Who better to be one of our inaugural SuperROOZ inductees than the man we call "Turbo", aka Disturboed!! Turbo helped found this little community and is one of the few men on this planet who has raced in every single season of the Sunday League. A rare feat - although it must be said, he has not competed or completed every single race - but I'll get back to that a little later. Turbo has so many of the SuperROOZ attributes it's hard to know where to start. He is a gentleman on the track, proving himself time and again to be fair, consistent and fully aware of the rules of racing. In practice rooms he's always quick with a joke and a pleasure to spent time with. Off the track he contributes only positive input to the forum and displays the most level of level heads in any discussion he's involved in. Over those many seasons he has also showed why he keeps coming back - he's quick and consistent. As Stu has mentioned seasons 1-4 are lost forever in the internet black hole, but we know how the rest have panned out. Season 5 he finished a credible 7th with one podium - a first place - and 3 disconnects. Season 6 was somewhat lean with no podiums but a string of "oh so close" finishes. My favourite season was next and Turbo again finished seventh with a string of fourths. I'll skip 8 for the moment and look ahead. Season 9 saw Turbo eighth overall, and was a tough year for a lot of guys in the GT-R race cars. Season 10 put Turbo in the sweet RX-7 and he grabbed 2 podiums and fifth overall. Although the next season saw us running around in that God-awful TVR, Turbo rose to the top of the podium once and grabbed a third at Madrid to seal fifth overall. Season 12 saw Turbo in Div 2 for the first time and grabbing sixth overall thanks to a wet second at Spa. Season 13 was a great season for Turbo. After starting the season with no points from 2 races, he put his head down and never left the podium for the remaining drives, putting his Citroen onto every step of the podium and finishing second overall behind an in-form Overdrivve. Last but not least, let's go back to season 8. This was Turbo's best season on record. 3 first places, 4 seconds and 1 d/c when leading the final race after securing pole and fastest lap. Stumbles took the championship that season and would have shared the honour with Turbo if not for that fateful drop-out. IF ONLY!!! The thing that cements Turbo's position on the ultimate rung of this community is none of the above though. It's not longevity, bad jokes or good etiquette. What makes Turbo stand out is his attitude. Our statistician, Adam Alup, has calculated that Turbo has suffered 8,379,235 disconnections during his ROOZ racing career. In fact when he joins a room I'm in, the first thing I do is say "Good-bye Turbo!" because he never makes it in first go. But no matter how many d/c's, or how much the racing God's have turned their back on him, this guy just shrugs his shoulders, grits his teeth and goes for it again. I am so pleased that Turbo has been given this title and I know he will wear this badge with pride and continue to be a stand out member of our community. And personally, I can't wait to see his name on the screen next time I'm online just so I can say, "Good-bye". (written by Anon)
Congrats turbo! We've been having epic battles for longer than I can remember. Writeup above is spot on.
Well done turbo, I have thoroughly enjoyed racing with you on the rare occasions that I can keep up. We've been racing together for 4 seasons now.
Oh wow, got a tear in my eye *sniff sniff* Thankyou all for this great honour, never did it even enter my mind I would be considered for this, let alone be an inaugural inductee! I still remember S1 to this day, we had 6 divisions and I was in Div 3. Driving that AudiBoat was a massive learning curve for me and was my first foray into PS3 online racing. The season was only 5 races long i think it was, and I finished 3rd in 4 of them, I got my first (of many) disconnects in the 5th. Season 2 was done in the Tom's Castrol Supra and wasn't very noteworthy for me. I can't really remember even racing much in that season, i don't even know if I finished one race!! Season 3 in the much maligned TVR Tamora came along and I really came to grips with the car straight away, whilst some higher Division people whinged and moaned like there was no tommorrow!! LOL! The first round I disconnected a few laps in after breaking away to an early lead, but it was Round 2 at Eiger we had our first sprint round, and I think I qualified first or second, but we set the room up wrong to start with and Race 1 was reverse grid! I somehow got through the entire field and took the win. Reverse grid for Race 2 and starting from the back again I managed to get 2nd spot (Race 1 was done on my wheel, and Race 2 on the controller as the wheel died in the break) to take my first ever round win. It was then we had the infamous PSN shutdown for 23 years. Season 3 was to resume with a few new faces and I had some cracking races with Venosuala. Most memorable would be the endurance round at Tsukuba and leading for 75% of the race until - you guessed it - disconnecting. Season 4 was in the McLaren MP4-12C and again struggling with internet issues I had a few disconnects, but one race stood out in particular. It was Trial Mountain Reverse and I had one of the best races I ever had here with Dougz32 as we basically kept within 1 second of each other for 95% of the race, swapping the lead multiple times. With 3 laps to go I got a small break and the gap increased and I promptly spun the car midway through the lap. This allowed Dougz through for first and I managed to spin again at the very next corner. This brought 3rd place right up on my bum, and on my absolutely rooted tyres I managed to hold them off for 2 laps and finish in second spot. I wont bore you with the rest of the seasons, as they are mentioned above, but Season 8 was a standout for me. I had moved house by this time and gotten a more stable internet, so disconnections were fast becoming history for me (none since season 5). Battling Stumbles for the championship was just epic. I failed to capitalise on Stumbles missing a round and finished second behind Gary after spinning halfway through the race. I still remember doing 15 or so qualifying laps in the second half of the race to hunt Gary back down, which I managed to do (and pass him) but my tyres were destroyed in doing so and he sailed right back past me soon after on much better rubber. The final round was at Fuji and I had to take full maximum points to win or equal win the championship. If I did this, and Stumbles finished second, then he and I would have been on equal points (after drop rounds). My thinking was I would have won on countback as whilst we would have had an equal number of wins, I had one extra second place than him. It started off well with getting pole, and then streaking away (I had been practising like crazy). The race seemed to be mine, and the laps wore down. It was only a few to go, and I got disconnected!! I just sat there in stunned silence. I couldn't believe it. The funny thing was, it wasn't the internet that failed me that night. The circuit breaker overloaded and switched off as we had one to many things on at the time!! Unbelievable! I just want to say a big thankyou to EVERYONE in Rooz. Whether we've raced on track or had a chat online or in the forums, it has been a blast! Time for me to go, I think the Orchestra started playing about 20 minutes ago. Thankyou.
