GTPlanet

It would appear the phrase “What a week this has been!” has become wholly synonymous with the Community Spotlight. For the past couple of weeks it has been the perfect combination of words to quickly set the scene for everything that follows, and with everything that’s gone on in the past couple of days relative to E3, you could very well imagine just how much of a week this has been when compared to those prior. This is going to be a special one-off Community Spotlight that will focus on E3 while still delivering the content expected from the Spotlight.

The phrase “what a week this has been” was the flavor of the month in May, and the landscape looks no different for the month of June. With things seemingly revving on all cylinders day after day, it seems fitting to utter that very phrase.

In the latest episode of ‘Jay Leno’s Garage’, Jay talks tech with Chief Engineer Zack Eakin about Nissan’s Nissan GT-R LM Nismo, getting in-depth about the engineering decisions that gave birth to this remarkable car.

As we head into the weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix, one of the ten most prestigious races in the world, and a contributing achievement to the Triple Crown of Motorsport, I have but one thing to say: it’s time to put up or shut up. While that may sound rehearsed it couldn’t be closer to the truth unless I were present at the event myself doing play-by-play commentary. While the latter half of the season can very well cement the place of the year’s World Driver Champion, the Monaco Grand Prix is an achievement unto itself and is rightfully treated as such.

These past couple of weeks have been adventurous to say the least and for me to think things would suddenly calm down was nothing short of foolhardy, if anything at all things seem to be becoming more and more adventurous as time passes on. Whether it be the excitement concerning what this year’s E3 could bring, next week’s release of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, or the increasing feedback surrounding Project CARS, the community here never rests.

I find myself repeating a sentiment from the previous week: what an absolute joy this week has been. Project CARS is finally making its way out to the world and the initial reception has been nothing short of fantastic, the scene in Formula 1 is beginning to heat up again (don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil anything!) and will hopefully carry over to the next race at Monaco because this season needs the action from last year.

GT Academy 2015 has officially kicked off with the first round this past Tuesday and features the 600-horse Nissan GT-R NISMO going to task around Silverstone, home to GT Academy for the past several years. If you haven’t had a chance to partake in the opening round you’d be best served to stop by our dedicated GT Academy forum and strap yourself in for the drive of your life.

After the successful launch of the GTPlanet Endurance Series at the end of last year, we are excited to announce the addition of the GTPlanet Karting Series.

It’s no secret that Gran Turismo 2 is my absolute favorite in the series, I mention it whenever the opportunity presents itself, however, the one thing I regret when I met Kazunori Yamauchi during Jalopnik’s inaugural Film Festival wasn’t talking to him about GT2, it was forgetting to bring my imported copy of Gran Turismo 4 with me to have it signed by him.

What a week this has been, gathering the assorted contents of this week’s festivities and ensuring it lives up to the expectational hype that’s been in play since last week has been a lot easier than one might imagine, especially considering I’ve had this planned out since last week. I can tell you right now that if you’re expecting free vouchers for your local fast-food or clothing stores you might be disappointed, but even if I had those I’d probably keep them for myself and post pictures of me ea—look, the point being this is going to be a fantastic read this week so you’d be strap in because you’ll be here for a while.

I’ve said it many times in the past and it bares being repeated: racing games have come quite a way and one of the more recent innovations is that of a photo mode where you can break free of the action on the track and attempt to tell a story by taking a picture. It is a feature that is legitimately addicting because there’s no restrictions on what one could do, you are free to tell your story and be as creative as need be, or you can simply catch that one moment during the race that made your jaw drop.

It’s going to be addressed in full later on, but I’d like to remind all of you that the Member of the Week has not been discontinued in any form or fashion, it’s simply undergone a remodel of sorts, something you’ll be enlightened to a bit later on.

Thrustmaster has been aggressively expanding their sim-racing hardware line over the past year, first rolling out the new T300 RS wheel unit and then releasing updated shifter and pedal add-ons.

The Community Spotlight has proven itself to be quite the undertaking these past several weeks, and it’s key that the community has its involvement, otherwise it’s simply me picking and choosing what I like and that’s not what this should be about. So I, T-12, need your help in making the Community Spotlight everything it should be. No, this isn’t an impromptu presidential campaign, and no I’m not pointing at my screen right now so you can stop looking around your room and scaring your loved ones.

It’s finally here, the weekend I’ve been looking forward to since the 24th of November last year, the 2015 Formula 1 season is upon us and I can only expect great things considering last season was nothing short of fantastic. How will Sebastian Vettel fair with Ferrari? Something tells me that Ferrari might be expecting the second coming of Michael Schumacher with the 4-time champion by their side. In response to this possibility, I’ll say now as I said then: if Fernando Alonso couldn’t pull it off then I don’t see Vettel being able to either.

The 2015 Formula 1 season begins next week! I’ll dive into that a bit later on, but needless to say I’m plenty excited and am looking forward to what awaits at each and every corner.

As announced last month, 2012 GT Academy champion Jann Mardenborough was selected to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Lucas Ordoñez behind the wheel of Nissan’s radical new GT-R LM NISMO LMP1 car. Read below as Jann describes his thoughts and feelings after the announcement – and what it was like getting that call confirming he was selected for the program…

This won’t be something I make mention of every week, but gracious me is looking through threads for hours on end not a task for the weary. You have informative threads, helpful threads, threads that encourage intellectual discussion, threads that cultivate constructive criticism, threads that—you get the point by now. There’s just so much to go through how can I possibly choose one over another without finding it absolutely necessary to group everything that I’ve looked at prior?

Shifters are sometimes forgotten in the sim racing hardware market today. Unlike the Logitech G25 and G27, which dominated the landscape in years’ past, few wheel sets include an independent shifter accessory nowadays, relying on paddles instead.

It’s not everyday you find yourself browsing countless threads, countless galleries, and a countless number of user posts looking for those that stimulate intelligent and thoughtful discussion, are helpful, and everyone walks away knowing more than they did beforehand. It’s no easy task looking for members that present themselves in such a fashion to the community at large that they stand out among that same community – and there’s where this new feature comes in. Someone has to make sure some of the very best that GTPlanet has to offer is highlighted in a consistent and well laid-out fashion.