NES S5 LMP & GT3: Round 10 Finale November 24th

Give us your NES S5 race calendar! Choose 10 tracks (maximum 2 per country)!

  • Total voters
    22
  • Poll closed .
Gentleman Racing Team entry:
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So, we have just under 7 days to go until the Preview Event! Some placement tests are still yet to be completed before we can officially announce who goes where. Keep in mind that the Preview Event is mainly just a test to see how things are working before jumping in to the proper season.

We hope you're as excited as we are!:D
 
Season 5 is upon us. New drivers, new cars, new regulations, new tracks, and a new season will give us what the NES will become in the coming future.


•Starting by the regulations, the drivers won’t be able to do both GT and LMP classes. Now they have to decide which class they want to drive, with both still having the PRO and the AM category.


•Placement Tests now are needed to evaluate all drivers,


•And with the addition of a Safety Car in both splits, a feature that will bring closer racing and some unexpected results.


•Placement Tests were introduced to close the field more and make the categories more competitive.

Catalunya and Lago Maggiore were the venues of both LMP and GT placement tests.


So far Joe and CJ, last seasons champions, are both top of the table, affirming themselves as the ones to beat, with Ybearr, surprisingly getting into PRO, totally deserved by the Indonesian driver, which his performances keep getting better and better since debuting back in Season 3.


Notable mentions to TSR_Ryan beating Splurge by less than a tenth to make it to the PRO category. The Brit will be in LMP AM after last season being in the PRO category. With the choice of the front Tyre wrecker machine aka Nissan GT-R LM, he’s sure to cause some surprises in the coming Season.


Dynamic_Carbon, founder of the DRL Series, didn’t make it to the PRO cut, surely he must be disappointed but if he gets out of the reserve list, he will be one of the top contenders for the GT AM Championship.




We had a word with the Series Founder, Offapple ( we the writting staff shall not call him Zokeo ) on how the series and his team are up to.



Q:”Are you happy with the rules changes and you think it will grow the Series to the level of IGTL for example?”


“Overall I'd say that me and the Moderators have done our best to iron out the issues that came to our attention last season, especially with a format to increase the entry list capacity. Of course there will still be things that can be improved on for the future, but I'd say Season 5 is a very positive step forward.”

”Regarding the growth of the series, I would certainly say it's apparent. When the entry lists went live for Season 5 we had 16 people sign up in the first 40 minutes. My goal is for the NES to be one of, if not the biggest multiclass racing series on GT Sport, and right now it's certainly seeming that we are achieving that.”




Q:”Whats the prospect for your team and B team, we’ve seen over the years it’s been very hard for you to keep your drivers from season to season. Do you think will you be able to keep this on with other Series involved too or getting the organization smaller to a NES exclusive?”


“Nukeshot Motorsport as a racing team has certainly had a lot of different drivers over the years. I personally try to aim to work with as many people as possible, but for Season 5 I'm sticking with what I already know for the most part. For the line-up I went with drivers that I have previously worked with in our NES, TSR and DRL programs; Y_bear, Joe, Mika, Orama and Bandit, while newcomer Rhino was drafted in to gain experience for this season.“

“We still have a DRL program going with our "Scuderia Nukeshotti" team, currently 1st in the Teams Championship, and I don't really see us downsizing the team to just focusing on the NES any time soon.”




Q:”The signing of Joe must have been Christmas for you, do you except to keep him in the team for seasons to come what does he brings to your team that you didn’t have before?”


“Signing Joe as our Chief Engineer, as well as a part of our NES line-up, was certainly a good move on my part. As I mentioned, I had been working with Joe for quite a while, in his case in TSR. We have won multiple TSR championships together, and of course I was extremely impressed by him. Already since he's joined the team there has been a lot of positivity and improvements across the board. He has really helped me out by taking the initiative when it comes to giving tuning help to all of our drivers, as well as running practice lobbys and providing driving references. If Joe is happy to keep working with us, then we're more than happy to keep working with him for as long as we can.”




Q:”Nukeshot Motorsport never won a championship as official team, do you think will be able to clinch at least an Overall Teams Championship or you and the team are aiming smaller?”


“It's true that we haven't won an NES championship while under our current name, however in previous seasons I've always seen us as more of a mid-field team than a top contender. This season though I think will be quite different. We have improved so much as a team since the end on Season 4, and it's time that we finally show it. We are in with a very good shout of winning any of the divisions that we have entered, so hopefully we can win at least one.”




•And with that we had the word with the reigning NES GT PRO Champion, CrazyJohn_25 or VLX_CrazyJohn or, the staff here is losing we dunno what he’s called anymore, let’s just call him the Mad Greek or as the Grass Best Friend.




Q:”So with Joe now gone, VLX_Maverick in, what can he bring new to the team?”


“I don't expect anything new, we'll still share setups and such, however the chemistry between us will be better than the one between me and Joe since Maverick is the owner of Volex, the eSports team I am a member of since the start of this month.”



Q:”Why the gamble on the Tomahawk and have you discovered the secret behind the VGTs cars?”


“When I was doing the LMP BoP testing with Zokeo I did get the chance to create an opinion on the cars. I first liked the Hyundai because it was stable but the transmission had to remain stock, something I was disappointed about. The other car I had in mind was the Tomahawk because of its aerodynamics. It's the same case with the Beetle last season but the car has much better top speed now.”

”There isn't a secret behind the VGTs, every car has unique characteristics and needs a different way to be driven. The Tomahawk allows for agressive driving so that was a big motivation to choose it.”



Q:”For sure the aim is the both championships in LMP, and the GT team, do you consider your lineup strong for shot at least for one of the championships (teams or drivers)?”


“GTO's pace looks strong for the AM category. He's in the AM split podium in the placement test leaderboards so far and with my setup help I'm pretty confident he'll perform well. I don't know about MartMeneer as I haven't seen him on track yet.”



Q:”By joining Volex, what exposure and help will they bring to you, and what can you bring to them too?”


“Volex will surely give me a lot of support as well as help whenever ballast hurts me during the season. On the other hand I guess I'll give them a trophy or two as a gift when October arrives. (laughs)”



  • And there’s your lot from this Article, will be sure to cover more after the preview. Shoutout to Apple and CJ for the time they took to answer us and be sure to stay tuned, because DirtenDK will return to commentate once again an NES event, in this case, the preview event before round 1, taking place at Saint Croix B. Subscribe to Half The Race Gone now! Take care fellas!
 
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Oof. I need to actually pump out an article now... maybe I’ll do some interviews on our AM rookies after the preview race or something.
 
Here are the split lists. These may be altered and refined after the preview event.

LMP Pro:
VLX_CrazyJohn
armoredcore12
VLX_Maverick
TSR_Waike alongside his reserves Maarten and T5
Sailor3101
TSR_Ryan04

LMP Am:
SplurgeTheSecond
HoudiniMeyers
SpinnyBoiMika
RBZ_Orama
NS_Zokeo_9
UnknownRossasaur

GT3 Pro:
JoeOfTheFire
Fred_dude [R]
AShinySwablu
opeolu
Y_bearr
KanoniBrothers
GentlemanRacing
VRC_I_AM_GROOOOT
VRC_skyjacker

GT3 Am:
farin73
rolandjupiter7
brandonhaigh8
Dynamic_Carbon [R]
DesertPenguin09 [R]
BRT_James_44
NS_Rhino13
GRM_Bandit
GTO250GTO
Myth1cal_Triangl [R]
G4_Rotary [R]
 
It's been so long since I've said this, but...

It's Raceday!

I just want to let all of you know that me and the Mods have been further refining the thread regarding rules, regulations, procedures etc. One thing that had a major revision was the "Safety Car Procedure" tab (Post #2). As there are no points on offer as it's a preview race, we are using this as a way to test various things to do with the format and such.

I highly recommend that ALL DRIVERS review ALL of the rules and regulations again just so you know what we may have updated/changed. Depending on how certain things work out, we may need to tweak the rules a bit more before Round 1, but after Round 1 all of the major rules will not be altered.

The above post, if you haven't noticed, contains the driver splits for today. These too are just provisional, and may be altered slightly before Round 1 if someone is clearly misplaced.

If you haven't already, please send a PSN Friend Request to all of the Moderators that are in the Staff List in Post #1 of this thread.

If anyone is wondering about times, they can be found under the "Race Day Schedule" tab in Post #2 (Timezone BST).

Confirming your presence/absence in advance would be highly appreciated, as it allows us to contact reserves.

If anyone has any other questions, then please message us here!

We hope that you are all looking forward to today as we are. Hope to see you then! :D
 
We are running a poll regarding the race day schedule. The 2 options are to either keep the times as they are (Starting at 19:15 BST), or to go back to our old timeslot 1 hour earlier (Starting at 18:15 BST).

Please note that this will NOT affect the times we use for today's race.

A link to the poll can be found below:
https://strawpoll.com/a3dd1sy5
 
1 hour to go!

Just as a quick notice, 1 extra rule regarding the Safety Car Procedure has been added:

"If a car runs out of fuel during a Safety Car period, they can make an emergency pitstop while the pits are closed. They can only refuel up to 10% while the pits are closed, and refuel the rest once they are opened."
 
I was in the Pro split today. I had fun and the racing was good but I cant help but feel that I am not a "Pro" or an "Am".

Does that make me a "Pro-Am"? :lol:

There is no such category in the NES. Nevertheless, it was still fun and challenging.
 
Clean Racer
I was in the Pro split today. I had fun and the racing was good but I cant help but feel that I am not a "Pro" or an "Am".

Does that make me a "Pro-Am"? :lol:

There is no such category in the NES. Nevertheless, it was still fun and challenging.
Click to expand...
Maybe if the series ever gets big enough we'll have room for a Pro-Am split too lol
 
NES Articles: The AM Class Is Heating Up (Bonus Interview)

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Brandon leads the GT AM, followed by Bandit, Rotary, Farin, James, Mythical, and Rhino
Photo courtesy of GRM_Bandit
​
Hello everybody! Your favorite Bandito has returned to write another NES Article! As you may know, the NES preview event at Sante-Croix was quite the surprise in the AM class. A total of not one, not two, but four Safety Cars were called throughout the day. This dragged the race time to an impressive 1:30:000! Not only did the safety cars spice up the race, but it surely impacted the results later on. But without further delay, let's get into the meat of our story.

I start my Sante-Croix misadventures in the Nukeshot/Motul Rebellion garage. Asides from the FT-1's, TS030's, and F-types being loaded into separate trucks, its homely. The drivers are bantering with each other, and everyone is smiling and laughing. Off in a corner is Offapple, and with him is the Nukeshot Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. Both Offapple and the Peugeot were supposed to run in the Sante-Croix race, but sadly the Space Radish had to do Race Control duties due to an absence. I walked over to Radish and his car, and we began to make some small talk. At some point I realized that I should probably do an interview, and of course Offapple obliged:

Well thank you for having me Apple, I just have a few questions. Well firstly, after taking over the role of Race Control for the AM race, what did you think about the number of Safety Cars come out on the track? Do you think there could be measures put into place to shorten the Safety Car period? Do you think it’s possible to lessen the number of incidents in the AM class?

"I definitely think that experiencing the role of Race Director for myself was a good thing. It helped me to see what we can further refine in the system going forward. Of course you may know that this is the first time the NES has ever used a Safety Car, so having a race where we had 4 of them was a really good way to shakedown the system. We have already had a lot of constructive feedback from people, and will certainly be looking to improve how the Safety Car works ahead of Round 1. As the system develops and the newer drivers settle in, we should see less incidents than we saw on Sunday. These kind of things are one of the many good reasons we have Preview Events."

There was some confusion and dangerous driving under the Safety Car on Sunday. How do you plan to combat both the confusion and the dangerous driving? Are the Safety car rules being updated? How will these new rules, if there are any introduced, affect the drivers?

"Well we have already implemented a rule stating that the drivers should not text mid-race other than when they have an incident worthy of a Safety Car to type "MD". Simply put we will have to enforce that more. A few changes are in mind, and should go to the Moderators once all compiled. Some of our objectives are to shorten the SC period, and make the drivers feel safer while in the train."

Obviously you didn’t race on Sunday, but the rest of your teams did. What did you think of their performances? Do you have high hopes for Motul Rebellion after Bandit and Rhino’s P2/P3 finish? How did you feel seeing both Nukeshot teams perform so well in the preview? Do you plan on seeing more major successes during the season?

"I said in the interview with Houdini that Nukeshot Motorsport has stepped up its game for Season 5, and the race results certainly reflect it. Joe has already made an impression on the rest of GT3 Pro with the victory, while in GT3 Am the Rebellion squad were running first and second for a decent while. After what I saw I can say I have full confidence in you (Bandit) to take the GT3 Am drivers title, and Rhino's performance far exceeded my expectations. The Rebellion LMP squad had a harder time, but there are still a lot of positives to take away from it. All in all it's been a good Preview for us, and we hope the good results keep coming."

After answering all of my questions, do you have anything else you’d like to add? Either on your teams, the series, or even yourself.

"I guess I would like to just thank everyone who showed up on Sunday. The Pro Split lobby having just 1 empty space, and the Am lobby being a full house, it has been a response from the community that I am extremely greatful for. Usually with online racing championships you have people who sign up, then forget about it by the time the first race comes around. But it wasn't just the returning veterans of the series that showed up, it was the rookies to the NES too which really impressed me. Seeing stuff like that tells me I must be doing something right, but nevertheless I shall keep on continuing to refine the NES until it is the one series to rule them all haha."

Well thank you for your time, and as a moderator myself, I can assure you that the series is headed in a good direction lol.

7349896582791201808_0.jpg

Brandon leads on Bandit
Photo courtesy of GRM_Bandit​

After that, I made my way out of the Nukeshot/Motul Rebellion garage and saw the Hyper Racing truck was still at the track. I decided I was going to try for an interview and dashed to the Hyper Racing garage before their truck left for Italy. It was actually kind of strange to see the matte gray Mustang GR3 being loaded into the truck, especially since that was the car I choose to run for the last two rounds of the NES in Season 4 (I still own and run that car on occasion, it treated me well and I hope it treats Hyper Racing well). I was also surprised when Brandon actually accepted my request for an interview:

Thanks for having me. First question on the agenda, what brought you to the NES? Did Hyper just want to expand into GT racing, or was there more to the decision?

"Well hyper racing is quite a new organization with our first competition being in the dynamic racing leagues Super Formula Championship, then I heard about NES Season 4.5, from the organizer as I had done some commentary with him, I thought I'd check it out and was set on competing in season 5, which is exactly what I plan to do. We were originally going to race in the LMP Field, however my teammate was not really experienced in that class so we decided to fight in the GT Machines."

Speaking of competing, congrats on Pole Position in the GT AM field. On to question two; did the initial pace of Rotary and Bandit affect your pit strategy, or did any of the 4 Safety Cars affect your strategy?

"Thank you, Well it was down to the safety car periods mostly, but it was intense with those two breathing down my neck most of the race, losing the strategy 10 minutes in was not expected, but also acquiring suspension and rear aero damage from passing LMP's was not ideal, the race wasn't easy and i lost a few positions as a result."

If you hadn’t taken damage, would you say you could have competed with Bandit and Rotary? The Mustang certainly was fast around Santie-Croix, but so was the Jaguar and GT-R.

"I could've definitely competed yes, you can see that from the first part of the race, however the Jaguar can put the power down faster than the Mustang, and the GT-R is a rocket in a straight line, the damage affected a few later battles, however the F-type was just a bit more on the pace than myself. But yes, I think the Mustang is competitive and we were just unlucky when it came down to it."

Lastly, what is Hyper Racing’s goals for this season? Is the team going for a team’s championship, or do you see you and your teammate fighting each other for the podium all season?

"We definitely want to compete for a high place in the tables, maybe even a championship win, but me and my teammate are good friends, on and off the tarmac, you may see us battle, but we're going to try and keep it to a minimum, but yes, we want to be competing for a top step."

Well thank you for the insight, and thank you for your time.

7350455144831550488_0.jpg

The Safety Car gets called out (piloted by Snippy Boi)
Photo courtesy of NS_Zokeo_9**​

After moseying around for a bit and trying to find people to talk to, I found the one and only Snippy Boi. Having remembered promising him an interview and seeing the Hyper Racing truck begin to leave Sante-Croix, I made a stroll over to the BMW M4 Safety Car (we need to get Snip a Porsche 911 Safety Car Offapple!). All jokes aside, I decided that Snip's experiences from the AM race would be good to talk about, so talk we did:

As the Safety Car driver, would you say that the Safety Car procedure/rules needs to be changed? Did you see things that you think the moderators/stewards should should look into changing or modifying?

"The very first SC period was quite chaotic. It was quite obvious that it'd happed and we fixed many issues mid-race. Yet, I still see some unused potential in it. The way the competitors are joining the SC queue can be optimized."

While racing, a few drivers including myself saw that some drivers were crowding others during the Safety Car period. Do you think that the NES needs to implement a rule about vehicle spacing under the Safety Car?

"Absolutely yes. There should be a set rule for that and maybe an extra paragraph concerning the gap between P1 and the Safety Car itself, cars were tailgating me really harsh and of course the whole queue. I even got overtaken at some point in the preview event and I certainly think the moderators need to take pre-cautions about that before something happens when it's [a race]* about valuable championship points."

Speaking of overtaking, as the Safety Car driver, what do you believe the penalty for overtaking under VSC/SC conditions should be? And do you believe there should be reprimands for people who pass people accidentally or should only intentional overtaking be reprimanded?

"It can happen due to misunderstanding that somebody gains a position. So they should be given a fair amount of time to yield back the position. If that doesn't happen, however, I think that a relatively big time penalty should be given because a driver used an actual advantage [overtaking under SC]* on track in that case."

Thank you for your insight Felix, and have a good time in the BMW Safety Car!

"No problem, good luck to everyone competing."

Now that's a lot to take in. And I certainly agree with Snippy Boi on everything he said regarding the Safety Car rules. But that's a story for Bandit's Corner. But to end off the article, I have high hopes for the season. My boss's boss has high hopes, the competition is on point, and the competition seems to have high hopes too. All good for making close action packed racing. Combine that with a perfected Safety Car, and I think this season of the NES will be one to remember. For now, I'm Bandito Dorito, and happy racing all!

*Brackets added to clarify subject.
**Photo will be replaced if author wishes.
 
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It's Raceday!

Round 1 of NES Season 5 is just a few hours away. There has been updates on post #2 of the thread regarding the Safety Car Procedure, which we made based on feedback we got from you guys after the preview event. I highly encourage everyone to re-read that section, as well as the rest of post #2 in order to make yourselves clear on everything.

Please contact me if you are going to be present/absent.

Hope to see you later today! :D

 
@PSN offapple

I regretfully announce my withdrawal from the series. I won't be able to continue. Racing in the middle of the afternoon (EST) has proven to interfere with family commitments. I greatly enjoyed racing with you all. Best of luck to all of the competitors! You can be sure I will be watching the race broadcasts and smashing that like button.
 

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