I've raced many, many times on the AA server. I have a 98% safety rating. I make one small bump into Suzuki going through the T2 chicane, back off to let him go and he then proceeds to run me off the track coming out of the chicane. Instantly votes to ban me and it gets passed by everyone.
Nothing happens to him yet he ran me off the track after a racing incident. It was very tight as I had outside position coming out of T1. I backed off to let him go but cars were in a straight line behind him. There was nowhere for me to go. I push turning left and bump into the back of him. Let off the throttle out of respect and maintain my line coming out. He runs me off into the grass and immediately starts the ban vote and calls me a liar when I told him I backed off.
The disrespect I felt at that moment when there was an AA admin was ridiculous. Anyone who races with me knows I race very clean. I do not wreck people. I had one racing incident where things were very tight and instead of letting the race end and me apologize for the bump, I immediately get banned. I'd understand if I had a low rating or was known wrecker but man...people know me. I always show respect to everyone and for that to happen with an admin in the room...Yeah...That's not cool.
Hi guys.
Sorry for being missing out, but I have some personal issues in my private life. I'm currently living at my friends place and here I have no racing gear. I will me moving to a new place around the 20th this month, and there will take some time to get internet and things working. But as soon as I can I will be back on track. I hope you all are good, and I see you as soon as I can.
Regards H. Baker
My racing activity is on / off most of the time, with active daily sessions intertwined with months of not starting the game. However, what is truly consistent is the amount of in-game chatter my racing creates - sometimes it seems I am the most-discussed racer on AA's GTi Demo servers.
So I thought it would make sense to highlight and explain some of the philosophies I follow when I go out on a virtual race track. Opinions are welcome, but I am quite realistic regarding the number of people to ever see this post, yet alone, agree with any of the thesis here.
01. I take my simracing seriously. I only do this because my priorities do not allow for any real-world motorsport competition. Therefore, I do get upset when my races - regardless of the result - get ruined by some casual clowns saying "relax, it's a game". If I was interested in a game, I would happily play Need For Speed.
02. I know for a fact that even 4-lap sprints should be raced with a cool head, with any manoeuvre being a calculated and throught-through affair. Therefore, anybody attempting to take the chicane after T1 on Lap 1 side-by-side is a stupid fool in my eyes. There are zero gains to be made, the following straight can easily allow you to gain quite a few positions through smart application of slipstreaming and calculated out-braking at it's end.
03. I take matters in my own hands, and make sure clowns unlucky enough to be near me are getting what they deserve:
- We are allowed one blocking manoeuvre per straight, and everybody who start waving in front of me, will be spun off
- If you go on the grass to overtake me, don't honk you horn - I will not let you back onto the racing surface
- If you attempt to overtake me on the outside, and on corner exit you have less than 20% overlap with my car, I will squeeze you off
- If you are a 1:35 (GTi / Blackwood GP) driver, and are so desperate to overtake me, that you are divebombing me into every corner, I will make sure one of your divebombs will end in the wall
- If I move to block your overtake, and you move even further to the inside and pull up alongside, I won't move back to the racing line. I do this do make you extremely uncomfortable, and force into either an error of outbraking yourself, or an overly cautious early braking.
04. The most bizarre comment I have even seen in chat was that I have overtaken someone in a "forbidden place", but which the guy meant Turn 4 at Blackwood (the Right part of the Right-Left sequence). The overtake was clean, done on the inside, having resulted in that guy being very slow out of Turn 3.
- There are no "forbidden places" to overtake in - as long as the overtake is clean, one may pass everybody everywhere, inside or outside
- If you are only capable of overtaking at the end of the long backstraight, I highly recommend uninstalling LFS and never playing a racing game again - it's not for you
05. I do practise some tricks to unsettle the opponents physically or psychologically. These may include:
- Bump-drafting down the straights where there are no positions to gain in front of our improvised tandem. This usually catches less experienced people out, as they often fail to realize they arrive at their braking points around 10kph faster than they normally do. They subsequently outbrake themselves, giving me a free position.
- When pulling alongside someone for an overtake, I sometimes only leave a "carwidth + 10cm" space to the guy next to me. First, I still need to ark the upcoming corner properly, secondly, because who are you anyway for me to provide you with luxury of 3-4 meters around your car?
- When I am being overtaken on the straight after having made my one allowed lane change, I only move back when I know the guy is genuinely faster, and I shall not lose a lot of time through being overtaken. However, when there is nothing to gain in front, I never move back, thus forcing the overtaking driver into manoeuvring within very tight confines of space. Why? Because again, I am not Santa Clause, I don't send presents, so you should earn the position by racing me hard and clean.
06. I come to the servers to get some intense and hard racing. I happily come home 7th after being beaten by faster guys, or by being overtaken clean by people who know what they are doing. Guys like Garally, Velocity, Frenando Alfrondo (spelling?), Nookie and Dynamoopel are some of the better racers out there, and with most of them we have done whole laps bumper-to-bumper and side-by-side without colliding. In stark contrast, people able to crash into each other in the middle of the back straight, are total waste of my time, and I inform them of the fact without being overly polite.
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This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should be a solid foundation for those [non-existant] members of the community who wonder what this Sainted fella is thinking of himself.
Here's me looking for feedback on the idea on running the following race meeting:
- Blackwood Historic / 46 laps / 1 compulsory pitstop
- XFG only / possibly with XRG with engine restriction
- 30-minute qualifying session
The reason behind proposing the Historic layout is simple - getting rid of that chicane will promote better racing down the long straight, effectively putting much greater emphasis on Turn 1. Without the chicane that corner needs to be driven quite differently. Also, with only one proper left turn remaining, some setup experimenting may also be beneficial.
I am proposing to run this race at a peak hour, something like a weekday evening, a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday morning.
Any opinions welcome - should there be interest, I believe this could be quite a thrilling event.
