I wanted to comment a little on the race, this event in general and a bit or two about the cars.
First off a HUUUUUUGE thank you to the guys who made this event happen!
Thanks for the DRM Revival modding team to make and release the mod!
Thanks to Kevin for his amazing Riverside mod track - it's one of the truly enjoyable and historically so important race tracks!
Thanks to RD management to now support organized events with paid mod content from third parties.
… and VERY, VERY MUCH a big thanks to the guys who fought and worked hard behind the scenes to make such events finally happen @ RD !!!
I absolutely love that we now again see events with truly interesting vehicles on RD. Not too long ago we would have believe that anything other than vanilla content, mostly even NON-DLC content was the only way to go for public events at RD.
The handful of passionate mods who have fought for this are to be thanked that we see and keep seeing such racing, so everyone keep coming, fill up those races (like today, almost a full house !!!) - I know I will.
Well, if
@Allan Ramsbottom would not have tucked in the tail and
@InsaneOzzie would not have cranked the old bones again it would have been a full house - we hope to see no sorry excuses the next time the Gr.5 Turbo monsters are rolling.
… which begs the question - WHEN and WHERE is the next Gr.5 race?
It was an awesome race today! (except having been run over by a RED FERRARI no less and then run over by the entire field, feeling a little bit used there and dropped from 4th to LAST not even having crossed the start line yet) This stubborn German though persevered and finished 5th after disaster stroke !!!
Congrats to Jeremy who had to slow down for a few laps not to upset the timing sheets too much, winning this thing!
The Cars:
It has been mentioned a few times that the tires behaved a little short lived from what we are generally used to.
It would be nice to have a comment from the makers about this.
With me too (Porsche 935 K3) tires were great for about 20 min and could be used driving carefully for about 30 - 35 min without issues (other than a 1-2 seconds lap time drop).
I planned from the start to do a 1 stop strategy as I tested the tires earlier on and knew how much fuel the Porsche would burn in an hour. This works beautifully.
What I have seen in long run test sessions in the telemetry data is that even though Assetto Corsa shows a remaining tire capacity of only ~ 5-10 % after a hard 30 min run of the Porsche 935 K3 at Riverside with full race fuel and running boost at 90-100% (at full damage in the test sessions) is that telemetry data shows still no less than 95% rubber grip level (on a test track starting at 98 - 100% grip no less).
The overall commenting and relying on the Kunos tire app or apps as ProTire is flawed here as I have said for a long time - telemetry data draws a different picture than relying on the remaining tire capacity app display.
Interesting it would be if we could get a comment or two from the DRM Revival mod makers regarding this there behavior. I found it at all times enjoyable to drive hard - a nice behavior from cold tires to warmed up tires with plenty of grip, tire wear after 5-8 hard laps, a plateau of tire behavior at around 8-10 laps and a steep drop off in tire grip levels (by feeling of the car through the esses) at around lap 16.
It has been mentioned a few times and also has been a topic in the race debrief that although some of the car models are not on the same high level that was never ever a concern during driving these cars hard in a race situation.
At Riverside today with these cars one has barely the time to manage fuel load calculations, pit strategy, gaps to front and back, managing tires, watching lap times, constantly adjust boost pressure to gain on opponents / hold back opponents and always keeping an eye on the temperature gauge to not overcook that engine all the while not mis-shifting or damaging the car while going sideways in braking zones and at full opposite lock out of hairpins.
Todays race was on so many levels just PURE JOY !!!
I was especially impressed by the new faces I have met for the first time in a race today and apart the unlucky mishap at the start which I think could not really have been avoided there was good and tight racing, everyone watched their mirrors, lapping cars was always nice and clean - great racing!
THAT's WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR AT RD !!!
Transmissions:
Some people commented they could downshift regardless of rev-matching or clutching - I never tried that (I always rev-match on downshifting in braking zones and only shift without clutch (lifting the throttle though) when upshifting in some places around the track - maybe with upcoming races we could run higher damage if we get larger grids to make watching temperatures and proper shifting technique more important ?
ARB settings on the Porsche 935 K3:
As mentioned by others, ARB settings in the setup no matter how extreme apart seem to have little or no effect.
I built a setup for the Porsche 935 K3 all week long and had it generally soft (also with soft ARBs) and only did a last minute change to all stiff ARBs during a tire test yesterday - I forgot about that ARB change and raced today with all stiff ARBs and don't recollect much of a change in car behavior, even though I clipped the curbs through the esses generally.
I did not check up with telemetry data regarding the ARB changes though (checking on chassis roll and individual suspension travel easily would reveal any misbehavior - have noted that check on a todo list).
3D model / textures / graphics:
Much has been stated already about this in various threads so I won't repeat it here.
There are two things though with the Porsche 935 K3 that really stand out during racing which I hope will get fast tracked in a fix of an upcoming patch with priority:
- see through textures / gap in window frame in Porsche 935 K3
- wrong aspect ratios in mirrors (not just the Porsche but many of the cars)
Strangely the wrong mirror aspect ratio I see often in mod cars of vehicles that have been converted rather than scratch build for Assetto Corsa - maybe Assetto Corsa handles mirrors differently than say rFactor 1?
In any case the mirror images are "squeezed / squashed" and it would be great to have those fixed as I use the mirrors A LOT ;-)
Backfire / flames:
Also has been mentioned a few times. I have to comment though that although the current "animation" of the flames seem not be ideal on all cars (the Porsche flame animation stands out negatively) I do absolutely like that the flames in this mod do look different from the usual recent AC mod cars.
I also find that on these Gr.5 cars the size of the flames are NOT TOO BIG as some people comment, but on some cars even rather too small ;-)
I like the animation of the fame's on some of the cars very much on others (like the '77 935 or the K3) not so much, but please, do not downsize the flames ;-)
Since the first time I have tried the mod on release day and even more so after todays race I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE MOD !!!
Car naming:
The fantasy naming is fully understandable and I support the idea behind it.
I (and as I heard today I am not alone with that) am not a fan of the currently chosen names as they are simply far, far too confusing and some of them do not have an immediately visible relation to the cars.
Instead of the very cryptic current names how about some names that are easier to connect the cars to.
I find the Porsche naming especially confusing.
How about:
Zack Coupe (Zakspeed Capri) instead of "Marod Aero"
Rally B Monaco (Lancia Beta Montecarlo) instead of Lardo Mon!@#$% (see I forgot already what it's called)
…