Vader Trophy is Recruiting!

I was -30something with a joystick about a month after starting in late 2000, and immediately went faster on getting my first wheel in early 2001. I'm sure -80 was quite possible with the wheels which existed back then (MS Sidewinders and so on, which are still being used by at least 1 VT member).

Huttu's first rank logged on GPLRank was -83 in December 2000, soon after GPLRank went up. He was only active in GPLRank for a year and a half, and 'only' improved by 12 seconds in that time.

gav Wrote:
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> I was -30something with a joystick about a month
> after starting in late 2000, and immediately went
> faster on getting my first wheel in early 2001.

Funny then, that GPL rank has you logged at -36 in December 2002, and your rank steadily drops from there on...

So... you didn't improve for 2 years despite getting that wheel that made you improve so much, OR you are about 2 years early on the trigger here...

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Or I never uploaded to GPLRank until 2002. I never did until sometime after my first online pickup race. I just used GPLRA. Ranking wasn't something I was interested in. I was still a GPx whore before GPL started eroding into that, and hotlapping was all in GP3 and 4 hotlap leagues. GPL was just me racing the AI, trying to do a 100% race (something I couldn't achieve until 2004 or 2005, after I'd joined VT).

It was only in early 2004 that I started actively hotlapping in GPL, with the battle between AlphaF1 and GPG/VT (and specifically between Matt Parry and myself). That would be just before I joined VT, and when AlphaF1 had a fun little GPL league going.

Might have got the years wrong (might have been me starting in 2001, then getting a wheel in early 2002), but Huttu's time and lack of progression when GPLRank went live is still the same. The point I was trying to make was that it's relatively easy to jump in and find a rough pace for some. It doesn't take much evolution to do that.

gav Wrote:
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> Or I never uploaded to GPLRank until 2002.

It is obvious, that you first uploaded in December 2002. That is clear from the information that is in GPL rank. However, it doesn't seem likely that you had a 30'ish rank in December 2000, since the first rank from December 2002 is in the range you posted for December 2000. It seems hard to believe that you improved a maximum of 6 in 2 years. Especially with the comment about the wheel giving you large improvements.


gav Wrote:
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> The point I was trying to make was that it's
> relatively easy to jump in and find a rough pace
> for some. It doesn't take much evolution to do
> that.

See this were your perspective is flawed. Your failure is, oddly enough, in modesty. And you are using induction to go from your personal experience, to a conclusion that governs the general masses. See this only holds up (induction actually being a logically flawed way to arrive at sound conclusions being disregarded for a moment), if you are AVERAGE in the same degree, that the masses AVERAGE to.

I have raced you, and I know what you are capable of. Very, very few people would be able to go -30 in the first month of playing GPL. I sure as hell didn't, and while I am not talent that will rock the world of online racing, I am not bad, or even close to average.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Regarding the first part of that post, I did point out later on that I may have been a year out, but that doesn't change anything.


The fact of the matter is that people were at -80 and below before VT even existed. By that token, no-one who has raced in VT can be called an alien in the GPL sense. Good, yes, perhaps even very good, and probably alien to others, as Gui suggested, so I can see where you're coming from. But when the fastest driver is some 15 seconds slower in 2008 than at least 1 driver 8 years previous, I personally feel it's a bit of a stretch to call them an alien.

I'm quite happy to back down and let you have your subjective.

Rich turned up having not driven GPL for more than a few weeks, and immediately was on a -20-30 sort of pace. I never suggested that 'the masses' could do that, but it does happen.