What makes Club Racing Special to you

[Rupe Wilson]

What is it that makes club racing special

I know what it is for me and why i have come to love my Tuesday and Thursday night in GTL
will come to think of it you will find me on a server in RD most night during the week whether it be in GTL or another club.
For me its the great banter I can have on t/speak before a race or in the nights before a race , you build up a rapour with the drivers, Hell there are a few of us even have a picture by our names.
It really helps to know somebody when you can put a face to a name, It breaks the ice makes it allot more formal you feel less of a outsider also, you building up a friendship of sorts, virtual or not you get to know the driver behind the car.
It makes it more friendly when you communicate, it can take away the cold feeling and the server.
You realise it a human being that is driving the car, or a alien in some cases lets face we here to have fun that why we do it.
We can pass on tips, setups and all help each other out, We all need it at some point. I was so grateful when i first started with the help i received made to feel welcome. It didn't matter how fast or slow you were even if you were faster than the owner of the setup we still exchanged them we all helped each other and still do.
By following the guys round on track learning some lines from them or letting the slower guys follow me for a number of laps. This is the community spirit i heard and dreamed of but never really experienced it until i found GTL.
I really look forward to the 2 hours on race day from the time i get on the server until I've read the last post on the forum.

Its 2 hours of escapism for my normal world, I don't really care what position i start or finish in a race its the racing that matters with friends,
But don't get me wrong its a great feeling to win a race or be placed on a podium but once i did it I soon realised it was the taking part the build up the racing with other drivers that was more special.
Once id won it was 2 minutes of WOW, YER, WOW, but then I was alone in my celebration, whereas to finish mid pack the celebration seemed to last longer. All the talk about how close it was or I was so close to getting past you. the feeling of what could of been seemed to last longer, when we race now the guys that finish mid pack talk more about the race than the winners.
I would not have thought this but it is true. It can often be lonely or dare i say it boring out front but the driving in mid pack is always more intense or exciting..

There has been the odd race where I've made a mistake leaving myself way at the rear , this is kind of the same feeling as being out in the lead .. now I will gladly race mid pack its one hell of a rush to have a car in front and a car behind pushing hard all driving but within your limit not wanting to crash but driving hard.. Yes I have crashed out before trying to hard,
I've even had a driver wait round the corner for me to catch up, even though it was my fault I crashed, later when we finished i asked why did you wait.. the answer was so simple, "its no fun racing on your own"..
This is the club /community spirit. it can sometime be lost in the win or bin attitude of drivers.
I remember a few times when trying to hard spinning on the start line crashing at the first corner and sitting there with only myself to blame for this, missing out on 10 more laps of fun.. i soon learnt that by taking it a bit easier in the first few laps i was actually having a better race in the end and having way more fun..
I am quite happy to sit behind a car for a couple of corners before trying to find a way past , I've made some mistakes in overtaking, we all have,once again i had that feeling of,
"Now that was silly wasn't it."
Not only did i spoil my race but the poor driver that i hit,,
once again a change in attitude was needed
Is it that important in gaining a position and maybe spoiling the race for the guy's in front me.
Yes i may be faster but has the car in front left a big enough gap for me to get through. 9 /10 the gap would close as he hits his apex leaving with no were to go apart from into the side of his car.
I was wrong id tried to get through a gap that was going to close not only had i got it wrong but i also spoilt his race, yes ii stopped and waited for the driver, i followed the golden rules but i had got it wrong.
I should not of tried in the first place. yes after the race i said sorry and this was accepted from the driver. But looking back i still had made a silly move i had not looked at the bigger picture, just seen a gap that i thought i could get through .. how wrong i was. This was not driving in a club spirit at all.
Now i treat my car like its real the last thing a i want to do is dint or scratch it, when i make a pass i want it to be clean with no contact, hold my line no need to push the driver wide.
If a driver has a run on my i don't close the door on him i let the overtake happen and try to gain back the position clean and fair,
I will lift off the gas if i cut a corner to much or run wide no need the cheat , I like to race, but race clean and fair in the club spirit. And i expect other drivers to do the same , after all we do it for fun
I have good days and bad days but do enjoy racing the position i finish is irrelevant as long as i do my best and enjoy it. I drive with respect for other drivers , if they hold there line in the corners and i cant get through then so be it. To me this is club racing, I try to find another way to pass, maybe back off a bit and try to use my speed through the corner to pass on the straight.
very few times can i outbreak a driver cleanly and make a pass without contact.. but by getting a run on them get my car along side before we go into a corner the pass is so much easier. and cleaner.

So this is what makes it special for me how about you

 

[Warren Dawes]

Similarly for me, it's the GTL Club "spirit" as described by Rupe. I can't add much more than he posted about that.

For me, it's that I know I can trust most of my fellow drivers in this Club, I've driven with most of them over a long period and we know each other well enough to trust each other. This is a top priority to me, since I get out of bed to race at stupid o'clock in the morning, so I don't want to do that only to crash out in the opening lap.

The other attraction of GTL for me is the cars and driving physics. I love these older classics, just learning to drive them is heaps of fun, so even if you are not competitive with others sometimes, the drive can still be enjoyable. And GTL offers such a huge variety of cars, and each of them drives differently.

 

[Hiroshi Awazu]

A great Staff and group here and the "Old Skool" cars is what attracts me to the racing here

Although i've been a member of RD for nearly three years i've just recently have gotten the time to join in on some racing. I can't always join for the full two sessions or endurance races because it's just me and lil kiddo during the afternoon but as i have said before one race is better than none.

It's a bit different with Race 07 because of it's race format, i'm able to do both races but i have to skip practice/qualifying because i'm having lunch with the lil one at 19:00. That is also the reason why i join in for race 2 here. I'm hoping to join full sessions when lil one starts to go to school full time coming September.

For me it's not about winning, it's about just having fun and good clean racing with a group of good people.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Sorry upfront for My Wall of text
It all started a forthnight ago... Ohh wait wrong story...
About a year ago I came across a couple of Logitech Momo FFB wheels in a bargain bin, I bought two of them at €15 a piece and sold one "second hand" for €30.
Started out racing F1 2011, Dirt and Grid on my wheel but felt something was missing so i started looking for "better" games. A friend recommended Race07 and that got my sim racing snowball running. While I enjoyed hot lapping on it, it took me only a couple of attempts on public servers before I decided it was not worth my time. But being a seasoned gamer for years with experience from clans and guilds I already knew what had to be done; I had to find a community with like minded gamers who respect each other and don't waste other people's time with reckless driving! My good friend Google lead me to RD and boy am I happy he did!
At RD I found more than a community, much more than what I had expected even, I found new friends, I found helpful players who share set ups and tips, I found clean racing and lots of activity, I could go on listing positives here but won't.
It took me a while before I dared enter the online races with y'all though, because I didn't want to destroy anyone's race with my inexperience, but once my cherry was popped I was home.

To me RD club races is about having a friendly and respectful place to come enjoy my hobby while I hone my skills and prepare for league racing. I don't mind finishing last, as long as I learnt something in the process. To me it's about seeing my skill progress while having fun at the same time.

Much (manly non-gay) love to all of you for making this possible, and shame on those who let their competitiveness overshadow the "having fun among friends" factor of club racing!

 

[Krzysztof Babij]

1. Friendly people;
2. Respectful drivers;
3. Helpful Staff;
4. Different level of the skills of the participants (everytime is someone to fight).

 

[Guus]

I like the general attitude of club racing (especially the GTL club). Sure people want to win but they dont HAVE to win, I think most of us prefer having nice battles and finishing 5th rather than being lonely out front and finishing 1st. I think that attitude makes the racing clean because people dont care about the result that much and dont take stupid risks, and it also stops post race frustrations. Its just about having fun

 

[Paul Bennett]

So here's my story no relay it's not that long.

Back in day as you young ones say, all we had was arcades at the seaside with racing machines and that was it, but then as if by magic or was it witchcraft Sony made a game box you could use at home
Moving on 2 kids later "daddy can we get a Playstation " oh deep joy Gran Turismo was played to death, when then boys went off to bed with Xbox to follow on a few years later. That's were I stayed for long time with Forza & Rally games kept me ticking over. About two years ago my son gets a laptop for collage and loads Steam on to it then my eyes are opened to PC sims the light bulb moment , but my PC is dated but find that I can run Race07 I'm hooked but only with a controller. So for the last 2 years the PC got a slight upgrade within a tight budget now on my 2nd wheel Logitech DFGT v2.5 with G27 shifter & pedals and with Win XP yes it can be done !

After many hours of web hunting found RD & GTL club which are the icing on the cake , like Kjell sums it up very well with the community spirit and friendship of our members and respectful drivers (lets keep it that way). Staff who commit a lot time unpaid should receive a lot of credit for running such a club. We should all get what we want form our time here win,lose or draw there's all ways next week to burn more rubber.

A few hours a week to chill, race & chat what's not to like, so lets not make a balls of it as we will all lose out it the end

 

[Warren Schembri]

Not sure if I can summarise what it means to me properly but for me, everything just clicks right with this group.
I have only been here for about 2 months and sim racing since last November (which also included a 2 month break while I was in Australia) so I still have a lot to learn about racing and setups but I feel like that I am slowly getting there.

I dont care for winning, just want to be competitive, have a good race/time and not stuff up anyone else's race. I have enough crap to deal with in my personal life and racing with you guys gives me a few hours to forget about them. I sometimes think that I enjoy the conversations on Teamspeak more than the actual racing

I dont know how I exactly found RD but I know I found this group by accident when I saw the signup Bathurst endurance race in April. I signed up for the event without even really thinking it through. Even though I was as slow as anything, the encouragement and positive feedback that I got from those on Teamspeak after completing my first race is something that I remember very well.

Since then, I've always been coming back, constantly checking the forum and always looking forward to the following Tuesday (I dont race on Thursday but that may change soon!).

I'm not a car person, not a motorsports fan but for some I like racing and now enjoy my Tuesday evening with headphones on and a bunch of blokes who want take a car round for a spin

 

[Roland]

So far I think you've all got it spot on, so there's little news I can add to this..
I can only express my feelings on Club racing in the GTL Club, as two events a week is the max I can do time-wise. I have at times tried expanding my driving to another Club here at RD but let's just say it was a somewhat underwhelming experience...

To me enjoyment of the GTL kind of Club Racing comprises things like:

The friendly and encouraging comments back when I first dared joining Club events, and came in last of course...

The always getting at least one serious answer when you have a simracing-related issue or question (and a few not-so-serious ones sometimes)

The almost endless variety of high-quality classic (sports-)car mods and classic or modern tracks to race. And the fact that after all these years still new high-quality content is being produced - for free - making choosing which one to try next even harder every time.

Like Warren said, the trust you build from racing with the same top-class bunch for a longer time. Which makes for excellent close close-racing and knowing noone will collect you at the next corner.

The short rush you get when you actually win a race, followed by the much more durable memory of the cool fights you fought on track. Regardless if you won or lost them.

Not even remembering the next day what position you started or finished the races in, just that you had a blast and can hardly wait for the next one.

The respect you get from your fellow racers when you're having a nice fight on-track.
And (thankfully not too often) the feeling quite miserable afterwards when you know you have betrayed that trust and crashed one of your opponents out of a race. (it can happen to anyone, but the feeling surely sux )

The chance to, beside race them, talk to a bunch of like-minded guys who are serious about this, where to the rest of the world you're just "a supposedly grown-up guy who's still playing video games" (yes, there's some real narrow-minded b-stards around where I live)

I can think of some more probably, but you've summed it all up quite nicely so far

 

[Ross McGregor]

The first rule of GTL racing club is, you don't talk about GTL racing club.

The second rule of GTL racing club is, Racing Room must be given to all drivers
at all times.

Err yes. The RD GTL club is where my 'proper' sim-racing 'career' started, and I learned a ton of stuff from the chaps here about keeping the car on track and racing cleanly & properly without any of the nonsense you find on public servers/just about every other sim-racing server I've been on. I started with a gamepad and Race '07, but when I bought GTL I realised I needed a wheel to get the most out of it. Took some time to get my head around this new setup, but thanks to racing guys like Thommo, Hutcho, Carlos, Warren, Lenno etc on a weekly basis things eventually clicked. And the rest they say, is geography.

Slightly disconcerting to read about an apparent dip in standards lately, but I guess you can expect a bit of this when there's an influx of newish drivers. I'm sure it will be more positive as time ticks along, but any consistently bad eggs must be... cracked?!

So yes, GTL club is the best place to be if you want to have fun and learn about simracing from folks that will take the time to help and explain things to you. And there will always be someone to race as well, no matter your experience or ability.

 

[Scott Webber]

**** BREAKING NEWS ****

Scott Webber went browsing online & got lost... he ended up on a site called play.com and got lost again, he then stumbled upon GT Legends... and he done the most insane thing ever.... he brought the game!

so yes, i will be racing in the club events soon need to get a handle of it and set the H-Shifter up properly... you men going to show me how it's done?

 

[Rupe Wilson]

Hi Scott glad to have you on board.. Im sure between our motley crew you will get all the help you need..

 

[Tim Ling]

Scott Webber I wouldn't say you were lost. You've finally found your way to the light of GTL Just don't get lost again & drive the wrong way round the track

 

[Tim Ling]

GTL= GenTLemens racing. As befits older cars, the racing is normally clean, measured and above all FAST. Just because there is no barging, banging, pushing or diving doesn't mean there's no wheel-to-wheel, door-to-door racing, no desire to win. It just means that GTL sim-drivers drive it like it's real.

 

[Rupe Wilson]

Tim Ling

Its a million to 1 chance you say.. for me its 50 50 it will or it wont..

 

[Tim Ling]

Tim Ling

Its a million to 1 chance you say.. for me its 50 50 it will or it wont..

If you've read "Guards, Guards" by Terry Pratchett (which I just re-read for the gazillionth time), you'll know where I'm coming from

 

[Rupe Wilson]

like Terry Pratchett
but love Robert Rankin

 

[Stuart Thomson]

For me, it was a few things:-
The people - a great group of people, all having fun, all like-minded, all willing to concede to the absurdity that we were all sitting in our front rooms, bedrooms, shag dungeons, whatever and playing a game. The winner got exactly the same as the last placed driver - the square root of f*** all. It was for fun, it meant nothing, you gained nothing, you lost nothing. And because of that, and because we all bought into that ethos, it meant everything. An oasis of civility in a sea of obnoxiousness.

The game - The cars were tricky, they were throwbacks, simple engineering, the only thing holding them to the road was gravity (which as we all know is an unbelievably weak force - a tiny magnet can pick up a paper clip, thereby defeating the whole earth). You couldn't just dial in a bit more aero at one end to make it do what you want. The concept wasn't entirely fresh (GP Legends was a historic game long before GTL came out) but it did it well enough that everything felt different, drove different, behaved different - but within a consistent world. It didn't disappear up it's own fundament with brain scrambling accuracy, but by the same token it wasn't so simplistic to make it boring.

The Privilege - That I was able to run such a good club, for so long with such good people, all willing to help each other out, all willing to maintain their own standards, and not allow Club standards to drop, and not climbing over each other or cutting each others throats for an air pie with no pastry - the reward for winning one of these races. It breaks my heart to hear standards are dipping - but new drivers will inevitably lower the standards - it just depends how and for how long. Drivers will need time to get up to speed, to raise or alter their standards, or to decide if the way we do it is for them. Incompetence is always prefereable to ignorance. Slow people who are willing to try it the right way and improve are way better for the Club than Aliens who think they have some sort of right to do whatever they want.

 

[Ross McGregor]

The people - a great group of people, all having fun, all like-minded, all willing to concede to the absurdity that we were all sitting in our front rooms, bedrooms, shag dungeons, whatever and playing a game.

We've had to rename our shag dungeon 'bedroom 3'. Estate agents weren't too keen on it.

 

[Rupe Wilson]

This is club racing at it best,
ive coppied it form our last club race.
We could of all of just set off and left Mate behind but as a group we all had fun.. well done guys


quote="Mate Orban, post: 1492301, member: 130178"]Practice:
First I tried the Abarth. That car is so light and so fast. But the default setup was a mess. I had to do something with it.
Those tire pressures were too high. Anyway, I managed to make that little car stable.
After that, driving the car was much easier.
I saw, that Rupe is at least one sec. slower, than me...so I decided to miss the qualy.

I chose the wrong Sprite but didn't realize it. I did a few test laps with it. The car was okay but I felt it way much slower, than the TCR. My best lap was a 2:04 on the practice. That was 9 sec. slower, than my Abarth laptime.
I thought, that Rupe wanted to mix the field with slow and fast cars...anyway, I didn't understand the strategy.

Race1:
I had a good start from the "back" (only 7 cars...that's not a distance ).
I took T1 on the 3rd place. The Sprite at the 2nd place went off the track at T2, so I got Rupe on my screen.
I didn't want to go alone 13 laps, so I decided to escort Rupe all way long.
He had a good and stable pace, there were only a few problems with his brakingzones at T7 and T11.
I followed him from a safe distance, than I closed the gap and did some close stuff on Rupe's rear bumper.
Than he decided to let me go. I did some fast laps before I crossed the finish line.

Race2:
After Race1, I got out of my rig and spent my time with smoking, drinking and watching TV.
Got back after 20 mins. I saw Rupe's question in the chat window about the wrong car choice but it was too late to do any change. So I started the 2nd race with the 1.1 Sprite.
My cornering speed was okay, but in the straights I was a duck fart.

It could be a very boring race for me, but you guys made my day complete.
Thanks to everyone, who waited me and battled with me. At some point we did a 5 car battle...it was awesome!

Congrats to podium!
Thank you Rupe for the organization.

Unfortunately, I have to miss the next few races, because I'll practice for the final round of the 2013 VV8S. It will be a 3 and a half hour long race at Bathurst...500Km.
But than, I'll come back to race with you guys.[/quote]