rec.autos.simulators

Anyway, after a good few hours of playing, mostly at the Nurburgring, a few
laps of Monaco and not even one complete tour of Silverstone I have to say....
"Shit! This is good!" I have no passion for the cars, the drivers or the
tracks... except for the Nurburgring. The drivers were rich basterds, probably
a bit like the guys I went to school with, the cars, I mean their looks & names
ignight no inspiration for me and the tracks are a bit bland (so far).

Having said that, I do enjoy _driving_ the cars, they are extreamly tricky, and
I have only auto-shifting to support my attempts to keep the machine under
control... and the Nurburgring is just fantastic, it's crazy! You only need to
get one corner right and it's enough to make you want to practice more and more
for a few hours, until the next slide, correction, opposite lock, locking
wheel... something else, that just looks so great, feels soo great that you
want to stick with it for a good few more hours! :o) Yes, I'm well and truly
***ed :'-(

Rob

My other impression was very much like this guys impression.  I don't like
F1 or CART or IndyCar racing much, though I will happily watch nearly any
motorsport.  NASCAR is my favorite, and I have been going to oval track
races since I was 5 in 1965.   I understand the legendary status of Jim
Clark and Graham Hill and all that, but the whole Grand Prix concept leaves
me pretty cold.

I am enjoying GPL tremendously.  I doubt I will ever be very good at it,
heck, I'd like to at least have the next-to-last car in visual range when
the checker falls...What is most exciting to me, however, it the notion that
the amazing physics modelling of GPL will work its way into sims set in
series I appreciate more.  This makes me drool in anticipation of N3!  I
would also like to be able to drive something like Can-Am or Trans-Am cars
on the tracks in GPL with the performance and aura of those cars.  THAT
would be exciting.

Does anyone have any idea if the Pits folks or anyone else is going to try
and do a patches for GPL like the cottage industry that popped up around N2?

In the meantime...back to the 'Ring

~daxe
"Religion is remedial spirituality"

---== http://www.newsfeeds.com - Largest Usenet Server In The World! ==---

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        Get the Coventry setups from Alison Hine's site and, in a
reasonable time, you'll be mid pack.

                   bob

You know nothing about that time period of racing do you?
You could have at least read the strat. guide.
Don't bash the people or the circuits until you know a little bit about them...I'm
curious though, what name would ignight inspiration though?
Only ones I can think of outside of this era:  Fangio, Villeneuve, Sheckter, Lauda,
Mansell, Prost, Senna, Schumacher.
While in 67 there's: Brabham, Clark, Hill, Hulme, Ickx(up and coming), Surtees,
Stewart.

Auto-shifting decreases your control, you can't control revs which means you can't
control the rear end...which is not good for a beginner.  Auto simply sucks, for
novice or expert.

1 more box...1 more satisfied customer (what's that 99.9% now?). :-)

--

Jon   Van Ginneken

"I wrestled with an alligator, tussled with a whale,
handcuffed lightning, threw thunder in jail...I'm a bad dude."

                        - Muhammad Ali

welcome to real driving - none of your "stuck to the ground, corner like
slot cars" here :-)

All cars slide off the track at some speed. So you like yours to do it at
70mph while some like it to happen at 150mph. I don't know of a sim that
corners like slot cars. Not everyone wants to drive cars that were designed
before they knew how to make them go around corners properly.

Define real driving. Teetering around in a 200 mph car that would kill you
at the slightest error. Real driving? More like real dumb. Woo hoo I got
around the track without killing myself. Mmmmm satisfying!

Dean

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

I swear I heard Surtees say almost the same thing in an interview on
SpeedVision, but I can't prove it.

Brett

I for one don't want to see another driver killed for my entertainment (I
know it's a little more common for Americans with Nascar and CART). I much
preferred to see JV get out of his car waving at Spa this year than carried
to a funeral home and am relieved that Senna is still the last F1 fatality.

Dean

First, I don't know anyone who wants to see a driver killed in racing
for "entertainment."

We are talking about sims here, right?

The attitude of my previous post is based on the logic of why people
like sims -- that is, the benefit of sims over real life experience --
which is, of course, the reset button.  Or more precisely, SHIFT+R. :)

The quote of Clark applies perfectly here, and it was my original
point.  Because of a sim like GPL, there is no limit to driving, there
is nothing to be frightened of, and thus any fool (read-you and me-
-well, at least me) can buy GPL and race without fear of death.  This
idea, which I failed to convey clearly, was in response to your
previous post, where you stated, I assume sarcastically, "Woo hoo I
got around the track without killing myself."  My point is, there *is*
no danger in a sim, therefore, Clark's quote seems to apply quite
logically, in a weird and silly way.  I know that when Clark was
quoted, he wasn't talking about Grand Prix Legends.

Sorry, didn't mean to strike a nerve. I just like to drive cars that
were designed before they knew how to make them go around corners
properly! ;)

Regards,
Brett

   Rob, once again you're letting your ignorance show.  It's good to
see you enjoy GPL, *now that you've actually tried it*, but to go on
slagging people and things you know nothing about...

   Take Denis Hulme, the '67 champion.  His father had a trucking firm
in New Zealand.  At six***, Denny's first driving experience was
driving one of his father's six ton trucks on 150 mile trips
delivering five cubic yards of sand in the evenings after school or
weekends.  In the Hulme trucking business, the driver was also the
mechanic, so when a gearbox blew out, Denny learned how to fix that to
get home.  

   Denny started racing in 1957 (at 19), and labored in relative
obscurity in NZ sports car and formula racing for a few years.  In
1960 he won the NZ GP Association's Driver to Europe award and went to
Europe to drive (with George Lawton, who was killed racing a few
months later).

   He worked his way through the ranks, working as a mechanic at Jack
Brabham motors in 1962 to pay the rent.  In '63 he drove Formula
Junior for Brabham and almost won the British Championship.  His first
F1 drives (part-time) were in 1965, and he stepped into a full-time
position in 1966.  In 1967, he scored his first win at Monaco (he also
won at the Nurburgring), won the World Championship, and finished
fourth at the Indy 500 (winning Rookie of the Year honors).

(BTW, this is heavily summarized from the Nov '67 issue of "Sports Car
Graphic" magazine, I can send you an OCR if you're interested.)

   So as you *may* be able to see, these "rich bastards" that you have
no interest in or passion for do have some accomplishments (both in
racing and life) that merit at least your respect, if not admiration.

   On the other hand, if you ever make anything of yourself in racing,
perhaps we can look forward to the day in the distant future (while we
old farts are racing our wheelchairs) when some young snot comes along
and tells you what a boring rich bastard you are...  :)

   Now you've got *some* idea of what we've been ranting about for the
last three months.  :)

PS- Brett, you have indeed understood the Clark quote (or at least the
interpretation that I felt made it of interest here).

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

"Not everyone wants to drive cars that were designed
before they knew how to make them go around corners properly"

that's what makes it great for me - its then up to the driver, not the
designer, to make them go round corners properly :-)

JMHO !!

cheers

-Lindsay

Good point but why don't you remove the tyres and drive on the rims. That
would be a challenge.

Dean

Secondly, you haven't the faintest idea about the backgrounds of those
whom you are rubbishing, have you?

Most of the drivers were definitely NOT "rich bastards".  One or two
were fortunate enough to have been blessed with circumstances that
allowed them to enjoy a sport that was certainly more accessible back
then (as a driver) than now.  Guy Ligier and Jo Bonnier were not poverty
stricken, by any means.

However, the bulk of the drivers had to get to the positions they held
in 1966/67 the hard way.  As an example, those from the Antipodes (Bruce
McLaren, Denny Hulme, Chris Amon and Jack Brabham) certainly served
their apprenticeships in lesser formulae and were down to their last
couple of pence many times before good fortune shone on them.

Chris Irwin, J.P. Beltoise, Jo Siffert, Mike Parkes, Scarfiotti....they
weren't given gift certificates from their families that gave them carte
blanche to the F1 racing community!

Check your facts before making irresponsible statements that could cause
offense.

--
Regards,
Bruce.
----------
HMRC Web site address is:-
http://www2.tpg.com.au/users/brucek/hmrc/index.htm
----------

Cheers,
Brett