Pursuing Platinum at 70... years that is

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Aubrey, Texas
I started sim racing when GT5 came out. I really enjoyed it and have upgraded my equipement over time. I currently have a PlaySeat rig, with a Fanatec CSR-E wheel, CSP v2 pedals and two tactile units to add to the fun.

I am Level 40 in both A and B, I have golds on all 60 licenses and I have gotten gold on all of the Seasonal race events (I don't drift).

Over Christmas I speant a lot of time on the Lambo Seasonal finally getting Gold on the Ring. I really enjoyed working at finding the last couple of seconds to win. Not bad for a senior citizen who was getting ready to celebrate his 70th birthday in January.

The only events that were blocking me from going Platinum were the Eiger event on the Grand Tour and the three Vettel Challenges.

I had gone back to the Eiger event on numerous occassions and always came away frustrated because I was just a few tenths from getting gold but never could accomplish it.

I decided to adopt a more formalized approach to practice. I concluded that if I concentrated on improving my average times, and if I could drive my average times down.... sooner or later I would have to get gold. I concentrated not on the gold time but on getting faster little by little.

I worked on blocks of ten runs. I averaged the time each ten runs and focused on improving the average. It worked, after 20 blocks (200 runs I had reduced my average to 1:17579 and my best times were very close to the sub 1:17 I needed. On my 4th run of the 21 first block I finally got the gold with a 1:16.917. You can see a graph of the results in this attachment.View attachment GrandTour Eiger.pdf
 
Well done sir. I commend you on this feat. Alas, I know how hard the 8C challenge is, I managed gold with a DS3 Controller.

I also have Gold at monza for the seb. vettel challenge, bronze at nur (1.6 secs off gold) and i haven't upgraded my suzuka time past bronze.
 
I had gotten bronze on all three of the Vettel Challenges, enough to get me a Redbull 2011. I had not enjoyed the Vettle Challenge because the very high speeds made it difficult to control the car and I had no sense of driving, just a quick series of violent jerks. The bronze times were so far from the silver and gold times I just wrote the Vettel Challenges off and accepted the fact that I would never get the Platinum Trophy.

On the GT Forum I came to understand that for many drivers, the Eiger Grand Tour event is viewed as just about as hard as the Vettel Challenge. I thought if I could get gold on the Eiger using my focused practice approach I should try it on Vettel... so I did.

I started on December 28 with the Nurburgring and got a block of ten runs in on most days, with some days getting two blocks. I made steady progress but it was slow going. I finally got silver after two hundred runs, that was on Jan 18. The going was even slower trying to shave the last 1 1/2 second to get under 2:08.

I was frustratingly close on Jan 30 when I time a 2:08.051. I continued to work and adjusted the CSR-E wheel from a 900 degree wheel to a 600 degree wheel and finally settled on a 650 degree wheel. The faster wheel response let me more accurately steer. With all of the practice I was beginning to feel the car and enjoy driving it.

Finally today, after 400 timed runs I finally achieved Gold on the Nurburgring with a time of 2:07.916. You can see the run here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bApljIHbX6Y&feature=youtu.be
Getting Gold at the Ring gives me confidence that I can complete the Vettel Challenge and ultimately claim the Platinum Trophy. I will keep you posted on my progress.
 
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Nice job on the Vettel Challenge. 👍 I consider myself to be a pretty decent driver, but even I've only been able to bronze the Vettel races. Granted I'm using a controller, but I know that people have golded with it. I just don't know if I have the patience. :lol: Congrats and good luck with the other two challenges! :cheers:
 
Well done, kinda puts my 44 years to shame in comparison. 👍

I found Toscana Tarmac Night to be harder than Eiger, I guess it just goes to show there's enough challenge in the game for all abilities.

I am also on 2 Vettel Golds away from Platinum. So close but so far. :crazy:
 
Hat off to you sir, i've got gold on monza and silver for the other 2, only le mans 24hr and i'll have golded everything in game. just not went back to the vettel challenges for months as it's soul destroying after a few hours of getting so close.
 
Congratulations Mr Reed, I am 56 and felt just like you with the Vettel challenge, now have to go back to it and also the Lambo on the Nurb, job well done.
 
Much respect. I race mostly online and haven't done the challenges but I've heard how hard they are.

I want to personally thank you for posting this. I'm only 24 and have been sim racing since GT3, and I hope I will still be racing when I'm close to 70.
 
By that time, unfortunately, the high performance machines of today will be laughed at.

But I will stand by my dream collection.
2009 Nissan GT-R
2009 Chevrolet Corvette
2010 Shelby GT500
2009 Ford XR8
2009 Aston Martin DB9
 
By that time, unfortunately, the high performance machines of today will be laughed at.

That's assuming performance cars will still get faster, by then we might all drive fuel-cell cars and the sensation of speed is gained by being exposed to the elements and artifical exhaust sounds. ;)
 
After 31 laps at Monza I have got the Silver medal with a 2:05.194. Just 1.194 seconds from Gold and I'm still learning the brake and turn in points for the Redbull X2010 at Monza.

Monza is definitely easier than Nurburgring but having spent all the hours in the Redbull has improved my ability to drive this car.

I don't know how many laps it will take to get Gold at Monza but I don't think it will be the 404 that it took at Nurburgring.
 
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I did the Suzuka 1000km enduro a few times in the X2010 - with a setup that is as close as possible to the setup on the Vettel challenges - just to used to the feel of the darn thing! Straight after ending the race, flick straight over to the vettel suzuka challenge and use your muscle memory to the max. 👍

I can't remember the setup but it involved RH tires and aero somewhere around 50%.
 
By that time, unfortunately, the high performance machines of today will be laughed at.

I don't think the performance of the X2010 will ever be duplicated in a race car driven by people. The g-forces are so high in the turns and in breaking that the human couldn't handle it.

Perhaps real high performance racing in the future will be drone automobiles driven remotely. Or perhaps it will simply devolve to sim racing...
 
...snip...

Good to hear some of us old guys still going strong...lol.👍👍 I've had my Dad give GT5 a spin and he struggles with the Fiat 500:ouch: so kudos to you...lol..👍👍
 
Congrats on your progress so far. Will be looking forward to seeing the post about platinum.:)
 
Finally today, after 400 timed runs I finally achieved Gold on the Nurburgring with a time of 2:07.916.

I will keep you posted on my progress.

👍 Big cheer for you Mr Reed. For one thing, I could never do 400 laps on one event (even over a period of time) without going totally :crazy:

Anyway, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be just as good at this as those young whipper snappers - talent always shows out :)

Just wish I had some (talent that is :lol: )

Can't wait to see the magic "platinum post" on this thread soon :cool:
 
Good job Mr. Reed! The 8c at Eiger was a pain in the ass, but I see your persistance paid off. You are going to need some more of that to gold the Vettels'. Here is how I did it.
I started with Monza in order to get the hang of it. Once I golded that one, i worked on suzuka which was much tougher. The real secret to suzuka is being able to lift slightly in the first sector rhythm section. When you do this with the Vettel, you will be able to feel the car nearly navigate itself very smoothly through the rest of the course. It will take you many tries until you start feeling confident. I'd say about half throttle or less will do the job in the tricky sections. (especially the spoon corner @ the top of the track) It took me about 8 hrs of serious dedication during the month the network was down. Once you are able to gold Suzuka, the rest is easy. I think I was able to gold Nurb in about 20 mins. Just let the car do the work and use the throttle sparingly. Feel free to contact me or join our Platinum racing room from 8pm-3am mon-sun if you have any questions. We'll get you there pal
 
Old Guys Rule! That's some serious dedication, well done.

I started with GT3 but didn't get too serious about GT until GT5. That inspires me to go back and try and Gold everything I haven't. I do remember Golding Eiger but it took a LOT of retries. I just turned 53 myself. GT5 is a fun and addictive hobby but at least my wife knows where I am every night!
 
Lucky man RReed43 - are you retired? That would give you a lot of time for GT5! As a thirty-something who just got off work and is exhausted I look forward to the day where I will get to wake up without an alarm clock, grab breakfast, and go straight to work/play on Gran Turismo 15. ;-)
 
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I could never do 400 laps on one event (even over a period of time) without going totally :crazy:

The secret for me is to work on improving my average time in blocks of ten. I'm not thinking about how to get gold but how to improve my time from the last block of ten.

In the 40 blocks of ten it took me to get Gold I had 12 blocks where I was slower than the last block. I never had two blocks where I got worse. The overall trend was always down. As long as I saw myself getting better I was encouraged to press on.

This approach teaches me to exam each turn in regard to break point, turn in and acceleration and try to find the fastest way through each corner. Once I'm clear in my mind what I want to do in each corner then it's a matter of having the skill to do it each time. Practice is the best way for me to achieve this.

Getting close behind the Vettel "ghost" helps because then I could see which corners I was gaining time on and which I needed to get faster through. As in all racing it is easy to lose concentration on executing the turns when following the ghost. This just adds to the fun and feeling of achievement when you finally get the target time.

For those that have never gotten gold in these events; you don't actually have to pass the ghost just get close behind the ghost to get the gold time.
 
I have now done two blocks of ten on Suzuka. I will post my progress so people can see how this works.

I averaged 2:22.700 on the first block. The bronze time is 2:26. My previous best when I originally achieved bronze was 2:25.259. Clearly all the driving I've been doing in the X2010 has improved my skill in this car.

I averaged 2:17.662 in my 2nd block of ten. Improvement comes very fast at the start and becomes slower as the times drop. My target is to get to an average time of 2:10.500 because it is inevitable that some laps will dip below the gold time of 2:10 to achieve that average.

My best time is a 2:15.580 just 5 seconds from silver. I need to improve my lap times by 2.5 seconds per lap to get to silver. As long as I keep improving my average block time it is inevitable that I will get there, I just don't know how many laps it will take.
 
I started sim racing when GT5 came out. I really enjoyed it and have upgraded my equipement over time. I currently have a PlaySeat rig, with a Fanatec CSR-E wheel, CSP v2 pedals and two tactile units to add to the fun.

I am Level 40 in both A and B, I have golds on all 60 licenses and I have gotten gold on all of the Seasonal race events (I don't drift).

...
The only events that were blocking me from going Platinum were the Eiger event on the Grand Tour and the three Vettel Challenges.

I had gone back to the Eiger event on numerous occassions and always came away frustrated because I was just a few tenths from getting gold but never could accomplish it.
...

Mr. Reed,
thank you for your post.
I am 45 and find myself in the same situation as you described above.
You gave me new motivation to continue my platinum quest.
Regards
George
 
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