The Bench

[Blooze]

Heh, it sounds like you will be able to do the same sort of damage to the lower classes as you did in the upper classes with that Lotus!

$

[Fit4aking]

I decided to run a Honda Prelude for the comp as it shocked me so much and I was able to run decent times in it straight of the bat.  I would have tried the superlight or the new Mini but DLC cars were excluded.  I set my fastest personal best in the car and handed it off to two other people to try and they set new personal bests in it to so I think it will be easy enough for the comp host to drive.  I've learned it isn't how I can taylor a car to me as much as it is to make a general yet track specific tune that anyone can do well in.  I'll have to run it through the FIL and see how she fares against some of the Blooze regulars.

[Blooze]

I see where that Perlude handled my Mugen Civic by almost 4 seconds on the Targa Ring.  I need to look into that for a medium/long range track car...

Speaking of Targa, and FIL for that matter.  I am in need of a Logo for each that can be used as a Bogie Badge (like planes on the side of a guys fighter, or notches on a gun handle.) that are also appropriate for Number Panels...  any ideas?

$

[Blooze]

Ah, a good morning...  nippy fresh air that kinda makes you wish you hadn't hopped out of your bed quite so quickly, or at least had the sense to put on a damned jacket for the walk to the shoppe...

But the shoppe is open, coffee is a-perkin' and the blood is starting to flow.

Boy howdy...  I am going to have to put some racing time in and get the old bank account recovered.  I probably should have waited until I had a few more bucks before coughing up the $10 million for the Daytona.  Ah well.

I got a short little story for ya...

Back in 1965 I was stationed at a place in San Diego known as the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, or FAAWTC (fought-see) as we called it.  This is the place where they were training the guys on how to use radars and crap to spot jet airplanes before they did something nasty to your boat.  It is also the place where they were teaching the Electonics Techs how to keep the damned radars working - those were pre-computer days and a lot of the technology wasn't really sorted out yet.

One of the things about those big radars is that they put out a piss-pot load of microwaves, and one of our little pass times during lunch was toss chunks of bread up at the units to see if we could get a seagull to fly in close enough to get the bread that he got his ass fried.  When it happened, we all hooted and hollered and laughed our asses off.  And it never once occurred to us that we were looking at the technology that would damn near put the kitchen stove out of business.

And so it goes, the solution, 9 times out of 10, is right in front of your face.  I had issues, or disgruntlements if you will, that were buggin' the hell out of me and just like those dumb-assed gulls, the solution was already here.  

The disgruntlements:

• Associating the vintage sports cars, specifically the big three (four if you're hot for the testosterone or whatever - I'm not) with a race class was skewing the hell out of my numbers.  This was highlighted by me building up the 250 GTO which scooted Class C right to the top and never to be challenged as far as car value goes.  Why even bother to keep track after that?  It was like a leaderboard car.
• I like to run the vintage cars T-Total Showroom Stock.  The problem is that they screw up my leaderboard sheets - I have to have two of them for one thing, one for the stock, and another for the built versions.  And the times are always pitiful - they wreck averages.

What to do, what to do?  My "solution" was to create a new class - Museum, the cars for the Class M are stored in garages named Vintage1 (sports type cars) and Vintage2 (classic Muscle cars)  There is no sorting by time, weight or any of the other "normal" parameters, they only count for the car.  And the cars can be added to the system without skewing the money numbers all to hell and back.  The value of the car stays with the Museum.  If I want to build out a B Class Toon for the 250 GTO I can do that and B Class is unmolested as far as value goes.  And I don't have a "Stock" record in QR messing things up.

Also, I was able to pare the Class tables down a bit - Targa is all that is required for the Museum cars, I don't need the full blown Kaido and Positano sheets.  And the FIL is all the vintage cars will see of the circuit leaderboard.  So now the Stock Vintage cars can set times, win money (F class cars make as much as an R1 does in my system) and stay the hell out of the way doing it.

I've noticed that this "Vintage" thing is getting more airplay around the country lately as well...  There is the Monteray Classic that is held at Leguan Seca every year, and if I heard it right, it has been organized into a league of some sort and the cars are being raced all over the country... world, even, and by their vintage drivers to boot.   The targa deal, and those British hill climbs come to mind as well with classic car divisions and such.

So, I am off and running with my new Class - the Daytona being my first project.  And it is fun - a whole new set of problems.  Ya got to get by with what ya got on those cars.  And there are a lot of them.  So far, for me... I have 10 of the sports cars and 12 Muscle cars (the Vettes are with the Muscle set).

Well, I am off to put some seat time in on my A Class GTX this morning.  Got to make some of that money back.  At least I won't be saving for a multimillion dollar antique now...

Maybe another cup of coffee...  I may have to bump the thermostat a notch.  Damn, its chilly...

  $

[Fit4aking]

Cruised through the shop to grab some paperwork this morning and noticed a special delivery envelope on the desk.  The organizer of the latest daught net tuning comp, Dougyt40, had overnighted the results.  Express postage was wasted on me as I haven't been in the shop for a few days.  I scooped it up and it was light as usual so no prize money but I rarely enter comps with hopes of winning, only doing well. 

"Congratulations of your 14th place finish..........."  Great another lack luster performance from a car that set my personal best handily and even did well in the Targa.  *sigh*  I almost put it down but a bold 3rd caught my eye.  Seems of all of the entries I placed 3rd out of the handful of two wheel drives and only 0.400 off of the top time.  So I shrugged tossed the paper on my desk and headed back out to the showroom.  I guess I'll keep the new Prelude around for a while in hopes a FWD showdown will put her to good use, those AWD cars just steal all of her thunder.

[Blooze]

I should look into one of those contests sometime... they always seem like a con to me - more successful than the old, "Tune my car for me..." routine.  What are the criteria for judging these things?  Is it just time, or time on a specific track?

At any rate, I sure wouldn't let what a handful of Daught.Gnet tuners has to say have much affect on my day.

One of the things I've been able to do with my new system is sort the herd by drive type so I can put them +a cars off in a hole of their own.

And for FWD cars - I am afraid they will be fighting the handling problem always - they are the only drive system that must share all wheel type activities, Drive Steer, Brake - everything.  An +a car has some of the same issues, but also has the rear end to help out some...

...there any coffee left?

[Fit4aking]

I hear you about the con but it's pretty straight forward.  One guy, Dougyt40, picks a track, a class and any exclusions.  Then you usually have 3 weeks or so to build whatever car you want and get it to him.  Either by gifting, free on your storefront, or for a cheap auction.  Once he has the cars he runs them all on the track, usually for only 5 laps, records his fastest single lap, and creates a leaderboard.  He even makes notes on the cars briefly to give some feedback.  Winner takes all and he'll even give you the car back if you want it.  I just write them off and comp entries and consider it one large parts purchase to include with my copy of the car.

It's fun to enter, talk a little trash, do some ribbing, and let the cards fall where they may.  Sort of like the original Muscle Inc contests.  Not such a big deal if you don't win as long as you have a good time and you can track your personal progress by seeing your overall finishing positions increase or decrease within the same circle of friends.

The main downside is making a car that someone else can drive fast.  I will tailor a car to my style and hand it off to disaterous results.  Having to build and tune a car not for you but for some random driver is difficult.  However the upside is I tend to have some Storefront business afterwards and use the results to promote whatever car it is for some residual income.  (I generally log in to 15-30k waiting for me)  Just one more dynamic to the game that keeps me interested.

I can see that my coffee pot is empty, better go fire up the perkulator.

[feuerdog]

I can vouch for Dougyt40,...he's been on my friends list since FM2, and even before he started doing these tuning comparisons.
He's an honest and fair fellow, but he like any driver has his own style of operating. Not a bad thing, but something to consider when tuning for his comps.

Back when he did some testing on my cars, he was fairly accurate in his judgement.
I think Fit is a bit more descriptive in his feedback, but Dougy does have a crap ton of cars to drive for his evaluations. So he keeps things simple.

Dougy is like the Road & Track magazine of the Tuning Marketplace. If he endorses it, it'll sell.

[DirtDriver]

I just can't believe the Bloozeman is dissing the Testa Rossa....harshing my mellow, Bloozeman...

DD

[Blooze]

LOL -  it looks like you should be wearing goggles and calf skin gloves with little holes in the backs, and perhaps be smoking a pipe, to be qualified to drive it public...

But, I am sure it has its points - I hope I didn't hurt its feelings.

$

[DirtDriver]

LMAO!

DD

[Blooze]

Man o Man, these meetings get worse every week it seems.  All the projects, all the reports, on and on and on.  And the donuts are always stale, and they run out of coffee, and your belly is growling and you can't keep your eyes open.  I miss the days when I was just one car in the shop out back...

Here's a few highlights from this morning's meeting...

The car of the week (COW): the long over due seemingly permanent resident of the RTL ('Round Tuit List) Halo VIP Murcielago gets it's chance to shine or end up just a showroom dolly.  It has some pretty good stats, and its early QR puts it #4 in the list.  The orders are for it to be run the FIL gamut, QR2, RWT, and Targa.  And depending on how it fares in Targa, it may get a run at Big Laps and the rest of P2Ps.  That is a lot of driving to get done in just 5 days, specially with these dumb-assed meetings taking up half of one day.

The Track of the Month: Mazda's Leguan Seca.  We've been slip shod on this track far too long and management wants it rectified ASAP.  The times had better start dropping across the board or heads was gonna roll...  same ole BS, but we do need to work on that track - I am going to try to get at least 1 run in 4 on it, plus some dedicated ghost time.

The weekends just got complicated.  They are to be split between two projects the BCG, and the Museum.
The BCG (Best Car in the Game): has been moved to its own account, with an accounting system all its own as well.  They're putting BucksToon in charge of it - and he is supposed to get Friday evening to Sunday night twice a month to work on his project exclusively.  The way it is set up, there is only 1 car in that profile, the GSX.  Anything you see going on with BucksToon on the leaderboard will be because of the GSX.  BucksToon is currently on the back end of my friends list... it will be interesting to see how long he stays there.

The Museum: - especially after this weekend, a good friend and corporate benefactor, Dirt Driver donated two Ferraris, one to the Museum, another to improve the over all level of quality to the corporations paddock.  First, the Museum.  A slightly used but perfect none-the-less, Testa Rosa!!  The Museum is now in possession of all four of the Big Four, and Mr. Driver is responcible for 50%.  So there will be projects galore getting the word out about the Museum and its collection of exotic and historically relevent vehicles.  Two weekends a month are to be dedicated to this enterprise.

Then somebody said something about coming up with a new Mission Statement for B2 Racing and that was it for me.  I claimed missing a flight to Spain and the Lambo runs at Catalunya and got the hell out of there...

Looks like we're gonna be busy as hell around here for a while...

$

[DirtDriver]

Just feel real sorry I couldn't send over the leather gloves and goggles...hehe

Have fun, Blooze. BTW, Big Moo has one of those little go-karts, too. Might compare notes with him.

DD

[Blooze]

Just feel real sorry I couldn't send over the leather gloves and goggles...hehe

LOL - and I'd have been duty bound to wear them when ever I drove the car too...    I might as well go ahead and get me one of them "catch me, diddle me" hats, and wear it back'ards, like Barney Oldfield...

On a darker note, I got me a priority EMail here from GICheeze, otherwise known as "Management" about how things is to handled as far as priorities in Class Racing here at B2 Racing.  It seems that they have a new tool up on Mahogany Row that identifies Class times that are "Out of Spec".  

Out of Spec:  One of a new group "words" to be associated with Hotlapping from here on out.  The "Spec" referred to is a calculated Agrigate Time for each class.  To be Out of Spec (OS, not to be confused the acronym for Over Spec), the most dire of conditions - btw, which more accurately should be OS2 ()) is never a good condition.  However OS does include US (Under Spec, not really that bad, but considered sloppy resource managment by some.  It is OS2 that will get you fired.  That is lack of performance, and it best be resolved immediately.

"What!?", you may rightly ask, "in the hell is this Spec thing?"   It is a number that is generated by calculating the following slope: Time:Class = (F Class Time - X Class Time) / 10.  The number 10 is the result of Class Count - 1, For instance, the current "Spec" is:  (11392 - 7716) / 10 = 368.  This allows them to declare an optimum class time, and it allows them to bitch about any time that is other than what they calculated.

So, right now they would dearly love to bitch me out for working in Class A, which is only 20 seconds OS2, when B Class is a hideous 302 s OS2.  except they're the ones that told me to work Class A when they declared that the Lambo was to be the Car of the Week (COW).  But, you can bet your young ass that the COW will be an existing B Class car to be developed, or maybe a whole new rig.

I'm beginning to wonder if this going public and getting all "modern corporation" is going work out.  I do know I am not quite as happy as I once was.  My racing career has turned into a Dilbert cartoon...

$

PS:  Okay, so who is more looney Toons?  The guy who dreamed this crap up, or the guy that says, "Okay, I'll do it"?

[Blooze]

Well, I run that Lambo until she was too hot to touch, by golly.  Got done early too, so I got a chance to catch up on some correspondence and a few other projects.  BucksToon has got the machine for the weekend so he'll have the B Class Toon for the GSX pretty well dialed in by the time Monday hits.  I may be using it for my next project as well - to bring the seriously OS2 B Class into Spec, or one hell of a lot closer than it is right now - 302 seconds out.

So, the Lambo and A Class... here's what I got done this week.

• A is now my top class with a ranking of 99.9877%
• 134 seconds were knocked off of the agrigate by 3 cars, the Porsche 997 RS, the GSX, and the Halo Lambo.  Running last of the 3, the Halo car was still able to pick off 14 hard earned seconds.
• The Lambo finished up with an A Class total of 86 races and $979,100 credits.  These are tops for the class at this time.  The 997 ran some Enduro races to cover its cost so has more miles than the GSX, but it still has run a respectable 762 miles.  The car looks to be able to handle S Class pretty well also, so all of these numbers will double when it is said and done.
• The 3600 lb car had a hell of a time with the Targa, but was able to knock a few seconds off the Nurburgring part of it.  The GSX has set some fairly difficult times to overtake on the Kaido and Positano portions, however.  The Targa time was 12 seconds off the GSX's pace.
• The car has the third best QR with a 189.917 seconds.
• The RWT agrigate is 40:07.130 - best of the two cars that have completed it in A Class.

I got the car parked back in it's VIP parking space for a while now.  At least until I am working in S class.  I don't plan on racing it in A again, unless I have a QR track off or something like that.

As far as the paper work goes... I now have about 40% of the operation under the new spec, with A class sitting at 100%.  It is the only one to make it that far so far.  Part of the problem is the multiple class cars - they all have to be tracked down and updated as well.  A Class, with the S2000 series, had a bunch of cars going all the way back to E or D.

It is sort of cool, the original dream of the Weight Bias tuning was that all cars would act and handle, if not the same, at least very simalarily.  I would say that I am almost there.  The Peugeot 207 is a good example.  That car has toons in both FWD and AWD from Class E to Class A, and the settings are the same all the way up the line.  The only changes are the springs when the weight changes and the FD when the Power changes.  And driving one is just about the same as the other.  And then the '09 Focus is almost identical to the Peugeot, handling and everything.

$