After nearly a 3 year absence from sim racing I was as it turned out, briefly back in the racing seat.
Well the old office chair that is, but hey its got a built in handbrake to keep it still ;-)
I got the G25 back from my nephew last month. Without the power adapter of coerce
iRacing had been high on my wish list for a long time but I wanted to wait until the content had matured a little more towards road racing. Oh and more importantly, my first born baby came/comes first.
On Saturday I got the new power adapter. Riped of the paper wrapping and called a friend with the other hand.
Loaded up LFS and had a blast chasing one another for a few hours. I've been prepping him up to sign up to iRacing with me. But think I've scared him a little with the seriousness of the sim.
And he's probably worried about being too slow, well he should as he's past 50 now and uses two sets of glasses ;-) I know he will love it, as he enjoys taking part in the race as much as I do winning them
Well I said I would buy iRacing later that night and invite him to a test drive.
I took out my credit card but before I paid I noticed the code box. Checked my backup mail and found a special invitation code from iRacing from before it was launched, it still worked and saved me a few bucks
As people say. Download and install was easy as pie but all the info from the web page seamed a little overwhelming at first glance. As an old GPL racer I will probably never loose my love for single seater's.
I've watched lots of clips with the Skippy on YouTube and thought it was part of the package, wrong.
Silly decision really as its most likely THE best car to learn to drive in. Well forked out a few more bucks and was eager to take it for a spin.
It turned out to be horrible. Well I couldn't tell for sure if the car was OK or not, because the wheel was not giving a good FF feeling and I had huge dead zone to master. The wheel calibration process went wrong all the time. Spent most of the night trying to make it work. Gave up frustrated and wrote support letter to iRacing.
Next day I searched and tested G25 settings, It didn't perform so well in other games too. The Logitech profiler software had been running in the background with custom profiles for each game. I turned it OFF and made a permanent profile in Windows control panel. Got back to Lime Rock and suddenly everything was great. After a few laps me and Skippy where the best of friends.
I was eager to get into a race as I felt confident with the handling and I also knew Lime quite well. But I was not eligible to drive the Skippy in races it seamed, well at first glance. The only race open to me was Laguna driving the Solstice. 30min to start. Took it for a test ride but spent to much time in the options menu to get a feel for the car and track, selected forfeit. To my surprise a little later, I think I'm listed as a starter in the race, even though I didn't even get to the warm up?
Found a new race and went practicing again.
Never liked Laguna, T1 5 and 6 are easy to loose control in, not forgetting the blind exit at the corkscrew and the following long sweeper. I know the track layout but only raced there a few times and never been close to master it. Good news it changed in a flash as I quickly noticed the excellent apex and road markers. That in combination with the locked gear ratio made it easy to get into a steady rhythm quickly improving lap times, but I was slow, around 1.55 at first.
Race 1. First in iRacing.
Told my self to focus on driving safe and staying on track. On the second lap I got hit by a car that came flying back onto the track after a bad exit on T6. At first I thought, its not so bad. Then I noticed I had to hold the wheel 45 degrees to the right to go straight. Limped back to pit and went back out when it was repaired, took a while ;-) finished last but exited and happy with the experience.
The Solstice proved it self to be easy and fun to drive, so he's my pal too ;-)
A tiny flick, lift of and slide into the turn with full throttle, well by the end of the day it felt like that ;-)
Race 2. My first WIN
A little more confident in car and track but my hart was beating hard and knuckles locked tight around the wheel.
Started 6 on grid and got up to second on lap 2. On lap six I took the lead and hold it to the end.
My fastest lap was 01.50.645
This was everything i hoped it would be and something I've missed since my GPL league days.
Not because I won the race, its the feeling of being on the track fighting, trying hard to stay in control, of emotions and car and not f..... up.
Race 3. Another race another trophy
Started 8th on the grid but advanced to second on the first lap. Swapped places with leader Ben Adams a few times in the middle of the race but lost control in lap 7 and T. Yasuoka went flying by.
Snatched the second place back on the last lap
Wow.. I was totally exhausted by the intensity and the level of concentration, witch I'm not used to anymore.
But I wanted MORE.
Race 4.
Started at 11th on the grid but exploited the usual first round chaos and hopefully made a few smart moves too. Got up to 4th on the second lap and it looked like it could be another podium finish
Then suddenly a huge BANG sounded of next to me and everything electric went black.
The "good as original" power adapter didn't physically explode but it sounded like it had.
I had to go out to the fusebox and turn the power back on. To my relief my PC booted up again.
But my G25 is dead, or at least the crappy power supply is. I hope the G25 is OK too
If it only it had hold up until the race was over, instead it struck me like lightning and left me screaming for MOORE.
And the eBay seller has not responded yet
F...
Well the old office chair that is, but hey its got a built in handbrake to keep it still ;-)
I got the G25 back from my nephew last month. Without the power adapter of coerce
iRacing had been high on my wish list for a long time but I wanted to wait until the content had matured a little more towards road racing. Oh and more importantly, my first born baby came/comes first.
On Saturday I got the new power adapter. Riped of the paper wrapping and called a friend with the other hand.
Loaded up LFS and had a blast chasing one another for a few hours. I've been prepping him up to sign up to iRacing with me. But think I've scared him a little with the seriousness of the sim.
And he's probably worried about being too slow, well he should as he's past 50 now and uses two sets of glasses ;-) I know he will love it, as he enjoys taking part in the race as much as I do winning them
Well I said I would buy iRacing later that night and invite him to a test drive.
I took out my credit card but before I paid I noticed the code box. Checked my backup mail and found a special invitation code from iRacing from before it was launched, it still worked and saved me a few bucks
As people say. Download and install was easy as pie but all the info from the web page seamed a little overwhelming at first glance. As an old GPL racer I will probably never loose my love for single seater's.
I've watched lots of clips with the Skippy on YouTube and thought it was part of the package, wrong.
Silly decision really as its most likely THE best car to learn to drive in. Well forked out a few more bucks and was eager to take it for a spin.
It turned out to be horrible. Well I couldn't tell for sure if the car was OK or not, because the wheel was not giving a good FF feeling and I had huge dead zone to master. The wheel calibration process went wrong all the time. Spent most of the night trying to make it work. Gave up frustrated and wrote support letter to iRacing.
Next day I searched and tested G25 settings, It didn't perform so well in other games too. The Logitech profiler software had been running in the background with custom profiles for each game. I turned it OFF and made a permanent profile in Windows control panel. Got back to Lime Rock and suddenly everything was great. After a few laps me and Skippy where the best of friends.
I was eager to get into a race as I felt confident with the handling and I also knew Lime quite well. But I was not eligible to drive the Skippy in races it seamed, well at first glance. The only race open to me was Laguna driving the Solstice. 30min to start. Took it for a test ride but spent to much time in the options menu to get a feel for the car and track, selected forfeit. To my surprise a little later, I think I'm listed as a starter in the race, even though I didn't even get to the warm up?
Found a new race and went practicing again.
Never liked Laguna, T1 5 and 6 are easy to loose control in, not forgetting the blind exit at the corkscrew and the following long sweeper. I know the track layout but only raced there a few times and never been close to master it. Good news it changed in a flash as I quickly noticed the excellent apex and road markers. That in combination with the locked gear ratio made it easy to get into a steady rhythm quickly improving lap times, but I was slow, around 1.55 at first.
Race 1. First in iRacing.
Told my self to focus on driving safe and staying on track. On the second lap I got hit by a car that came flying back onto the track after a bad exit on T6. At first I thought, its not so bad. Then I noticed I had to hold the wheel 45 degrees to the right to go straight. Limped back to pit and went back out when it was repaired, took a while ;-) finished last but exited and happy with the experience.
The Solstice proved it self to be easy and fun to drive, so he's my pal too ;-)
A tiny flick, lift of and slide into the turn with full throttle, well by the end of the day it felt like that ;-)
Race 2. My first WIN
A little more confident in car and track but my hart was beating hard and knuckles locked tight around the wheel.
Started 6 on grid and got up to second on lap 2. On lap six I took the lead and hold it to the end.
My fastest lap was 01.50.645
This was everything i hoped it would be and something I've missed since my GPL league days.
Not because I won the race, its the feeling of being on the track fighting, trying hard to stay in control, of emotions and car and not f..... up.
Race 3. Another race another trophy
Started 8th on the grid but advanced to second on the first lap. Swapped places with leader Ben Adams a few times in the middle of the race but lost control in lap 7 and T. Yasuoka went flying by.
Snatched the second place back on the last lap
Wow.. I was totally exhausted by the intensity and the level of concentration, witch I'm not used to anymore.
But I wanted MORE.
Race 4.
Started at 11th on the grid but exploited the usual first round chaos and hopefully made a few smart moves too. Got up to 4th on the second lap and it looked like it could be another podium finish
Then suddenly a huge BANG sounded of next to me and everything electric went black.
The "good as original" power adapter didn't physically explode but it sounded like it had.
I had to go out to the fusebox and turn the power back on. To my relief my PC booted up again.
But my G25 is dead, or at least the crappy power supply is. I hope the G25 is OK too
If it only it had hold up until the race was over, instead it struck me like lightning and left me screaming for MOORE.
And the eBay seller has not responded yet
F...
