- 320
- GTClub_Alexino
I'm lucky: in three years I always qualify in the podium and this year in the Live qualification too. Seating there to spend as well as you can your chance it give you a lot of adrenaline: few laps in orser to gain the final session in Rome, Vallelunga. You need few istants for realize what it is at stake and being overemotional can demage you and all the work you got to arrive there. Press Start and after the first lap, the others ones push ahead with fluidity, the last thing missed to be everything perfect is your mother yelling "Dinner is served!"
You think only to do as best as you can the onlyu thing you are prearranged: to step on the gas.
We already know the perfect lap doesn't exists, there's alway a way to improve your best lowering it in tenths or millesimals. You come back home hoping your adversaries, the other 400 guys, did not beat your time and did not be vain the 1600 km of tests done to try to qualify yourself, the daily gym, the diet and the infinite hours playing Gran Turismo 6 with the Club (www.gtclubitalia.com) wich I'm the patriarch.
Now I bethinking about how the engines passion, the speedness and the natural competitiveness predisposition bring me to the chance to realize all this I live now. It's fantastic!
I feel like a three years old child who recive sweeties when I compet in a online race and it's in that moment that realize all of this is in my DNA.
Then the call arrived: I won the nation final, I was the faster one. Good! There is no time to waste, now star the hardest part: I have to improve my intenseness to GT 6, I have to learn the tecnichal Motorsport english terms, I have to train for the physical tests and, the most important thing, display that I'm, once again the faster with a real car.
I came back in memories at the 2012 and 2013 finals and I compare they with this one. I lost 20 kg, I win the opportunity to practice with the Gran Turismo 6 best drivers in the world, I bought a professional kart with I can improve my driver abilities with my Club mate Matteo Masiera (finalist in Silverstone 2012) and I don't feel the competition stress, no more.
Why all this determination?
I've been always so sporty, untill I wasonly a child, the competitivity brought me to reserch the perfection, for all days I worked, I worked hard to improve my limits.
At my thirty, I noticed that my childhood dream was there, covered by dust.
Then, the call from GTAccademy arrived to woke me up to the doze called daily routine, the one which don't allowed me to think big, it did not meve me beyond my imagination. You had hard workouts, get sacrifices, you believe in your capacities, and wait for facing the others guys in Vallelunga.
The days before the the final match there is only one thought in mind: be the faster one.
5th July: finally I arrive in Vallelunga, I'm happy and exited like a five years old child waiting his birthday gift.
Twenty four finalists are there, everyone are ready to give the best as their best and hinder to gain one of the six free positions to reach the international final in Silverstone.
Some are very young, buffed (so much) but it's not a problem for me. This year I changed mind, I decided this will be my last chance: sink or swim!
First test: Fitness
It's the hardest test for me, I worked me out a lot, too much! I have to do the best, my dream have to win the regrets.
In the different competition, I win, I'm happy but the other guys are always there for the same focus. At the end of the second to last test I'm shattered and the "beep test "to do. (test for calculate the capacity to do jerks). At level 7.4 I don't feel my legs, no more, the breath increses and I think to stop me. My proud stops me to the idea to stop and for the first time I reached the 8 level. I never reached that level before. It has been a fantastic sensation and again I push my own limits. It was the right message I was waiting for: I believe in it!
Second test: clock circuit with Nissan Juke
Finally I'm sitting in sporty car. I'm feeling comfortable as always when I drive. I adjust my seat in order to see better the circuit and I listen determinate and clear mind to the instructor.Start.
At first lap I push the gas to know how the car answer, in order to I'll do better the second one (the last). It Start the second and the last chance. I'm stressless, my only though is "Don't make mistakes!"
Stoops come easily, the car don't loose grip and it give me the possibility to get faster. The brake is good and I'm naturally comfortable. The match is over.
The instructor seems satisfied, few words that you can perceeve positives and negatime at the same time, but I know I was good, so no problem. There will be the other tests to think about.
Third test: gaming
This year I adopted a new technic to improve the sensibility in the first laps and seems work: at the first test I'm the the second of all. Great! In the other test I'm in the first five positions. Now keep calm because every single mistake can turn bad the day.
Fourth test: interview
I try to seem natural and comfortable, tring to remember all the words and knowledge about english, tring using real english word.
The verdict
The call arrived at the end of the day. Liuzzi and Gonzalo wait to nominate the winners. Many finalists and photografers on them. I stay among them, I'm comfortable, because I know I did my best. I see the paper in the hand of whom will decide the end of these guys. I try to don't look but I'm too much curious and I look if I can read my name on it. Too much light. Lower the head, fingers crossed . I want hear my new, I'm exited. First name done, it's not mine. The second the same And I try to say to myself to don't be negative. The tirth name said by Gonzalo : Alessandro. The time between the name said and the surname I'll never gorgat it. Eternal. the milliseconds so slow that I can ask myself "Alessandro who? Who? " and then "Albano" comes. One step ahead, I squeez my fist I feel like never before, unfinished happiness. I gain the final and I don't believe it!
Come back in hotel and lying at bed I was looking at the trophy. It was so beautiful and it was finally mine!
Now start a new path, in fact the first thing I've done once home, I run for 8 km because I have to improve my limits again, the road to Silverstone is hard then before. I have to beat the opponents with all myself.
I'm not superman, I'm only a guy who has realized his dream. If I did that, I think everyone who want something with all its heart can do it, beacause the dream, the real one, can be realized only with tenaciousness and obstinacy.
You can't win if you don't want it for real.
GTAccademy gives you the chance to realize the lifetime victory. So thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Who's Alessandro Albano?
Alessandro Albano born in Brindisi in October 1980.
From Monday to Friday is an ID in Milan, at the weekend turn into a wannabe pilot.
All along he loves videogames and cars, and he cultivates his hobby with his friends in a garage assambling and disassambling cars and vehicles in a garage.
Then, when the wage came, he boght sporty cars, sporty bikes, professional karts and he go in all italian circuits.
Photograph, music and enginering lover, he founds a Gran Turismo Club in order to have competition with the best of the world. Now the club has many rewards, real and virtual ones. In fact every year one o two club memers go to Silverstone.
What's GTAccademy?
It's a public contest sponsored by Sony with Nissan for wannabe pilots.
First step helps to reconize the faster players in Gran Turismo 6 in two ways:
1) online time trial (for two weeks you can manage the car and the circuit that will be in the contest);
2) live time trial: some weekend, somewhere in Italy (this years at the Comicon in Naples and at Lingotto) are dedicated to play 6 laps for getting the best time in the car/circuit choosen by the organizzation.
This year the players were 40 000 that challange in this two ways.
In the Second step the 24 best ones face the national final that this year was in Vallelunga. There are 4 trials and the best 4 win the
Third step (every country has a numeber from 2 to 6) where there are ability trials and the contests are judged by a panel. One week can be dedicated for the Camp and the best of every country get the last trial in Silverstone circuit. The winner will be the official Nissan pilot for the 24h in Dubai!
