Warning! Monster long broadcast ahead. If ypu suffer from ADD or other mental or physical conditions, that make you go wild when you have to concentrate for extended periods of time, please read on. And all you normal people: Shuu, scram, move it! This is for the eyes of the weirdos only.
Brought to you by Morbid Radio, the channel for the insane, diseased and the dead. Sponsored by Horribilis Alcoholis, the choice of indigestion. And here is your host: the slowly rotting, very insane, and truly ugly.... *drum roll*.... Doc Morbid!!!
(Crowd cheers insanely)
Okay! I admit it! It has been a long time since I have brought you a broadcast. Not even to mention a decent show. But after a serious rehab in local cemetary, I am back, bigger, better and even rottier than before. And this time, I even have a bedtime story that I want to tell you.
I have not raced a single, no saves, 100% distance championship race since late october 2001. My studies have placed a rather heavy demand on my time and mental resources, and there just hasn't been any breaks so I could enjoy the thrill of PC racing.
But! Recent developments in my study schedule (having completed 6 of my 8 exams for the year) has left me some time for GP3. Or to be more exact GP3-2000. And of course I have been practicing for the GP in Brazil this weekend, just like a lot of you have been too. I was doing my setup, and trying to remember the fastest way around Interlagos, when this... THING... happened. It is wonderful story, that tells volumes of just how good this game really is, and maybe it also tells a bit about how to be a quick driver. Most of all, it tells a lot about how I race in Gp3-2000, and if you can get through it all, I promise you a hearty laugh at my expense. Enjoy!
Just for good measure: I use a MS sidewinder (no-ff), no aids whatsoever, use the default amount of BHP 810, standard physics, and have the skill set to semi-pro (yeah, you would think that I would be faster after I have owned GP3 for at least 1½ year, right? So would I!).
Anyway, I was going through the usual motions of setting up my car and practicing the track. It usually goes like this: I choose a pit strategy, set my rear wing 1 notch below the CC setting, set the front wing at +3 to the rear, test one stint, and adjust these settings, or if I am happy with the results, go to the next step.
Now the test is the real killer. Nothing gets changed without being tested for a full stint. This is what I really hate about downloading setups. Many of the fast ones are great for the first couple of laps, but then they just get worse and worse. There are just too many setups that are not tested properly. For example for balance in the tyre wear after 20 or 30 laps. I suspect that not a lot of people like racing at 100% distance with no saves. For me, it is the ONLY real way to race. Yeah I do quickraces, but nothing beats the kick of taking the checkered flag after 1½ hours of hard racing, where you can blow it ALL in the blink of an eye. For me it is the only way to go. And if you want to do that, you want to be damn sure that your setup is just as good in lap 41 as it was in lap 3, preferably quicker with in the end of the stint than in the beginning. And yes, it can be done with GP3-2000 straight out of the box, if you know how to bring it about, and that you are sure that it will work on race day. And that means testing for a full stint, every time you change something, even the slightest setting.
After a test I always check plank and tyres, to see if the setup will carry me through the whole race. As I said, it is no use making a great setup if the plank wear is at 0,9 after the first stint, and it is too damn bad to realize, after you finish as #3, that you could have lowered the car by 3mm or more. A test is always with +2 laps of fuel to be sure that the plank and tyre information will be within the margin of a race day stint. Anyway, I opted for a 2 stop strategy for Interlagos, that being first stint 24 laps, second stint 24, final stint 24, and every test here is an exit lap, 24 laps and an entry lap, until (if) I change pit strategy.
Now I proceed to change the brakes, top gear, test. Usually at this point my laptimes are slow, and I go off picking flowers and sample the gravel all the time. But gradually it gets better and better. Lap times get quicker and more consistent, and the amount of flowers and gravel samples I present to the pit crew when i pit decreases. And believe it ot not, some people really do love you when you STOP presenting flowers when you pay them a visit. At least that is what my pit crew tell me...
The car actually begins to do what I want it to do, and talk the same language as me, when I begin to adjust springs, test, and anti-roll bars, test. Those 2 really make a huge difference. My trick is to work with the wings, gears and the mechanical grip (springs, roll bars, and brakes), until I am ON the lead pace (measured as the best lap time the CC does in an non-championship race, set to accelerated time). The point is, when the ride height + packers get adjusted, the extra undercar downforce in corners and added braking stability gives an extra second for free! So, I know from experience that when this is done, I am in the lead by 1 second per lap on my best lap times compared to the CC best lap time. And when this is acheived, all there is to do is to make the car steady like a rock and very predictable, no matter how badly I am throwing it around. I usually do this with dampers (slow+fast) and differential. So up till now I have given you a huge story about racecar setup (which you probably can do much better than me) and there has been no entertaining story. Actually, there has not even been a story at all! Well (sorry for the x-rated analogy), no good climaxes come without proper foreplay. And here it comes! Brace yourself, honeyboney...
(Crowd cheers insanely and goes wild)
Things were not going as planned at ALL! I was not even close to being on the pace, and I was spending huge amounts of time off the track. Naturally, with my setup/practice system, I just thought:
"Hey, I have not played this game for real in 5 months. Of course you are rusty. You just need some more practice and you will be back on the pace, ready to lower the ride height."
Now, I am no stranger to Interlagos. It is not my favourite, but I really like it, and have won races here before. And of course, the challenge of preserving your right front tyre, uhhh, with at least two exits from fast right handers followed by harsh breaking going to the right, where you almost always lock the right front solid. And add to that, loads of fast and slow left handers! That right front tyre needs some special treatment or it will look like a slick faster than you can say: "And Michael Schumacher and his flying chin takes pole!".
So, I disabled the symmetrical editing, and I set the right front spring to 1100 lbs compared to the lefts 1300 lbs. Went out and tested and BOOM! A 1.17.508 in full race trim with 18 laps of fuel left, about one small second from a pole position! Sadly, the rest of the laptimes were not that great. At least 7 (out of 26 laps!!!) off track incidents, only half of the laps in the 1.18.xxx range, and the rest of them slower. Some of them even on the wrong side of 1.30.
Anyway, I was on the pace (Sort of... My fastest lap told that I was potentially, not actually, on the pace), so in the spirit of my setup/practice system, I lowered the car to 29mm with 26mm packers in the front, and 49mm and 43mm packers in the rear. And that helped. More than half of the laps in the 1.18.xxx range, and 3 laps in the 1.17.xxx. But sadly no improvement of my 1.17.508, and still at least 5 off track incidents. I was frustrated and disappointed, that my trick didn't pay better dividends. I had been at it for about 160 laps and 2 days. I had done some progress, but I was very far from were I wanted to be at this point in time. The car was not nearly as stable as I wanted it to be, and it showed some very weird knacks when I was going on the limit. Especially in the left hand corners and in the brake zone. I was not really sure what to do... Adjust the car setup as it was now, or write it off as rustiness of skills on my part, and proceed to the next phase of the setup?
I decide for the latter. After all, the cars drawbacks right now was that it was not consistent in performance and it was unstable cornering left and braking. And that is things that I usually fix in this part of the practice/setup process. Granted it was much more unpredictable than I would like. But! I had an ace hidden up my sleeve! You see, I have this magical system for setting up the dampers, that just about turns any car into a smooth silky ride. Works every time, no doubt about it babe. But I developed this magical method for setting the dampers last summer. And I only had an very unclear memory and some sketchy notes of it. Going over my notes I realized that it was pretty complex mathematics with at least 4 unknown variables to begin with. It was so simple and lucid when I developed it. No it was just mombo jumbo, as I had been so excited when I wrote it, that I hadn't bothered to do the whole thing. I pondered over whatever the hazy notion was that my mind concocted in that very inspired evening as I was setting up for Montreal. It was a very weird idea, hard to recollect and re-grasp. And it gets no less mystical if I tell you, that I got the idea, when I saw the replay of Montoyas crash at Montreal GP! So I grabbed pen and paper and began to hurl mathematical symbols and equations around like there was no tommorrow.
But it was no use. I just could not remember the math, that isolates the variables one by one, so they can be calculated. So I get my older brother (no, not you Vader!), who studies math at Uni, on the phone and present the problem to him. He figures it out in about 10 minutes. I check his solution, and double check it, and it works! The magic of the dampers from the Montreal summer of 2001 has been restored! Gold has been struck! A small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!
At this point in time, I am in absolute exquisite joy! X-T-C! Adrenaline and endorfines are racing through my body and mind, as I rush to do the math so I can set the damper settings, so I can get out there and do some testing! And what can I say? The magic works! I am absolutely flying out there. I break the 1.17.508 on lap 3 (23 laps of fuel left!) with a 1.17.317. And the car is very much as I like it, able to break late giving just a bit of oversteer, good neutral as I hit the apex and hold the speed up, and close to oversteer again at the exit, the tail being in unison with the gradual adjustment of throttle. I just love that feeling, when the throttle becomes the steering device, and you can just FEEL it is dancing on the edge of slipping out beneath you. Okay, the tail does go wild now and then, and I have to do some harsh opposite lock at times, but that just adds to the fun. I go 1.17.222, 1.17.187, 1.17.134, and finally on the last lap I go 1.17.056. No less than 5 times did I improve my best lap time! And half of the laps are 1.17.xxx, 2 are 1.19.xxx, 1 is 1.20.xxx. The rest are 1.18.xxx, and I had NO off track incidents. I just cannot describe the thrill and jubilation I felt as I danced around my room, waiting for my machine to extract the telemetry. I jump around and even began to sing (that would be growl/howl since I dig black metal) a bit to myself as do the mandatory rituals of headbanging my 1 meter long hair around in the air. As I finally finish my victory dance, which would have made any caveman a proud and stout fellow (if not chieftain!), I sit down and begin to view the telemetry traces.
And then my face really begins to look like a caveman. Not in joy but in disbelief. Something is very wrong here. Wrong with the right side of the car. Yes, it really looks like the right side of the car is seriously malfunctioning. It is way higher than the left side. Even in the fast left hand corners, the right side is riding at a much higher level than the left. This cannot be right! Have I found a new and undocumented bug? Have my eyes crusted over because I forgot to blink for 26 laps times 4+ sessions for 2 days? Has my indulgence in electronically generated adrenaline and endorfines and my subsequent violent headbanging finally driven my brain to a spontaneous and debilitating hemmorage? No, the traces are right, and I am reading them correctly. And I, in a baffled - no numb and zombie-like manner browse my way to the advanced setup screen. And there it is, crystal clear.
There is no denying it. Even the most halfhearted idiot would have seen it, had he just glanced at the telemetry or even the setup screen. I am the caveman, yes the drooling Neanderthal - Homo Stupidicus (also known as Homer the Doh!), that did not see the following:
Left front: Ride height: 29mm. Packers 26mm.
Right front: Ride height: 36,5mm. Packers 0mm.
Left rear: Ride height: 49mm. Packers 43mm.
Right rear: Ride height: 56,5mm. Packers 0mm.
(Crowd cheers insanely and goes nuts beyond description)
No wonder I had a hard time getting the setup to be quick, consistent and predictable! The right side is a full 7,5mm above the left side. And the balance must have been terrible with the lack of 26mm and 43mm of packers!
So, what did I learn from that?
1) Never ever leave home without it - TELEMETRY!!
And a multiple choice for lesson number 2:
2a) Either my damper setup system is really really astounding, OR
2b) A driver that really believes in his car and his setup (yeah, cloud up the issue in some math that is so complex, that you cannot even figure it out on your own, and you are bound to believe), can work magic, no matter how shitty it really is, OR
2c) I don't know what I learned, except that I am Homo Stupidicus - Doh!
Can you believe it?!? I had a hard time doing it, and much harder time accepting it. I am still kinda of baffled, both by my own stupidity, and by the phenomally great drive i did in an absolutely shitty car. And that is why I thought, I gotta share this great story with someone. And that someone was you.
It serves as a nice reminder of why I play this game (and even pick it up again after a shelfing of 5 months!) and come to this forum as close to every day as I can. Bring it oooOON - GP4!
Doc Morbid signing off - over and out!
It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.