Well safe to say, my reflexes behind the wheel are wicked sharp because of GT, and my car control skills have gone way up. Once i got used to thinking at such a high speed when racing, normal driving subsequently i ended up being able to think a lot quicker on the street behind the wheel. I have two stories here to share, two epic close calls that to this day still amaze me with how I was able to react as fast as I did. Well okay here are my stories, let's start this one off with the parking lot-
Alrighty so it was two years ago, December 2009, can't remember the exact date, but I only know it was around that time because I was attending a friends party, it was a dinner thing and the snow was coming down at a pretty good clip, I got back to town first with my friend after the dinner and we were waiting for the other two cars to arrive, we agreed to meet by the high school for efficiency then head off wherever. Now of course with me i was bored and being quite the idiot I was back then decided to try something, taking advantage of the snowy parking lot, I said to my friend hmm let's have fun, got the car up to about 25 or so, turned sharply, stabbed the brake to upset the rear end, gave it some opposite lock, and then stomped the gas to the floor, next thing ya know I have the car (it's a 2004 Pilot) so far sideways that I was looking at the base of the windshield pillar on my friends side of the car to see where it was going, and just had it sideways in a perfect drift around the edge of the lot. Now here comes the idiotic part, when my friends showed up i got it to go sideways one last time before we left. However I did not see how close it had actually gotten to my friends car until to my horror it ended up directly in the path of my sideways Pilot, now to give you a picture of what I was looking at, my car was going to slide sideways into that ones engine compartment, it would've been an offset frontal right collision (on my car) directly into the right side of that ones engine compartment, no more than three seconds away, it looked absolutely inevitable, all my other friends had cleared away from it in anticipation. My friend and I were bracing even, but because of my GT playing, I can think very fast in these last ditch situations, and while the rest of my body had gone into brace mode, My thoughts were along the lines off "TAKE THAT FOOT OFF THE GAS RIGHT NOW.. DO IT! DO NOT TOUCH THE BRAKE OR WHEEL!" so I took my foot off the gas but did not touch the brake, and kept the wheel the way it was, and literally, in one motion, at the very last second, the car stopped sliding, straightened out and then swerved to the right, just in time. Instead of hitting the other car in a seemingly inevitable collision, it barely missed by so close a margin that the headlights of that second car (another 2004 Pilot) were reflecting off my car back on themselves (I was looking out the window), I couldn't see even the faintest glimmer of light from them. In the seat of the car i had closed my eyes waiting for the sound of scraping metal which i never ended up hearing. No one could believe that the two cars missed, even though they had seen it. when my friends went to measure it, they could measure the distance between my cars tire tracks and the front fender of the second Pilot with their index finger and thumb (on the same hand) no more than an inch or two apart, to say the sheetmetal of the cars themselves missed by centimeters (or a centimeter..) would not be a stretch. Believe me I know that one was stupid, and have learned a lot since, but at the same time I owe it to GT big on being able to (barely) laugh it off.
Now this next story was not idiotic, in fact my reflexes here were so fast I had no conscious clue what was going on until it was basically over. See I was driving down the road, about 11:30 PM, sometime last June. Same exact Pilot as the last story, It was a 50 mph speed zone and I was doing about 55, just taking an evening cruise to relax as I used to frequently do after nights out with friends, taking an easy drive nowhere in particular helps me unwind. Anyways, I was coming over the top of a hill and was starting down, as I got to the bottom, right at the end of my low beam I thought I saw something move, I wasn't even sure, then literally the next thing I know my arms start automatically seesawing furiously at the wheel to swerve the car hard left, clearly a reflex, but consciously I had no idea what the hell was going on.. Til I saw them out of the corner of my eye right as my arms straightened the car out (again operating on a reflex, my head was looking straight the entire time).. deer, one on each side of the car, the one on the right literally so close that the headlight reflection was moving off his head right as the car was passing next to him, maybe missing him by a foot, and then the other deer was about the same distance off the other side, then I swerved back in my lane, and it hit me, I had threaded my car through a hole barely big enough for it, between two deer, in the dead of night, with not even two seconds notice.. at 55 miles an hour. That kind of driving skill this side of a professional racing career you can only get in one place.. Gran Turismo.
Also in general, my right foot is lightning fast in its ability to move between gas and brake, by the time I think of doing it I'm already stopping the car. Honestly my friends simply can't believe how fast I can react behind the wheel, and with my two stories as I showed you, even I cant believe it sometimes. Playing this game allows you to take great skill on the road and avoid things that others would find hopeless. I can read the information my car gives me perfectly, im so sensitive to it that I can even pick up the change in balance as the gas tank empties and change my driving pattern accordingly. As such im always in perfect step with it, and am easily the smoothest driver of all my friends, I'm not afraid of any driving situation and take road trips all the time, knowing how to read what your car transmits to you through the wheel in wet weather is especially invaluable, especially when a bad storm catches you on the highway. Honestly the one time I ever actually lost control of my car (slipped on ice while making a left turn at an intersection in my neighborhood), I had been messing with one of my Challengers the day before spinning that car in 180s on purpose with the E-brake, so when my Pilot started to spin for real, I took my foot off the gas, casually waited until the car was just past 90 degrees, and then snapped the wheel all the way to the right, the car finished off the last 90 degrees of the 180 it had started and did not spin any further, I then hammered the brakes to stop it from sliding any further (it was going the way I wanted to go originally but with the wrong end leading). Because i was in my neighborhood heading home, I knew another way home, and thus didnt bother trying to turn around, and simply made a second left at the same intersection in which the car had spun (it stopped facing the opposite direction from which it had been trying to go about 80-100 feet up the street). My spin recovery had resulted in such a perfect 180 that all I had to do to drive back the way I had just come was straighten the wheel, the car was already in the correct lane for travel in the opposite direction. The entire time I didn't flinch, my nerves were not even frayed, the wheel snap was even accomplished with one hand. The kind of cool composure these games give you is incredible, my driving will be forever influenced by this game.
Just the opposite for me. I bought one!
