[ APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR CROSS-POSTS ]
Guys & Gals,
Well, I have some news but first I feel I should apologise
for not having at least kept in touch these past few months.
Most of you will know that I got quite ill again towards the
end of last year. I've had M.E. now for many years and it was
mainly this that forced me into a semi-retirement from my
business and allowed me to indulge in GPL and such. I was
pretty well for most of 2001 and then hit a very bad patch
towards the end of the year.
I was pretty much unable to play GPL for many months and
even when I got a little better I found it too much of a
strain to put the time in required to get competitive again.
Around this time and previous I had been getting involved in
Nascar Heat mods and along with Team Tiresmoke have been
involved in mods such as Spirit of Heat, Porsche Vintage
Heat, FF2000 Heat and a number of other mods either released
or still in progress.
My role was mainly physics testing and feedback to the physics
modelers. This coincided with and partly gave rise to my
dissatisfaction with the GPL physics model. Don't take this
wrong, GPL is still a great sim and a great learning tool
but once you get past a certain level it is all about playing
the game and exploiting the idiosyncrasies of GPL. Nothing
particularly wrong with that, I was exploiting them myself
but perhaps getting less satisfaction from doing so as time
wore on.
What I always loved about GPL was the online racing element
and this is IMO the best aspect of it. This more than anything
prepares a person for real life "combat" on the track.
I was also initially impressed with the driving model. It was
the first sim where I really had to call on my previous
experience. What worked in real-life worked in GPL and I was
more than glad to share that in my GPLEGS package. As a
competitive person I got lulled into the fastest lap contests
and tried whatever I could to shave off an extra few tenths.
It was still good practice, as despite what anyone may say,
real life racing is very much about the stopwatch and a
driver having the ability to continually refine his line and
technique such that he is able to lap that little bit quicker.
Much of the technique aspect was valid, especially with
improvements in track usage and line which I still did
not master 100% on all occasions. It was just that, on going
back to GPL after a longish layoff, and particularly driving
F1 again in the Rally Competition I found that I really did
have to adopt unrealistic techniques (in terms of real life
driving) to go quickly, and having once again looked at F1
replays I was struck how unworldly they were.
Of course, that probably going to be true for all sims for
many, many years to come, and that doesn't devalue them as a
sim. I didn't mean this to be a criticism of GPL, I believe
that is probably a*** offense around here, I just wanted
to explain some of the thoughts behind my recent news ... ah
yes, that's what this was supposed to be about - let me get
back to that.
Essentially I'm getting back into real-life Motorsport once
more. Specifically my initial goal is to get back into
instructing as this is the area that gave me most pleasure,
and still does.
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NEWSFLASH : 1st race tomorrow at Lydden Hill, UK
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It's quite an involved process and I wanted to keep all my
buddies informed on what's been happening and what will be
happening in the months to come.
I apologise to the many that aren't interested and for using
this list/forum/newsgroup in this way but there are so many people
to try and inform that it's just impossible on a one-to-one
basis. One thing that everyone who I think will be interested
has in common is that they occasionally read either the mailing
lists, forums or r.a.s. so hopefully I'm going to get through
to everyone this way. Apologise also for the long post I am
trying to keep detail to a minimum.
To provide more information for those who are interested and to
keep those same people updated on progress etc. I have set up
a small and very, very basic web site here :
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
It's not as complete as I'd like as I had a wisdom tooth pulled
on Tuesday and have felt pretty grotty ever since. There is a section
on what it takes (and roughly how much it costs) to get into racing
in the UK these days which is partly done and I will add to it more
over the next few days.
I also added a guestbook feature to the mainpage, so please let me
know you dropped by :)
Just going back to GPL, I haven't given up on it completely and
hope that once things are more settled I'll be back online and
doing the odd race here and there. I'm still helping out on a
number of Heat Projects but perhaps not so heavilly as I have in
the past.
This is also an opportune moment to thank everyone who have been
so supportive when I was not so well, it was very much appreciated
and I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to more of you personally.
Cheers
Maxx / Malc