Broke the +100 barrier... +91 now

[DC_Tox]

I decided to spend some time on a couple of tracks that I never raced seriously (Mexico and Monaco), and gained 17 seconds putting them well below 107%... Now I'm finally at +91 in the GPL rank :)

Quite rewarding, after so many laps at the Ring without reducing that 8:56....

Tomorrow I'll spend some time on Glen, Zandvoort and Rouen (the other 3 tracks never done seriously), to put them at < 107% too, thus gaining 20secs or so...then it'll be The Ring again &( , where I have to recover 36 seconds....

[Ashwin91]

AMAZING! Well done Tox!Awesome!:eek: .You are moving soooo fast!Congrats!:HB: -^ .

:crowd: :clap:

Yours,
Ashwin

[DCMattius]

Way to go Corrado! Last night I broke one barrier that I've been working on for months. I'm now with the sub-8 ring time guys. With a bunch of fast guys, during the practice on my 4th lap, I got a 7:59.56 with the Ferrari. The next race, this one guy got a 7:51...that kinda popped my balloon :( Oh well...

Drinks for everyone: :beer:

:HB: :) :HB:
DCMattu

[Myshkin]

:bow: hehe I was just remarking in the other thread that I've been expecting you three (John and Paul too) to go sub 8 any time now... congrats!!! :epink:

[DC_Tox]

Thanks mates ;)

Today it's +83, after cutting another 8 seconds from Rouen...:D
I shaved also another .5sec at kyalami just because I forgot to save the replay before, so I repeated to have a .RPL on all tracks...

Now I'll spend the rest of the evening on Zandvoort and W.Glen, there're 19 seconds (summing both tracks) to cut away...

[DC_Tox]

Ok, ok....last one for this week-end...:D : I'm +68.9 now, thanks to a bit of training at Watkins Glen and Zandvoort...

Now all papy tracks are below 107% (about 104% on average), so my next goal will be 100% ;) Guess where I'll start...from the track that has a delay of 34.9 out of the total 68.9 seconds...:)

It's 1.15 am, time to stop and go to bed, or I'll never wake up tomorrow at 7:00. I hate mondays &(

Mission completed for now :beer:

[jtace]

woohoo! congrats! maybe eventually I'll find time to pull out my wheel and race again... school keeps me busy right now.. heh.. :)

[WCOutlaw]

Holy moly!!!

Well done Tox and Matt, awesome news...

I've not broke my Ring time like I was planning, and I'm flying out to England tomorrow, so I won't have time to do any more GPL now... I'll wait til tomorrow to upload my new Rank, just in case I do manage some more GPL... heh...

I'm only -18.00 I was hoping for like -20 or something, but I've not been able to get any progress on the Ring :(

Well done guys :) Awesome news...

edit: Bah, I'll upload it now... it's nothing special :( but I have a Monster Rank now, as I finally completed all chassis/track combos.

[D_Man]

Congrats Matt -^ It looks like you might have just beaten Paul seeing as he is less than a second off the magic mark ;)

I think Tox will be negative in another 2 weeks at this rate. That's when I have holidays and plan to tackle the Ring again. However, I would really like to go negative without betering my Ring time. I want to improve my Mexico and Silverstone times and hopefully can get the time I need there - fingers crossed :D

I haven't done any laps at Mosport for a long time either, so I might even try there again &(

Dave

[DC_Tox]

Originally posted by DCMattius
I got a 7:59.56 with the Ferrari

:beer: -^ Congrats, mate!

Sry, I didn't see it at first glance :")

Sub 8:00, great achievement! I'd be happy if only I could get 8:30....

Negative? Oh, well, this is something I see so far away: now that I "learned" all the tracks it's much more difficult to improve again, but I guess that if so many people did it, maybe I'll do it too (in the next 2 years, though, not just 2 weeks!)

[DC_Tox]

Shaved another 11sec tonite at the Ring: 8:45.78 now, bringing my rank down to +57.869 -^ The best thing was, that I was not pushing too much, it was a very clean lap....

I'm starting to lap at the Ring at about 9:00 consistently and almost without spins, that's even better for the mood than the pure 8:45 ;)

[D_Man]

Great to see Tox :D Keep up the good work -^

I am still chipping away at my Rank, little by little. I'm doing Mosport now after getting new PBs in all my cars at Mexico.

Dave

[DC_Tox]

Originally posted by D_Man
I am still chipping away at my Rank, little by little.

Yep, I noticed it yesterday night as I uploaded my times...you're slowly but consistently moving towards your 0 handicap..less than 1 second left...-^

[WCvXd]

Cmon Dave...you can get that second. Just go to Monaco or Silverstone for 30minutes to an hour and you will have it. It looks to me that both of those times can be improved dramatically. Good luck! -^

[D_Man]

Thanks for the encouragement John and Tox ;) You named the two tracks where I am hopeless John :D That Monaco time was a recent effort after spending a week doing laps there in all cars trying to beat the benchmark. I missed by .04 :(

I am not in a great hurry and I'm having a lot of fun driving the 7 cars at the tracks again &(

Dave

[D_Man]

Well I took your advice John, although it has taken most of the weekend ;)

I found a few tenths at Silverstone and broke the 1:29 barrier and then headed for Monaco. I took some fiddling with the setup and lots of laps, but I finally beat the Papy benchmark and went negative. That is so ironic, it's not funny :rolleyes:

Anyway, I made it to the dark side without having to drive the Ring again :D

Dave

[DC_Tox]

WTG Dave!!! -^ -^ -^

I was sure you could do it soon, if you spent some time with that in mind... And I'm also sure that your Ring time is much slower than you deserve...Go for it! ;)

[D_Man]

Thanks Tox ;) Now I'll wait for you to cross over too -^

[WCvXd]

Well done m8. It looked like the times you had at those tracks just werent on the same level as your times at other tracks. If you are looking for improvement on your rank, then those are what you need to look for. Again...well done and welcome to the Dark Side young Jedi. :jedi:

[D_Man]

Thanks for the encouragement John -^ Your advice gave me the incentive I needed to persevere :D

Dave

[Myshkin]

Dave!!! So sorry I haven't replied sooner m8, I just moved again and I had no phone line until today (&^%$#@! Southwestern Bell can kiss my ass, by the way) and I'm still only on dialup, so I hadn't been through in about a week...

Anyway, WTG!!!! :jedi: Join with me, and we can destroy Emperor JohnandPaul and rule the Galaxy, father and son... hehe oops sorry Star Wars creeping in there.

:HB:

[D_Man]

LOL Mysh, you'll have me back playing that damned Jedi Knight II if you aren't careful :D

Thanks for the help over the past year of my painfully slow progress to the nirvana of negativity ;)

My new goals are the BRM negative at the Glen (only .2 and all 7 cars will be under the benchmark) and the Cooper negative at Silverstone (then all 7 will be negative there) and of course (drum roll) improve my Ring time ^_^

Dave

[D_Man]

I can't believe it. I turned off my FF to get rid of the damned spiking and I broke 1.07 at the Glen in the BRM, but it was only 1.06.971 which means I am still .061 over the benchmark AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH :mad:

Keep all sharp instruments away from me for a while.

Dave

[JeffR]

DC_Tox, you're getting really fast at GPL. I didn't think I would get much better after the month I worked on GPL rank, but after seeing your continous progress, there may be hope for me after all. I've neglected GPL for almost 2 months, busy at work, and my game time was spent re-doing evolution mode (5th time is a charm?), to improve setups on the cars, and to test an investment strategy (it works, accumulate $1 million in 1956, spend almost all of it on investment cars, left with $67.5k in cash, collecting all 80 cars, and end up with $24 million in 2000). Also got a few descent offline times (since you start at the front of a pack, it helps), like 1:58.xx at zone with the GT1, and 1:59 at Pyrenees backwards with the 95, with traffic on....

Finishing up the two tier trees in NFS HP2, and it's back to GPL for me. Still using the twin joysticks for control, as there's a stick player with a rank of -80. I'll be happy if I can ever get to zero or slightly negative

[D_Man]

Hehe Tox, I see you have already beaten my Ring time ;) I am slowly getting more used to the MSFF and managed an 8.37 today with 2 off-track excursions so hopefully before too long I will give you a new target to aim for :D

Dave

[JeffR]

>...Nurburg ring...

Are you using the ring trainer? This can save a lot of time. Start one section before the start line. Make a few runs with heavy braking on the straight to warm up the tires, then run a lap. This way you don't have to run 2 laps just to get a single lap time.

[D_Man]

Yeah Jeff, I was using the trainer and starting about hlf way through a lap to get the tyres warm for a "flying lap" but now I am back to starting from the pits. I am trying to relax and not put pressure on myself. I have turned damage off and I'm just driving to get the feel for the track and get over my phobia of it. I figure that I will eventually do a good lap, but that is not the priority now. I'm not going to get upset if I don't get a faster lap.

I am even contemplating doing a race with the AI again. My last attempt was hopeless as I got stuck behind a couple of really slow AI and couldn't get past them, so I gave up after a crazy attempt at an inside move that caused a big crash.

[DC_Tox]

Thanks Jeff and Dave...I'm actually spending a bit of time on GPL every week-end (the next is starting now :) ), if you look at my GPL history you'll notice how it's like...flat-drop-flat-drop... It's the week-end effect ;)

I never used the Ring Triner, although it's installed on my PC. It seems to me that I need the first lap to get into the right mood. I just take it easy until I'm at Karousel, then I start pushing more and more.

I know I'll get a good lap when I don't make mistakes in the warm-up lap...otherwise it means that I'm not concentrated enough yet.

I got my 8:30.xx by using a conservative setup for the differential settings (85/30/3), so that I can be a bit slower - and safer - in the turns, but open the gas earlier at exits.