Don't be too disheartened - anything sub 1.40 is pretty decent at Barcelona. I've got to say I'm relieved, as it was a rather demoralising thought to have to race against someone much quicker than the established aliens of sim racing. Phew! 

Paul

 

I think it's only online Pete.

Hi Truetom
  There's a couple of easy ways to check. First is to locate the Motec for those laps (presuming you dont have the replays? they would help too). This will probably show whether speedbug is to blame. A comparison with a normal lap will show increased straight line speed (as well as quicker everywhere else).  If you can send them I'll check for you if you like. The other way is to go out now and try a few laps. If you can get within 2 seconds of either time then I'd say its possible they are legit, although still not certain. I'll pm you my email address if you want to send them.

Paul

TrueTom
   I don't want to take the wind out of your sails, but are you sure the times are right? 1.34 is pretty much impossible at Barcelona (the top ranked guys have 1.35.7 best), but none of your other times are close to a WR. I would think this is more likely to be the speedbug, which can enhance your time by around 5 secs (as I understand it). 1.46 at Monza looks equally unusual in a 360, being nearly 2 secs faster than anyone else.

Anyway, if you turn out to be the greatest driver GTR has yet seen, I sincerely apologise. Might be worth checking out the speedbug tho.

Paul

I'd very much be in favour of sticking to one car choice all season. As well as the fact that drivers are more likely to know that car more intimately, I also think it adds to the interest. If people are always swapping into the most suitable car, the mix is not going to be as varied - all 550s and Saleens at the quick circuits, Listers at the twisty ones. I like the idea that if you take a 550 for it's speed at a fast circuit.you also have to live with the tricky power delivery at places like Oscherslaben and Donnington.

I'd also like to know if everyone plans to take the quickest car for them, or is there any interest in faster drivers taking slower cars? I might be up for it if others do the same, as it may mean closer racing.

Paul

I finally got a response to my question back to Diego about whether the league would be able to hire a server without the members paying. Diego didn't reply directly so I asked a SimBin forum mod to remind him. John Schoen replied:

Hello Paul,

You asked me a couple of days ago if I could point Diego to your question about league- and individual memberships for RaceMore. He told me today that this decision has not been made yet. Not a really helpful answer, sorry.

Regards,
John

I emailed him back with the following:

Hi John
Thx for taking the time to ask Diego for me. Would you mind passing a comment on this back to Diego please?

I am 100% sure that if all the league members are made to pay to access a racemore league server, then it is probably 100% useless to us. I think it's easy to see that the community are not really prepared to adopt pay-per-play en-masse, and since we are not prepared to limit access to the league we could not use a racemore server. As I see it, if Simbin don't allow simple rental of servers, then a large number of us will feel that this is a money making exercise and not something to help us out in the absense of a dedicated server. I hope it wont come to this though, as providing a set of servers for hire at reasonable rates looks to me like a smart move for Simbin in the circumstances, silencing its critics and keeping us happy - win/win.

regards

Paul



I hope it does the trick - who knows?

Paul

Dave - any chance of you uploading your client replay?

oh - and to popabawa, it wasn't me who hit you on lap one. I hit Muorali, who on the replay looks like he had a puncture, and after crawling round turns 2 and 3, then got back on the power only to brake rather early for T4 and because of the puncture veer across the track in front of me. Sorry Muorali, but there was nothing i could do to avoid you even having stayed on the right in case you braked.
thx

Paul

Big sorry to Smudge, who was the unfortunate victim of either my stupidity or the games idiosyncrasies - I'll let you decide. The race was going really well, had the NGT class lead by a good margin, and should have been cruising to the finish a few minutes away. Instead I was still chasing the GT boys hard in case they messed up and glory beckoned - what happened next was anything but glorious!

I took a bit too much curb near the end of the lap and spun, and by the time I got going Mark Harrison in the next NGT was past - bugger! I chased pretty hard and it was nip and tuck for a couple of laps until my rear tyres finally got fed up, over-heated and I spun. I recovered but then went of a few corners later with a very odd feeling car, and as I got back on track and up to speed I saw a yellow car in my mirrors on the racing line. I moved over to let him by and he appeared to move over as well and swipe me off. From the replay this looks like warp as he was unaffected and seemed to jink right for just a moment, something no car can do. I was left upside down considering retirement, but I thought I'd finish so trundled back on track, only to find another yellow Lister (Smudge) coming right at me - AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! For some reason the game had reset me facing the wrong way, something I had no idea could happen. I'll know better next time, but big apologies to Smudge who was rightly p****d off. Sorry m8.

Paul

For me the main issue is whether the pay-per-play requires every player to pay individually. If it does then it will be a very bad thing for the league as many will simply go elsewhere. If it's a case of the league paying to hire one of their servers then it could work if it's competitive with typical server costs. So far I'm not very hopeful its the latter.

Paul.