As that's all I've been writing about for the last 2 weeks. :-P
I received my wheel yesterday! It's glorious. I really didn't have a good way to mount it though...every position I tried was uncomfortable for running any more than a couple laps. I started with the wheel attached to the coffee table, sitting on the floor. Perhaps this could have worked, if there was a good way to angle the pedals more, but I didn't have a way to do that. I also had a problem with my legs hitting my hands, so I grabbed some textbooks and put them under the legs. This was a little better, but not much. More textbooks! The table was now about 2-3" higher than usual, but my knees were still touching the underside of the table, and straights actually caused my leg to almost start cramping up. Next, I moved the dining room table into the family room, and tried that. It was much more comfortable, but a terrible long-term (or even short-term) solution, as there was this huge table in the family room. After going to the gym, I headed over to Ikea and picked up an Uddevalla. It's not the most stable base in the world, but the height is nearly perfect. I was able to play for a couple hours without any comfort-related issues.
On to actual game play. I finished up the Schwarzwald Liga B series to win my '92 Mercedes 190E DTM car, then entered my 120i in the European Hot Hatch Championship to win a dark green '88 Volvo 240 GLT wagon. Next, I entered my Motorsport Elise in the Elise Cup to win...another Elise. Wonderful. I couldn't figure out why the car was such a pain to drive, until I realized that I never turned up the downforce!
Time for some rally! Rather than try the RSC again, I added a little more power and the center diff control to my STi, and entered that in the Swiss Alps Normal race. It went surprisingly well, winning my first race on the first try, and second race on the second try. The wheel makes such a huge difference on rally races; it's constantly being pulled from your hands, and there's lots of good countersteer action. I then tried Cathedral Rocks I Normal, but that wasn't going to happen today.
Next, I got back in my NSX-R Concept and finished up the Type R race. In 10 laps at Tsukuba, I had lapped everyone. Won the Honda HSC for that, which is a cool car, but being a concept, you can't sell it for anything. :-(
Boxer Spirit was next, using the STi I beefed up earlier. The RUFs were fast, but certainly beatable. Got the RUF "Yellow Bird" for beating that one. The last series I started was the Supercar Festival in Professional Hall. I used my M3 GTR street car, and it hasn't been a problem thusfar. The second race though, a Cien entered! Due to having off-track issues for two laps in a row, it gave me some problems. It just had so much more power, that if it was anywhere near me hitting the straight (at Fuji Speedway, I think), it would draft for a second and just blow by. I was hitting around 170 or so, the Cien was probably at least 190. The advantage I had was that being so heavy, the Cien had to brake much earlier than I did. I still have three races to go in that series because they were kind of long races, and I didn't really feel like doing any more. I tried some Super license tests though, it was surprisingly easy to get a bronze medal on them. I think three or four in a row I got on the first try. If that's representative of the rest of the license tests, then it shouldn't take much longer. Of course, that's just to get the bronze. Most of these tracks I don't want to try to make up the 2-5 seconds I'd need for silver.
Of course, you'll notice that I didn't post any pictures today. I was up entirely too late actually playing the game, and didn't have time for pictures. :-P Now I need a nap.
Posted by Ben at March 10, 2005 07:31 AM