After missing three events due to mechanical issues, I went into my fourth Infinite Monkey's feeling very out of practice. I packed for the event, certain that I was missing about half of what I needed, and fairly confident that Steve and Opal would finally beat Ted and I at one of the Moore's Infinite Monkey's rallies. I.M. is the one rally that we consistently do well at, so I knew I had to make it out and give Steve and Opal some competition in intermediate.

After the fun, gentle start (the odo check) using roads in the Holland Marsh, Section two ramped up the difficulty with out of order tulips (expert class), some of which didn't have distances indicated. This wouldn't have been too difficult however one of the tulips with no distances wasn't depicted correctly (a route mistake, not an intentional trick). This caught up all the expert / intermediate teams, and some of the novices had trouble as well. For Ted and I, the error sent us off the map, literally, and we were forced to blow nearly our entire time allowance at CP2 (18.5 minutes of the 19.5 allowed). In true "I'd rather be lucky than good" fashion, we took a best guess at how late we were and managed a .5 early.

We may have managed to correct our route just in time, but that left us with two problems. First, we were now within about 11 minutes of Max Late, so if we lost any more time on the rally, we'd be into serious time penalties. Also, we now had no time allowance left for the remaining 90% of the rally. On top of that, I found I was having problems keeping the correct pace, as my speedometer (using the Performance Box for this) seemed to low on the fast roads, and too high on the slow roads.

In section 4, we almost blew the DIY checkpoint. I had missed the sign we were looking for, but Ted was able to correctly guess the distance of the sign and calculate our time in and out, zeroing that CP for us despite my error.

The first half of the rally was particularly enjoyable, as heading towards Shelburn, we used several of the roads Steve and I selected for the 2009 First Frost. In addition to these being great roads, it brought back a lot of great memories of building our own route last year.

CP10 at the half way rest stop (Superburger in Primrose) had it's own entertainment. Our instructions were to calculate the our time in, and hand our score card in to the CP on the minute we wanted to be scored (rather than noting our time and handing it in early). The trouble here was that Steve, Bruce Leonard and I all turned in our cards asking for the same minute. This meant that at least two of us (and potentially all three) were checking in at the wrong time. Fortunately, Ted had us dialed in correctly and managed to zero us there as well.

The second half of the rally started with a very challenging section for the navigators. Ted managed to get through it quickly (while cursing frequently). Keeping us on route and on time. I knew Opal was fatigued, and this section was slowing her and Steve's pace (we passed them early), but alas there were no CP's for us to cash in on their misfortune, and it wasn't long before Ol' Smokey came hurtling past like a sloth on several packs of muscle relaxants and one espresso.

Beyond that, we saw no major issues to the end of the rally. At the finish, we were surprised not to see Steve and Opal, since they should have arrived before us. This meant that at he very least they'd be using more time allowance. They arrived about 10 minutes after us, but the scores were tight in the first half and I wasn't doubting their ability to keep things close to the finish.

In the end, all the little issues we had ended as best as they could of. I'm very happy with the final score of 2.7, which was a win for Intermediate and the best time over all classes. All the SPDA teams did very well with low scores all around. Congrats to all the winners, and to the new teams running their first events.

If only we could clone navigators, then there'd be enough for all the drivers ( and the competition would be down to the driver, all of us having the same nav. )

SUDSBARU
IGO4BEER

Time for a minor rant on simulation racing.

I've been playing sim racing games since the late 70's. They've all come a long way since then, but we're still a long way off.

With even current hardware, it's near impossible to provide realist physics. To deal with this limitation game programmers provide physics models based on the predictability of the player trying to do the right thing. Here's where things fall apart though. We've all seen (in real life) that we don't always do the right thing, but in the sim world, where the physics are slanted towards corrected behavior, we lose the realism of things going wrong when they should.

The next time you're out judging a game on it's realism, rather than driving as you should in real life (since this is bound to feel as it should), spend your time doing as many wrong things as possible. You'd be surprised how many games (GT and Forza included) will show glaring holes.

Here's a few things to try (test with all driving aids turned off):

1. On exiting a corner, what happens if you turn IN hard and hit the brakes (the standard rookie reaction to apexing too early / going too fast ). Most games produce understeer in this case. In fact I've yet to see a game that will send you off the inside of the corner exit, backwards.

2. In a LEFT hand corner, can I turn as hard to the RIGHT as I can to the left? (many games, you'll end up turning left anyways, though not enough to make the corner).

3. While maintaining a constant speed, does the turn radius change depending on what gear I'm in? GT through GT4 failed miserably at this, as you had a tighter turn radius in lower gears, regardless of speed.

4. Can you steer while in the air. Yes, some sims fail at this at least allowing you to change your heading, if not direction of travel.

Add anything else you can think of.

In the end, if we're always helped to do the right thing regardless of our intent, is it really a simulation?

Trev

I'm usually running mixed Forza 3 races Wednesday's at 10pm. You're already on my xbox friends list, so you just need to be online :)

Might be a bit late tonight though.

Good luck guys, and bring back that massive trophy.

Works for me. Volvo is bound to have more money to win in a law suit than the idiot who's following too close.

Seriously though, anyone have the translation? 18 feet seems too close to promote as a safety feature. I could actually see someone thinking that this makes following close "safe".

Quote:

So you're no longer watching your Forza replays every day?

Oddly, the "Road & Track" DLC contains no Roads, or Tracks.

I can instruct both days.