Tsukuba 9H Live and Uninteresting Blog

[DickDastardly]

Hello and welcome to my attempt to keep myself sane while completing what must be one of the most boring races ever devised.

The Car: Ferrari 330 P4 '67

If you're going to spend 9 hours driving, it may as well be in one of the finest vehicles the game has to offer. Great looks and sound, and being a Premium, the option to go to cockpit mode if a challenge is required. 468 BHP, 608PP.

Upgrades: Oil change, some engine run-in. All tyre grades purchased for maximum flexibility during the race. I will try and complete the race on Racing Hards, the car's default tyre.

Aids: ABS1, all other aids off.

Input device: DS3, controller sensitivity 7, manual gears, left stick steering, x and square for accelerate/brake, R2/L2 change gears. Chase cam.


The Race

I reloaded the race until the Amuse S2000 GT1 Turbo was in the line-up (on pole). The other cars are just too slow and I didn't want to use the limiter/ballast to even things up.


Hour 1

I am quickly up into 2nd, passing the mobile road-blocks that constitute the rest of the field. It's just me and the Amuse in this race. I make a huge error early on, trying to pause the game and hitting the PS3 button instead The Amuse is lapping faster than me as well, and by Lap 10 I'm 14.6 seconds behind. Best lap so far is 56.051 on lap 6.

By Lap 20 the gap has crept up to 19.7s and I'm lighting the tyres up far too often. I know I should be trying to run 30-lap stints but this is not going to happen, so I pit on Lap 25. I've used 24 litres of fuel, a nice and easy to remember 1 litre per lap. I'm not sure how many litres you can put in for "free" as the tyres are changed, but I put 10 in anyway. I leave the pits a massive 46.9s behind.

The gap starts to climb again, but then the Amuse's tyres start to go off. By Lap 41, I've reduced the gap to 33.3s. After 47 laps, he's had enough of his Racing Mediums and pits for fresh rubber and presumably brims the tank too. His long stop means I am now in the lead by 20.6s.

My second stint is going slightly better than the first, but I still need to pit after a further 28 laps, on Lap 53. The Amuse has already been catching me on his new tyres, and he passes me right as I cross the start/finish line in the pits. I put another 10 litres in and emerge 16.5 seconds behind. Both my in-laps have been 1:06.xxx and my out-laps were 1:13.xxx

Due to paying more attention, a lighter fuel load, and his inability to pass traffic as easily as me, I manage to get the gap down to 8.1 seconds after 65 laps. I still haven't improved on my lap record however. 1:03:30 is the total time and I take a break to write this up and have a well-deserved cup of tea and some toast 👍

Stay tuned for more gripping racing

 

[DickDastardly]

Hour 2

After another 10 laps, I've managed to get the gap down to 4.5s as he runs into some more traffic. But I can't quite catch him up as my tyres are going a bit old. 6 laps later I have to pit, on Lap 81, another 28 lap stint. I mess up the in-lap too and I'm 17s down just before stopping. I didn't record the gap after exiting. 10 litres of fuel again.

I was beginning to wonder if my lap record, set way back on Lap 6, was going to be beaten when I finally managed a 55.783 on Lap 84. I'm now lapping more consistently and I've got the gap down to 11.1s on Lap 92 as he nears the end of his second stint. He pits on Lap 94, another 47-lap stint, and I now have a lead of 40.7s.

His fresh tyres help him decrease the gap and it's down to 36.2s after 105 laps of tedium. I finally manage to make my tyres last 30 laps and I pit on lap 111, but mess up the fuel amount and put a whopping 65 litres in I exit the pits 25.3s behind but despite weighing more than intended, still manage to close him down, and at the end of 2 hours, he's 17.3s ahead after 123 laps.

At this stage, we are yet to pass each other out on the track, which only adds to the dullness of the event. The next few laps may well be interesting as we are both due to pit on Lap 141.

 

[DickDastardly]

Hour 3

As we both head to a pit stop on Lap 141, I am winning the battle of the bad tyres. The gap is down to 6.3s after 133 laps, and after 139 laps without the lead changing hands outside of the pits, I easily pass him and begin building a lead. As expected, we both pit on Lap 141. Taking advantage of my earlier error, I can now short-fuel while he takes an eternity to fill up. I'm 31 secs ahead after the stops.

The gap stays much the same for the next 20 laps, he is slightly faster but not by a lot, and I am still 29.3s up after 163 laps. That's enough for me to pit on Lap 171 and still come out in the lead, just 3 seconds up. He is now on some pretty worn rubber and I pull out seconds each lap, putting him 25.8s behind after 185 laps. With his next scheduled stop in 3 laps, it now looks likely, after a bit of a shaky start, that I will probably lap him soon and may be able to experiment with cockpit view and/or driving with all instruments off.

 

[DickDastardly]

Hour 4

As expected, he pits on Lap 188 and I lap him. I pit after 201 laps and he unlaps himself but is still 36s behind. I put in 13 litres to leave myself on 35 litres, which should be enough for my 30-lap stints.

I'm now driving a lot better and put in a solid 30 laps to move 50s ahead by the time of my next stop on lap 231, which puts me back to 22s ahead. 7 litres were left so I top it up with 28.

The Amuse then pits on what I think was Lap 236, 1 lap later than expected, and he gets lapped once again. I put in a couple of fastest laps at this point, the second of which was 55.662 on Lap 241. Now up to 245 laps after 3:59:37 of racing. Not even half way there yet

 

[DickDastardly]

Hour 5

I seem to be losing all sense of time and reality. Who am I? What am I doing? How long have I been doing it? I have pitted twice in the last hour. He has pitted once, briefly unlapping himself when I pitted, but got lapped again when he went in.

My hands hurt, I want to fall asleep. All thoughts of making it challenging by using cockpit mode etc are out of the window. I'm putting Racing Soft on at the next stop to try and get as much time off from driving as possible.

307 laps completed, 5:00:38 elapsed.

 

[bonobo4]

Well done on doing this race. I'm fairly certain a 24H Le Mans would make me have more sanity than this race. I love Tsukuba but 9H is stupid, 3H at most is my limit for this track.

Just so you know, 14L is the amount of "free" fuel allowed.

 

[DickDastardly]

Thanks for the info, I was too lazy to work it out or look it up.

Hour 6

Not going to write much down now. Stopped on lap 321 for Racing Softs. Best lap now 53.602. Stopped again on 354, a 33 lap stint. Amuse stopped somewhere around 330 and is now 3 laps down. 3 hours to go, 370 laps completed.

 

[DickDastardly]

Hour 7

Stopped on Lap 389, a 35 lap stint this time. Lead 4 laps. Then managed to make the tyres last 37 laps, until Lap 426. Amuse has also stopped twice this hour, and the lead is up to 6 laps.

I think I may try some stress-free "drive the whole lap in top gear" type shenanigans in the next hour. I'm not going to be able to get much more than a 10 minute lead by the 9-hour mark, so I'd rather drive slowly for 2 hours than fast for 1 hr 50 and park for 10. Let's see how this goes.

 

[DickDastardly]

Hour 8

Decided to push the Amuse around the track, into the gravel etc. Managed to do loads of slow laps, 1:10 to 1:30 times, then luckily cornered him in a gravel trap and put the handbrake on. He made no attempt to move, he knew his race was run I had no idea how many laps he was ahead of 3rd so I just sat there fiddling about with my phone until he was overtaken. 15 minutes later, 3rd and 4th breezed past - that was a welcome respite and I've still got a 4 lap lead.

Only managed 39 laps in that hour, compared to over 60 for a normal hour. Gonna be a lot more mucking about in the final hour. Maybe I can block the pit entrance so they all run out of fuel.

 

[bonobo4]

They don't call you Dick Dastardly for nothing.

You've basically forced the Amuse to retire, and now plan on blocking the pit lane. You sir are a bastard. But I like it.

 

[Michelin]

you can't block the pitlane, because there's that little road entrance in Tsukuba.
And this 9hr endurance could be at Trial Mountain or Deep Forest than Tsukuba IMO

 

[Michelin]

Nothing to see here

 

[DickDastardly]

It is done

Hour 9

After backing the Amuse into 4th place, I set off up the road to delay 2nd and 3rd. Soon, 5th place had caught up to my little train of cars and so we had 4 cars all on the same lap, all being held up by me with a few laps advantage. Before long, every car on the track was also in this bunch of cars. It was like sheepdog trials on wheels; if one got away, I had to shoot up the road after it and herd it back into the pack.

My intention was to get 6th place and worse to keep on unlapping themselves and all get on the same lap, but it was not to be, it is very hard to let just one slow car through a bunch of fast ones and time was running out.

I ended up winning a couple of laps ahead, having completed 525 laps. I think I saved myself about 35 laps in the last 2 hours and had a hell of a lot more fun than in the previous 7 combined.

And I did a handbrake turn across the finish line

 

[C-ZETA]

Decided to push the Amuse around the track, into the gravel etc.

After backing the Amuse into 4th place

I knew people would take onboard my style some day.

Well done, to be honest the 330P4 is a bit too fast for a challenge against even the S2k. I'm sure there's much slower out there that can give the Amuse a lot of grief and epic fail

 

[bonobo4]

Seeing as though the lineup for this race is the same as that of the Nurburgring 4H just use something you'd use for that in this race if you want a challenge.

Well done on winning the race by the way.

 

[C-ZETA]

Seeing as though the lineup for this race is the same as that of the Nurburgring 4H just use something you'd use for that in this race if you want a challenge.

All of the cars from this race do appear in the Nurb 4h but it isn't the same lineup. The R8 LMS and CTR2 are omissions from this event compared to the Nurb 4h. The S2k ends up as the only true challenger as a result. And the IS F is also a lot faster with less track to go around.