I am not what you’d call a “people person.” At work, I am generally a quiet contributor. While the office is typically buzzing with the usual chatter ranging from TV shows, gossip and assorted personal issues, I am usually absorbed in my work. I am more comfortable as an observer and it keeps me free of distraction so I can concentrate on more important things (like pivot tables hehe).
When I sit down to play a racing game, it is usually the same story…I race alone. Every so often I’ll join an online race, but I usually get annoyed by anyone who insists on using their headset just as easily as the guy who has to purposely crash into everyone. So, I race alone. In Forza 4, I’m usually playing in test-drive mode (where I can tune while driving) or doing hot laps. The goal is to go lap after lap, trying to beat my best time. After about 5 laps I can usually get into a nice groove. Soon after, lap times get very consistent and I’ll start chasing tenths of a second here or there using my ghost as a competitor. I’ll try to out brake my ghost, or carry more speed through a corner or try a different line all in order to post my best possible time.
The other day, I was trying to post my best time with an A600 rated NSX on the Maple Valley course (a favorite of mine). I had a couple of NSX’s in my garage and I tried 2 of them with different tuning philosophies. I chose the older 1992 NSX-R as my lightweight/lower power car and a 1995 NSX-R as my more powerful albeit heavier car. Again, the goal was to see which car could go faster with the same class A rating.
The tune for each car ended up being very similar with slight differences in roll-bar and spring settings for each car. I assumed I would go faster in the light car as I could outbrake the heavier car and try to carry more speed through each corner (since Maple Valley is a fairly high speed course). In the end, I was almost 2 seconds faster with the heavier car. The ’95 felt more composed and a bit easier to drive despite it being 500 pounds heavier. So, I’ll go back to the ’92 car and make some changes for next time!
According to the leaderboards online, I am ranked within the top 5% on this course with an A-Class car (out of nearly 600,000 players). However, the leading lap times with similar cars (NSX GT) are over TEN SECONDS faster!! Crazy!! Back to the drawing board…
Pedal to the Plastic 