caffeineslug.com

Autocross, 007, sugar

Drove out to the autocross on my new street tires, the Falken Ziex ZE-512. GREAT price, decently quiet, good ride. I enjoyed the course this month - felt like it had a high average speed, but the maximum speed wasn't that high at all, maybe mid-50s at the most for me. Felt kind of busy, and I'm sure my line left lots of time out there. I never really felt that I put together a great run, just mediocre. I'm missing all of that front camber I lost, especially on the two big sweepers on the course. :-\ Fun course though. The "three runs count" idea was interest, and certainly added some pressure when I coned my second run. Ended up with 3 clean runs though, so it wasn't all bad. My pax score counting 3 runs was only one point more than my score counting 1 run, for whatever that's worth.

Leaving the event early meant there was actually time to do other stuff on Saturday, so we finally went to the James Bond exhibit at the Arizona Science Center. It was pretty interesting. They had an Aston Martin DB5 from one of the earlier movies there, which was nice. Also several props, such as the Oddjob hat and Jaws' chrome steel jaws. I especially liked seeing some of the original drawings of gadgets and such, and old movie posters (including a number from other countries), so that was cool.

Last night we finally played my 007 Scene It! game, after an Easter filled with sugar and other generally unhealthy stuff. With just two people it goes pretty quickly unless you play where you can only move when you answer a question right. It really pointed out that, despite liking Bond movies, I couldn't tell you much about them. :-P They're all on my "to watch" list now, along with all of the LOTR movies with commentary. Hopefully I'll pay more attention this time. You really have a shot of doing well if you can remember the following about each movie:
- the name of the movie
- where it was in the order of release
- which actors played Bond
- brief plot summary
- the main villian's name
That alone should give you enough info to make a really good guess at most of the answers.

Alas, in all of that business, there was no time for GT4.

That's what you get...

...when I don't play much GT4. Razor comparisons. Yeah.

Yesterday I came home and New York enduro was over, so I started the Nurburgring 4 Hour race. That gave me the 1967 Chapparal race car, which I'll use for the American Championship series. I tried entering it before, but got beat down hard by...a Chapparal. :-P

M3 Power vs Quattro

I can't afford either of the new cars that come to mind when reading the above title, and I don't know how the companies managed to come up with such names. Today brings the comparison of the Gillette M3 Power and Schick Quattro razors. :-P Battery vs none! Three blades vs four! Whose cuisine will reign supreme?? (....wrong show...)

I've been using the M3 Power ever since it went on sale at Costco several months back. I used the Mach3 Turbo before that, and the regular Mach3 before that, so there's a bit of history there. Also note that I'm using Turbo blades rather than Power blades (which I think are a bit different), as I bought the Power well before I ran out of Turbo blades. Past experience with the M3 Power has been good. The vibrating feature does seem to work, as I definitely noticed a difference when switching from the Turbo to the Power. The battery also adds some heft to the razor, which I like.

The Quattro is different in a number of ways. Most obvious is the fourth blade, and the head itself seems noticeably larger. The head also has several thin metal strips running perpendicular to the blades, which I believe to to help prevent nicks. The handle itself is noticeably bigger and heavier than the M3, and it feels pretty good. There's lots of metal in the handle, as opposed to the M3's plastic handle. The angle between head and handle is less than the M3, but it doesn't take long to adjust to the difference.

In use, I'd say the Quattro provides an equivalent, yet different, shave. I think the end result was a bit smoother than with the M3 Power, but it came at the expense of comfort. It felt like it was pulling on hairs frequently (or at least more frequently than the M3), and that wasn't so good. But the nick-resistant blades seemed to work, and as I said, the end result was pretty smooth. I suspect that using actual Power blades might bring the M3 back up to the same level. It should be noted that the Quattro was definitely easier to rinse, something the M3 has never done well.

I'm almost out of blades for my M3, so if I were to switch any time, I think it would be soon. That said, I don't know if I will. I've heard that the Quattro blades are more expensive (which I don't doubt), but worse, I don't know if Costco sells them. If not, that would give a distinct price advantage to the M3. I'll continue to use the Quattro until the blade is done, so perhaps it'll last longer to make up for the higher price.

You can't go wrong with either model. If you're using one of these, I don't see any reason to switch unless you're completely out of blades, and want to try something new. :-P

B-spec mode cures cancer, solves world hunger, and finds the largest prime number

Almost. Its ability to do those things does not matter, in light of its ability to let me finish out a boring series to do something else. I started up GT4 last night so I could have Mr Bspec drive an endurance race overnight, only to be reminded that I still had 3 races left in the GT World Championship. I probably could have just quit the series, as I had a sizeable lead, but whatever. When I was done, I set up Mr Bspec with my M3 GTR street car, and had him do the El Capitan enduro, 66 laps. Left it on Fast with Overtake on, and he didn't seem to have any problems, as this morning I woke up to the screen where you collect the cash. Then I set him to to run the New York enduro, which should be finished long before I get home today. :-D

Finishing the Professional Hall unlocked Extreme Hall, which requires the S license if I actually want to race them myself. I'll probably try to get that this week, now that I have the opportunity to use it. I'm also conflicted between saving money for the "black cars" on day 694, or spending it on other random cars to do manufacturer races (because I'm ever-so-longing to race a Daihatsu Midget around the test ring, or something stupid like that).

My cat's breath smells like cat food

I thought I'd throw everyone off with a title that doesn't relate to GT4. :-P

I haven't played much in the last couple days, actually. Just haven't had the time. Tonight I started the GT World Championship in the F1 car, and it's going ok, but a bit tiring at times. I just finished Opera Paris Reverse, and it's such a tight track that you really have to focus the whole time. The other problem, I've noticed, is that rumble strips have been transformed into Colored Speed Bumps of Death. If you hit any more than just the edge of one with that car, you get enough air to really throw you off. I'm still getting used to the incredible grip the car provides, even after playing with the F1 cars for many, many hours in GT3. Hitting braking points has turned into one of my biggest issues, as it's easy to hit them too early, then have to accelerate up to the turn. >:-O Just three more races to go now in the series. Oh, and I have to go back and beat Hong Kong again, because that's just an evil track that should die.

Got my tennis racket back from the shop a couple days ago, after I took it in to be restrung. Played a match that night, and things were really hit or miss. I played about 8 games in a row where I hit a lot of good shots, but after that I just fell apart and did lots of stupid stuff. I must have had 10 double faults, way more than usual. Lots of shots going long as well, again way more than usual. I think I ended up losing 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 or something.

Went to Sub-Culture Cafe for dinner tonight, they make some good stuff. It's nice to see a sandwich shop that uses good meats and cheeses, and it's probably worth the extra money. If you're in the area, check it out.

Big surprise, GT4 content

Didn't have much time to play yesterday, as I had to go pick up my restrung tennis racket after work, go to the gym, and then actually play tennis. :-P But my B-spec driver finished up the 24 Hours at Nurburgring race, 21 laps up on the 2nd place car. Pretty impressive, given the length of the track. I spent the rest of my time with the game taking pictures, since I didn't get any the last couple days. As always, click for the full-size picture.

First up, the CLK GTR I used for the 24 hour race.

The CLK going a bit off course.

The PD Formula car, prize for the 24 hour race.

The Auto Union Streamline. Strange car. No camber, and very little steering angle. Doesn't really turn unless you're going fast enough to generate some downforce, I think. Pretty impressive top speed for a car from 1937, however.

The engine cover area of said Streamline, taken after I had put it into a wall. ;-)

Less than successful

Minimal GT4 progress last night. I started out by finishing the Clubman Cup, and winning a Mazdaspeed 6. Meh. Alright, so on to the GT World Championship, and....what? I figure my CLK GTR should be a good matchup here, but either I'm a lousy driver, or...well, maybe it's the driver. After about 5 laps at Toyko R246, I'm 50 seconds off the lead. Even if the other cars are using stickier tires and will need to pit once, I still can't make up that time. Bah.

Time to try some B-spec mode then. I ran the Grand Valley 300km enduro to win a 1937 Auto Union V16 Type C Streamline. Really cool-looking car, I'll have to get some pics of it.

Next I tried some of the driving missions again, and I'm amazed at the increase in difficulty from the first 10 missions to the second 10. The second 10 are all 3-lap races where you start out in last by a fair margin, and have to come back to win. Number 11 put me in an old Toyota 2000GT or something, and wow is it slow. Probably took me about 10 tries to get all of my lines down to where I could overtake the 1st-place car on the last straight. Number 12 was more fun, driving a Ford GT LM at Laguna Seca. This took me a number of tries as well, including several where I had a good shot at winning but spun on the fast left before going up the hill to the corkscrew. The car would always slide a bit if I hit the rumble strip on the left, sending me off course just enough cause problems. I finally did it though, and it felt great. Number 13 is where I gave up on the 3-lap races. It was a 206 rally car (206 > *) up against other rally cars at the Opera track. My first attempt was pathetic, I think I only passed one car. I gradually got better, to where I would finish just a few seconds behind the lead car and in second place. I don't know where I'm going to pick up those last few seconds, however. Growing tired of my slow progress, I went on to the slipstream battles (21-24 I think). I easily won the Nissan Cube and Honda Odyssey races, but then I got to the Skyline race. So frustrating. I must have done this at least 6 times, at 7 minutes per race. The idea is that you're in a group of 5 Skylines at the test ring, and you have to use drafting to catch the group up to the lead car, which you then pass for the win. Well, it seems that the other 4 cars in the pack are idiots. The lead car actually taps the brakes going into the turns, and I can never get the group to catch up. I've even tried pushing one car in the group around the track, as the two of us would still hit higher speeds on the straight, but that wouldn't catch me up either. To make matter worse, the other pack cars are terrible at drafting. I'll see them come up beside me, but rarely pass me. I really don't know what to do with this one. I tried moving on to the next slipstream race with some S2000 race cars, but didn't win on my first try. I don't think it'll be that much of a problem, but I was tired of doing this now.

Back to endurance races! I thought it was about time I tried the 24hour Nurburgring enduro, as that's the race that gives you the Formula car. The biggest issue for me was that I'd have to repeatedly check on my bspec driver, because after coming out of the pits, it wouldn't go back to the 3x speed, it would just be in the normal view at 1x. I checked on it every 8-10 minutes for a couple hours, then went to bed. At the time I left for work this morning, it was 12h40m into the race, with a 12 lap lead. I figure it'll be about 21.5 hours in by the time I get home, then I can 3x it for about an hour to finish up the race, get my formula car, and collect the 1.2M in prize money.

Productive, yet slightly boring, GT4 day

I didn't feel like I played that long, but I got a fair amount of races out of the way. First, I finished the Supercar Festival in my M3 GTR. Then it was off to the German Touring Car Championship in my CLK Touring car. I was a bit worried about this race, as the first time I tried it at Brian's house, I lost horribly. Adding just the Stage 3 NA upgrade, it wasn't even a contest, as I won handily. The prize was a CLK GTR race car, which should do nicely when I go for Gran Turismo World Championship.

Of course, you can't run that race until you've completed the rest of the Beginner and Professional races, so I decided to clean those up. Back in the Civic Type R (my second car) for the FF Challenge, and I win a worthless Mazda 6 Concept. On to the Spider & Roadster race....I wasn't sure what I was going to use, until I remembered that I had that SL 65. :-D It shouldn't be possible to win by as much as I did. Got a Prowler after that race, also worthless.

Next I entered the Sport Truck race to finish up the Beginner Hall. I went with the Dodge Laramie 1500, with nothing but power upgrades. I was going to go with the supercharger for $13k, but oddly enough, the $12.8k Stage 2 NA upgrade made a lot more power. So with that, a chip, and an exhaust, I went racing. Stage 1 weight reduction as well. No suspension changes or anything. When I started the race, I was a bit worried when I saw that it was a 190-point race. :-o The most I had ever succesfully completed was about an 80-point race, so I thought I was in over my head. Two turns in, I had nothing to worry about. Cake walk. One interesting thing was that when I went to turn off the driving aids, traction control was set to 7, two notches higher than most cars. Setting everything to zero I didn't know what to expect...maybe with a light back end and 500+hp, I'd be spinning the tires everywhere. Wrong. I don't think I ever spun the tires as long as I stayed on the pavement, and the only time I got the back end out was on Seattle Reverse after going down the hill with jumps, and making a sharp right under braking. Slowest 500hp car ever.

On to the professional races. All I had left before GT WC was the Clubman Cup and the World Classic Car Series. I was all set to use my 300 SL...but to no avail. I just couldn't win the first race, even after entering it three times in that car. The first and third race there was a 1962 Buick in the class that would just fly by on the straights. The second race there was an AC Cobra that did the same thing. :-\ Back to the garage...what other cars do I have? Oh yeah! Supercharged Chevelle SS. :-D I added the race transmission, which gave me two extra gears, and more importantly, adjustability. The stock trans tops out in 4th at around 111 mph. Now I was able to hit about 160 or so, iirc. I have to say, it was a little weird piloting a Chevelle around Nurburgring and Cote de Azure. Looked a bit out of place to say the least. But I won easily, and got an 1886 Daimler Motor Carriage for the trouble.

All I have left is the Clubman Cup, which I've been putting off just because of the time required for minimal reward. I think it was designed to transition people from the Beginner Hall to Professional Hall, as the races are easy, but they're 4-6 laps, and you don't get much money for them. Plus the prize car is a Mazdaspeed 6, and you can't really do anything with that. I'll probably do it tonight though. After that, on to the GT World Championship, and hopefully I'll win that to open up Extreme Hall.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures last night. Partly because I was up to late playing, and partly because the flash drive was in the other room, and I didn't want to get up. ;-)

Other items of potential interest

First and foremost, today is Pi Day.

(from H@r@ld's Pi Page)

Also, we bought a Roomba Discovery this weekend, utilizing a 20% off coupon and gift cards from our wedding last year to reduce the price greatly. It's pretty cool. Quieter than a normal vacuum, and definitely smarter. ;-) You can read all of the details about it on the site. Given how rarely we vacuum, this should definitely keep the floors a bit cleaner. Set it to clean when you go out, come home to a clean foor. Sounds good to me. Might not clean as well as a Dyson or some such thing, but the convenience level is very high.

A weekend without GT4?

Indeed, it happened. I don't even think I played on Friday either, not enough time. I do, however, still have GT4-related content to post, as I didn't post on Friday about Thursday's racing. I didn't get to play that much, but I did manage to take some pictures. Since I had about 500k in my account, I bought an SL 65 for both of the Mercedes races, the SL Challenge and Legend of Silver Arrow.

The SL Challenge gave me a 1954 300 SL, which I plan to use in several historic races.

Back in the SL 65, I won Legend of Silver Arrow and received a CLK Touring car. Though I hear it's not as fast as the Audi touring cars, I'll have to use it to win the German Touring Car Championship, as it's the only german touring car you can win (or you can sell it for a ton of cash). That's about as far as I got in gameplay. Now for a couple more pictures. :-)

Apparently I do nothing but play GT4

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.

The daily GT4 update

So, the 1-Series race two days ago gave me a *green* 2002 Turbo. Cool car, horrible color.

Yesterday I started off with the Easy ice rallies, but they seemed far from easy. I eventually learned that full throttle is pretty much reserved for straights, and that's it. Everything is just painfully slow. It took me so many tries, I stopped after the two events, and I was done with rally for the day.

Other than the rally, yesterday was pretty much an all-BMW day, after I noticed a good progression of events that was possible. I started out building a well-modified 330i, and used it to win the Schwarzwald Liga A races. First, I did way more than necessary to win these races. Probably would have been fine with suspension, a wing, an exhaust, and an ecu. Second, there were only 3 races, and neither of them were that long. Third, the prize car is an M3 GTR race car!

The GTR race car is ridiculously easy to drive. The brakes are fantastic, I found myself braking too early on many corners. The only available modification is the Stage 3 NA upgrade @ $80k, so I passed on that. It allowed me to enter the BMW "M" Club races, however, which were a cakewalk that resulted in winning the M3 GTR street car.

Now, the last race in the M Club series was at Nurburgring, and it just so happened that the first race of the Schwarzwald Liga B series was at the same place. This time, however, I was driving the M3 GTR street car, on sports tires, and the first time I did it, there was no aero! That's right, the car comes with a sizeable wing, but you have to put a big huge one on there to get any downforce. My first attempt was horrible, I was all over the track. Between the lack of aero and the switch from race to sports tires, I couldn't even bring myself to finish the race. I went and bought a wing, then made a conscious effort to slow down more for turns, and things were fine. My GTR street car is making about 50hp more than the race car, and only weighs about 100-150lbs more. I didn't have time to finish the series, but as you can see, I did make it to Circuit City last night to pick up a Sandisk Cruzer Micro 256MB flash drive so I could transfer photos to the computer. Just for the sake of taking photos, here are a couple of the Cien I've enjoyed so much, including the obligatory "down the corkscrew" photo. As with the previous pics, click for the full-size image.

A fine day to live in Phoenix

Great lunch today. Chipotle chicken bowl, sitting outside under a cloud-free sky, right at 70°. Really makes me want to ditch work and play some golf.

Bowling....and GT4?

First, I'd like to state my annoyance at the web page that locked up my browse after I was halfway through this post. >:-O

Went bowling last night, hadn't been in about a month. Dollar night is great. :-D Bowled a 170ish, then a 200, then a 156 I think. I was picking up my spare unusually well, and I almost made a couple tough splits. I give partial credit for the success to Miller Lite.

Played more GT4 yesterday, as I will probably do just about every day for the next several weeks. I thought I'd start with my Toyota RSC rally car, and rather than sell it (which was tempting, at $265k), I bought some dirt tires and finished up the rest of the dirt events at the Easy level. That won me a Mitsubishi CZ-3 Tarmac, a 1980 Renault 5 Turbo (street car, not the rally car, but cool nonetheless), a Land Rover Range Stormer concept, and a Hyundai HCD6. My biggest complaint is that the last two cars there are concepts, so you can't sell them for any money. At this point I had won more than enough money to pay for those dirt tires, so I felt like moving on to the Normal-level events. I got back in my 350Z LM race car and just destroyed the competition on the Umbria and Capri rallies. Umbria especially, I was just flying. I won the Lancia Delta HF Integrale rally car, and a 2001 Impreza rally car prototype. I might build the Impreza up for rally later, as I think it can probably be modified for more power than the Toyota RSC, but I'm not sure on that yet.

Next, I bought a BMW 120i for the 1-series race and European Hot Hatch Championship. Having driven this car a couple times with the GT4 wheel over the weekend, I could really see the difference between the steering wheel and controller. With what I believe was a nearly-identical setup, tires were squealing more with the controller, and the car wasn't always right where I wanted it, despite being easy to drive. That makes me feel that much better about ordering a wheel yesterday. Then finally, Evan came over before we headed to the gym and wanted to do an S-license test on a rally course. First one we saw was the ice rally, and after several of his attempts, I think I got a silver on my 2nd try (first time all the way through the course though).

Softball, GT4, and necessary purchases

Let's start with "necessary" purchases first. Last week I bought a Samsung HD841 DVD player. Our current dvd player is a Pioneer 5-disc changer, and while I like having a changer, it has had some problems. One, it doesn't always recognize discs, which is a pain. Two, during layer changes and menu repeats, there will be a loud *pop* in the audio, and I have no idea why. This model from Samsung seemed like a great deal - Costco had it for $99, and not only is it really shiny, but it has DVI output and will upconvert to 720p/1080i. It plays SACD's and DVD-Audio as well, but that's not much of a concern for me. Tried it out on a 720p projector, and it looked pretty good. Quite the bargain, IMO. Now I just need an HDTV with a DVI input. ;-)

Also on the necessary spending front, I spent most of yesterday with the Logitech Driving Force Pro wheel & pedal combo for GT4, and it felt great. Now I need to buy one of those, as well as build a frame on which I can mount it. It really made the game a lot more involving. I've always hated wheels & pedals for racing video games, but this one was so much better than any others I've tried.

After that glorious transition, on to GT4! It has been a couple days since I played my own game, so it's hard to remember exactly what I did, but I'll try. I did more of the Special Condition races, completing all of the tarmac events on easy, and the Tsukuba wet race on Normal. The easy Rally d' Capri gave me a Toyota rally car, but I'm undecided as to whether I want to sell it for some quick cash ($250k+ I think), or use it for future dirt/snow rally races. It really should be a lot better than the STi I'm currently using. The easy Tsukuba wet gave an RX-8 Concept, which I think I should be able to build up for the Mazda RX-8 Cup, which in turn gives an RX-8 LM race car - probably the only cool RX-8 in the game. ;-) Tsukuba wet at the normal level gave a Mazda6 touring car, which looks pretty cool, but I have yet to drive it. I don't see any good place to race it, so it might just get sold.

I bought an Elise to use for the British Lightweight and Elise Cup races, but I was fooled into buying the Motorsport Elise. In GT3, I believe it came with adjustable suspension, downforce, etc. Now it doesn't come with any of that, it just costs 40k more than a regular new Elise, and is a bit lighter. Anyway, winning the lightweight race meant I finally got a 1971 Europa, and I used it to dominate the Lotus Classic Cup, winning a '62 Elan. I was going to use the Elan for the European Classic Car Championship, but I don't know that I'll be able to get it fast enough to take on the 300SL or E-Type. Another option is to modify the Ginetta G4, which is probably the lightest production car in the game, at just over 430kg (2/3rds the weight of the Elan). That's about as far as I got.

Not quite sure what I'll do next now. I did a couple of the Honda Type R races, and finishing that series would get me the Honda HSC concept, and that could be cool. I'm not really motivated to finish the FF Challenge and Honda Cup, as you get the Mazda6 for both of them. I might go the 300SL route and do some of the historic races. I could use some built cars I already own to do some manufacturer's races. Or maybe I'll get all bronzes on the B license to get a Lupo to use in the Lupo race. :-P

On to something less nerdy now. My church softball team won the league championship on Saturday, going undefeated in both the season and the double-elimination tournament. In particular though, my highlight was the end of the first game we played that night. In the bottom of the last inning, we had runners on 2nd and 3rd, and needed one run to win the game. I was on deck, and they intentionally walked the batter in front of me. So now I'm up, and I hit a hard shot between the pitcher and 2nd baseman to win the game. :-D

Another day, another couple hours of GT4

As mentioned yesterday, off I went to the used car lot in search of a WRX Sti. After looking at a 2000 model, I ended up going with a '96, as it weighed about 200kg less. Picked one up for a pretty reasonable price. While I was there, however, I saw a '97 Camaro Z28. I thought "there are never many american cars in the used lots, I should pick this up for the USA races". So $16k later, I also have a Camaro to use for later.

So I build up the WRX, to try it in the rally and Boxer races. Rally first, so I get all the usual parts, plus a set of dirt tires (at $22k/set, ack). Off I go to the first rally and....what? It's on tarmac!! Guess I didn't need to buy those tires right now after all. It was a frustrating race, as hitting a wall or the other car too hard will result in a 5-second penalty, where you're limited to 30mph. I eventually complete the two races in the series though, and I win a Cadillac for my efforts. A Cadillac? Oh, the Cien! That will do. Over 800hp with just a Stage 1 NA upgrade? Yes please. Of course, now that Camaro looks kind of worthless, but I should be able to use it anyway for the USA race that requires you to use a production car.

The Cien happens to be mid-engine, so I used it to win the MR Challenge in Beginner Hall, then Race of NA Sports in Professional Hall. That one got me an NSX-R, which I'll use for the Type R race later. Again, with the Cien being american, I went and did the Hot Rod race, which won me a '70 Chevelle SS 454, which I then used to win the Muscle Car race and get a '70 Superbird.

Back to the rally races - I wanted to make use of my dirt tires, so I entered the Grand Canyon race. My lack of GT rally practice really showed through - it was only a 1pt A-Spec race, so I should have won easily, but it took me maybe 4 tries to finally get it. One problem was that I set it up for the tarmac event earlier, and didn't change the suspension at all for dirt. Raising the car, lowering the spring rate, and reducing negative camber all seemed to help. I eventually got it though, and hopefully future rally events will go a little better.

Finally, I finished the first 10 Driving Missions to earn the DeLorean. :-P

GT4 Update

Yesterday was a pretty good GT4 day - I think I put in a solid 7 hours, and I'm now at 10.0% completion. As far as I can remember, this is what I've done.

Licenses
Started out taking the free B/A licenses from the GT3 data transfer, then earned the IB and IA licenses with mostly bronzes. One of the IA license tests was following the pace car around the Ring, which meant you couldn't really go off-track at all. I kept up a reasonable pace though, and ended up getting a silver on that one by a couple seconds. I'll probably hold off on the S license for a little while, as I don't really need it for anything yet. Prize cars for the IB/IA licenses were the Nike One and a Nismo 270R.

Beginner Hall
I used my 95 RX7 to beat the Sunday Cup, and start to get a feel for the GT-world physics again. Then bought a Civic Type R for the FF Challenge, but only did a couple before I got tired of that (this was a couple days ago). I got back in the RX7 and beat the FR challenge, though I was having some trouble controlling the car. I never really got the whole smoothness thing worked out until I did some of the IA licenses, where I really had to work at staying on the racing line. I think now I'm finally at a point where my lap times in the RX7 with the Stage 2 turbo are faster than with the Stage 1, or even stock. :-P I went off and did some other races, winning other cars to use in the 4WD Challenge and Light Weight K Cup. I originally thought the limit for the K Cup was 3800mm cars, so I bought a CRX, thinking I could use that for the K Cup and the Compact Car Cup in the Japanese Hall. I was wrong though, it was 3400mm. Doh! I ended up using an old Honda S800 race car to win the K Cup, and a Nismo 400R for the 4WD Challenge.

Japanese Hall
These seemed like a logical place to go, given that I had pretty much nothing but Japanese cars (as they're almost the only cars available in the used car lots). I started with the Compact Car Cup in my turbo CRX - the prize? 1972 Honda Life Step Van. Something like 30hp, great. I used my RX7 (pre-smoothness) to attempt the Japanese Championship, as the prize car was a Fairlady Z LM car, and LM cars are just awesome. This actually took me 3 tries! In GT3, you could quit in the middle of a race and start it again - not so in GT4, when you're in a championship series. You just get zero points and move on to the next race. I had a lot of trouble with a couple tracks in particular. I finally replaced the Stage 2 turbo with a Stage 1 turbo, and that helped driveability a lot - at least until my driving got smoother. Once it did, no problem. The only issue I have now is with R246 in reverse. I can't make it all the way down the straight, because a kink towards the end always puts me in a wall. Doing this in a later car, it turns out I just need downforce, and that can be purchased at the wing shop. :-) I then used my RX7 again (post-smoothness) to clean up in the 90's Challenge, and get the 400R I used in Beginners Hall.

Professional Hall
I believe I started with the Race of Turbo Sports here. I intended to do the NA race in my Fairlady Z LM, but that's when I found out it had a turbo. :-P Turbo race it is! Won an older RX7, the 410hp Falken D1GP car, which sounds like it's a drifting car. Next, I used the Z again to win the Tuning Car Grand Prix, which was the first race I had done that actually allowed race tires. Won the Option Stream Z there, which has something like 700hp. Finally, I brought back the CRX to win the World Compact Car Race, and get the Honda S800 race car I mentioned earlier.

At one point, I was looking for cars that I could use for lightweight/small car races, so I checked out what the UK had. That's when I saw the Caterham Fire Storm, which looked perfect - I could use it for the British Lightweight race, as well as a number of compact car races. So I bought it for 60k, added about 20k in mods, and went racing. Or at least, I tried to go racing. Denied! The Caterham is considered a "special car", and can't be raced in any of the actual racing series! 80k down the drain. >:-O

At this point, I don't quite know where I'm going to go next. I could go with a high-power NA car for the NA race, or a convertible for the roadster race, or maybe a WRX variant for the Boxer race. I'm thinking I might go that way, as I could build it up for the Boxer race, and if it's not fast enough (like if a RUF is running faster), I should be able to use it for a bunch of the rally races. WRX's are plentiful in the used car showrooms, so that might be a way to go. Regardless, at some point I'm going to have to put down some money for a decent American or European car.

Chipotle rises up

Fantastic lunch today. It was a nice day when I left the cube, so I thought "man, this would be a good day to sit outside Chipotle with a burrito bowl." I didn't get there until 11:30, so I figured I'd have to wait in line for while - not so! Walked right up. Then, for whatever reason, my bowl and drink were free! "Don't ask," they said. Fine by me. :-D So I enjoyed my burrito bowl in the sun, on this fine 70° day. A high point in the day to be sure, regardless of what else happens (though let's hope the rest of the day is equally joyous).

Of course, there's a downside to this - I was going to use the change from my lunch purchase to buy a soda this afternoon, and since I didn't pay for lunch, I now have no $1 bills. :-P

Mr. Chipotle manager & cashier, I salute the both of you.