The Bench

[Fit4aking]

I've been researching the car and I think I'm going to try and do up a replica of chassis 4399GT.  Quite the history on that car (and all of the others).  Here's a snippet.

-All 36 original cars are still around, completely documented, and many are raced frequently.
-Several chassis numbers were delivered originally to the United States to run in classic races like Watkins Glen, Sebring, and even Pikes Peak.  All of them seem to have been delivered directly from Pinninfarina to race teams eager to compete all over Europe. 
-RM Auctions is going to offer up the first 250 GTO available in an open auction in over a decade.  Suspected price of sale not to be below 25 million dollars.

Lots of interesting knowledge on this car that is sure to get me at least a free roll in Trival Pursuit one of these days.  By far one of my al time favorites, next to the 275GTB.  I have always been fond of the small displacement V12 Ferrari's.  Needless to say the same friend was the one that floated me the extra funds needed to make this car appear in my garage.

[Blooze]

That is cool.  What I have found on 330 P4 is that there are only 4 of them, 3 really and they are already in collections and guarded within and inch of anybody's life.  So spect what I'll do is just proceed like there are 5 of the things and I got the 5^th.

I have some errands and crap to do today and I thought I'd do some of this Credit Farming.  I have the assists set up to return 100% yet when the race is over, the difficulty bonus is only 55%.  Is that the way it is, or am I doing something wrong?

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[DirtDriver]

The Hired Driver brings his own assists with him and you can't turn them off. If you have all assist off for a 100% bonus you will still only get the 55 or 60, if I remember correctly.

[Blooze]

Ah, thank you sir.  I guess I will quit fretting over the arithmetic then...

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[Blooze]

I am sitting here pretty well pleased with my Forza operation this morning...

At the moment I am eating my breakfast (eggs and hashbrowns) - before setting out to cook them I started my SS Monte Carlo on an endurance race with a hired driver.  This will knock $80k of its $180k price sticker.  It is just now half done so I have time to enjoy my breakfast...

Once the Monte Carlo is done, it is off to the Leaderboard to run 6 laps on the Nurburgring GP track with the Peugeot 908.  Six laps is about all I can do before my left hand goes to sleep.

After a little take five, I'll head for the snakes and run one of the previously un-run tracks there with my Flying Lizard R3 car.  That has the 3 purpose;

• It helps me with getting used with general Porsche-ish behaviour in preperation for a Porsche Event I am entered next weekend.
• It helps me get in the mood of driving the Porsche in preparation for one of the 911 event races that I am trying to complete.  The car does not like quick steering input, no matter what I do to it...
• It eliminates one more of the 18 Snake tracks that I have to complete for the R3 leaderboard.  I have 10 left at the moment.

 

Then it is off to the Career board for the next race with the Porsche.

By then I am primed for a little break - so I'll fire up the Monte Carlo for another run and do it all all over again...

Ain't I organized?  I'm so proud...

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[Fit4aking]

Ever since the hard drive crash I've been quite disorganized.  No spreadsheets to track my hotlap progress, no spreadsheets to track my builds and all of my previous information is lost, so says the IT guy.  Seems a worm got in there and started copying itself over and over to the point that it won't even boot on his diagnostic setup.  Shame. 

I've resorted to the "old fashioned" method of building up cars, doing the calcs for bias and such on my Ti85 and finalizing a build by saving it in my tunes section.  Not exactly the most productive way of keeping track of things but I have a decent mental image of what cars do well on which tracks.  Eventually I'll sit down and create a log sheet for each class and start using the leaderboards to fill in the missing times but for now my free time is best served reducing work and increasing play.

Tonight I plan on running Positano in F-class, all the ribbons and the full track.  Then I'm off to do whatever my heart desires, not sure what.  May hop back into my Saleen project on Sebring and take some notes so I can make some progress on the tuning thread on the daught net, or I'll just try out my new favorite '03 Eclipse on the hoppers for a bit.  Either way I need to make some CR's and get my Ferrari cranking so it can eventually pay for itself.

[Blooze]

I finished the Circuit Laps last night.  Whew - glad that is done.

My plan now is to get really myopic...  that is where I like the game best.  Build and Toon a car, then test it.  Work it down, and then take what ever tracks the thing runs best on and work on those tracks.

Like my Reese Millen Hyundai...  I plan to spend the day taking the Kaido and Positano P2Ps with it.  It probably isn't going to be all the big gun on those tracks, but I like the car.  I have it tuned within a Gnat's Ass and it is fun to drive.

So that is the plan for the day - the Hyundai and Kaido...  that's all there is.

Oh, and coffee...

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[Fit4aking]

I'm way behind.  While I only have a few tracks to sort out before I've run them all I've only run F-class.  I realized a few things last night as I perused my friends leaderboard and my overall standings.
- I'm at least half way up my friends list if not in the top 33%
- I'm at least in the top 1-5% on a majority of the tracks.
- If there was ever an official hotlap challenge or time trial I'm much farther back!
- My car choice is no where near optimal, but much more fun than running a Golf everywhere.
- Even my F-class garage has huge gaping holes where some specialists should reside.

As I get closer to the end of this little snippet I'm very tempted to run back and fill the holes and get the low hanging fruit but I may just force myself to start E-class to open up my options.  But I have most if not all of the P2P races yet to get done and all of the Sidewinder tracks.

I was in a private chat and race lobby with a friend the other day and we were running around in several classes and he commented that Blooze was rather fast and that even I had a car or two that he couldn't beat.  It was good to hear that I'm not the only one judging my comptence by friends over the top times and that even I could set some type of bar.  Trust me I'm not that difficult to beat unless I really set out to run an optimum time.  Just wanted to let you know that while me and TJN often put some pressure on you to watch your rank there are others silently toiling away in the background givin you a run for your money.

Off to work on a "new" project that I've had floating around in my head for a while.....may enlist the help of everyone here to see if it works out in Forza as it does in real life, just need to sort a few details and build a couple of cars first.  Where did I put that thermos again.....

[BarbecuePete]

I was in a private chat and race lobby with a friend the other day and we were running around in several classes and he commented that Blooze was rather fast and that even I had a car or two that he couldn't beat.  It was good to hear that I'm not the only one judging my comptence by friends over the top times and that even I could set some type of bar. 

I pretty much always just use my friends list as a guide, I've seen at least 10 seconds off most of the very top times at some tracks where the Golf's, Celica's and the S5's just dominate the leaderboards but just a couple of seconds behind the top of my FL sometimes even if they are in the leaderboard car.

I'm with you guys, I'd much rather drive something a bit different or we might as well just scrap Forza Motorsports have a game called Volkswagon Audi Group Motorsports.

[TheJohnNewton]

"...have a game called Volkswagon Audi Group Motorsports."

Lol!!!    I usually only look at my overall rank and my friends list so it's a bit shocking sometimes to look at how far ahead the top time is even if I have a solid time in the top 1000.  And then of course 99% of the next 200 times are all with the same car.  I really wish there was a per car leaderboard.  I wouldn't mind a stock car leaderboard as well.  One of the few times I looked on the .net board I saw some guys running stock Honda Fits (F130) on the ring so I gave it a run.  Kind of fun having their times to compare against.  It's actually still my top Ring time in F.

[Blooze]

That's pretty much how I roll as well - check the Overall Numbers but rank myself with my Friends list.  I wish they had the Numbers on the Friends page - I'm gonna wear the X button on my wheel out...

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[Spiny Anteater]

- I'm at least half way up my friends list if not in the top 33%
- I'm at least in the top 1-5% on a majority of the tracks.
- If there was ever an official hotlap challenge or time trial I'm much farther back!
- My car choice is no where near optimal, but much more fun than running a Golf everywhere.
- Even my F-class garage has huge gaping holes where some specialists should reside.

Read that and realised it pretty much sums up where I am as well. Although it's not really a surprise that my F Class garage has huge gaping holes in it as I'm ploughing through event list now.

And I'm with all of you guys who compare against your friends list first - it means so much more than comparing yourself against some random hotlapper whose time is well in excess of anything I'll do. Can't help thinking it would have been better if the leaderboards cycled Friends>Overall>Nearby>Favourites rather than starting with Overall as they do now.

[Fit4aking]

Off to see real cars and real racing for the weekend.  Check it out if you'd like, looks like a good time and it's been a couple years since I've gone.

www.motoramaevents.com

Won't be home till Sunday night so for the moment everyone's F-class rank is safe.

[Blooze]

Wow!  That looks like quite the deal.  A guy could get lots of ideas for paint jobs up close and personal there...

Have fun!!

I appreciate not having to fret over my F Class position for a day or so too...

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[Blooze]

Sunday morning again.  Quite shop for a change.

It's been a hell of a week.  Finished up a major chore.  It changes things.  I brought all my Delta columns to zero - the beginning of a new era.  No more unraced tracks to clear 1800 seconds off in one fell swoop - comes the nickle diming portion of the game now.

But along with that, there are portions uncompleted.  The P2P Leaderboard - the Career, those need to be finished.  I never have been much for multitasking...  I don't like dividing my attention.  I'm not very good at it.  Everything gets done half-assed when I multitask.

The current state of the union has me finishing development of a new tracking sheet - one that includes all of the RL tracks in the game.  I gave up on the "I Seen It On TV" sheet when it occurred to me as I added yet another track that I was headed that way anyhows.  Additionally, I am sitting at 88.9% completion of the Career - damn near done. 

I think I am going to start attacking the unfinished events in an orderly right to left, bottom to top walk through the event grid.  And, once a car is chosen for the event at hand, it will taken through the full tilt gauntlet that I have prepared for my tuned cars.

Why?  you might think, or even query out loud. 

It is all in pursuit of the Perfect Garage.

Build it, Document it, Test it, Race it, then let it take its well deserved position in the Paddock.  A paddock filled with Documented, Tested, Race proven cars...

I love this game...

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