rec.autos.simulators

Well that's not my experience. I have raced many of the guys
on top of the hotlap charts, and they all have proven to be
fast, reliable, very consistent and good in traffic. I think you
have no chance to appear on those charts if you aren't
consistent. How could you learn to lap that fast if you spent
your time recovering from crashes anyway?

I think the whole idea of a crashing hotlapper is just a
try to kid oneself: "I could go that fast but I'm not interested
in hotlapping - I'm a _true_ racer"... :)

Let's give the fastest guys the credit they deserve: they are
very talented and willing to do a massive amount of work
to get what they thrive for - the perfect lap.

As for the rest of us: just enjoy the racing and don't let
it get to you that someone somewhere is faster...

Cheers,
Jussi

PS. Just in case you were wondering: I'm about 5
seconds a minute off pace, so there...

Pardon my ignorance, I'm new to this forum .... what are 'hotlappers'? Is it
a safety-be-damned, wide open approach? extra risks taken? Seems they're not
looked on favorably whatever they are :)

jeff

Gene

Whether a hotlapper is able to stay on the pavement for a whole GP or not
isn't the issue. They practise A LOT so if they can keep concentrated at
(for them) a snail's pace they should have no problem finishing anyway.
There is also no jealousy or envy because the hotlappers are faster. It is
the relentless pursuit of speed that is held against them.

The name of the game is racing simulation which means the object should be
to recreate the experience to best of your ability, not to acchieve "the
perfect lap" by whatever means nescessary. Without exception the really fast
times are set using setups and driving techniques, which outside the game's
world would lead to catastrophical failure of the car or the driver. The
illusion of realism is broken and thus, for me, the feeling of being beaten
fair and square (and don't get me started on the humiliating practise of
forcing the slower driver to pass, so he can be put in his place again).

And for what??? -IMO Wolfgang or Ian or Dave or whoever can beat 99% of
people on GSB/VROC without even breaking a sweat let alone resort to
hotlapping techniques. Then, why treat a simulation like just another arcade
game?

Just my opinion, of course.

Jan.
----

"Hotlappers" are drivers who are able to post record lap times.  Dedicated
hotlappers will do hundreds of laps at the same track, usually in training mode,
striving to shave just a few more hundredths of a second off their time.  Setups
can become quite radical, shifing is done without lifting off the throttle
(which would quickly destroy an engine in a real race) and driving style is
usually on the absolute ragged edge of control.   This does not mean hotlappers
are lousy in race situations, where traffic comes into play, and it does not
mean they are good in them either.  I would guess hotlappers cover the spectrum
pretty much the same as any other drivers, some are surely brilliant in races
and some may suck.  I suspect (and I'm probably gonna get shit for this) that
when some drivers see the lap times posted by hotlappers, they realize they are
never likely to match them.  So, to make themselves feel a little better, they
imagine that the hotlapper can only do hotlaps, and not drive well in a real
race.  I may have been guilty of that myself on occasion. ;o)

I'm not quite sure I follow you there... What is there to hold against
somebody if he's trying to beat a record? Why is that bad?

Beating a WR is extreme business and of course requires extreme
methods, wouldn't be much of a record if it didn't :). It is not something
most people want to do, and it is quite a different thing from normal
racing. My original point was that being able to do that does not IMO
automatically make you a worse racer. In my experience the guys
on top of the charts are _also_ very good race drivers indeed. However,
there are many posts that give the impression that "hotlappers" are in
some way inferior: good for one lap but hopeless on a long distance.
This is simply not true.

Of course there are people who are able to do better in qualifying
than in a race, and are prone to crash in T1 on VROC, but they are
not _really_ fast anyway.

Ah... arcade... the magic word :)

Ditto.

Jussi

    -A

jeff

I think the result has shown the three best GPL drivers in the world:
Huttu, Woeger and Lake in a more convincing way than the hotlap charts
on their own.

Which isn't to say that hotlapping isn't important - it has its place in
racing in the same way as qualifying is used to set grid positions
before a race - but it's the championship itself that shows who is the
best driver.

The ring for me was a fantastic race :) Driving on the edge for 3
laps, doing sub 8min race laps! (using "realistic" ride heights :)

it was great fun!

I wanna see one of these other guys that complain we can't race, by
trying to beat a racetime of just on 24minutes for 3 laps of the ring
:)

Ian

I think this term "hotlapper" has become a bit misused - my
understanding of the term as it was originally used was to describe
someone who can turn in some quick laps but who is basically
inconsistent and therefore not a good racer.

I was like this myself a while back: I downloaded Wolfie's setup for
Watkins Glen and did manage to set my fastest time with it, but most of
the time I was all over the track and could never finish a race with it,
because it was incredibly unstable.

Since then I've reverted to using a more stable setup and trying to
drive it consistently, but my best lap with the default GPL 1.1 setup is
still slower than my old best with the WW setup (although that was with
GPL 1.0).

So I don't think a "hotlapper" necessarily sets world-beating laps: I
think the term refers to someone who focusses on setting one "hot lap"
even if they crash out every other lap.

In fact if they are setting world-beating laps they probably *are* well
in control of the car, as you're unlikely to string together a
near-perfect lap if you make mistakes quite often.

My best time with the WW setup was 1:05.45 (2 seconds off the WR), but
I'm much more pleased with my consistent 1:05.80's with the GPL 1.1
setup, and can race very close to that speed as well (and I also feel
much more in control, so I'm confident of improving with practice).

So, I reckon a "hotlapper" is someone who's driving a fast setup that
they can't really control, rather than someone who sets "hot" laps in
world-record terms.

Jan.
----

<snip>(using "realistic" ride heights :)

Mika, Eddie, Heinz and the gang (or Geoff, Mark, Dale and the good ol' boys
or any driver from any racing series for that matter) don't go about setting
one ultimate lap to the exclusion of everything else, even in qualifying.
Why?? -Because they need that car the next day, that's why!

Hotlapping is just not done in top level road or oval racing and therefore,
and again this is solely my opinion, one should use an arcade game for that
kind of stuff, not a simulation. To me the fastest guy is the guy who holds
the fasted racelap. I would extend that to qualifying if somehow the game
wouldn't give you an instant repair by quitting to the pits. In fact that
honour probably goes to Wolfgang as well, further proving your point. So
there you go. ;-))

Jan.
----

I've been looking for a hotlap toplist where all posted hotlaps has to
contain a few laps before and after, say something like 5-7 laps as a total.
And to get posted on the list the surrounding laps must be within 0,5 second
of the fastest, or something like that anyway.

These hotlaps would not only deserve studying but worship too :-)  And I
know that many of today's hottest hotlappers qualify. But some don't.

/Magnus T