Let's Chase Blooze - Redux

[EXOR Warpedo]

I would say that I am now in S Class but I am not, I am actually through S Class, in R3 and here to stay for the moment. Just 3 classes to go plus trying to keep up with Detrick and my hotlapping will be finished.

[Blooze]

Always amazes me to see all the work that must go into some of your spreadsheets Blooze. I think if I tried something similar I'd end up spending more time on Excel and hardly any on Forza

LOL - that is indeed the case, Spiny.  I would estimate that the Excel hours are about 3 to 1 over the Forza hours right now.  Some of that is health related, but a bunch of it is just that I do love to dink with programming and designing databases and such and since I've been retired, Forza has become my client, and Excel the tool.  If I wanted to ratchet the thing up and throw MS Access into the mix, I could probably turn this into a marketable product of sorts.  But for now, I enjoy seeing how far I can get creating a Hierarchial/Relational Database using Excel workbooks/worksheets and the computer's file system.

I moved E across the H&N line and got it caught up.  Definitely a lot of movement going on in there right now.  Monitoring the Big Board is fun, and the seconds are falling to the wayside.  Just for fun, I totaled the seconds - more than half a million have fallen since the 1^st August.

I have always considered those of us who frequent this board a somewhat unique set - grownups if you will, my friends, and a club of sorts.  Car guys.  One of the things that brings me joy is to see the guys from FT here all accumulating at or near the top of the leaderboard.  It is fun to watch happen.

A tip of the hat and Congratulations to the following new Blue text fellers...

• Chuckrateez has overtaken me in both E Circuit and E P2P and has reclaimed his position in F Circuit and F P2P
• Warped Passage has overtaken me in Class A, S and X Circuits.  It won't be long and he will have me on the Big Board as well.

Good work everybody!!

And above all, Have Fun!!

$

[chuckrateez]

Blooze,

   Thanks for the props.  I've been going back and working my way back up through the classes running manual this time around, and it really makes a huge difference.  (Especially on courses like Kaido.)

  Of course it doesn't hurt that I've been driving the VW GTi Mk2 in F.     I had never driven it much, but now I see what all the fuss is about.  My Merc 300SL (my fave in F and E) is faster on the power tracks, but can't keep up on the twisty tracks.

   It really has been a blast no matter what I'm driving.


      Chuck (who's off to E in the Alfa GTA later today to see how it fares)
 

[Moosejaw]

After reviewing the Blooze Chasers workbook at the beginning of August, I decided two things:

1) I wanted to be in the circuit top 1,000 by the end of the month

After completing the Iberian circuits for R2 I'm now sitting at #995 on the circuit boards 

Next target is to knock off 200,000 seconds for the month.

[Moosejaw]

If you don't mind, how are you setting up your Gaps?

I'm doing it in a spreadsheet with graphs (how else? ) on an enviroment basis ie. Iberian (6 tracks), Ladera (6 tracks) and so on. The cool thing about the Gaposis system (assuming you've ran all the F and R1 class tacks) is that you can calculate your gaps by either class, environment or track AND you can calculate other peoples gaps as well.

Take the Iberian tracks. I know my gaposis is 9.786 secs compared to Blooze's 9.923 secs so if i stay within the calculated ranges I know my overall time should end up being lower than Blooze. This is easier said than done.

It's a different story at Ladera. My gaposis is 8.699 secs compared to Blooze's 7.073 so I know I have a hell of a lot of work to do!!

Now if I could only get Spiny to take some of his R1 cars for a spin.....

[Blooze]

LOL - Yeah, it's too bad we can't get everybody to run them both - F and R1...

That's pretty much how I have it too.

$

PS: Congratulations on hitting your first goal!  The second will be a piece of cake at the rate you are going.

[Snyder005]

Started F-Class, did some work with a trio of old Nissans but I got bored and jumped back to A-Class.  So many tracks...

[Spiny Anteater]

...
Now if I could only get Spiny to take some of his R1 cars for a spin.....

I have to admit that, apart from X, R1 is last on my list. Are there any tracks you want me to have a quick run at? If it's only a few I could have a go at setting a few times to give an idea since I'm hiding away in E at the moment. I still have too many R1 cars to buy (and not enough money to buy them) to have a proper run through R1 yet.

[Hellisan]

Started F-Class, did some work with a trio of old Nissans but I got bored and jumped back to A-Class.  So many tracks...

Same here, however I will be sticking to it and going from F to X.... time permitting.  I really enjoy some of these old rides I'm using even if they're not the fastest.  i have a 92 supra which is a similar model to the 86.5 I had when I was a kid.  I also have an 84 which my grandmother owned.  Kinda fun....

[Moosejaw]

For those of you who might want some quick movement on their overall circuit times, here's a tip.

Go to the Benchmark Ring and run Layout E and Layout E reverse.

Across the 11 classes you have 11 hours (or 39,600 secs) tied up on these two "tracks". It will take you no more than a minute to post a time of less than 10 secs on the 22 "tracks" and this should leave you a total time of around 220 secs, therefore reducing your overall time by 39,380 secs.

Not bad for 25 minutes work 

[EXOR Warpedo]

The tracks are winding down and I get closer to my goal which is just getting a time in on every circuit track. I am somewhat reluctant to actually pass Blooze as that means he is one more position closer to being out of the top 100. I know what it is like to achieve that postion through hard work and he is to be congratulated for that effort. I must say thanks for providing a target and some incentive to accomplish this daunting task. The hours spent hot lapping have definitely improved my overall driving and I have actually enjoyed driving some of the upper class cars enough that I have plans to explore some other cars in those classes. After this I shall work on the p2p tracks and building up my garage. A couple of more days and it will be time to get back to just building up cars and trying them out.

 :)Thanks Blooze!

[TheJohnNewton]

First F class milestone reached.  I have a certified lap on every circuit track.  Some are one and done, some are just poor, so I'm way back at #461 4 minutes and 10 seconds behind Blooze.

[Blooze]

The tracks are winding down and I get closer to my goal which is just getting a time in on every circuit track. I am somewhat reluctant to actually pass Blooze as that means he is one more position closer to being out of the top 100.

 :)Thanks Blooze!

Oh, don't worry about it or give it a second thought.  I put it out there for just this reason, that others might consider it a challenge of sorts and come after me.  The end result is that more and more of my friends are rising toward the top of the leaderboards, and that is what I want to see.  If, in the process, the game has been extended for you, then there is a cherry on top.  And you are putting out the work... you've earned it man and I am looking forward to turning your name to Blue on the big board!  

First F class milestone reached.  I have a certified lap on every circuit track.  Some are one and done, some are just poor, so I'm way back at #461 4 minutes and 10 seconds behind Blooze.

Congratulations TJ!  Way to hang in there!

I have attached the latest and greatest to this post this morning.

You may notice that a new sheet has been added to the collection.  It is for tracking an additional challenge that I have set for myself...  "Let's Chase Spiny!"

I finished up the Time Trials back in November - I had a pretty good ranking too.  Of course, nobody much had run them yet.  Rather than continue pounding on the tracks, I moved on - and typed in Bright Bold letters in my Round Tuit list - "When you dip below 500, do it again!.  Well, I've dipped.  So, I'm doing it again and in keeping with tradition, I am attempting to share the pain with my Chaser buddies.

Now, I'm not in too big a rush to get it done.  I am going to try to hit one or two tracks a week.  My primary goal is to get back down below 500 - and my second goal is to break the 1 hour mark.  I just ran it down, the 1 hour mark currently resides with some dude at position #409.  Of course, that won't catch Spiny - that will be my third goal associated with this mania... er... challenge!  

Look OUT Spiny... I'm comin' for ya boy.

$

[Spiny Anteater]

And with that I feel a whole load of sights turned towards me.

Glad to be able to help motivate you guys to push on in the Time Trials, although if you really want a target then take a look at Moctane's time - I'm giving away the best part of 2 minutes to him. Thing is, you get into a rhythm with a car so, although I probably could knock a few more seconds of the times (particularly on the earlier tracks), I would need to run quite a few laps to be able to do so. And currently I'm in the random tuning scenario - judging by current progress I'll be quite a while yet.

Thing is, now you've put that in the sheet I'll be keeping an eye on that leaderboard too to see how far down it I fall.

[EXOR Warpedo]

"Caught", #74 rank in Circuits when finished.