Well this week for me, wasn't as good as last week & this is purely down to the crap online system that this game has. 3 out of the 6 races I, along with a couple of other guys, wasn't in the main grid with everyone. I thought the game could support 16 car grids? I guess not..
Race 1: Slow load, not in the main grid, instead in a 5 car grid including myself, 2 other AU players. Wasn't much to this race. On lap 1 encountered punters, dirty drivers & bad lag. Decided after 1 lap to park it in the pits. Finished last which was 5th.
Race 2: Again not in the main grid, this time 8 car grid with a few TORC guys. Was second for most of the race behind an english player who decided he wanted to win at all costs & because of this got blocked right at the end losing a lot of my speed and finishing 3rd.
Race 3: Great 3 way battle for the lead the entire race, can't quite remember with who. Sat behind these 2 guys for the first 3 laps but then decided to go for it after that. The lead was swapped a number of times over the last 2 laps with a very close finish. Came 1st.
Race 4: Came 5th in this one, started towards the back and tried to work my way through. There were a couple of incidents in this race between myself and lion-face, i think? First, I was passing him along the back straight & there was a definite gap between our 2 cars yet it seemed like an invisible wall or object was there and we kept touching each other, which I hope he didn't think that I was banging into him or anything. Then on another lap the role was reversed and he had a draft on me & I anticipated that he would go for the pass into the chicane so I set myself up for this. However he chose to fall back in behind at the last moment & so I was in the wrong spot for the corner, went in too deep and got sideways and on the grass. Im not sure if he was trying to avoid me or made the same mistake but he too lost it. I at least managed to re correct the car and kept going however he wasn't so lucky. So mate im sorry about those incidents, it was purely accidental, but if i ruined your race, I apologize.
Race 5: Wasn't sure how I'd go in this one as I had a good tune for the R34 yet for some dumb reason it didn't save so at the last minute I had to come up with another tune. Also on the grid loading sheet it showed me as 2nd, yet when the race started I was 9th which I wasn't happy about. Had lots of pace against the other cars, especially in top speed & ended up finishing 3rd, catching the 2nd place car quite quickly towards the end.
Race 6: Again not in the main grid, this time only a 3 car race. Not much to it, came 1st.
2 other races afterwards: First one stayed with the R34 again while everyone else pretty much went with the WRX. Was about 4th but during the first lap was hit off & that was race over. Pushed too hard to catch back up & lost it in the chicane, so decided to park it in pits for the rest of the race. The second race I chose the WRX but hadn't really tested it at all so on lap 1, locked the brakes and went right off. Was 9th by then but managed to slice my way through the field to finish 3rd.
Overall not bad, especially considering I hadn't race online at daytona before. Just annoyed about missing those 3 races
* Just a couple of observations i also noticed during the night. Maybe its because I've never raced online at daytona before & don't know the rules fully but some of the racing by people, I had to question during the night. As far as I was aware, online racing follows most of the real life rules. So at daytona, you'd take the nascar rule and say a pass can't be made under the white line, if it is you give the position back. Yet many times, people instead of going around me on the race track, decided to drive underneath me & the white line to make the pass. Isn't' this illegal? I spent the entire night obeying this, feeling like the sucker who either didnt know the rules properly or was the one who decided to not to take advantage of that. So clarification would be good.
Secondly, again following the nascar type rule or how it works, when drafting at daytona, shouldn't it be, you pick a particular line of the corner and if another car/s on a different line have a draft and are going by you or about to go by you, you hold your line. What i saw a few times tonight was a car say on the bottom line, Id be behind them, have a big draft, pull out to go by them & then they'd pull their car up the race track in an attempt to block me, often at the last minute right as i was in the process of going by them. That's pretty dangerous if you ask me. I can understand 'some' blocking on the last lap, especially on the straights but this was happening even on the first lap & in the corners. I know there is no rule which says you must let a car drafting you go by easily but at daytona of all places, that's the beauty of it, cars drafting each other and constantly swapping positions. Not dangerously trying to stay ahead of someone by swerving up or down the race track.
Maybe I'm wrong & just don't the rules well enough but some of moves tonight felt questionable to me. Anyway, overall had a fun time, look forward to next week
I've updated the posts. My bad.
We all make mistakes. We've been at suzuka for ages.
) so I apologise in advance if I cut anyone off during the racing on Monday night - I just didn't see you!
The problem, like at most tracks when drafting comes into play, is some people decide at the very last moment to move or cut over to block or even do this while the pass is taking place, creating potential accidents. If a driver is going to change his line to block the drafting car, it should be done in advance, so that the following driver isn't forced to take sudden evasive action to avoid collision. Well that's just my take on it. The point before was more just that some people seemed more concerned about blocking others and holding them off then trading places by drafting each other, which like nascar at super speedways, is far faster than slowing each other down by trying to hold your position. 
