Happy 4th of July. I know you're not American so you're probably not celebrating it, but I am, by finishing up this playlist. I've been meaning to do this for a while, but hadn't really gotten a chance. Awesome pole position!
I feel your pain, but as a viewer, I love that you're having to deal with this stuff, because this is real racing. Sometimes the car breaks. Sometimes it breaks a lot. That sucks. But that's racing. Imagine how real F1 drivers must feel when their car breaks down in the midst of a great race they're having. That's like the quintessential F1 experience.
I remember digging into the commentary files once and discovering that Arie Luyendyk's name is spoken by someone who's definitely not Danny Sullivan but sounds like some bloke trying to match his voice. Wonder if he was a last minute replacement for someone else. Always found it odd they had Danny as the main commentator and Varsha as colour - Bob was always a main and Danny the colour, although I don't think they ever commentated together in real life? Danny was with Paul Page.
I was hoping we'd get a back story on why this race wasn't called the GFS Marketplace 400 in any 2003 NASCAR game, neither this one nor EA's NASCAR Thunder 2004 does it. It's funny that you mention the setup screen tooltips. In part because 1) NT2004 also had those tooltips and they were just as helpful and 2) When you mentioned the simpler version that some games took, just sliders that go "Acceleration-Top Speed", "Understeer-Oversteer" I went "Wait a minute ... F1 Challenge does that!", and so do pretty much every other ISIMotor game, your rFactors, Automobilistas ... and NT2004 of course. (As an aside, I really need to start putting my setup guide series into action) Just an absolutely dominant weekend ... until Lap 1, although that was fixed. Then pit stops happened. Really have to start practicing the pit stops at this point. And then Kenseth ran out of awareness, and yet somehow survived the incident. On to Bristol then, and this might suck ... might need to do some setup work for that one. (As another aside, the fact that there's no more LeMans content means F1 '98 will come back. We are not ready)
So, with 3 races to go in the regular season before the 2003 Nascar Playoffs start, here's how they line up: Jimmie Johnson locks himself in with his first win of the season, jumping to 7th. Dale Earnhardt Jr has a 444 point cushion to the cutline, with Bobby Labonte moving into the 16th and final post-season slot. The battle for 15th and 16th is all but a foregone conclusion, as all of these drivers are within a race or two worth of points of one another. 1. Ash Baker - 5025 2. Jeff Gordon - 5020 3. Kevin Harvick - 5010 4. Mark Martin - 5010 5. Terry Labonte - 5010 6. Ryan Newman - 5005 7. Jimmie Johnson - 5005 8. Bill Elliott - 5005 9. Tony Stewart - 5005 10. Rusty Wallace - 5005 11. Sterling Marlin - 5005 12. Kurt Busch - 5005 13. Jeff Green - 5005 14. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. - 5000 (+444) 15. Ricky Rudd - 5000 (+116) 16. Bobby Labonte - 5000 (+40) ---------------------------------------------------- 17. Michael Waltrip - 40 18. Jeff Burton - 42 19. Matt Kenseth - 55 20. Dale Jarrett - 68
Good shout on the Papyrus setup screens. Their first NASCAR Racing game really laid the foundation for me in learning how to tune a race car. Before then, as a kid, I knew what tight or loose meant just from hanging out at my short tracks and watching racing on the TV, but really no clue what changes affected it. With that game, I learned all about camber, stagger, ride heights, dampers, wedge...Papyrus taught me all of this! And especially setting up Oval racing cars, which is a different beast all together compared to symmetrical road racing setups. Each corner of the car is like it's own individual setup. Thanks Papyrus 👍
Well I think you are becoming the Jean Alesi of Nascar! Incredibly quick and incredibly unlucky. I love this series so much, hopefully the nr03 gods are done smiting you and the next races will be peachy... I doubt it, but we can hope. Can't wait for Bristol!
nice prototype debut, i think the panoz may help you tackle the pace of the audi's without driving an audi yourself and a dry race would also be lovely, just so you arent driving with slicks in the wet at night.
Decent first shot at it! The Le Mans just gone was insane....it just seemed incessantly chucking twist after twist after twist. Needless to say that my other half a) wants to go to a race (and experience Le Mans outside of that) and b) will pay the Le Mans pass if it means no incessant ad breaks and we can't get to Le Mans. I might end up paying for the race in Fuji.
Not too bad for a first go. Strategy wise.. I wonder if you were to stop a lap into the race instead of on the final lap if it would be better? Tire wise, you wouldn't lose anything. Orrr maybe.. stop earlier before your tires go ? But the time gained on a fresh set would need to be enough to get on the last lap before the timer goes. Yes Petit Le Mans! I'll be going this year to the real one and it's my first time. I'm hyped!!!
