The International Manufacturers Championship '67

[IMC '67]

Looks like I'll be sidelined for the next race...

 

[IMC '67]

Another very important area in order to get the right 1960's immersion of being there, are the often huge crowds that were gathered around the tracks. Most of the 1960's tracks I'm modifying for the game are full of clumsy added modern looking people looking retarded with the 3D people being the worst. Why the hell didn't some of the track modders just keep the GREAT looking low-res 2D crowds from GPL?!

A Ferrari 330 P4 is passing through the second chicane at Monza while an authentic looking 1960's crowd are following the action

 

[IMC '67]

New to me colour footage from the 1967 Monza 1000 Km event. The video title wrongly says 1965 which might explain why I haven't seen the clip before. It's definitely 1967 though. The double exposure film montage is super cool although it's not ideal if you're using it for reference purposes, haha. Too bad the choice of music is disgusting.

By watching the video I also learnt that the Paul Vestey entered Ferrari 275 GTB/C had a white rear panel which I've added to the car.

 

[IMC '67]

A small but cool GTR2 game detail I hadn't noticed until recently is that the flagman who waves the checkered flag at race finish actually brings out the flag with one lap to go although of course not waving it. Since I'm not using any HUD info whatsoever, this is really useful in order to know when the last lap is starting.

 

[IMC '67]

Crossing the line a lap later for the finish with the flagman now waving the checkered flag. I've also replaced the pit radio finish message with a distant crowd cheering sound to further confirm to the 1960s player that the race is over.

Note how dirty everything looks after 6 hours of endurance racing!

 

[IMC '67]

A RAI camera helicopter is hovering low while the field is approaching the first chicane right after the start of the 1967 Monza 1000 Km. race. At the front, Mike Spence is holding position in the Chaparral with Lorenzo Bandini closely following in the no. 3 Ferrari 330 P4. And no, the P&G pace car is not part of the race.

 

[IMC '67]

An important gameplay enhancement regarding driver swaps in game is that the F.I.A. regulations at the time stated that a driver can drive for a maximum of 3 hours and then is required to have at least one hour rest before driving again. This means that the player basically can drive no more than two race stints in a row and then is required to hand over the car to the co-driver. If I'm driving for a top team with a fast co-driver, I usually take equal turns with him for the stints. But if I'm like in the Monza pics above is driving for a private team (here Scuderia Filipinetti, Ford GT40 Mk I) with a really slow co-driver, I'm always doing double stints. My co-driver above, Claude Ballot-Léna, was 16 (!) seconds slower than the best placed Ford GT40 Mk I (Schlesser/Ligier, Ford France, who in turn were 15 seconds slower than the pole sitting Chaparral!) in the real 1967 Monza qualy. Although Claude only drove one stint in the game race, we ended up 4 laps down on the race winner but only a lap behind the Ford France GT40. I drove the first two stints as well as the fourth and matched the lap times of Schlesser/Ligier throughout the 50% race (50 laps).

 

[NPanic]

One thing i noticed looking at these pictures though, having been to Monza this weekend, the mountains in the background are way too pronounced. Not that it bothers me or anything, looks scenic, just for the sakes of realism, maybe something to look into changing/correcting.

 

[IMC '67]

Yeah, I'm aware of that and it's a compromise due to GTR2 limitations. The race finish pics above are taken at around 6 o'clock in the evening whereas I've tried to optimize everything to look the best during the majority of the race. And it's not just to adjust the sunset fog value settings in the track's .gdb file as it will start to affect other parts of the track in a bad way. Also, April 25, 1967 was a clear and crisp spring day so I guess the mountains actually did look a bit more pronounced that day compared to for example last weekend.

The mountains at 1 p.m. race start time

 

[IMC '67]

Something really cool although I'll have to test a lot more to be certain, is that at a track like Monza with its very rough and steep banking, suspension failure is a lot more common than on other tracks.

(This is not how the timing screen layout will look in the end and is just a placeholder).

 

[IMC '67]

The steep Monza banking is taking its toll on the cars' suspensions...