A story of a determined simracer.

Resi Respati · Jul 3, 2010

Yesterday I was browsing through the unofficial GeneRally forum and stumbled upon a thread where we share our racing stories together.

Then, this guy came with a story about his sheer determination on completing a race. He is a truly determined man, I almost teared after seeing his story. A truly inspirational man.

This is his story.

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Hi all,

it was year 2003 and GR had his first 24 Heures du Mans event...
I was racing together with TuomoH (so many years gone, Tuomo. It's almost unbelievable...), he drove the first stint (out of 3) and I had to do the second one (the "night stint"), it was still undecided who had to drive the last one...

This is what happened, taken from the eMail I sent to Tuomo that days:

Hi Tuomo,

just two words 'bout my nightly performance...
I finished with avg. speed of 134.67 (best lap 19.85)
It was really a nightmare, and we seriously risked to go out of the race for that.
I tell you all the story:
As I said days ago, I wasn't home Friday, and i planned to come back Saturday midday.
For many mistakes I can reach my house only in the late afternoon, so I cannot race when planned, but this wasn't a big problem. I had time enough. Well, days ago I promised to my wife (we are not married but we live togheter since 1997...) to go to a concert this Saturday.
Usually I keep my promises, in addiction I was happy to go to the concert, so we did it.
I came back a little later as planned, but it was before midnight (italian time), so I had all the time to race, but...
They are minimum 3 weeks that doesn't rain here (where I live), but tonight came a storm.
I had just finished my race, taken the first screenshot and, as the screen with results appears (avg. speed 138,xx , I don't remember exactly...)
the PC reebots (a short black-out, I have no UPS) before I can save the game. And the nightmare begins...
I waited some minutes, to see if the temporal gave up, at it seems so.
I started with a new race, but as I came to the 80th. lap, 'another power failure (it was near to 3 AM italian time...)
This time, the power came not back for a while.
I took my laptop and, after download of all I need to race, I started a new race, but I forgot to charge the battery as I came home, so I had no much authonomy. Infact, as I was near to half race, the PC shut down, and the AC-power was not coming yet. (it was near to 4 AM...)
I was dispirited. Fighting against sleep, I was waiting for the black-out end.
At 5 AM the power came back and I finally completed my race (I saw cars, kerbs, little balls, spiders etc... everywhere, and sure it wasn't the best performance I can do...).
I sent it to Tedminator at 5.58AM (italian time, 2 minutes before deadline).
At 8.30 AM I had to wake up, 'cause my parents came for a visit (they come so rare that I cannot stay in bed as they are here, and I was happy to see them...).
I stay all day long with my parents and now they are gone and I will go sleeping (no, s**t, there is Montreal GP...)
So, if you agree, send your race to Tedminator, 'cause the idea to drive 100 more laps on that track makes me vomit... ( I drove all night long almost 400 laps on it, please understand me...)

If you cannot race for some reason, please mail me as soon as possible (I think I will not go to bed until 22:00-22:30 italian time), I will do it if needed (but I hope isn't so! ;-) )

Sorry for the bad performance and good luck for the last stint
Alx.it

BTW, Tuomo drove the last stint and we finally won the race.
As a side note, this was one of the last times I saw both my my parents, 'cause only few months later my dad died after an heart attack. Since that, I raced almost all the events I took part with #33, in honour of his birthyear...

Regards
Alx.it :wave: