Guys, since I had so much fun Saturday in the league race, I'm going to host an ad-hoc race this Saturday afternoon, around 2 PM MST. This time's subject to change slightly, depending on if PsEG runs an official race or something then, or if enough people want a different time.

I think I'd like to do it on Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, since that's such a fun track. I'd like to either run Skippies, or maybe Radicals if enough people have them :D If not, we can do the CTS-V, since it's free.

Let me know if you're planning on joining, and if you have any suggestions as to the race!

Aww damn, that time is actually something I could attend as an European and I agree Montreal is a very nice race track but I haven't bought it yet. I'd like to, but there's no money left for me this month (at least not for these things). Have fun you guys!

I don't have the track, but I do have the Skippy. If enough people are interested in doing the race, I wouldn't mind buying the track. I know pseg said in another thread that he won't be home this weekend, so yours would be the only race if it happens.

Haha, I'm the only game in town! I'm not married to that track, but if you're going to race the Skippy in the series, you'll have to buy it anyway. Also, it's awesome.

Don't own the Skippy or Montreal, but want to get them both anyway so I'd be in for this. Montreal is an awesome track.

Well, I'm in regardless of the car/track combo.

So what's it gonna be, have you decided yet? Skippies on the Île Notre-Dame?

@iron1c: Yeah, looks like it. You gonna join? :D

I will give it a go being there but 7am in Aus on a sunday sounds mighty unappealing.

@dark: Ah, you're fine :D Get up, murder a snake or something, and come race with us!

@dark: Ah, you're fine :D Get up, murder a snake or something, and come race with us!

Just sold my 360 copy of GRID2 so I thought about buying the track.... ;)

But I really, really hate the Skippies. Well, guess it's time to spend some time with 'em and learn to love, right? So if I decide to buy the track and can get some laps in before Saturday I'm in. So I'd say about 70% chance :D

I bought the Skippy, but I'm still in Rookie class until the next promotion date, so haven't been able to drive it against other people. Really anxious to have some competition with it. I've only tested it a couple of times, but I already prefer it over the MX-5.

@maxx77: I'd suggest going into an open practice. You can get time with other cars, but nothing counts :D

Guess I'll grab the content tonight and start putting some practise laps in, then!

@iron1c: After about 4 hours I think now with the Skippy, I have finally figure out how to drive it like a not complete moron. My biggest issue, generally, is braking too late, turning too sharply, and giving throttle too early. Those are literally the worst things you can do in a Skippy. It wants smooth, even movement, brake & throttle.

Once I figured out where my brake points were, when and how quickly I could get on the gas, I stopped spinning out on every turn and I think I'm actually having fun in the car now :D

It's not that I can't drive them, it's just that I don't like driving them :D

Although I just put same laps in and some corners on that track a very, very tricky in that Skippie. At least I have my fair share of problems with it right now. Any word on how many laps I have to keep it out of the Wall of Champions, yet?

I think like 24. I'm at 2 minutes a lap going conservatively, so I figure that's a good number to keep it at an hour. We'll probably do a rolling start to get tires warmed up, too. I'm going to put it out there on the site in a few minutes, I'll link to it when I do.

I like this course, because it's fast, chicane, fast, chicane, fast, u-turn, fast, chicane, fast, u-turn. Not really technical, but fairly challenging to drive well. And it's wider in most spaces for some good passing potential. If people show up, it should be a good race :D

I'll try to get there for the race. Not sure how busy I'll be tomorrow.

OK, the race is out there, under hosted races, called "Giant Bomb race!"

40 min practice, 20 min qualifying, 24 lap/60 min race.

Still haven't started practising yet. I will be ready.

I hope.

@khann: It's not a hard track. After 20 minutes, I was hitting 2:00 laps easily, with a LOT of time to cut off.

Just did a little practise and seem to be reasonably comfortable at a low 1:57. My best is a high 1:56 and I feel like I could get a mid (maybe even low) 1:56, but low 1:57 is where I'd be comfortable lapping in a race.

Are we racing fixed setup? I think that would probably end up being fairer. Seems like weather can have a pretty dramatic effect on times as well, so who knows how that all works out.

Fixed setup would be cool, especially for the more casual players who don't have to worry about setups yet as they're driving fixed series anyway. As you say, would be a lot fairer. I'm not going to be home until close to the race start, so I will have to do all my practice laps during the actual 40mins of practice we have :D

Hope it'll be enough to not end up dead last.

Well I managed a 1:56.1, with a 1:55:8 optimal lap. Kinda feel like I'm coming up against a talent wall at this point, though ;)

@iron1c: Well, since this is A) not really a real league race and B) will probably be just like, a couple of us, I would rather allow setups. There's not a lot to the Skippy, and it's easy to learn. There's a concise guide here and a full guide here.

And we can all share setups with each other so people who don't know or don't care can just use one of those :)

Alright. I'll put a little time into tweaking my setup then.

e: well, I've done about as much of that as I can be bothered doing. Managed a 1:55.5 with race fuel with a tweaked setup, and feel like there is quite a bit more time in it.

It's very understeer-y if you're too hard on the throttle, but it's nice and stable other than that. It's also awful on the first lap/when the tyres are cold, but felt good over a 10ish lap run. Dunno how it'll hold up over a race distance, but it's what I'll be using. Get it here if you want to give it a go.

Oh!! I just realized I can add a second car to the session! I can add the MX5 if anyone wants to drive that, and the Skippy and MX5 drivers will compete against only other Skippy or MX5 drivers.

Anyone want to do that, or should I just leave it?

@skullcrushermountain said:

Multi-Class races would be a nice idea for us to race some paid-cars while the others can use their free car, though open-wheeler and production cars might be weird mix. But whatever, dumb stuff is what our races are for, right? :D

@iron1c: ABSOLUTELY. MX5s are in, then :D

Doesn't bother me. Kinda depends how many people are showing up though I guess.

Also, is the race in 2 hours, or 3 hours?

@khann: Just shy of 3 hours from now.

Yeah I think it absolutely depends on how many people show up or everyone will be at least Top 3 for their class :D

I don't see the race

Don't think it shows up until it's actually live.

@flacracker: Should show up in an hour and 15 minutes from now. It's called "Giant Bomb Race!"

An hour from now would be 3pm your time, wouldn't it?

@maxx77: No, I'm in Arizona, and am on MST, not MDT. It's 52 minutes from this post, or 2 PM MDT/PDT. 21:00 UTC.

The reason I ask is because on the league page, you have it as 2pm MST, which would be right now.

@maxx77: No, 2 PM MST is 30 min from now. MDT is 30 min ago :D

I've looked it up on several conversion sites.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_2pm_mst_in_est

It's 4:30 where I am, EST time zone, right now. That'd be 2:30 MST. Am I looking at this wrong?

Yeah, most sites automatically convert MST to MDT, because thats what you would use right now. BUT Arizona does not use MDT and sticks to MST.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Time_Zone

@maxx77: Well no, but you're no on Eastern Standard Time right now. You're on Eastern Daylight time :D Arizona doesn't believe in daylight savings time, so we're 3 hours behind you right now. http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/usa/mountain-time/arizona-time/index.htm

I was afraid the no-time-zone thing would be a factor. I'm in Indiana where we used to be the same way, but a few years ago the politicians finally forced us into daylight savings. In any case I'm not arguing about it, I just want to be clear when we're racing. I'm glad we're going an hour later than I expected, it gave me time to eat a sandwich.

@maxx77: Yup. Eat a sandwich, pee, and I'll see you in 10 minutes!

Good race! I'm surprised I didn't do worse given how little I've driven that course. I was getting faster as the race went on.

Word to the wise: in a multi-car session, be sure to choose the car you want the FIRST time you connect. Once you've made your choice you're locked in. I don't know if that's a bug or intentional. I accidentally chose the Mazda MX-5 the first time I logged in. I logged right back out and chose the Skip Barber. It wouldn't allow me to join the session with that car. I was only allowed to join with the MX-5 from that point on.

Well that was fun. Shame about the not being able to switch cars thing.

Yeah, was a lot of fun, shame about the car thing and that your PC locked up in the first lap. You were much faster than the rest!

Next time I think we should use free content so that more people can participate. Maybe a multi-class race on a free circuit with one free car and one paid? Or just the free MX-5 and Cadillac, so we have a slower and a faster car thats free! I think the more people can join the race, the better.

The Caddy is only free if you used that free 3 months from Cadillac offer though (right?). Not too sure how many people here took advantage of that.