- 408
- Canada
- Zero_to_oblivion
A big shout out to the racer I raced last night, I can't remember the username exactly but it was along the lines of distinct_blaze.
I booted up for some fun last night - Race A. It's chaos. It's stupid. It's fun. I signed up for the 9:30 slot and threw down some qualifiers, managing to drop my qualifier time to mid 49s. The race loads up, rather than sit in the lobby, I opt for the "warm up". Blah blah blah.
Race starts and I'm 2nd. Blaze is 1st. Through the first two laps I stick within .5 of Blaze. They're good and show great car control. Coming down the hill to the hard left on lap 2 I screw up and carry too much speed, making hard contact and knocking Blaze clean off the apex...
Now, this may be a race where DR/SR mean nothing, but I'm not someone to win by playing dirty. That's not what racing is about. A race is against yourself - you practice, improve your skills, try to lay down the fastest and cleanest lap you can. Punting people off track is not that, so I pull over to the left and watch the radar, as soon as I see Blaze starting to pick-up speed, I floor it. Blaze goes by as does someone else, I tuck in at 3rd.
Over the next lap I caught 2nd, but Blaze was 2.5 seconds ahead at this point. By the start of the 6th lap the gap had fluctuated between 2 and 2.5, never below 2, but then coming up to the line I see Blaze ghosted. Are they AFK? No, as soon as I fly by, Blaze lights it up! For the next handful of laps I'm leading, with Blaze .3 behind. All the way. Keeping me on my toes, knowing any mistake and Blaze is back in the lead.
Start of the last lap and I know I've had the best racing experience I've had in a long time. We come around the hard left and onto the straight, Blaze pulling up on the outside. I made the decision to ease off and let them by, and that's how we finish - Blaze 1st, me 2nd, 3rd was something like 4 seconds behind.
Why let Blaze by? Because I didn't deserve the win and I don't want one handed to me. The race for me was about the challenge of beating Blaze by my own skill. Post race lobby and it becomes very apparent that was a race I'll likely not repeat - Blaze is an A+/S rated player, I'm B/S. Blaze earned the win by being consistently quick, without error. I wanted the challenge and I learned from it.
The fact that PD haven't made the daily lobbies as strict, mixing A+ racers with B, C and D racers is great for this. I got to test my pace against someone a lot better. I got to see their lines, how they finesse the brake. I got to learn.
That was a hell of a race!
I booted up for some fun last night - Race A. It's chaos. It's stupid. It's fun. I signed up for the 9:30 slot and threw down some qualifiers, managing to drop my qualifier time to mid 49s. The race loads up, rather than sit in the lobby, I opt for the "warm up". Blah blah blah.
Race starts and I'm 2nd. Blaze is 1st. Through the first two laps I stick within .5 of Blaze. They're good and show great car control. Coming down the hill to the hard left on lap 2 I screw up and carry too much speed, making hard contact and knocking Blaze clean off the apex...
Now, this may be a race where DR/SR mean nothing, but I'm not someone to win by playing dirty. That's not what racing is about. A race is against yourself - you practice, improve your skills, try to lay down the fastest and cleanest lap you can. Punting people off track is not that, so I pull over to the left and watch the radar, as soon as I see Blaze starting to pick-up speed, I floor it. Blaze goes by as does someone else, I tuck in at 3rd.
Over the next lap I caught 2nd, but Blaze was 2.5 seconds ahead at this point. By the start of the 6th lap the gap had fluctuated between 2 and 2.5, never below 2, but then coming up to the line I see Blaze ghosted. Are they AFK? No, as soon as I fly by, Blaze lights it up! For the next handful of laps I'm leading, with Blaze .3 behind. All the way. Keeping me on my toes, knowing any mistake and Blaze is back in the lead.
Start of the last lap and I know I've had the best racing experience I've had in a long time. We come around the hard left and onto the straight, Blaze pulling up on the outside. I made the decision to ease off and let them by, and that's how we finish - Blaze 1st, me 2nd, 3rd was something like 4 seconds behind.
Why let Blaze by? Because I didn't deserve the win and I don't want one handed to me. The race for me was about the challenge of beating Blaze by my own skill. Post race lobby and it becomes very apparent that was a race I'll likely not repeat - Blaze is an A+/S rated player, I'm B/S. Blaze earned the win by being consistently quick, without error. I wanted the challenge and I learned from it.
The fact that PD haven't made the daily lobbies as strict, mixing A+ racers with B, C and D racers is great for this. I got to test my pace against someone a lot better. I got to see their lines, how they finesse the brake. I got to learn.
That was a hell of a race!
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