Hi Gang, it's been a while since we did a time attack and I thought to kick of the 2017 time attack season (who knows maybe that will be a thing.)
Here is the idea for this event. We will run three different classes, but there's a catch.
B class FWD cars only
A class RWD cars only
S class AWD cars only
We will run these on three different tracks.
VIR Patriot (short track)
Monza Full(power track)
Watkins Glen Short (well balanced)
You will run the same build for your class on all three tracks.
We have a few days for thoughts and comments, but other then that let's start building and racing.
We will also have a best paint job award. So please post up pictures of your best livery for each class. Paint jobs are due on Feb. 28th.
EDIT: After some testing and tuning and discussion I think we might do a format change. Times will be set in a lobby with other racers. There will be a ten second roll off delay. Fuel and tire damage will be on. Damage will be set to sim. This brings an extra element of risk. Especially on Patriot where there is no pits. On the other tracks if you are damaged you may pit.
Each session will be a 15 minute times session.
Schedule is as follows: I want to coordinate with Crossfire as to not step on the toes of his series, but I'd like to launch this early in February.
Week One. B class cars, on all tracks.
Week Two. A class cars, on all tracks.
Week Three. S class cars, on all tracks.
There will be class winners as well as over all winners.
Comments
Seriously though, basically Wed night is only night I'm doing the ABC series stuff so whatever is great man!
If you wanna do this next Wed for this I'm up for it... just lemme know and we will cancel or have on backup the class racing stuff.
(said no one ever.... )
A question though, we have to run the same parts on the car but the actual setup can change between tracks right?
Wagons ho!!
So hyped I was off my own pace at Patriot by a full second.
Overall I did better tchan I thought I'd do,... was sure Reno and Open would catch me in the overall.
No matter though, I'll suck at RWD.
On a different subject.... there are WAY too many cars to pick from for this weeks setup. I literally have 6 cars I really really love but each one does a different track a little better and very few can do all three well. Such is the challenge, which is awesome by the way Dreamer.
Next week looks to be the audi, subaru, mitsu, nissan, vw cup...
But slightly grippy keeps me consistent enough to push harder and shave time.
Acceleration and braking(lighter weights) help a bunch on Monza and Patriot.
I'd rather have a longer and more consistent braking zone, which also means you can miss the perfect spot and still recover, instead of a really short braking zone with very little margin for error.
Even if the braking power is the same a lighter car should be easier to manage and slow better.
In the end I think it still comes down to finding the right balance of performance attributes for the track itself. No one or two specific characteristics will always prevail.
The intent being to find the fastest average.
Regarding the braking I think for me I just have an easier time modulating the brakes if I can do it over a longer period of time. I've never been really good at super hard braking. If the car is setup so I can ease into the brakes and slowly trail off I'm ok.
Really high grip cars where the brakes are a little more binary (where all your braking gets done in a shorter distance or duration) always feel a lot more inconsistent to me. For me it's harder to keep the car balanced in those situations. If that makes sense.
It's really the area I have to work on so I've been changing up my driving style and adjusting my tuning method.
From the screenshots I took, it looks like Reno is the winner for A class RWD cars.
240.678 Reno
242.604 Fdog
243.995 Open
246.049 Privateer
247.826 Drifter
250.573 Dreamer
DNF Pistolpig
I had a blast as usual. After last nights spectacle, I'm sure everyone's builds will go a different direction next week.... I just love cars, and as long as I like looking at it and can keep it under good control in a crowd, I'll use it even if its a turd.
Kinda funny thing the A class average lap time at VIR was only about 1 second quicker than B class. The gaps for Watkins and Monza were about 5 and 10 seconds.
Longer the track lower the value.
It amazes me how its feasable to take a jeep and turbo the shit out if it and turn a faster lap at monza than a supercar like a lambo or gtr. There is absolutely no damn way in real life this is possible.
The game has a lot of customization options but at the same time it doesnt make it fun when things like this are possible.
In this challenge horsepower/acceleration is king. A real life drivable car is garbage in comparison. Even if you score a second or two faster at vir it wont overcome a 4 second deficit at Monza.
In all the classes so far a car that's a second or so slower at Monza is frequently 2-4 seconds quicker at the Glen.
I typically ignore tuning for VIR, there's just not enough time to makeup there.
What pisses me off is monza is all about pure power and i literally took a willys jeep, threw every part at it, and beat my best time by over 4 seconds uncert and by 2 secs cert; just no tuning - hammer the gas. So it would be easy to pickup even more time if you dicked with it.
I think I will continue this challenge but am going to add some restrictions to the next race spec series to combat the omgwtfbbq missle shit.
Oh and omgwtfbbq might be my next new gamertag. Rofl.
I suspect a grippier car at Watkins could have a big time gap. Maybe big enough to offset the power builds at Monza?
I ran some practice laps this morning,.... chasing ghosts in Rivals. Not good enough,.... so I ended up doing a rebuild.
I cut some grip and weight and added power.
Times on Patriot and Watkins stayed the same. The car is looser, but faster.
Shaved a full second from Monza with just a 40hp increase.
In comparison, a full missile built AWD Porsche 930 pumped out a 1:51.x
My new retweak cranked out a 1:52.x
I never thought that these tracks would be so diverse in build/tune specifics, but then again that's what's great about time attacks. You have to put work in to get out every last tenth.
650+hp @ approx 3100lbs