Hello to all! My handle is EZWriter, but my name is Jon DeMent. I've applied to Bram for the magic simracing.gp permit and I'm planning on at least popping onto the practice server for a couple of the shorter races (that I'm glad to see coming up several days a week now), so I thought I should introduce myself. Plus, sometimes I can't help myself from interjecting a comment or two, and this way you can at least know who the bleep that is. Plus, Geeky Deaks' post made me realize again that there are a lot of bike guys in this group.
So. Me. At 70, I am ten years retired after 30 years working, and now I spend most of my time writing fiction - so far pretty exclusively for my own enjoyment. I've won a prize or two, but no offers of meaningful publication. C'est la vie. Don't let the French fool you, lol, I am a damned Yankee. A blue-coated one, but a Yank nonetheless.
My avatar and the pic below are of my last street bike, an amazingly capable 2001 Honda VFR800FI. It was maxed out with suspension and handling upgrades, easily the finest machine I ever rode. Thieves stole it, and the chain and lock, and the post it was chained to, from a hotel parking lot in New Mexico. Didn't bother cutting the chain, just yanked the post from the ground and took it with the bike, lifted it into the back of a truck, detective said they could truly be there and gone in sixty seconds. My heart just wasn't into riding any more anyway, 7/10ths pace and hyper-vigilant just isn't the way I want to ride, and the empty hole in my heart from the loss of the bike meant spending all the time and money to replace it just wasn't worth it. And to replace it with anything less just wasn't acceptable. So I've been on four wheels ever since.
My first bike, in 1968, was an old, even for then, clapped out Triumph flat tracker single, I couldn't even tell you now whether it was a Tiger or Trophy or what. I'm a Honda guy, since the first Interceptor. Unfortunately for me, my luck ran out and I had a big off in 1986 that ended my racing hobby and left me with with the classic old roadracer's both-legged limp and residual hardware, but didn't keep me and the V4 above from a track day or ten and riding the roads around the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia USA, and those around Palomar Mountain in San Diego County, USA, truly two of the richest areas for twisty roads on the continent, where I was blessed to live for a decade or so each. Sadly, I now live in the bleak prairie of central Minnesota, USA, where pretty much the only curves are traffic circles and freeway ramps.
I never raced on four wheels, at least on the track. My four wheel recreation has been in a series of MR2's and RX7's and 8's, with the sole remaining fun vehicle to my name at this point a wonderfully refined but still appropriately raucous RX8 with 160K miles on it (and now running on its third engine, of course).
I've sim-raced since GPLegends, with what must have been thousands of hours on rF1, but arthritic battered old hands keep me from more than a half-hour at a time at most at the wheel these days (even my old TX heavily padded with handlebar tape). I love AC and ACC, however, and still manage to spend many hours a week at it, especially of course since the virus limitations.
I found the RD site a couple of years ago, and then this AC GT3 bunch, and have often mirrored your weekly sessions off-line. It's a great way to not get stale, try a lot of different tracks, and with replays of the races as seen through the world-record holder's VR goggles (incredibly generous of you to post those and volunteer your setups, incidentally, Mr. Down), it's a humbling way to keep track of one's true pace. Which is, in my case, as it's been since those GPL and rF1 days, about 105% of those at the front here (who I will not call the A-word, those at the front here and irl have to have not just talent, but relentless determination and remarkable concentration under pressure). I'm a 105 percenter. As in, compared to the very fastest, I am, at my best, consistently turning 03-105% of their lap time, any track any car anywhere. I simply don't have the touch, at my limit of skill and even with studied preparation and dedicated practice, to carry that elite level of speed through a corner. Consistent, safe, fast enough not to be an impediment, a mid-packer, but a 105%'er. That's probably also a compliment to the simulation, because in retrospect, even without the advantage of superior equipment for the factory guys, that's probably about the same amount I was slower when I raced! I'd do 1:35, they'd do 1:30. Same with ACC now, the RDGT top quali was low 1:57, my best hotlap is low 2:01. 105%.
So there it is. A way way way too long intro for a mate in spirit who you still aren't apt to see on track too often. But if you do, be aware that I've read and totally endorse the rules, especially the Historic Racer's Gentlemen's racer's rules, and while the ACC ratings-Big-Brother spy isn't impressed with my pace it thinks my "racecraft" and track knowledge are worth a 99, and my sole goal when I do race is to enjoy the rush and the ride and maybe pass a person or two while not wrecking it for the fast guys or anyone else. Hey, again, just like when I was racing...
I know from my lurking that there are a few other relics from those great old days driving here, all of whom are significantly faster than I --- impressively fast compared to anyone, for that matter --- so I promise, I will never use the number of years on this old chassis as an excuse for lack of performance. lol, I'm that last thing you want to see on a race track or a golf course, old and slow and new to the course. At least I'm not wearing cowboy boots...
Oh, I guess most everyone has posted shots of their "rig", mine's a TX wheel with the Fanatec load-sensor pedals bolted to an old TV-display stand with an LCD 4K 55" screen, and I sit in an old broken reclining chair propped into proper position with a plastic crate.
Cheers, might see you out there, after I get all the paperwork stuff completed.
EZ (Jon)
So. Me. At 70, I am ten years retired after 30 years working, and now I spend most of my time writing fiction - so far pretty exclusively for my own enjoyment. I've won a prize or two, but no offers of meaningful publication. C'est la vie. Don't let the French fool you, lol, I am a damned Yankee. A blue-coated one, but a Yank nonetheless.
My avatar and the pic below are of my last street bike, an amazingly capable 2001 Honda VFR800FI. It was maxed out with suspension and handling upgrades, easily the finest machine I ever rode. Thieves stole it, and the chain and lock, and the post it was chained to, from a hotel parking lot in New Mexico. Didn't bother cutting the chain, just yanked the post from the ground and took it with the bike, lifted it into the back of a truck, detective said they could truly be there and gone in sixty seconds. My heart just wasn't into riding any more anyway, 7/10ths pace and hyper-vigilant just isn't the way I want to ride, and the empty hole in my heart from the loss of the bike meant spending all the time and money to replace it just wasn't worth it. And to replace it with anything less just wasn't acceptable. So I've been on four wheels ever since.
My first bike, in 1968, was an old, even for then, clapped out Triumph flat tracker single, I couldn't even tell you now whether it was a Tiger or Trophy or what. I'm a Honda guy, since the first Interceptor. Unfortunately for me, my luck ran out and I had a big off in 1986 that ended my racing hobby and left me with with the classic old roadracer's both-legged limp and residual hardware, but didn't keep me and the V4 above from a track day or ten and riding the roads around the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia USA, and those around Palomar Mountain in San Diego County, USA, truly two of the richest areas for twisty roads on the continent, where I was blessed to live for a decade or so each. Sadly, I now live in the bleak prairie of central Minnesota, USA, where pretty much the only curves are traffic circles and freeway ramps.
I never raced on four wheels, at least on the track. My four wheel recreation has been in a series of MR2's and RX7's and 8's, with the sole remaining fun vehicle to my name at this point a wonderfully refined but still appropriately raucous RX8 with 160K miles on it (and now running on its third engine, of course).
I've sim-raced since GPLegends, with what must have been thousands of hours on rF1, but arthritic battered old hands keep me from more than a half-hour at a time at most at the wheel these days (even my old TX heavily padded with handlebar tape). I love AC and ACC, however, and still manage to spend many hours a week at it, especially of course since the virus limitations.
I found the RD site a couple of years ago, and then this AC GT3 bunch, and have often mirrored your weekly sessions off-line. It's a great way to not get stale, try a lot of different tracks, and with replays of the races as seen through the world-record holder's VR goggles (incredibly generous of you to post those and volunteer your setups, incidentally, Mr. Down), it's a humbling way to keep track of one's true pace. Which is, in my case, as it's been since those GPL and rF1 days, about 105% of those at the front here (who I will not call the A-word, those at the front here and irl have to have not just talent, but relentless determination and remarkable concentration under pressure). I'm a 105 percenter. As in, compared to the very fastest, I am, at my best, consistently turning 03-105% of their lap time, any track any car anywhere. I simply don't have the touch, at my limit of skill and even with studied preparation and dedicated practice, to carry that elite level of speed through a corner. Consistent, safe, fast enough not to be an impediment, a mid-packer, but a 105%'er. That's probably also a compliment to the simulation, because in retrospect, even without the advantage of superior equipment for the factory guys, that's probably about the same amount I was slower when I raced! I'd do 1:35, they'd do 1:30. Same with ACC now, the RDGT top quali was low 1:57, my best hotlap is low 2:01. 105%.
So there it is. A way way way too long intro for a mate in spirit who you still aren't apt to see on track too often. But if you do, be aware that I've read and totally endorse the rules, especially the Historic Racer's Gentlemen's racer's rules, and while the ACC ratings-Big-Brother spy isn't impressed with my pace it thinks my "racecraft" and track knowledge are worth a 99, and my sole goal when I do race is to enjoy the rush and the ride and maybe pass a person or two while not wrecking it for the fast guys or anyone else. Hey, again, just like when I was racing...
I know from my lurking that there are a few other relics from those great old days driving here, all of whom are significantly faster than I --- impressively fast compared to anyone, for that matter --- so I promise, I will never use the number of years on this old chassis as an excuse for lack of performance. lol, I'm that last thing you want to see on a race track or a golf course, old and slow and new to the course. At least I'm not wearing cowboy boots...
Oh, I guess most everyone has posted shots of their "rig", mine's a TX wheel with the Fanatec load-sensor pedals bolted to an old TV-display stand with an LCD 4K 55" screen, and I sit in an old broken reclining chair propped into proper position with a plastic crate.
Cheers, might see you out there, after I get all the paperwork stuff completed.
EZ (Jon)
