I've been playing around with GTR2 and the Power and Glory mod quite a bit lately trying to get a handle on the cars that we'll be using in the upcoming NASRL Vintage GT season, and I've found myself getting more and more frustrated.

As much as I love the vintage touring cars and the P&G mod, I just can't come to grips with how the old Falcons, Mustangs, and Jaguars handle, and these cars will make up the bulk of the field for the next Vintage GT series. I've really been itching to race, but the vintage P&G cars just don't seem to be satisfying the urge, and I don't think I'm going to have the bandwid   [... read in full]

This week's NASRL PnG/GTR2 event at Dijon was effectively a wash-out for the league in general, but for me it morphed into the most realistic sim racing experience to date.

Qualifying went well for our scheduled league event at Dijon, with no apparent problems for any of the participants. I put in a qualifying time very close to my personal best, which was good enough for a seventh-place spot on the starting grid. Unfortunately, the night's problems started at the starting grid -- when the race transitioned from qualifying to race, several people who had qualified successfully were marked as "disqualified," which prevented them from even joining the   [... read in full]

It's been a while (almost a year now), but with the release of the Power & Glory V2.0 mod I've been drawn back into sim racing yet again.

I'm back on-board with the NASRL folks participating in their Power & Glory series, prepping to run a Lightweight Jaguar 5-speed tonight at Hidden Valley. Should be a lot of fun.

But that's not what I'm here to write about -- I'm here to write how I just realized today that I am merely one degree away from automotive greatness on not one but TWO fronts.

Several years ago I got to meet Indy 500 winner Eddie Cheever, and my wife and I got to hear him talk about when he was racing in Formula 1. When he was selected    [... read in full]

This week's NASRL Vintage Series event was at Riverside -- we're now past the mid-season point and we've switched over from the "little" Touring Cars (TC) to the bigger Gran Touring (GT) cars, which means Mustangs and Falcons and speed, oh my!

Everybody chose Mustangs except for the winner, Miguel de Raton, who wisely went with a Falcon. All the Mustang drivers seemed to choose the same car, because aside from Miguel's Falcon, my yellow Group 5 Mustang, and one lone blue Mustang, all the other cars in the field were either red or red-and-white, which made for a rather bland race for the spectators.

This I know, because I ended up spectating for the last    [... read in full]

This week's qualifying for totally sucked -- after dipping into the 2:09 range earlier in the week during practice, I just couldn't get it together on race night. I wasn't overly wound-up, but I just couldn't seem to find my way around. I turned a 2:10 lap in practice, then couldn't do any better than a 2:12 in qualifying.

Starting from the rear was probably a blessing, though, because the start was ugly! My qual time put me at the back of the field for the start, one spot ahead of Bill Guillame, and things in front of me were just plain crazy -- and not in a good way. With a view from the rear, things seemed to go well going through Tarzan (T1) and Gerlach    [... read in full]

What a race! I chose the Alfa Jr. because I just couldn't find speed AND consistency with any other car. I did manage to put together a good setup and I got pretty consistent with the Alfa during practice throughout the week, so I knew I SHOULD be able to run in the 1:39 range throughout my full fuel run with no problems.

Sunday was a busy day, though, and unlike most weeks I didn't get a chance to turn ANY offline laps at all before joining up for official practice online. I was tired by the time the race rolled around, so I had no expectations going in.

My 11th place qualifying run was no surprise -- about what I had expected. What I hadn't expected was   [... read in full]

Internet connections can be tricky things -- thankfully for me, this week's NASRL Vintage GT race (using the Power & Glory mod for GTR2) went off without a hitch, which was a refreshing change of pace after two consecutive DNFs for the first two races of the season due to discos (that's "disconnects," not something dance-related). Not sure if the stars were aligned, or if changing my "Connection Speed" in the multiplayer lobby from "ISDN" to "DSL/Cable" did the trick -- whatever the reason, it was definitely nice finally be able participate in an actual race.

And what a race it was! This week's scheduled event was Monaco -- beautiful track with lots of grea   [... read in full]

What a week! It all started over the weekend when one of the steering springs on my TSW2 wheel broke -- or I thought it was the spring, anyway. After I opened things up, I discovered that the coupler that attaches the spring to the bolt on the steering shaft had actually sawed THROUGH the head of the bolt, shearing it off.

Yikes!

That might seem like an odd failure, but it’s not so odd when you consider that this wheel has seen almost constant use over the past 10 years (yes, I’ve had it that long). Aside from the occasional potentiometer replacement (I’m on my third set of pots) and the recent re-wiring I did to make it easier to replace the pots    [... read in full]

Yes, this really IS a public service announcement . . . but it is racing-related, so please read on:

If you live in or near Indianapolis and you're a race fan -- especially an IndyCar, IRL, or CART fan -- you might want to check out the "Cookin' Out for Kids" benefit for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis. This is a benefit backyard barbecue-type cookout that is being held on Thursday, May 1st, 2008, 6:00 pm, at the Brickyard Crossing Pavillion at 4400 West 16th Street. The evening includes guest drivers Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay, special guest team owners Michael Andretti and Derrick Walker, and photo opportunities with IRL drivers. The Walker    [... read in full]

Tonight at Mid-Ohio in a Jaguar lightweight 5-speed E-Type was supposed to be my first outing with the R2P NASRL Vintage Series league -- I had raced with the NASRL folks a bit in GTL, but this would have been my first organized outing in the GTR2 Power & Glory cars.

Notice yet how I'm speaking in the past tense? "Was supposed to be" . . . "would have been" . . . etc.

Yeah, me too -- I noticed that it was going to be past tense as soon as GTR2/P&G locked-up on me before I even made it to the starting grid. Still kinda steaming about it, too.

There's irony afoot here, because in the prerace message thread for this race I made a post in response to some di   [... read in full]