posted 10-28-2005 01:56 AM         

Don't think anybody's in for a long long introductive auto-biography so I'll leave that for another day. I'll suffice in saying that I read I must come from a good GT4 breeding seeing as I share the same birthday as eggmann (but I'm 2 years older). Now if I could only could drive half as fast as him .

I don't really have any goals for my game (nor my diary). As you may have already worked out I'm well into the game.

Some stats:

Game is 93.8% complete (come to that later)
A-spec points 13,148 (go 1 A-spec races!)
Licenses 80-0-0 (Coffee Breaks all gold too)
8,050 Aspec miles
18,973 Bspec miles (come to this as well)
235 cars in the garage and 2,500,000 credits
All missions done (I feel for you NTSC guys, took me ages to beat mission 34 on PAL, don't know if I could beat it on NTSC before GT6 came out)

When I say the game is 93.8% complete I'm not quite telling the truth. As soon as I got to 25% game completion I commandeerd "The Slug", my B-spec driver to do all the enduro's and the 1000 miles!. Around 85% my conscience started acting up and I deleted all my enduro results so I could A-spec them all. I've done 6 of the enduro's now (and the 1000 miles!) but still got the rest of them to do before I "complete" the game. The game doesn't re-calculate my deleting my completed enduros so these have to be taken from the completion%. Oh, I gave the Slug his winnings from his 24h Nurburgring addiction and sent him on a one-way retirement flight to Vanuatu. Don't know what he's doing there but I haven't heard from him since .

So what to do...

Formula GT
10 enduro's (including 2 24h Le Sarthe ones)
A few manufacturers races in Japan
Keep improving those S-license times (addictive!)

At the moment I'm not doing all that much to contribute to my completion%. This week I've really only logged on to the Numbers and tried the 25-lapper at Suckabad. Still in last place and holding strong but had a lot of fun with it. Oh, and I joined in the S-license spare time thing and got all my times above PAL and NTSC-gold (didn't even take long, must be something to do with registering at the Numbers ).

Last week was filled with A-speccing the 24h Nurburgring for 1 whole A-spec point (just had to use the Mercedes from S-16, only really shouldn't have added all those extras....). Towards the end I started to read various ramblings on the road. I kept forgetting to read who Britta loves (just before T-3)... Wonder if I'm the only one?
Maybe something for the great Miko to keep his mind from wandering on his next Nurby endeavour? (Total respect to him, somebody who decides to repeat a 24h race deserves a lot of credit! Go Miko!)

OK then. That's RnR's RR's started off. Haven't got a clue where this is going. I will redo a lot of races where I've only got 1 A-spec point but there's plenty of time before GT5 is released. May even go back and do some license tests in GT3 (and I've got a lot of those to do). Feel free to post here about anything and everything (why did you think I called the diary Random Ramblings?!?).

posted 10-28-2005 02:51 AM         

------------------
"When faced with certain death, eat strawberries."

GT4 Diaries

LDM's GT4 Obsessions

posted 10-28-2005 06:53 PM         

Led Zeppelin rules Miko!

posted 10-30-2005 01:42 PM         

Completed the Silvia Sisters thing for a whopping 70 A-spec points total. I'm not chasing big A-spec totals yet, just going for completion percentage. Fuji 90s was worth 49 points (I swear I didn't see a chicane ) but I couldn't repeat this feat for the other tracks so my pit crew added an engine boost for easy 10 and 11 point wins.

What next? Well I bought myself a Lexus of some sort to race the Altezza series (still feel this is stooooopid). This will probably be next on my travels.

Tried to race the spot race at Suzuka East but couldn't complete the first lap without gently caressing the AI car (a kind of love-hate thing). I can win for 200 A-spec points (the only 200 point race I have apart from one of the Opel Speedster ones) but not OLR clean. Hopefully I can find the time to do it.

Also just read I've got 10 more laps to get rid of the wooden spoon at Suckabad. Place your bets people. Can he do it? The tension mounts... And even if he does it, who cares (I for one don't really but this diary needs some artificial excitement).

I'm off to watch the rest of the Jacksonville - St Louis game. Gotta buy myself a Madden game seeing as this will be the last NFL match I'll be able to watch for a while (Dutch tv sucks). Now only got to figure out which one; 2005 or 2006.

posted 11-01-2005 06:03 PM         

The car? The Ford Model T of course!

First of all I smoked the Las Vegas drag strip with a cool 31.890. Eat that Toyota Minolta! Of course this wasn't enough and I proceeded to do some laps at the Beginner Course. Fast and furious cornering resulted in a 35.641 best lap. Now that's what I call relaxing... Howsaboutthat for a 25 lap race, figure I'll get my chance to steward in the not-to-distant-future .

Got to get round do doing another enduro this week. New York looks promising. Just can't be bothered to do more 1 make races at the moment and I want those pesky enduro's out of the way. I'm still keeping the Formula GT till last. Sounds like a good place to reach the 100%.

posted 11-03-2005 04:52 PM         

Every hour, every day I see happy people stretching and bending their bodies in strange and peculiar ways on tv. I don't look all that great in pink spandex but what the hey! I decided to take part. My muscles need a bit of fine-tuning and I could use a weight reduction (and that for less than the usual 5,000 credits).

So I try a whole series and I feel zip, nada, niente, niets, nichts, ne.....rien and nothing. 5 full workouts and still nothing except 125,000 credits and a brand new Impreza touring car.

What am I talking about (what've I been drinking?). Today I took part in the Subaru Stars of Winsor Pilates (name might have been just a bit different ). Contrary to how it sounds, the series has absolutely nothing to do with the home dvd fitness rage.. Just 5 short races blitzing the opposition for 3 A-spec points a race (in my case that is, just had to take the Impreza Prototype for a spin, that car is totally :cool . Oh well, every race counts towards the big 1 O O mark.....

posted 11-03-2005 05:30 PM         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rock and Roll:
As long as it's an "easy drive", a car that I like that's fun to drive. Something like the Impreza. I need a bit of R and R after marking a couple of hundred papers this week......Ideas anyone? Unfortunately I can't drive any pre-1920 cars .[/B]

---

posted 11-04-2005 03:31 PM         

Didn't have the car so went and got me a red wine one (red wine....mmmm).

That's the type of car I like. Forgiving, driveable, fun fun fun fun! Great advice dude! Are you some kind of mind-reader?!

Problem is: what to add on? Stock with no oil change is 200 A-spec, you can still add things on (turbo 1 for example) and retain the 200 A-spec rating but I can't win (a lot of guys here probably could but not little old me). I'm woefully overpowered in the straights by the AI. Need some more testing (and practice) cause I feel like trying for a 200 enduro win now. I've gotta start somewhere guys! I'm only about 86,000 points behind Miko at the moment..that should tide me over till GT5 .

So, still some testing to do at the Big Apple but notta lotta time for racing this weekend. Guess New York can wait a bit longer.

Was up till close to two in the morning marking papers. Don't know why but my mind sometimes wanders when I have these night-sessions. My thought of the night: If Tom's a Chaser (and I did a lot of chasing the pack in it during my NY testing), is there a Jerry's Chasee at the front of the pack? I've gotta stop watching all those cartoons .

posted 11-22-2005 02:02 AM         

What precious time I have been able to spend with my PS2 and my copy of GT (sounds kinda romantic ?!) has been used in OLR.

First up: the 25-lapper. That combo was cool, one of my favourite tracks in the game (even though I'm not to keen on Skylines). Wish I could have fit in more laps there. I like this series and am amazed at the sectortimes some people can do there. Great idea using a combo we (should) all know as I for one felt that no-one had a real advantage. This is a combo I'm definitely coming back to later to try to catch up to the quicker racers.

That last tactic is one I used to eventually get all gold times. Keep coming back and trying to match the sectors of the faster guys. I'm no fast driver (I drive a Yaris / Vitz in real life, I think it's cool and I don't care what others think ) but seeing what other drivers can do really helped me! Quite a few people on this board are really trying for all gold and I wish them all the luck in the world. I still have all my S-golds saved so if anyone needs a gold replay (MaxDrive, but not yet up to OLR-standards) just ask. Also www.goldjunkies.com is still on-line (even though nobody posts there anymore) and that's a great reference for golddiggers.

Second of all; the F1 race. Thanks to a tip I found a nice enough set-up (one which stopped my red F1 from simulating an ice-skater) and enjoyed my 23 laps at Le Sarthe. I used a 6-6-6-5 tactic which worked pretty well for me. The race was totally-non-OLR-clean. I kept missing my braking / turning points which for example meant I really messed up the chicanes (but not on purpose). Big problem was that my best times were over 10 seconds off the lead and I kept pushing the corners trying to catch up. These races are too long for me to stay clean (even for two laps ). Finished 7th and enjoyed my stay in France. Wonder where we'll go to next?

Last but certainly not least the RBN-League. Surprisingly I found myself in Division 3 . This is another series which is going to take up a lot of my time. I'm not looking for or expecting any podium finishes in the division, just hoping for some close finishes. Wonder who'll take the first honours? Miko really should be knighted for the effort he's already put into the series. Even though I've said it before, I'll say it again.....26 competitors (and more to come for future races ?!) is incredible. Total respect dude! The set-up means that the slower guys at least have the feeling that they can compete with the lightning shards on this board. Everybody seems totally motivated and I hope this series will run for a long long time.

posted 01-29-2006 09:54 AM         

I haven't updated this in quite a while because I really haven't done anything in GT Mode except run the required races for Namdliw's F1 series, and buy cars I've needed to race the 25 Lappers and RBN.

I'm now standing at 98.1%. I had to complete the Japanese manufacturers' races to win one of the OLR cars (can't remember which one but I had to race two or three series to keep winning a prize car eligible to race in another).

What's left....I've got 8 enduro's to re-run (won previously in B-spec), including the New York one where I've just GOT to put in the effort to get that 200 A-spec win. I'm sure it's winnable in Tom's chaser, great little drive that is. Now just to find the right balance to remain competitive enough in the straights.

What else? The only races that count for the big 1 0 0 percent are the races left in the F1 series. I still haven't attempted the championship but I have already won 5 of the 15 races thanks to the above-mentioned F1 OLR. Number 6 later on in the week!

Oh yeah, I run the Roadster 4 hour endurance. I used a stock Mazda 1800 '04 something something with a little bit of added olive oil in the engine and Hard tyres. At first it seemed like the 22 Aspec points were going to be hard earned. I only took the lead after 6 laps and couldn't pull away from second. We were both lapping low 1'12's with an odd 1'11 for the first 15 laps. Then, as if by magic, I started lapping constant 1'10 / 1'11 s....whilst number 2 suddenly dropped into the 1'14s (??!!!).

Well, I had fun with the car but had an easy 3 lap win after 202 laps completed at Suck-a-bad. I also have a new-found appreciation for the circuit. It's not as bad as I always thought it was, but that might solely be because of the Mazda. I really enjoyed sliding through the final corner of each lap.

I'm really enjoying the RBN-series. There's been a lot of posts lately about the series. I read N8's thoughts in his diary and totally agree with him. There have been a few races where the lower divisions have probably had an advantage, but there have also been a few where we lesser drivers couldn't cope with the extra power (I remember driving the F1 at Monaco, I had a better time than the one I posted, but that was in a Div 1 car!). I do agree with the statement that even though the Prem-drivers can get close, they seem to lack the engine power to be able to win. No series is perfect but I think Miko has really conjured up something which a lot of people enjoy and really gives the lesser drivers (like yours truly) an added motivational boost to keep trying.

I hope that people like Santiago come back to the series. I've watched Santiago's replays and really learned a lot from them. Like N8 says in his diary "sarcasm is not easily conveyed in type". Nuff said me thinks.

posted 02-09-2006 05:35 PM         

I needed cash to buy the Oreca for RBN12 and figured I might as well finish off one more of the endurances. This race was a nice little money earner (so Del-Boy told me ). Less than 3 hours and 500,000 credits + a Ford I could sell seeing as I B-specced this race months ago.

Used the Black Beauty Toyota with virgin olive oil on R1's for a whopping 167 A-spec rating.

Turns out I needed a while to warm up. I thought this would be a lot closer but I finished over two laps up on the Mazda 787. FL was a 1'20.707 and I pitted every thirteen laps.

Highlight was the high speed shot on the Pescarolo. Pescarolo into the pitlane at 140+ with a lot of right-hand side (which if I remember correctly is called english in america). Stoopid Pesca had totally misjudged the final high speed corner and I couldn't resist a big smack-a-roo .

posted 09-24-2006 03:55 PM         

Few random quotes, more to remind me to finish off the game than to post useful info etc.

What's left? Well, about half the enduro's still to be A-specced but I already B-specced them ages ago. When I first started out with GT I A-specced everything bar the enduro's, even the pesky 1000 miles! was A-specced. Must get back to this in the near future...

I lazily completed the F1 series. No B-spec was used, I only skipped the ones I couldn't be bothered with seeing as the championship was already won. Seeing as I had already done quite a few in the old F1-OLR-series here at GTBN I now only have two left to complete the 100%. One at Fuji (I absolutely LOATHE Fuji) and one at Nurby (which will be my final race for the 100%). One of these days...I'll finish the game and go A-spec hunting .

Tourist Trophy was a nice break from GT and it's a game I really need to do a bit of arcade racing on. I've got 100% completion there but am still a long way away from all golds as in GT4 (still stuck on the 3-circular-lap-on-a-racing-machine-thing). Irritating thing with TT is that there are an awful lot of circuits you don't visit in the career mode ... still a lot to do there then....

Summer has been and gone and it's time to return to some serious OLR.

Not a lot to do here anymore. Should try a TBN for once seeing as I'm hopeless in longer races but I do enjoy the slower cars.

RBN seems like it will be taking a holiday to allow the board to rethink a few things. It'll be interesting to see how it develops.

Maybe it's time to try and launch other OLR-ideas to try and rekindle the OLR-flame here. A list of things I've been thinking about...

How about the return of the 25-Lapper? I doubt that the races would see big fields, but it would be cool to see some old friends return to the series which started my OLR-career. Might be an idea.

I always like total mismatches or races with a twist. I enjoyed this weeks RBN with the Toyota 7 at the Beginner's Course (chicane? I didn't see a stinking chicane ).
I once took the 25-Lapper to Citta di Aria in the Peugeot 206 Travesty (still hate that car). Here, crashing the sucker was allowed.
There are more ideas that pop into my sick little mind. I might think something up ... even though I'd probably be the only one racing .

How about a rally-ish idea? Pick a sector at each and every track (the first sector would be the easiest). Give a week to post times on one or two (or three or...) stages...and keep a running leaderboard. It'd need honesty of all participating but the nature of all GTBN-posters should guarantee that. Might be able to get include all tracks in the game......could use the same car on all tracks....different categories (under 100 hp / rally car / race car / etc etc). It's an idea.

I'm off to give it all a bit of a think-through. Finally bought Madden 06 (I'm a cheapskate...I know it) and am still hoping the Dolphins will win one soon (great channel NASN....three live college games on Saturday and two or three live NFL games on Sunday). Wonder what everyone else will think of....

posted 10-10-2008 04:19 AM         

I still play GT every now and then. The "skills" I used to have, have now just about disappeared. The last time I sat down for a "serious" GT-session was for BC7. Ah, the good old days of RBN, the 25-lappers, TBN, the Formula 1 series. Constant diary updates...will Miko break the 100,000 A-spec point mark? Will Ryk elope with Mayuri? I'm getting old....

I still do quite a bit of racing but that's all Trackmania United. Great game, I've met a lot of great people, but it still can't compare to GT4 and the fun I had here at the Numbers.

Blew the cobwebs off the GT4 disk and finally plucked up the courage to attempt the F1 at Nurby (15 laps). Last race for the 100% completion mark. I found one of my old setups for the F1 series we used to drive, did a practice lap (ouch...most of lap was spent driving on grass….) and decided to start.

Pitted after lap one in sixth place about ten seconds down on fifth. Let’s not push the car, concentrate on trying to stay on track and see what’ll happen. Immediate success….I dropped to one minute behind the first place car……

OK, think Rock think. Oh yeah, slow in fast out, keep your speed up in these sections, no sudden movements, keep it smooth. Strange thing, first time I saw “Britta” on the asphalt I remembered how to drive the sections (took me back to the 24 hour race I did here). Seeing as the AI pit after every even lap, and I was pitting every uneven lap the gaps kept fluctuating but I was coming back, not by much, but I was gaining ground. Lap 9 saw me break the 6 minute mark for the first time. Slowly but surely I reeled the pack in. Got thrown back in lap 12 when the then second placed car missed a corner and spun into me (can’t remember the names but the fast section between T1 and T2). Took the lead for the first time just before pitting at the end of lap 13. Nervy driving the last two laps but took the win by 6.811 seconds. Fastest lap of only 5.50 but I don’t care . The black Formula 1 car is mine, as is the 100% mark and eternal fame of course .

So that’s all missions done, all license tests gold, 100% game completion but only 16,600 A-spec points. Seeing as we’re in the process of moving house, with my wife expecting twins I don’t think we’ll be buying a PS3 before GT5 comes out. Plenty of time to re-gold the licenses, get all the cars in the game and maybe even try to pass 20,000 points ;-). Maybe I’ll try and get all golds in GT3 (and TT)? Time will tell, the next diary entry isn’t due till November 2010 .

posted 10-18-2008 05:18 PM         

I'm enjoying re-reading the old write-ups for the original RBN / 25-Lapper etc. I wonder how many still visit the forum, and how many would still be up for a race or two. It's been a while since I came last in an OLR, last one was BC7.

posted 10-18-2008 08:01 PM         

GT5 is a distant prospect and I'm not forking over the necessary wonga to play GT5 Prologue so anyone interested in GT4 replted play has my attention.

I'm currently kept busy being the chief engineer for a tuning house at GT Planet but would be more than pleased to see such a role reprised here at GTBN ...

posted 10-21-2008 08:26 PM         

I've been very busy coming up with 200 A-Spec 'solutions' to various series and thus have plenty of ammunition for race set-ups which would involve tuning.

posted 11-12-2008 03:29 PM         

Don't worry, this isn't not one of those memories (no singing please)-posts. Really great reading :cool. I hadn't read some of them in years. If you're bored out of your skull or want to rekindle the GT-flame..go read them! A few for Oprah's book club (even in Holland she's on the tv every single day...) : Miko's 40k no 50k no..... 100k chase, Ryk's posts with or without Mayuri, SERious' write-up of Marc DuChateau. At least Mr. Smart's 100% quest (did he ever make it??), especially his description of the red F1-driver's Terminator stare, pure literary genius .

I'm slowly getting back into the game by re-doing the license tests...progress is slow . Maybe I should revisit some of the 25 Lappers, they were always a good way to get the feel of some of the tracks.

posted 11-13-2008 01:37 PM         

The follow up to that will be how much can I do using only British cars ...

posted 11-13-2008 02:25 PM         

The sense of anticipation grew by the minute; would he come? Nobody knew for sure. The eyes of the assembled crowd were glued to the parking lot of the Licence Centre (not Center ). Was the self-proclaimed Legend of Last Places returning to the GT-scene? If so, did he still have the (lack of) skills? The pitcrew had been working non-stop, just in case. The cars required for the B-Licence had been restored to their former glory.

After hours of waiting, he appeared. The last time he'd golded these tests was March 2005. Did he still have it in him?

The first tests were golded with ease. Ten attempts max (that's good in my books ). Halfway through the tests it was time for coffee. Which coffee did he choose? Nescafé Gold of course.

After the coffee he set out to gold the rest of the tests. Only Swiss Alps gave him any kind of problems seeing as he'd totally forgotten how to drive rally in GT4 (played a lot of WRC4, and that's way different ). He golded after 10 minutes. B-13, Gold first time. B-14, easy Gold. B-15, Gold by 0.8 secs on his second run.

Only B-16 remained, could he do it before the sun set in 15 minutes time? It was tough, he kept falling 0.1 s short. Was he asking too much of himself? Was age catching up with him (34 and counting ). After another 0.04 second gold miss it seemed desperation was sinking in. He span off the track in his next attempt. He was doing something wrong...but what?

Returning to the pit-box he glanced at the sacred Wall of Winners. The wall was filled with photos of all the GTBN-greats. Sjaak, eggmann, flat-out, player2, banjobear, lugnut, ldm, niels, roland (can't mention everybody ). Surely his photo was still there somewhere? After some searching he found it. That was strange, somebody had scribbled something on it. Looking closer he read the words "Never forget. Britta.".

Britta. He'd almost forgotten her betrayal. It was still there for all to see. Her name, plastered all over the Nurburgring...Britta loves X, Britta loves thus. Britta loves everyone, except him. Oh yeah, Britta loves to see him fail B-16.

Not this time. This time, she would not get the better of him. He stepped in the car, and blitzed the Gold time (by 0.1 s ). All 16 tests, Gold again. The Legend was back. He still had a long way to go, but he was prepared for the challenge.

posted 11-14-2008 01:59 PM         

The first few tests were passed without breaking a sweat. Even the strange coffee-drinking ritual of knocking over 100 cones whilst turning right (who in their right mind does these things for fun? ) was golded with ease. The tests through A-10 took him less than 3/4 of an hour. In all tracks he'd only driven two Bronze times, the rest were Silver or better (or off-road failures of course ). Was this too good to be true?

Of course it was . One corner, one measley corner.....and he was struggling. A-11 meant he had to throw a 91 Lancia through one itty bitty corner. Not just any corner, a corner at Grand Canyon, the nightmare of all rally-tracks. Refusing to look up the Gold medal guide he tried to pass this all on his own. The first times were promising, just scraping Bronze :P. Slowly but surely he started collecting Silvers, albeit dirty ones (I kept clipping the outside of the corner ).

After cleaning his silverware (I don't want dirty times ) the Gold finally came by about 0.1 s. Took him about 100 attempts, but a Gold's a Gold .

A-12, more rally but this one fell pretty quickly. Followed by Nightmare at Trial Mountain - Part 3. The dreaded GT3/GT4 Skyline test. He remembered all those bad nights' sleep he had because of this test....missing Gold by 0.003 s, missing that last perfect line by an inch whilst being a second up on his best time....only a B-test in GT3 (sadists ), at least this was an A-test here. Another half an hours work, but he defeated the evil Trial Mountain Troll (=that first righthander I never get right...don't forget that I'm still off sick from work, my imagination must be playing tricks with me :rolleyes .

A-14 and A-15 fell pretty easy. Final graduation time. Santa Claus must be coming to town, you could taste the cold in the freezing German air. An RX-7 at a frozen Nurburgring. It reminded him of his last skiing holiday at Val Thorens (French Alps) when he tried to conquer the evil bumpy black piste (trauma time, I didn't fall but imagine yourself trying to drive uphill in the Benz Carriage...that was me, now imagine being passed by a Minolta at full speed, that was a 5-year old girl ).

He'd totally forgotten how he hated this test, even the slightest left or right movement would cause the tyres to squeal. Surely just finishing this test should be enough for Gold? But no.. 53.700 was the mark to beat. This was more a ski-challenge than a driving-challenge, and his name wasn't Bode Miller. Maybe driving wasn't the way to go here...

He wasn't a terrible skier, but he wasn't an expert either. He was getting nowhere by driving, maybe he could use what he'd learned on the slopes. Smooth corners, no sudden movements when travelling at great speed. Accelerate where possible, avoid crossed skis and green areas on the piste . Oh, and keep the skis parallel and no V-shapes... That worked, 53.649 (bad time, but after 1 1/2 hours I'll take it ). Another day, another Golden Licence. What was next for the Legend of Last Places?

I feel like I'm getting to grips with the physics again. I even tried a 166 pt Sunday Cup race after this and won, but not as clean as I'd like. I'm not sure what I want to do next, start the IB-Licence or go racing. I need to re-learn a lot of tracks before I'm really competitive again. I'm not looking forward to driving the 600+ HP monsters. I'm enjoying the licence tests with "normal" road cars. I do know that when I start racing it'll be the shorter races first and I'm not going to overpower the competition like I did the first time round. I might try to get as many 200 pt wins as I can (thanks to the various diary posts at the Numbers, I'm too lazy to figure these races out by myself). That means I don't "need" the IB-Licence at the moment. Decisions decisions .

posted 11-15-2008 12:45 AM         

What kind of OLR would interest people enough to force them to make a comeback? Various challenges (maybe a few at the same time) spring to mind, maybe a RBN-ish hotlap, a TBN-style race, a rally (consisting of one or maybe more stages, maybe even incorporating street stages as well, and maybe a "mismatch"-fun-combo the next (a fast car at a short track, or a race with non-conventional OLR rules). When this site was really busy there were quite a few different style challenges which ran most weeks. What are other GT-sites running at the moment? Was there ever a Board Challenge 8? I’ve got some net-surfing to do .

posted 11-17-2008 08:24 AM         

He did some testing in the seclusive Family-Cups. First find a car which could be used for 200 point races. He checked out some GT-history books from the library.

In "Ever Ye Optimist" he found a reference to the Toyota Prius G Touring Selection. This was also mentioned in "Lugnut Wadeth In" and an ancient novel "A-spec Points Assault with horse and carriage" (I'm still ill ). He purchased one and ran it stock in the Family Cups until he was satisfied he could run it fast enough. The car came equipped with R2-tyres and TCS and ASM switched on. Just to keep with the feel of the rallying he'd been doing elsewhere (e.g. WRC4). The car felt a bit "rear-heavy". He opened the trunk and to his amazement he found his former B-spec driver "The Slug" fast asleep. The Slug had hit hard times (seeing as he hadn't had a race in close to 3 years). He had spent all his enduro-wealth Elvis-style and his weight had ballooned to a massive 200kg. Knowing that he needed this ballast to gain 200 point races the Legend allowed the Slug to be his co-driver.

The crowd at Autumn Ring Mini Reverse were amazed when they heard the line-up for the opening race of the Sunday Cup. Was it really him? Yes it was! The Legend of Last Places took his place on the starting grid. Imagine the disappointment of the crowd when he bailed out before the start. What was wrong? Had his nerves got the better of him? Reporters rushed towards him..was this the end of his comeback?

"No," he answered, "I want a challenging race, not a mere 196 pointer". The starting grid was shuffled and re-shuffled until a match-up was found, worthy of the most A-spec hungry racer. From the start it became clear that the Prius couldn't match the field on the straights (partly thanks to the Slug who kept nagging the Legend to stop at the McDrive), but his cornering ability was far superior, even though he still had the ASM and TCS switched on.

He gradually worked his way through the field, OLR-clean. After passing the 2nd place Polo it was clean sailing to the finish. He took the 200 A-spec points and the 600 credits. Waving the crowd goodbye he sped off to his next challenge at Driving Park.

Driving Park was won pretty easily after some grid-juggling. High Speed Ring was tougher, but fell at his second attempt. Clubman Reverse and Motegi West could only be won after switching the ASM off, but won they were.

The Sunday Cup was his. 5 good clean races, all for 200 A-spec points. Where would he go next? Would he take the Slug with him? And who cares ? One thing was sure, we hadn't heard the last of the Legend of Last Places....

posted 11-17-2008 09:07 AM         

Beginner Events - Sunday Cup

Car: Toyota PRIUS G Touring Selection (J) '03
Run stock (R2's are already equipped) with 200 kg ballast. Enter/Exit until 200 point field shows up. I won the first three races with no further car-fiddling, the last two I needed to change the ASM over/understeer to 0.

1. Autumn Ring Mini - Reverse. MOV 4.513 seconds
Finish order: 1. Me , 2. VW Polo GTI '01 3. Peugeot 206 S16 '99, 4. Mazda MX-6 '89, 5. MINI COOPER '02, 6. Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 Twinspark '02.

2. Driving Park Beginner. MOV 1.868 seconds
Finish order: 1. Me :cool;, 2. EAGLE Talon Esi '97, 3. BMW 120i '04, 4. Fiat Barchetta Giovane Due '00, 5. Honda Jazz 1.4 dsi Se Sp '01, 6. Mazda Mazda2 '03.

3. High Speed Ring. MOV 0.869 seconds.
Finish order: 1. Me , 2. Renault Megane 2.0 IDE Coupe '00, 3. Alfa Rome 147 2.0 Twinspark '02, 4. Peugeot 206cc '01, 5. Chrysler PT-Cruiser '00, 6. Daihatsu SIRION X4 (J) '00.

4. Clubman Stage Route 5 - Reverse. MOV 0.759 seconds.
Finish order: 1. Me , 2. Peugeot 106 S16 '03, 3. Fiat Barchetta Giovane Due '00, 4. Toyota Yaris RS 1.5 (J) '00, 5. BMW 120i '04, 6. VW Polo GTI '01.

5. Twin Ring Motegi West. MOV 1.699 seconds.
Finish order: 1. Me , 2. Peugeot 106 S16 '03, 3. Peugeot 206cc '01, 4. EAGLE Talon Esi '97, 5. Honda BALLADE SPORTS CR-X 1.5i '83, 6. Alfa Romeo 147 2.0 Twinspark '02.

If I can get 200 points this way, anybody can . Thanks to Miko and Lugnut for their car-suggestion all those many years ago .

Furthermore, I started playing around with my Rally-idea to re-learn the tracks (and maybe get more people re-interested in GT ). Without further ado:

Rock's Rally - Event One : Sunday Cup

Car:
Toyota PRIUS G Touring Selection (J) '03.

Specs:
Buy it from the Toyota Dealer and run it stock at Free Race in GT-Mode. Only spec-change needed is to add 200 kg ballast (so as to be able to get 200 A-Spec races at the Sunday Cup).

Tracks:
1. Autumn Ring Mini - Reverse
2. Driving Park - Beginner's Course
3. High Speed Ring
4. Clubman Stage Route 5 - Reverse
5. Twin Ring Motegi West

Rules:
- Drive clean! That means a maximum of 2 wheels off-track. Rumble-strips count as part of the track, run-off areas don't.
- Each stage must be driven in one session, no pit-stops allowed! For example, that means you only get 3 or 4 laps at High Speed Ring (then the speed drops). No restarting a stage allowed!
- Your best lap at each stage counts.
- Add all five stages together and voilà! You've got your total rally time!
- Have fun as always. If not, at least try .
- No replays required as we've always been a friendly bunch here and know we're all clean racers.
- Post your times here. If 5 or more people post then I'll move this to the OLR-thread (seeing as it would then at least resemble an online race ).

Deadline:
Uuhhhh, not for a while yet. Let's see if anyone participates first .

LEADERBOARD AS OF WHEN I FIRST POSTED THIS

posted 11-25-2008 10:47 PM         

Got a stupid idea to drive all rally-cars in the game with R2/R4-tyres around a few of the short tracks. Haven't got a clue why, maybe to keep myself entertained . If I've counted correctly then there are 30 Rally-cars in the game + the Escudo Dirt-car (which I can't drive) makes 31 cars total. 32 sounds better so I think I'll make the numbers up with a British racer, a Mini or a Land Rover. I might change it all a bit later, cut the number of cars, one car per manufacturer, go for street cars, different classes etc.

Rules are simple. Arcade Mode - Time Trial. 5 laps per car, best clean lap counts. No weight reductions, TCS, ASM etc. R2/R4-tyres for a bit of extra sliding.

posted 11-28-2008 11:54 AM         

The IB-Licence Centre (not Center :P) hadn't been expecting him. For once no crowds, just peace and quiet to help him through a few test. IB-1 through IB-3 were golded easily enough, IB-4 took quite a few near misses (10 times within 0.100 seconds :mad before the Golden Star-Warsesque music rang through the complex. Pity it had taken him so long because people had started arriving to watch him race. He left as soon as he could, today was a day to relax, not to force himself to please the crowd.

What next? He decided on doing the first few driving missions but got bored with them after the first ten. This would come later, much later. 34 was a long long way away. But he was glad he was a PAL.

Why not do a bit of rallying to earn some cash and boost his A-spec rating? He had never been a fan of close rallying and had only managed one 200 A-spec score at the Easy events (at Ice Arena), one 167-pointer at Citta di Aria. The rest , the rest were all binary to him (yep, I had 19 1 A-spec races ). After reading his old books he purchased a Honda Element, did a bit of fiddling with the mechanics and set off to Italy.

It had been a long time since he'd been to Citta di Aria, an awful long time. Skipping opposition to get himself a challenge worthy of his long forgotten skills he challenged an Audi to a race.

He wasn't slow, well not terribly slow at least, but he couldn't find a spot to pass the Audi, push all he might. Only on his third try did he pass the Audi on the outside of the final hairpin to gain the 200 points, and 5000 credits. The reverse track was left for a later day (that's one I've hardly ever driven, and my first effort was nowhere near competitive, I'll do some practice before I come back here).

Needing the credits he decided to head off to Costa di Amalfi, again waiting for the big Two O O. Normal was easy, pulling away at the first hairpin at the end of the first lap and never looking back. The reverse race was strange, his opponent couldn't make the first hairpin, and was still stuck there when he approached him on the second lap (how to mess about with the AI, he touched me as I late-braked for the first hairpin, I got a penalty (as usual) but instead of going around the corner he reversed....turned too early for the corner, clipped the wall, reversed.....and repeat for a full lap). Always helpful he pushed the Lancia around the corner and eased off the pace so as not to lap him (I wanted to see if the AI could lap here). 200 points in the bag, and a Toyota he quickly sold off (I needed the credits).

Cathedral Rocks II was begging for a big name star. He lined up against his old friend the Audi. He had done quite a few laps at Normal whilst training for a Board Challenge (I tried the rally race there, but I was nowhere near quick enough). He was a bit rusty but his first attempt was just 2 seconds behind the Audi. Something he quickly corrected on his second attempt. The Reverse course was trickier, one he had totally forgotten. It took him a few laps to find his driving line there, and a few more to find out where he could pass his opponent. Four attempts later, and the CR II – double victory was his . Time to call it a day, and watch a re-run of the Arizona-Philadelphia game….

Done: IB-1 through IB-4 Gold
DM 1 - 10 Passed
Five Special Conditions Races Easy - 200 A-specced

posted 11-28-2008 12:39 PM         

I need about 4.25 million credits to buy all the rally cars for my little rally endeavour and I didn't fancy A-or B-speccing Germany. Why not win Amalfi umpteen times? And why not try for a few 200 A-spec races?

After reading Lugnut's and miko's diaries lazy old R&R decided to use the Honda Element ’03 Stock, with Racing Exhaust, Racing Chip, Fully Customizable Transmission set to 1, NA Tune #1, and ASM/TCS 0. After tabulating my A-spec scores (and feeling totally ashamed at all those 1 point scores I probably scored with my favourite Mitsubishi CZ-3) I tried Citta (winning Normal, but failing miserably at Reverse which I don’t know) and Amalfi quite a few times (enjoyable racing, with the strange AI at Reverse) winning the Toyota, and selling it straight away. I couldn’t resist Cathedral Rocks II and really enjoyed the close races I got and felt pretty pleased with myself that I got a few 200-races under the belt, maybe more later…

I decided that my A-spec hunt will be at both the Beginner Events as well as the Special Conditions. That should keep me busy. I’m keeping track of the exact upgrades etc. that I used as a kind of “Poor and Lazy Players A-Spec Guide”.

First the tabulated Beginner Events points.
Sunday Cup – 200 / 200 / 200 / 200 / 200
FF Challenge – 71 / 54 / 19 / 42 / 23
FR Challenge – 68 / 54 / 42 / 50 / 10
4WD Challenge – 8 / 6 / 7 / 6 / 6
MR Challenge – 1 / 2 / 3 / 3 / 3
Lightweight Cup – 4 / 4 / 7
Spider & Roadster – 4 / 3 / 5
Sports Truck Race – 200 / 200 / 200
Current Average = 61.9 A-spec points per race

For Special Conditions, I’ve only tabulated the Easy Events.
All races are 1 A-spec point, except Citta di Aria Normal, Costa di Amalfi Normal + Reverse, Ice Arena Normal and Cathedral Rocks II Normal and Reverse. 16 1 A-spec races and 5 200 A-spec races make a current average of 57.9 A-spec points per race.

For the Special Conditions races I’m only using the Element at the moment. I’m going for all 200 A-spec, which needs some field juggling. The easiest opponent is the Audi Quattro ’82 (at least I think it is).

The results of the 5 Special Conditions Races I won with the Element.

Citta di Aria – Normal
Time 3’55.904, MOV 0.369 over the Audi Quattro ‘82
Costa di Amalfi – Normal
Time 5’02.843, MOV 3.606 over the Audi Quattro ‘82
Costa di Amalfi – Reverse
Time 5’32.204, MOV 1 lap minus a few seconds over the drunken Lancia DELTA HF Integrale Evoluzione ‘91
Cathedral Rocks II – Normal
Time 2’40.327, MOV 5.427 over the Audi Quattro ‘82
Cathedral Rocks II – Reverse
Time 2’40.255, MOV 2.614 over the Audi Quattro ‘82

posted 11-29-2008 08:57 AM         

First up WRC4, best rally game ever (I think at least). Dear Polyphony...please, please, please model GT5's rally physics on this game. Flung the old Impreza round the Monte Carlo rally in the WRC Professional class. The win and the first 10 points in the championship for little old R&R. Next up: Sweden, one of my favourites. But, what other games do I have....

Had a bit of motorbike fun with Tourist Trophy. I've got 100% completion in the game, but I just can't get to grips with the licence test. I've only got 4 golds and 36 silvers (0 bronzes though). I keep getting stuck at N-4 (3 laps of a circle...whoever thinks of these things?). I can't get anywhere near the gold there. After a quarter of an hour of worthless attempts I did a few races and quit. I like motorbike games (got MotoGP3 and MotoGP4) but I've always felt that Tourist Trophy just isn't finished. There's just not a lot to do in the game. No A-spec, and lots of tracks aren't used in the Career Mode. Pity, because it's a good game, it just needs a lot more to do. Only way you can keep it interesting is via OLR but I'm nowhere near as good at TT as I am at GT4 (and that's saying a lot...).

Next up, GT3. I never really got to grips with the game. Only 73.8% completion. And my licences stand at 8 Gold - 30 Silver - 10 Bronze. A lot to do there. Let's see, B-1 through B-7 Gold, B-8 Silver...oh no, the Skyline at Trial Mountain. I can do this test in GT4 so why not here?

Is it me or is this far tougher than GT4? I could constantly silver the test but it took ages to shave the time off the ghost. Gold is 42.800, first proper ghost was 43.150. First half an hour I could only marginally improve it till a 42.971 came. My PB (two years ago!) was 42.970. Lots of 43.0XX runs came before I finally got down to a 42.913. A few more 42.9XX times followed. At least I was driving constantly...I kept getting sub 43.1 times. An hour later a 42.85X came, and another quarter of an hour later the magic 42.664 showed on the screen. Finally all golds in the B-Licence .

What next? Well all B are gold, as well as R-1. All other tests are silver except IA-7, IA-8 and all the S-tests. I don't think I'll try for all golds here seeing as I prefer GT4's handling. But some tracks are great to rerun, and I prefer the Rallying. Still got a race in the professional hall to finish off, think I'll do that first and then decide if I ever want to try to get 100% here as well.

posted 12-03-2008 05:44 AM         

After topping up his trusty red Element at the petrol pump he set off to tackle the Ice Arena at Whistler. A pretty easy victory at the Normal track was followed by way too many efforts at the Reverse version. It took him a while, but both 200's were his (I already had a 200-point Normal race, but I'd forgotten in which car...).

Next stop? After all that cold weather he needed a bit of sunshine. Where better place than Tahiti? Sun, sand, bikinis and rallying. A perfect vacation! Both Normal and Reverse races were pretty enjoyable. Even though he wasn't fast, he had re-discovered the fine art of hugging the inside of a hairpin-corner. Once ahead, the victories were never in doubt.

The Legend always used to run Hot and Cold, so why change now? From the frozen wilderness of Canada, to the sun-bleached beaches of Tahiti, and back to the great winter wonderland of skiing. Chamonix was next up. His opposition had forgot to bring their mechanics. This meant their cars weren't in the best of shape. To compensate this the Legend allowed a lucky spectator to be his co-driver. This way he ensured himself of pure 200-racing. Even though he'd totally forgotten the course it turned out that the opposition Audi had also forgotten to fit the car with snow-tyres. This meant an easier than easy victory at Normal. He gave the Audi a head start an Reverse as a kind of early Christmas present but it didn't help. The LOL-P took the chequered flag more than two seconds up. Time for some après-ski before some more medicine later. Over half the Easy Rally's were now 200 pointers. Something to celebrate .

posted 12-03-2008 06:03 AM         

Same car + setup as before.

Ice Arena - Normal
Time 1'57.852, MOV 0.592 over the Lancia DELTA HF Integrale Evoluzione '91
Ice Arena - Reverse
Time 1'52.575, MOV 1.233 over the Lancia DELTA HF Integrale Evoluzione '91 (Took about 10 attempts )
Tahiti Maze - Normal
Time 5'28.174, MOV 1.648 over the Audi quattro '82
Thaiti Maze - Reverse
Time 5'25.358, MOV 2.497 over the Audi quattro '82

Had to add 75kg of ballast for the 200 A-spec rating for both directions of Chamonix.

Chamonix - Normal
Time 5'12.273, MOV 8.372 over the Audi quattro '82 (first attempt whilst I didn't have a clue which corners were coming where and when....really bad AI here)
Chamonix - Reverse
TIme 5'07.245, MOV 2.081 over the Audi quattro '82

11 of the 21 Easy races are now 200 points, the others are still all 1 point. I'm enjoying the rallying a lot more than I used to, even though I'm just as bad if not worse . 10 more 200-races to go then....

Game stats:

Game day: 1946
Game Completion: 100.0%
A-spec Points: 18,439
A-spec Mileage: 12,222
Win Percentage: 654/1073 = 60.9% (all those restarts...)
Licences: all gold + all coffee-breaks (even though I'm redoing them all, up to IB-4 done)
B-spec driver: hibernating

posted 12-03-2008 10:47 AM         

No peace for the wicked.

The Legend set off to Amalfi / Assisi for a few more Licence Tests. First up a fun circuit, with two crap cars. He hated the Peugeot 206, and hated the pace car even more. After a good wash with disinfectant he dared sit in the vile French machine and set off after the pace car. His first attempt failed after the non-licence worthy pace car driver decided to brake on a downhill section where no man had ever decided to brake before.....on his second attempt he took it easy, careful to avoid the blithering idiot, and passed. Never again would he drive the Peugeot...he hoped. (For the record, I once set a 25-Lapper in Citta di Aria in the Peugeot and allowed / wished the drivers to crash into the walls as much as possible.)

Two nightmare-ish slalomtests. He prepared for a long session, but golded them both within ten minutes (nobody was more surprised than me ). Maybe the old form was indeed returning. He'd see in New York.

New York had caused him a great deal of trouble all those many years ago, and this time he golded within 5 minutes. A bad run as well. Very slow in, fast out. No learning lines, braking points, just a few tries and a gold. A strange feeling…

A quick cup of coffee to close out the day. Strange spirally flavour….gold brand. Time for the Legend to call it a day, and prepare for his continuing assault on the Special Conditions events……