- 5
Salutations, GTPlanet. Medici here, but feel free to call me Mike. I've known about GTP for ages and have used it as a tuning/instructional resource in the past (go away stupid ad!), but now that I'm back to working in the city and playing GT4 rather aggressively, I figured it was time to start a forum account and begin taking the tuning process somewhat seriously again. I am 28 years old, married, no kids, I'm a director for the marketing department of a petroleum corporation, and lately our work load has been dropping off because the marketing campaigns are winding down. I should be getting back online in the next few weeks. Will update my profile when I do.
How did you find GTPlanet?
A gamer pal turned me onto it a long time ago, but I've mostly used it as a general guide when it comes to gear ratios and other minor adjustments. I have benefited from the work of others for quite some time and I'd like to give something back to anyone who's interested in my wheels. Hopefully I can put something together that won't look too shabby next to the other garage threads I've seen on GTP.
Where are you from?
Florence, Italy, but I currently live in Toronto up in Canada. I moved to this country when I was 4, to a small British Colombian town called Penticton. I came to Toronto in the early 90s and I decided to stay; I've lived in a lot of cities, and this one is by far the best of them. I'm kicking myself now though, because there's no way in Hell I could have gotten to the Olympics this year with everything going on for us in Ontario, but that would have been really fun - even if we could only get tickets to terrible events no one cares about.
When did you start playing the Gran Turismo games?
GT1. I wish I was old enough to remember the classics like Gran Trak 10 and Pole Position, but my first racing simulator was arcade Out Run. That, and Indy 500: The Sim, were what started my life-long armchair racing hobby.
Do you play with a steering wheel?
Are you serious? My wife would kill me. Laugh at me, then kill me. Controller does the job just fine.
What other games do you enjoy?
Since Meridian 59 in 1995, I've hit up a few mmos, but I have only ever had more than a passing interest in them except for one - I still play EVE Online. Great massive multiplayer space combat title, highly recommended if you haven't thought about it. Huge learning curve though. Besides that, Bethesda games, specifically Oblivion and Fallout 3, all CoD titles (and my barely known FPS fav Ghost Recon AW2), MS Flight Simulator and so many racing/flying titles it would be impossible to list them all. I also just plain enjoy classic arcade titles of any genre.
Incidentally, one of my goals in life is to own this thing.
What are you most looking forward to doing in the community, now that you're a part of this site?
Well now, most of my contribution will come in the form of automotive customization on the GT4 side. Although the Italian cars make a remarkably weak showing in the game, it's still by far the best sandbox automotive racing sim available to me (arguably, to anybody), and I have a solid collection of tested and practical setups to share. I do most of my tinkering with the Mitsubishis, the German wagons and some of the American speedsters. The pride of my current collection, however, is and will probably always be the Spyker. That machine really would be the ride of your life. All other cars I have ever seen taken into consideration, I would have to say it is probably the most beautiful vehicle I have ever seen.
Also, I do some amateur racing IRL, and I'm always encouraging people to take part in at least one real, structured, recorded race during their lives (if not many), so you may get a bit of that from me from time to time. I currently drive the Pontiac G8, which some of you may know is a captive import of the Australian Holden VE Commodore (I will definitely be sharing some tunes for the Australian GT4 avatars). After college I picked up a certificate from the HRC, which was a great school, but it ran out of cash about 4 years ago and folded - it's a fairly easy, fun process and not at all time consuming. Of course, the cert is still good, thank god for that. Since then my racing "career" has included 2 visits to the Yokohama Winter Rally here in southern Ontario with my navigator Todd and half a dozen club contests - mostly solo time trials and one cup contest. I'll be sure to post a personal pic, some race pics and a shot of the vehicle as it is today somewhere down the road. We have some nice video too, but it isn't currently hosted.
TL;DR - Hello,
!
How did you find GTPlanet?
A gamer pal turned me onto it a long time ago, but I've mostly used it as a general guide when it comes to gear ratios and other minor adjustments. I have benefited from the work of others for quite some time and I'd like to give something back to anyone who's interested in my wheels. Hopefully I can put something together that won't look too shabby next to the other garage threads I've seen on GTP.
Where are you from?
Florence, Italy, but I currently live in Toronto up in Canada. I moved to this country when I was 4, to a small British Colombian town called Penticton. I came to Toronto in the early 90s and I decided to stay; I've lived in a lot of cities, and this one is by far the best of them. I'm kicking myself now though, because there's no way in Hell I could have gotten to the Olympics this year with everything going on for us in Ontario, but that would have been really fun - even if we could only get tickets to terrible events no one cares about.
When did you start playing the Gran Turismo games?
GT1. I wish I was old enough to remember the classics like Gran Trak 10 and Pole Position, but my first racing simulator was arcade Out Run. That, and Indy 500: The Sim, were what started my life-long armchair racing hobby.
Do you play with a steering wheel?
Are you serious? My wife would kill me. Laugh at me, then kill me. Controller does the job just fine.
What other games do you enjoy?
Since Meridian 59 in 1995, I've hit up a few mmos, but I have only ever had more than a passing interest in them except for one - I still play EVE Online. Great massive multiplayer space combat title, highly recommended if you haven't thought about it. Huge learning curve though. Besides that, Bethesda games, specifically Oblivion and Fallout 3, all CoD titles (and my barely known FPS fav Ghost Recon AW2), MS Flight Simulator and so many racing/flying titles it would be impossible to list them all. I also just plain enjoy classic arcade titles of any genre.
Incidentally, one of my goals in life is to own this thing.
What are you most looking forward to doing in the community, now that you're a part of this site?
Well now, most of my contribution will come in the form of automotive customization on the GT4 side. Although the Italian cars make a remarkably weak showing in the game, it's still by far the best sandbox automotive racing sim available to me (arguably, to anybody), and I have a solid collection of tested and practical setups to share. I do most of my tinkering with the Mitsubishis, the German wagons and some of the American speedsters. The pride of my current collection, however, is and will probably always be the Spyker. That machine really would be the ride of your life. All other cars I have ever seen taken into consideration, I would have to say it is probably the most beautiful vehicle I have ever seen.
Also, I do some amateur racing IRL, and I'm always encouraging people to take part in at least one real, structured, recorded race during their lives (if not many), so you may get a bit of that from me from time to time. I currently drive the Pontiac G8, which some of you may know is a captive import of the Australian Holden VE Commodore (I will definitely be sharing some tunes for the Australian GT4 avatars). After college I picked up a certificate from the HRC, which was a great school, but it ran out of cash about 4 years ago and folded - it's a fairly easy, fun process and not at all time consuming. Of course, the cert is still good, thank god for that. Since then my racing "career" has included 2 visits to the Yokohama Winter Rally here in southern Ontario with my navigator Todd and half a dozen club contests - mostly solo time trials and one cup contest. I'll be sure to post a personal pic, some race pics and a shot of the vehicle as it is today somewhere down the road. We have some nice video too, but it isn't currently hosted.
TL;DR - Hello,
!
