Here's to yet another exciting year! (Image: Digital Trends)
So, this is the first post of 2016 in RENDY'S BLOG. Opening up a new chapter, I am continuing some of my existing WIPs and making new ones. However, there will be changes of how I will do them as in real life I will be focusing on my Internship phase in my college before finally going to the final phase of making a Final Paper and finally getting some job. The playing field is vast, but once you have a certain focus or two you can narrow down and find your best field.
As always, I'm focusing on Turbo Sliders WIPs, but I've got some space for my skinning projects considering that the array of models since the last post about skinning has grown a lot and the roster has become more and more interesting as time progresses.
#2 Black Falcon SLS AMG piloted by Arab Abdulaziz Al Faisal, German
Hubert Haupt, Dutch Yelmer Buurman and English Oliver Webb that took
this year's outright victory in the 2015-running 24 Hours of Dubai. (Image: Autocar India)
Finally the first legitimate post of my blog in 2015! I know, it's technically the second post of 2015, I just put that for the sake of randomness. Randomness aside, though, the first wave of events have passed. You have the Dakar rally that has recently finished hours ago at the time of this post, and then there were award shows like People's Choice Awards and Golden Globe Awards, yet there also was the 2015 24 Hours of Dubai, the tenth running 24-hour race event involving grand tourers, touring cars and endurance specials, battling it out for class victory. The race was won by the #2 Black Falcon SLS AMG driven by Arab Abdulaziz Al Faisal, German Hubert Haupt, Dutch Yelmer Buurman and English Oliver Webb, with the team's other success is the 1-2 in the 997 class, with the lady luck weren't on last year's winner Stadler Motorsport's favor due to an accident that eventually ended their run with 61 laps of mileage.
Yet, the more I think about the Dubai 24-hour race, I felt that there's more to the competitors and cars than in the race alone. I mean, they almost had everything in screaming colors; fireworks? Check. Competitors with interesting traits? You can check this post. A Corvette? Check. A big number of starters? Check. Rather than posting the race recap since I didn't stay up for full 24 hours, following the good 'ol Rendy's Blog tradition, this post will be dedicated to some of the unique things present in this year's race.
Endurance racing has never been so exciting. Imagine witnessing a race under the night lights, with Grand Touring cars speeding down the environment at 250 kmh+, overlapping each other, testing each driver's skills under the dark skies while making sure that they drive through the night with their cars free of scratches and technical failures. The race starts from the bright skies in the afternoon, then continues as the sun gradually sets and night comes, and as the sun goes up the next day the race to the finish line is near. That is if it's a 24-hours endurance, with easy mentions such as Daytona 24 Hours, Le Mans 24 Hours, Nurburgring 24 Hours, and Dubai 24 Hours.
This year in January, the round-the-clock endurance racing season kicks off with Dubai holding its 9th edition of its Dubai 24 Hours race, where Grand Tourers and Touring cars race together and try to be consistent and have their cars failure-free throughout one day. What makes it unique is that the series pits together GT cars owned by Pro and Amateur teams, with touring cars of varied specifications, and some road cars that are eligible to race there. This allows for a big number of racers in the race, even bigger than Le Mans that pits Le Mans Prototypes and GT cars does offer, which in this year's case is seventy seven. Yup, I'm not joking, 77. But I'm pretty sure I missed out some more participants that compete on the main race, but based on what I saw in a live timing site, it's 77. You know it's a real deal when there are more competitors than all the circuit's pit garage can hold :p
An SLS AMG GT3 car driving down Dubai, driving in one of the A6 classes. A6 cars are none other than FIA GT3-spec cars with the class
once again split into two subcategories of Pro and Pro-Amateur based on
the driver lineups. Image courtesy of Dubai 24 by Priocept.
I knew I've posted an article of last year's Le Mans race which was notorious for Allan Simonsen's death after just 14 minutes of race if you look at the endurance racing topic, but this time it's not a recap thingy as I learned two things that are new to me: Code 60, and refueling procedure that's unique to Dubai 24 Hours...
And I thought they were retiring from the race. It turned out they weren't and were refueling their cars... *headscratch*. Image courtesy supplied.
CODE 60 - What's that?
To simply put, Code 60 is a code where all drivers drive no faster than 60 kmh prior to the time the code is given. There's a set lap time for this case, which is 5 minutes and 29 seconds. So why there's a set lap time given prior to Code 60? The answer is if any driver sets a time faster than the mentioned time while Code 60 is still in effect, that driver will be given a penalty. It is a substitute to Safety Cars for this year's Dubai 24 Hours, and would be a potential alternative Safety Car method in the upcoming Le Mans race so to say.
"Creventic, the organisers of the Dubai 24 Hours, pioneered a method of neutralising their races in the event of an accident or other safety issue, without having to put a safety car on circuit. This is called “Code 60″, so named because it requires all cars on track to drive at 60km/h.
In the event of an accident or other scenario that requires marshalls or service vehicles to go on track, drivers will see purple Code 60 flags waved at all marshall posts. The Code 60 is also notified to the teams via the timing screens, and can be relayed to drivers via pit-to-car radios.
Once a Code 60 is activated, all cars must slow immediately to 60km/h from their current position and must not pass other cars. The Code 60 may last for less than a full lap, or might last for half an hour or more in the event of a large incident.
Since 60km/h is exactly 1 kilometre per minute, and the track length is 5.39 kilometres, a full Code 60 lap will take 5.39 minutes (5:24). Any cars posting a lap time under this during a Code 60 will receive a drive-through penalty.
How to Drive a Race Car Slowly
Driving a race car at a steady 60km/h is not as trivial as it sounds. Most race engines and transmissions are not the smoothest, or most efficient, at low RPM and low throttle. The top teams have special Code 60 engine maps to switch to, helping with this and reducing fuel consumption to a minimum during the Code 60 period.
The top teams will be aiming to drive each Code 60 lap at 59.9km/h. Expect to see some frustrated GT3 drivers intimidating other drivers into speeding up if they are “only” driving at 55 or 56km/h, as the cars are not allowed to pass during a Code 60 even if a car in front is driving below 60km/h.
Once a Code 60 period ends, cars are immediately free to accelerate flat out from their current position, which makes for some interesting drag racing. There is no coordinated restart at the start/finish line as there would be when a safety car pits. Drivers may struggle to maintain tyre temperature during a long Code 60, and cold tyres can lead to incidents on the restart.
Code 60 Refueling and Repair
The final consideration is refueling and car repair, both of which are allowed during a Code 60. Refuelling during a Code 60 costs about a lap to the rest of the field, compared to 2-3 laps during full race speed. So a huge advantage can be gained by doing a fuel stop under Code 60. But there’s a catch. All refueling at the Dubai 24 Hours is done at a central refueling station, not at the team garages. So this tactic can backfire if a car has to queue at the fuel station because too many other cars had the same idea and all the pumps are in use.
Teams can also use a Code 60 to perform repairs or scheduled maintenance on their cars with minimal loss of position. Many cars will need a full brake change (new discs and pads) at some point in the race, usually around the 12 hour mark, and this takes several minutes. So expect a flurry of mechanics activity and cars back in their garages if a Code 60 occurs during the night or early hours."
REFUELING METHOD
Also unique from other round-the-clock races, refueling is done on the pre-determined refueling station which resembles your everyday gas station where you refuel your car. Although for nine seasons this kind of refueling is no stranger if you follow the Dubai 24 Hours before I do, I thought it's interesting to show a different way of refueling in endurance races...
By no question this race has to be the most unique series with refueling procedure has its own place. I don't know if Nurburgring 24 Hours also do this because I haven't watched one but until I checked on Nurburgring 24 more, I can say that the refueling in Dubai is the most unique. It's like your run-of-the-mill gas station where everything is usual except the customers are race cars, grand tourers and touring cars, and refueling there is free of charge.
Glad that I caught the Dubai 24 Hours's Live Stream albeit I don't do it on frequently basis due to my limited quota (and the fact that I can't even bother to do big download antics from afternoon to 23:59 as I only have 1 GB there aside from the usual 11 GB from midnight to 11:59). While this is the first time I could catch an endurance race Indonesia cannot into (Indonesians are just into random twerks tbh -_-), I could learn new things that other endurance races don't.
Image courtesy of Dubai 24 Hours by Priocept (same link as the previous one)
Congratulations to the #20 Stadler Motorsport who managed to take their win after 603 laps throughout 24 hours, and please don't eat your heart out #2 Black Falcon Racing a.k.a the one with Jeroen Bleekemolen a.k.a the last year's victor, completing the podium behind ALL-INKL.com Munnich Motorsport isn't all bad ;)
And congratulations for all participants who survived this race albeit numerous reparations and most importantly teams that clinched their individual classes' podiums and win, especially GT Academy (yay Ordonez!) teams and Racing Divas (the Dutch all-girl racing team).
This post should've been one of the most off-topic blessings ever had. The very reason why is that this is November, and you know what kind of month November is? Writing Month! YES, that's why there's National Novel Writing Month a.k.a NaNoWriMo that's still running until the end of November. The goal there is to write a 50,000 words-long (and above) novel, simple as that if you're into writing. Though "National" might have a narrow connotation of "United States", there are international buddies who are interested and challenge themselves to write 50,000, and that international buddy includes yours truly, though my target is 25,000 which is half of the expected number, and what I write would be a fan fiction.
Sadly, due to preparations for a college event that I had to work my city miniature for such event, I had to skip days even though I promised myself to be a part of it. The more saddening moment is that I'm writing a fan fiction (yes, FAN fiction) meaning I would take a fandom to write, and the worst of all is that it is a CROSSOVER fic. And in order to not turning this crossover as failure (e.g., OOC characters, no planning), I still have to plan which characters and which fandoms and what their intentions are. And of course, what's a crossover without original characters? My idea is to make a Super Robot Wars-esque fan fiction with TV series characters in place of mechas. So, Blair Waldorf with Beam Spam anyone?
Thank goodness the city miniature turned out to be a success, albeit didn't win an award and looked a bit horrible IMO. -_-
But while this is a writing month, one person dares to STILL create game stuffs, especially for GeneRally. Though, this is not without reason, as the game, if you're following the developer blog of GeneRally sequel, will evolve to a even more addicting game than before. Here's a wet dream-worthy trailer showing the game's new graphics and an announcement for its Kickstarter's open date. O_O
New graphics might mean new features, but we don't know any of them yet other than the new tiles exclusive for the sequel (did you see those pit stop garages?), improvements of the old tiles (a concrete wall with a catchfence? Modern-looking city building? New lamps?), and all those additions (10 cars max on the grid? *o*). Furthermore, one dev member also said that the poly count for the cars in the sequel will be ten times the current version and perhaps the game would allow custom-made graphics for cars (read: skin) instead coloring the polies one by one. Did anyone imagining a tribal sticker on Maximum Tune games being put on a General car? Ehm...
Return to Trackmaking and Carmaking
Talk about GR Trackmaking, I'm currently doing a remake and an evolution at the same time on my first track released on GRIF: Al Dasein. The course is a racing circuit that's set in the middle of a desert somewhere in Middle East. Previously the track is pretty much empty with just desert and nothing else (take a note that I WAS a beginner at that time), and this time the remake will evolve the track to be better. Taking inspiration of Areen's Dubai Autodrome (and Dubai Autodrome itself in real life), the track will be promised a Dubai-styled environment that should fit Al Dasein the best. Yet somehow does anyone see the outer layout's resemblance to Laguna Seca (Mazda Raceway)?
While the past Dasein has two layouts, (which doesn't make any difference in driving anyway albeit its shape...) this Dasein will have four: Outer layout, short layout, and two other layouts with both of them carry their own difficulty levels. The inner section of the evolved course is totally revamped to compensate a different level of difficulty from the outer layout one, and of course that change comes with another idea of making a variety of interconnecting layouts, which also comes with a shorter layout fit for racing slower cars. While this is far from finish, the track would have palm trees and elevations in the future, but let's hope there's no such thing as depression so my WIP will not end up like my Monaco track. (Although I would redo Monaco with WS 200 in the near future)
While I'm making a new track for GR, I did posted on my Twitter some of my finished car models via my Twitpic and GRIF too. Shown cars on your left side (clockwise from left) were Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX, Mazda RX-8 Type-S, and Mooncraft Shiden RT/16. While I made those models out of boredom, thus defined no physics of their own as I still am curious as to how would I portray them in game, there's one car I quickly made at the time of this post:
Remember me? Your friendly electric front wheel drive friend, Prospect.R!
Yup, that's Prospect.R, also known as Prototype Sports Car Project R if you read my previous blog posts. Yet, this is no special Prospect.R as the one whose picture you see is its road spec. The Prospect.R was actually going to be a purpose-built electric-powered FWD coupe only as it was used as one of the cars for Rally The Master project (which is actually Fandom March Madness meets Race of Champions), but seeing the good reception of the car even though it had only two votes in Car of the Month, a road-friendly spec of the car is made available to the public. The performance of this car matches the ones found in road variants of F2 kit cars, preferrably Citroen Xsara and Peugeot 306 Maxi, with an electric engine exclusively-tailored to the car, branding it as one of the powerful electric-powered cars out there.
It is also implied that the car excels on acceleration due to its ability to reach a maximum of 10,000 rpm in the aforementioned exclusive "eco-friendly" engine, reaches 0-100 kmh in 4,1 seconds, has a four-speed transmission, and 580 kg of curb weight. The competition spec has PROSPECT-XXXG01 (sounds familiar?) engine inside its hood, while the road spec would have a normal road-level engine of RG-EXL39 thanks to the coordination with [R]GARAGE who are also responsible for what they did to the SST Sports. The car also has one-speed transmission and has 2K rpm lesser, thus having a lower top speed.
Rumors of Rallycross specification of Prospect.R circulates as one tuning house (name supplied) showed an interest to make a Rallycross-spec model based on the Prospect.R . Also recently a leaked hand-drawn image is shown, showing how a Rallycross specification would look like:
Two Turbo Sliders tracks' WIPs have evolved. Nippon Highlands is set to be released the same time as Monsoon is finished (making this release a "Double Bill" release). While Nippon Highlands is finished, all that's left for Monsoon is the lighthouse and the configurations. However, I kinda sad about how short Nippon Highlands' full course layout is judging by the 33,xxx" laptime using F1 Premium, the official Turbo Sliders F1 car. I thought it would be longer considering the layout but whatever...
Recently I've created a Google Plus account to complete my collection of social media accounts. The current matter now is whether I should open deviantART and Instagram accounts in the near future or save it for later. If you'd like to add me to my G+ network, feel free to do it, just make sure you don't do anything suspicious to my account, okay?
You may notice that the blog has a new template here. Right, I'm experimenting with the new layout so this blog would look better than it was before this template is installed. The problem is that I'm editing some of the elements inside this template, and that includes deleting things that doesn't seem fit so it still looks like a supplement for [R]GARAGE site. Speaking of the site, I'll try to update the site as I have difficulties finding time to edit such HTML5 site. Am I the only one who has fears of some GR / TS players' computers too weak for HTML5? Oh... orz
Posts about skinning would come up next. And I'm considering to post a third Inside The Mall post. The mall that I will be writing for is still a guesswork, so do wait until it's posted :p
And as a consolation prize to what could be one of the "too long" posts:
Soap opera plots are scandalous, but what happens when you focus to the bottom right of the pic?
