DIVISION 1 - OLD (Season 3)

No race on this Sunday AussieInfidel due to Queens Birthday long weekend.
So you'll get an extra week to get your problems sorted out.

thanks

Guys, as you should all know, racing tonight at laguna in the Tamora, starts 8pm AEST. See you then.

[size=150xks8d8s]Paulie Found Wanting

The latest round of GT League Oz visited the US of A at Laguna Seca, of revered corkscrew fame. The championship battle was well alive heading in to this round, with Paulie just nipping at the heals of Beau. Through Free Practice and Qualifying Beau was the form man, hitting 1'38.0s in both sessions landing on the front row of what is a very staggered grid, Paulie qualified 2nd with a 1'38.3 and Koastr rounded out the top 3. It was a thrilling session with drivers lighting up the split boards however it would have seemed that nobody could totally capitalise on their pace by putting together a whole lap of perfection.
At race start there wasn't much change up the front, Beau soared to an early lead while Koastr began to steadily apply pressure to Paulie. This would unfortunately be Koastr's undoing as he received a tow via the hole punched in to the air by Paulie down the front straight he found himself carrying way too much speed in to turn 1 and clipped the rear 1/4 panel of Paulie as he beached himself on the outside. Koastr was on the radio telling his team, "I thought I broke early actually, really sorry guys". The damage to Paulie's car was superficial and the incident only cost him a few tenths. The race at the front pressed on without much ado, Beau nailed the fastest lap of the race at a 1'38.4 besting Paulie's 1'38.5 a further 2sec behind on track. Koastr meanwhile found himself in the wars chasing down OuttaAngst. An incident after he cut a corner too narrow saw FloodSim get past him as well, but Koastr pressed on with it and eventually got his 3rd place back. As the race entered the back end Paulie began to find pace on Beau, slowly chipping away a couple tenths/lap. On lap 15 of the 18 lap race Paulie would unwittingly take it from the 10/10ths he was now driving at to catch Beau to 11/10ths which put him wide in the kitty litter. "It was so frustrating, I was so very nearly close enough to get a tow off Beau's slipstream but that ended any hope I had of pressuring the lead". Beau would wind it down a notch to bring it home safely, 6.9sec clear of Paulie and Koastr rounded out the podium. OuttaAngst, Never_Enough, natmanscoop and Floodsim who retired with mechanical failure followed in order to finish the race.
In speaking with the Trans Tasman Racing media after the race Paulie had the following to say, "With just two rounds left in the championship it's going to take two very convincing drives to claw Beau back, he now has himself a handy little buffer to me, and when you're chasing a championship victory 2nd place finishes just won't cut it when it's this tight. We always knew this would be a bugger of a round for us, which just makes our electrical gremlins at the last round costing us a chance at a win all the more hurtful. Full credit again to the Trans Tasman Racing crew, they provided me with a car capable of winning, I think we MAY have had better tyre wear at the end because I was starting to gain on Beau, we'll have to review the telemetry, but I as a driver failed to deliver."

Well, Excellent write up paulie, Sums up the race nicely. Congrats the paulie and koastr for podiums...and congrats to outta for showing great pace for minimal practice.

I had a great race tonight. I found some handy pace during pre race practice and managed to carry it over to qualy, bagging my second pole for this season.
I was fortunate enough to get away to a strong start to the race, with paulie and koastr battling it out a little. This gave me a couple of seconds gap over paulie that I was able to manage for the rest of the race. But it wasn't easy. I haven't had this much pressure applied to me since back in season 2 with Taken1186. I was also lucky enough to grab fastest lap so those extra points help.

Looking forward to next round. Done a couple of laps of Rome with koastr post race and it's a fun track. Seems really well suited to the sprint race format.

C

Sorry guys, it was a pretty poor showing from me last night.
I'd had a big day and had no concentration or motivation to race and eventually parked it, but i'll recap my race anyway.

I had no practice here, and Laguna being one of my least favourite tracks I was always going to struggle. I found it difficult to put a whole lap together not having figured out my brake markers and my lines were all over the place; so qualified last with a very average 1:40.xx.
Got a good start, passed Never by the first corner, and I think natman went wide somewhere so found myself up to 5th. Early on Outta was getting messy up ahead but I was never a chance of pressuring him. Koastr must have overshot turn 1 as I was up behind him as he made his way out of the sand, and when he got a shortcut penalty on the final corner I just drove around him, but I knew it wouldn't be for long. He soon caught up and I didn't put up much resistance; my complete lack of driving lines saw him get past easily.
Natman and Never were scrapping further back and didn't appear to be making any ground on me so I just tried to put in some consistent lap times. But then everything went to sh*t and I ran wide 3 or 4 times on a single lap which put Never right up behind me. Then a big spin into the wall going up the hill towards the corkscrew let him get past; not wanting to cause another accident I waited until natman went past before continuing.

And thats about where my race ended. By then I had lost all focus, I knew I wasn't going to catch natman, and I had a sh*t onboard that was waiting for nothing; so I parked it and went to take care of business.
When I returned I left the race so as to avoid everyone having to wait 3 minutes for the race-finish delay.

One comment I would like to make is about the return of microphones. I don't know if it was just me but I was getting a noise come through my speakers that sounded alot like a dog barking. Either that or I was getting some strange bug from the game. It was an intermittent noise that I got all through practice/quali/race, that always seemed to happen whilst I was mid-corner. This was very distracting. Did anyone else experience this?
I welcome back the use of microphones, but curious to know what the noise was.

Hey flood, I didn't notice any dog like noise when you made the comment in the room. So that's a little weird.

My race went as follows. I was hoping I would go well here as I have done a lot of laps of laguna, I didn't get too much practice in the tamora though. Unfortunantly I found myself almost 2 seconds off the quali pace. I scores 4th more than a second adrift of 3rd.

I didn't have a great first lap but was a little surprised that the leaders wernt getting away as quick as I thought they would. After koastr's mishaps I was hoping I could keep him behind me, I was obviously very slow through the corkscrew, but could keep him at bay for the rest of the lap. Koastr got a good run on me after a few laps of eating my dust and took 3rd from me. With the assistance of the tow I was able to hang with him but a small error lost me some momentum and also the tow. I pushed hard but wasn't able to make any ground. A few minor errors in the last few laps pushed out the gap and I finished a lonely 4th.

Bring on Rome, this will be the first gulps race there and it will be interesting to see how the race pans out.

Yeah about the return of mics. Some of you commented on me being a little laggy at times. I know we turn off the mics but does this really have the same affect as if they were deactivated by the host. I was reading through the gt5 manual (in gt life) and under the "online racing" section, it actually says to de-activate voice chat to increase race quality. I think we should keep the mics deactivated. I'm not confident that muting mics has the desired affect..Surely the bandwidth is still in use.

Also..Did anyone else notice allot of the braking markers had been knocked over towards the end of our race last night. I think it was about lap 15 or 16 when I noticed markers missing from most corners... :?

Yeah I noticed a few markers missing but not the one I use. Marker 3 on the final turn. Everywhere else I use other markers for braking.

Since there's no simple multi-quote button on these forums, here goes:
Beau: I applied way more pressure to you in race 1 especially when we ended up side by side on the last lap. :lol:
Koastr: I think I had you beat early in the quali session but exited for a faster tyre change which showed me as being down the bottom. Still your time was indeed close to mine, even though the gaps were larger (being a longer track), it was probably the closest quali all season especially since at Laguna Seca you often find yourself with a chance of beating pole only to throw it away, so the session was intense the whole way through.
FloodSim: I didn't notice any barking, but I say we disable mics for future races just in case and also to make sure lag stays at an absolute minimum where possible.

I too noticed the missing markers, but the only one I used was at the turn 5 left hander, good thing I was already out of contention at that point so the awkward braking didn't count for anything.

Yeah...come to think of it..you did pressure me more at GV.
Perhaps back then I wasn't too sure of your ability so I felt less vulnerable.

yet another apology from me for not making it to the race, no good excuse just plain forgot about it, ive set my alarm for next sunday lol

No worries, I have a feeling it wasn't any good anyway.
I don't think I did a single lap I was happy with.

Hey guys I want to know if AUSnick09 can spot race the last 2 races of the season before potentially entering season 4?

Ya'll know we need the numbers, and he'll give Beau and I a good run. 3 or 4 way battles for the lead ftw!

If points are given then I think it would be a little rude..

guys I'm sorry but I've decided to pull out of the rest of this season, spilt coffee all over the ps3 this morning, ps3 works ok and g27 calibrates ok but ps3 wont recognize it, i think the usb ports on ps3 stuffed, pulled a few laps with controller this arvo and pulled low 20's but gave me the s, so no car games until fixed. does anyone know if its possible to replace the usb ports on ps3? I'm hoping I wont have to replace the whole system.

What a crock, first race I couldn't shake Koastr cause of slipstream and Beau got away, then 2nd race natman got in to me and ruined that race too, just when Beau was having issues after a jump start penalty. I'm bloody over it, I'll do the last race but not the next season at this rate, buying Forza 4 probably that doesn't have any bull slipstream effects.

I would have to come first with the fastest lap at the final round and Beau would have to be 4th or worse now.

Edit: I wasn't amused with some of the last corner overtakes either, when I've already turned in and committed to the corner I don't expect to be dive bombed and have to run myself in to a wall.

Edit 2: I just remembered Forza 4 is a good few months away yet. *sigh*

aussie u should be able to replace ur usb ports easie if ur handy with a soldering iron.