Supercar Challenge 250TR Event Race Recap
First of all, I want to thank each of you for participating in this event. I had a great time both putting this together as well as taking part in the races. And judging from the positive responses so far, I think I will continue to put more of them together. There are obviously some short comings with this game and the fact that several people were dropped from the lobby is somewhat troubling. But at least the lobby didn't collapse as we saw sometimes with Ferrari Challenge. As I mentioned above, the fact that I'm sitting across an ocean from most of you may be a contributing factor. I can only comment that I have a very fast and reliable internet connection with bandwidth and ping speed rivaling my T3 line at work. And as this game gains in popularity, we will inevitable have people connecting over long distances and it's something we have to live with. What I hope CAN change are some of the rather annoying bugs. And in particluar:
(a) inconsistent contact between cars, where two people may view the same incident differently.
(b) the "hug" bug where cars become intertwined and push each other into a wall, and suddenly disappear and reappear 5 seconds down the road.
I experienced both of these issues several times and the later effectively ruined my race at Infineon and (nearly) ruined my race at Spa. I hope it's something that Eutechnyx will continue to patch and adjust as it can potentially destroy good clean racing and may result in some misunderstandings if players don't know each other.
So, enough with the technicalites. Let's get to the results.
1) Monza - 3 Laps - Dry - Practice Run
I said Monza wouldn't count for points but I'll list them here just for the record. Especially considering this car's rather unique physics and limited braking abiltiies, I figured it was a good idea to have one 'practice' run. And I'm glad everybody braked early at the first chicane.
Cars suddenly appeared everywhere and then I was hit with the infamous 'hug' bug when Shaggy's car put me into the wall and then disappeared into the distance. (No hard feelings Shaggy--you probably didn't even touch me from your view).
I figured I would probably fade into the distance but another lag related issue cropped up on the back straight heading toward the parabolica. Clouds of smoke appeared and cars were skidding everywhere. LOL As AlanG184 later related, this was the result of lag where another car suddenly appeared inside of his.
And it caused a rather nasty chain reaction.
The Final results:
1) MHailwood (I don't have the laptime) - 10 points
2) jjaisli - 2:30.13 - 8 points
3) AlanG184 - 2:22.72* 6 + 1 = 7 points
4) Edoardo85 - 2:33.75 - 4 points
5) mhm66 - 2:26.13 - 3 points
6) GTP_Theewar - 2:25.76 - 2 points
7) Shaggy_Alonso - 2:30.85 - 1 point
8) Arvore - RTD - 0 points
Total Race time: 7 min 46.48 seconds
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* I apologize of the poor quality of the video(s). This was taken with a 7 year old mini-camcorder on a tri-pod, over my shoulder using 7 year old DV tape that had probably been recorded over 50 times. And I have my PS3 in my basement so the lighting and sound (and color) is pretty poor. But at least it's a fun recap. And you guys can see the race from my perspective. Also note, this should serve as a general disclaimer for all videos in my post.
2) Riviera Circuit - 15 Laps - Dry - Random Grid
Ahem! Well...ahh...much to my embarrassment, I didn't realize the game doesn't allow you to create an on-line race for 12 laps as was planned. So we made it for 15. At the start of this race Alan experienced the 'controller-config' bug, he couldn't move off the grid and I slammed right into the back of him.
(Sorry Alan). He then started to move. But only just. I hit the gas and promptly hit him again.
By the time we both got started in earnest we were a good 12 seconds behind the rest of the field. My own race was marred by several mistakes, I suppose my frustration at the start having gotten the better of me, it was at least 5 laps in before I started putting down decent lap times. At one point I was able to get around MHailwood but an error when following another car too closely put us both into the wall and allowed him to get by again. From that point, our lap times were similar (when I wasn't making mistakes). But no hope of catching him and Alan's retirement meant I finished the race in 3rd. I really like this track, although I personally think there should be bigger penalties for making contact with the armco, both in time and car damage.
The Final Results:
1) GTP_Theewar (no time) - 10 points
2) MHailwood - 2:15.55 - 8 points
3) jjaisli - 2:15.14* - 6 + 1 = 7 points
4) mhm66 - 2:16.95 - 6 points
5) Shaggy_Alonso - 2:20.52 - 4 points
6) AlanG - RTD - 3 points
7) Arove - RTD (did not complete 70% but awarded 2 points)
Total Race Time: 34 min 37.27 seconds
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3) Autoclub Speedway Oval - 20 Laps - Dry - Random Grid
Oval racing is a new dimension and it was quite interesting. You realize very quickly how important it is to draft your opponents and take a proper line. I thought I would have this race down but I lost touch with the 2 leaders on lap 13 when hit with the 'hug bug' again. And I thought I'd be a shoe in for 3rd when an overzealous drafting move put me way out of contention.
that's how it goes. Congratulations to Alan who REALLY nailed this one and played it smart. Better luck and lesson learned for Shaggy who lost touch with the leaders and without the benefit of the draft, fell further and further adrift. (Just keep your foot planted and steer, indeed).
The Final Results:
1) AlanG184 - no time - 10 points
2) GTP_Theewar - 0.54.02 - 8 points
3) MHailwood - 0.54.34 - 6 points
4) mhm66 - 0.54.77 - 5 points
5) Cooldawn - 0.54.77 - 4 points
6) jjaisli - 0.53.97* - 3 + 1 = 4 points
7) Shaggy_Alonso - 0.55.15 - 2 points
8) Avore - RTD 1 point
Total Race Time: 18 min 35.12 seconds
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4) Infineon Sprint Course - 9 Laps - Wet - Random Grid
Yes, once again, the race wasn't as planned but 1 revolution short at 9 laps was a blessing for me. Some serious lag had deadly consequences for me at this track: twice connecting with MHailwood and once sent bouncing across the track and another hard hit from behind by newcomer edoardo85 pretty much ruined my million dollar classic.
But my lap times even when running in 'clean air' were nothing to write home about. This car under these conditions was a handful. An absolutely stellar lap by Alan, nearly 4 seconds clear of the field should have awarded him a "wet" Grid Girl kiss at least.
The Final Results:
1) AlanG184 - 1.39 "something" - 10 + 1 = 11 points
2) mhm66 - 1.44.xx - 8 points
3) bobby54 - 1.44.04 - 6 points
4) cooldawn - 1.43.02 - 5 points
5) MHailwood - 1:43.16 - 4 points
6) Shaggy_Alonso - 1:44.31 - 3 points
7) jjaisli - 1:42.47 - 2 points
8) edoardo85 - RTD - 1 point (but I'll deduct 1/2 a point for knocking me off the track. Twice)
Total Race Time: 16 min 3.20 seconds (and not a second too soon).
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5) Spa-Francorchamps - 9 Laps - Dry - Random Grid
I know. Spa was supposed to be 12 Laps. But it was either 9 or 15 and 15 laps would have dragged this race on for another ~ 48 minutes (give or take). So we slashed it to 9 and let the chips fall. And the chips fell quite nicely until the end of the Kemmel straight. And then (at least for me) it all went wrong. I had a coming together with another car that was rather sidewise. I probably should have backed off but I figured I could squeeze through. Uh-uh. It put me into the wall at Les Combs, took me a while to recover and headed toward the next corner in last place.
From that point on, Spa became the most exciting race for me and great fun as I was able to charge through the field and finally finish in 3rd. 👍 Whoo-hoo! I was maybe making a little ground on MHailwood but I doubt I would have caught him even if the race had gone another 6 laps. And Alan with the fastest lap by over 2 full seconds was way out of touch. Class run guys.
The Final Results:
1) AlanG184 - 3:03.19* - 10 + 1 = 11 points
2) MHailwood - no time - 8 points
3) jjaisli - 3:05.32 - 6 points
4) bobby54 - 3:09.99 - 5 points
5) akaten - 3:10.60 - 4 points
6) cooldawn - 3:08.01 - 3 points
7) frawe - 3:14.30 - 2 points
8) Shaggy_Alonso - 3:13.09 - 1 point
9) Redgate - 3:12.32 - 0 points
10) mhm66 - 3:07.98 (retired) - 0 points **
11) edouardo85 - retired - 0 points (beat it )
** It's a shame that mhm66 was kicked form the lobby as he was set for a high points finish for certain.
Total Race Time: 28 min 31.15 seconds
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EVENT RESULTS:
1) AlanG84 - 33 points (and that's with missing 1 race - outstanding)
2) MHailwood - 26 points
3) GTP_Theewar, mhm66, jjaisli - 18 points - 3 way tie
5) Cooldawn - 12 points
6) bobby54 - 11 points
7) Shaggy_Alonso - 10 points
8) Akaten - 4 points
9) Arvore - 2 points
10) Frawe - 1 point
11) Eduardo85 - 0 points
12) Redgate - 0 points[
In general, aside from the lag (and Edoardo85) everybody at least tried to run clean and respectful races and it was quite enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed Spa and aside from the lamentable start at Riviera, had great fun at most of the other races as well.
Hope to see you again soon!
P.S. No, it's not me.
But I really think they 'captured' this car in the game. 👍
Good night!
Phew! That was pretty intense. I'm glad you all had a good time and enjoyed the racing. I did too, although I have to say, some of the lag issues were a major PITA. Granted, that may simply be because I'm in North America and everybody else playing was in Europe. Before the event started, I was doing bandwidth and ping tests from my PS3 to various places and I was getting ping speeds between 85ms and 215 ms for most places and never had below 2.5Mbs download and 1.5Mbs upload so I don't think it's such a big issue. So from THAT perspective the result was 👍👎 I'll have plenty to write to Eutechnyx tomorrow. 
Hopefully these videos will help to illustrate the point.
,connection issues kicked me out of last stday oldtimer's TR 250 Competition,as i've already said to jjaisli his ping was a red dot display in the chosing online lobby menu,despite he has a good connection. I think mine has it's one issues altought the 10mls latency the 3.2 upload and the 50 mg download allows me to play shift and other games-fc-for example-free of these anoying bugs.Never the less i'm ready to give it another go next sunday and hope online bugs to choose another victim this time
Had some friends over for dinner in the evening and couldnt join you guys. Hope you had a good time though 
