<400hp + Nurburgring racing with Sports Soft tires = Fun

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Canada
Vancouver, BC
I grew up watching a lot of Best Motoring and Initial D. Naturally, I like the idea of driving underpowered cars (relatively speaking) fast on a narrow, windy road. Taking a break from Sport Mode, I decided to create my own lobby to see if I can get some fun, clean racing done. So I set the conditions to <400 horsepower, sports soft only with tuning allowed, 1 lap of the Nordschleife, and sat back to see what would happen when people start joining.

Magic. Magic is what happens.

At first there was only one or two participants in my little experiment. So we raced each other in JDM sports cars with decent results. And then, the lobby grew. All of a sudden, I got 5 people in a race. I got in my Initial D-inspired RX-7 with just 350 horsepower (anything beyond that and the car gets hairy), and started the race.

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Turn 1

What resulted was probably one of the most fun racing I have ever experienced in any driving games ever. The racing was clean, people were careful around the corners (driving anything other than 4WD could be quite difficult at the ring if you are running sports soft), and no one has an absurd amount of power that they would pull away in the long straights. People were also surprisingly respectful, and gave each other room. Even when there were times when contact was involved (it happens), people slowed down to allow the person in front to recover.

The difference between first position and last (aka me for most of the race) was 7 seconds at most. This was for the entire lap.

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This guy in the S-FR led for 2/3 of the race. He did suffer in the straights though.

Once it got to the twisty section, all of us were literally neck-and-neck, plenty of positions changed corner to corner. The race is still very clean -- no dive bombers, no punting. All overtaking attempts were done carefully to avoid wiping out. At this rate, I got so excited I started yelling at the TV, amazed at how much fun this was.

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I even got up to 4th!

Unfortunately, my RX7 did struggle in the straight too, since I wasn't running with a lot of power, and opted to leave the transmission untouched. It was massive fun in the corners though. I even started pushing a guy who showed up in a Gr. 4 Genesis. Alas, I ran onto the grass a couple of times and lost time that way, which meant that the GT-R in the back caught up.

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By the time we rolled up to the final section of the lap, this is what it looked like:


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At the end of the long straight, I was barely able to keep up with the pack. Despite that, I made it up at the last couple of corners, and even stole 4th from the GT-R who ran wide in the last corner.

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In the end, the S-FR held on for the win. The difference between him and the last person to cross the finish line was a mere 5 seconds.

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I ended the race with a huge grin, despite the fact that I didn't even make podium. It was a great laugh and it greatly satisfied my touge racing urge. Makes me wish that they do this a little more with Sport Mode instead of running with Gr.3 and Gr.4 cars all the time.

Try this out, folks. You won't be disappointed.

Additional note: 2 races, and the daily workout is done. I can't think of a more fun way to do the daily workout than this.
 
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I believe that was a great race for sure, and well written and fun to read. There is one thing I've learned playing GTS, that huge amount of power doesn't always means the most fun imo.
For example, I really enjoy taking my 482hp MK4 Supra to lobby drift-practice at east Suzuka, on soft sport tires, doing 3rd gear full throttle on some of the turns there, flowing through the track at good speed.

I will definitely try some of my cars at the Ring with <400hp, and I'm getting really exited right now to try it. :)
 
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I go from lobby to lobby doing this and I agree it's fun. When people bring n800 and above it defies what I'm looking for so I go into another lobby. There are some great racers out there no doubt but like you say, the ones that race fair and enjoy it make the whole experience better. I hope to jump into your lobby one day for a race.

Keep it going

Cracking write up, which I was apart of it
 
Looks like good fun, I liked the look of the @gtsport_official Instagram page “track day” at Nurburgring 24h it looked like a lot of fun.

It’s nice to see competitive racing lobbies where people enjoy the racing rather than the winning at all cost mentality of the daily races
 
The lobby choices are getting better week by week. I stay with the ones running Sport Tires, No Boost, No Tuning and No Assist but ABS as they seem to be the ones with the more serious and respectful racers and normally the rooms are almost always full. The best random racing I've found yet on GTS.
 
I believe that was a great race for sure, and well written and fun to read. There is one thing I've learned playing GTS, that huge amount of power doesn't always means the most fun imo.
For example, I really enjoy taking my 482hp MK4 Supra to lobby drift-practice at east Suzuka, on soft sport tires, doing 3rd gear full throttle on some of the turns there, flowing through the track at good speed.

I will definitely try some of my cars at the Ring with <400hp, and I'm getting really exited right now to try it. :)

Thanks! I guess I am old enough to remember the days when we considered 300 hp was a lot of horsepower. I have tried the drift lobbies at Suzuka as well -- it's a lot of fun doing crazy slides around other people. Do try out the ring! With around 400 hp and sports soft tires, it will give you enough of a challenge at the Ring since it's so easy to make a mistake and lose time.

I am tuning a MR2 right now with about 350 hp, and it's a very good training -- one small mistake and I'd spin around. At this moment, I actually get a faster lap time driving in a FR-S with 280 hp than the MR2. I am generally aiming to get close to the 8-minute mark (something a lot easier to do with something like a GT-R). Takes a lot of patience and practice for sure.

I go from lobby to lobby doing this and I agree it's fun. When people bring n800 and above it defies what I'm looking for so I go into another lobby. There are some great racers out there no doubt but like you say, the ones that race fair and enjoy it make the whole experience better. I hope to jump into your lobby one day for a race.

Keep it going

Cracking write up, which I was apart of it

Yeah, I am kinda surprised that most lobbies out there don't put restrictions in place to keep it level. So many people just running OP cars to get an easy win. No satisfaction in that.

I'll be honest though -- I am still a bit torn between limiting the class to N400 vs. limiting it to 400 hp. I like the idea of people de-tuning their N500 / Gr. 4 cars so it widens up the field to see more variety of cars. I also like it when people have to find the best settings to get a better lap time, which takes a lot of experimenting. On the other hand, I just got beaten last night by some guy who showed up in a Gr. 4 Ferrari 458 while I was driving my MR2 by about 30 seconds... So yeah.

Looks like good fun, I liked the look of the @gtsport_official Instagram page “track day” at Nurburgring 24h it looked like a lot of fun.

It’s nice to see competitive racing lobbies where people enjoy the racing rather than the winning at all cost mentality of the daily races

Indeed! For the longest time, I opted not to renew my PSN because I viewed online gaming as quite toxic in general across all games. I am glad I renewed it.

The lobby choices are getting better week by week. I stay with the ones running Sport Tires, No Boost, No Tuning and No Assist but ABS as they seem to be the ones with the more serious and respectful racers and normally the rooms are almost always full. The best random racing I've found yet on GTS.

Yep. At this point I do wonder if I have more fun running a full lobby at this race -- I find that 8-9 racers is more than ample for the Ring given the lack of space. Any more than that and it could get quite messy. That said... The most participants I've ever had in my lobby was 9. Half the people wiped out after turn 1, which created a bit of a jam (not on purpose, but still).

Under 400bhp is the sweet spot for most road cars on twisty roads. So many try to boost their cars bhp beyond what the chassis is capable of and lose all feel for the car.

That's what a lot of people struggle to understand as well. Unless you are going for straight line speed only, it's much more important to find the balance between power and the chassis to get better cornering. If you get it right, you can beat someone with a lot more power than you -- makes it all the more satisfying.
 
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