked out of...).
Anyone have them please let me know and I'll post up the points.

Sorry!

Less than an ideal situation...

So much emotion in this video: Fear, Anger, Cringe...

See you online for racing on Thursday folks. Race points night!

A1 Ring

I removed this replay last week as I noticed I had a restart around the 1:30 mark.
Now uploaded sensibly, and at 1080p. Nice!

Sony customer service fail

I wanted to share an experience I'm continuing to enjoy courtesy of the Sony Playstation / Sony Entertainment Network or as the kids say - buttholes.

On 1 July I received a surprise email from Sony Entertainment Network for $99.95 for my 'purchase' of  Watch Dogs - Classic Edition.  Now I don't share my passwords and I'm the only one who'd used the ps3 for weeks so I contacted Sony.  No problem, they'd look into a refund and get back to me in 5-7 days.  I put it out of my head till I received an email yesterday (13 July 14).

Dear Evan,

Thank you for your recent call.

I understand you were disputing the purchase of the game "Watch_Dogs - Classic Edition" made on your account as unauthorised.

We have confirmed that another console appears to have made purchases totalling $99.95 on this account however, as outlined in our Terms of Service, the account holder is responsible for all use of the SEN account, including all purchases, and agrees to pay for all orders placed using their SEN account. For this reason, we cannot offer a refund for these transactions.

We will investigate this further and take any appropriate action against the console which performed these transactions however we will be unable to share details of this with you.

The Billing Details have already been removed from the account. Please ensure to change the account password to resecure the account if you have not already done so.

In case you wish to review your transaction history please do so by logging into XMB > Account Management > Transaction Management > Transaction History on your console or at https://account.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com.

Regards,

PlayStation Support Centre
REF: 140702-002074

Phone (Australia Support) : 1300 365 911
Phone (New Zealand Support) : 09 415 2447

I called Sony again today and they would not budge with 
a) the billings team have determined that I am ineligible for a refund with them being confident that Sony itself had not been hacked (my best guess is my personal account has been hacked).
b) they would not put me through to a supervisor
c) they would not share any info about the person/ps3 that did make the purchase so I have no idea if they're in Brisbane (or anywhere else in the world for that matter)
d) they suggested I contact the department of fair trading(possibly the most helpful they've been to date).


Contesting via the bank is a no-no if you like your PS3 online
I've toyed with contesting the charge through my bank but having a google there's lots of examples of Sony having their customers over a barrel.  When a charge is contested via a bank Sony suspends the Playstation Account and blocks the associated PS3 - nice!!!  So I could contest but that would be the end of my GT6 online days.  

I may keep an eye out for a cheap PS3 (not a new one - no more money for Sony from me) so I can contest the charge and brick my PS3 just for the principle of the thing.

After spending a weekend at a conference where the key theme dedicated to doing the right thing for customers I find myself surprised at Sony's complete inflexibility and unwilliness to do the right thing. 

For now I've raised with the Department of Fair Trading for now, will update as that runs its course.

Race Night #1 Results

And here are the results from the night.
As always, the spreadsheet is on the right if you want more detail, otherwise, enjoy:

A top night as always I think you'll agree.

This Thursday I'm away, and so is Evan (no not together!), so keep an eye out on other's hosting a room to race in. It's not a points night so no trouble there.

The next race night is on the 17th of July and is another CR400 race night:

Replay time

Well I said I would when I won a race, and sure enough, the planets have aligned, the horse has bolted, hell has indeed frozen over and GT_Pops wasn't racing...

Results posted when I get time in the next couple of days.

And this one because, well, because RUF.

Red Ring

If you're not following GT Planet then you'll not know the news, here's a clue:

That's right new track goodness.
Read all about it in GT Planet, or read about it from an F1 Driver (just)...
And whilst it might be the Red Bull Ring to some, I always think that it makes it sound like a shopping centre, so I elect to continue to call it the A1-Ring. Which at least puts it first in the phone directory...

New Season

The new league season is upon us. Or in other words, I finally got round to working it all out.
There are a few things to note about this season:

• No full on endurance races with points - I just can't sit for that long at the moment.
• Classes are:
• CR400 (Classic Racers) - Our trusty 400pp cars we've been racing.
• HRC460
• TC500
• GT590
• I've opened up GT590 to be cars from any country.
• Read the charter (on the right) it covers car classes and general racing.
• The full race log is also on the right, and updated. I take shots from that to give results etc, but if you want a copy feel free to download.
• Clubman this season is the Senna F3 car - you'll need to get that to obtain points.
• Points for Clubman remain seperate from the championship.
• As the F3 cars are going to be faster than most classes I'll race them after the championship races.
• We'll use the off nights for thrash and catch up if we have a bad PSN night.
• I will try and remember to announce early the next points race, but we'll endeavour to stick to this list in any case.

So without any more fuss, here's the points nights calendar (Click on the images to make bigger):

Here's the extract from the classes detail in the charter:

To clarify that last point (e.) if you want to race in a car that's not class compatible, you're welcome to but you'll forfeit all but the lowest points possible.

And if you want the full season details, they're here:

And because I like pics of the cars, here are a few:

Top night - briefly

Hi Folks.
Thanks for the top night's racing last night.
Period racing at Brands was excellent, and I certainly think a 'test and tune' night with the Rufs will be fun, we'll arrange that soon.

Those of you who've not got the F3 and F1 Senna cars, go do the races and get silver, you'll get them then for free, and a handy few mil on the way too I think - certainly I've spent up after getting cash from that, including this lovely car:

And once you have those Senna cars you can re-live the legend...

And if you think that's too much for your Friday commute, some light relief that made me laugh. 

"dat stance"...

Lower class cars

Whilst we eagerly anticipate the senna content, and cars like this;

I've been testing what looks to be a very interesting class, that being the 1970 and before road cars with S/H tyres at 400pp. I thought that the tyres would be too hard, and the power too low. Maybe, but the driving fun is excellent, and they don't look too bad either:

I do like this picture.

Testing continues, and expect league news on tracks etc post Senna update.