What's your benchmark?

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Pupik

mille mille miglia
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I've been playing GT2 since April of 2000. Almost 3 years...I have my original save, many of the same cars are still there. One of the first prize cars that I held onto was the Unisia Jecs GT-R. I used it to complete all the tough stuff in my first whole game.

Over the months and years, I've usually stayed away form that car because it's so easy to win races with it. No challenge at all. But...

...when I've had trouble getting the most out of a new car, spinning and losing races, I fall back on it as a confidence-builder. It works for me. But what's more amazing is how I used to drive that car.

At first, I never messed with the suspension settings much. I understood stabilizer settings because they were easy to manupulate (and remember if you've gooten it all wrong). Then cam ride height. Easy enough. Gears were a snap.

But then came the dive into shock/damper settings. And spring rates. Camber. Toe. Differential settings. Brake balancing. Long ago, they appeared to be things you didn't want to mess with. But gradually, you chage this and that, you start to understand what happens to all sorts of cars when you increase rear spring rates, or toe in, decrease rear camber, etc.

Soon, you have awhole new car. But when you check out your old settings, you start to understand how little you knew then, and how much you know now. You understand expect (usually!) the results of that chage to your car. Not to mention, you're confidence has increased dramatically for each circuit, because you know what you can do and get away with in each corner. You also know your competition better.

This morning, I hauled my trusty Unisia around the tracks and slashed through my old lap records I'd set with that car. By three-four seconds a piece. Yowza...just a few changes and some experience.

I also tried out that '93 Supra that I hadn't messed with all that much. Man, FR cars sure were difficult to drive then. I never tuned them much, either. But I really cut down the times I'd previously set with tha car, too.

So what car(s) is/are your benchmarks...the way of judging your standards...seeing how far you've come?
 
hey, well i have 4 games filled with cars, basically everything over 250 hp, so i guess u could call that a benchmark, and o yea, i was bored christmas break and earned the maximum money, it was fun, just raced at redrock for the speed 12, lol
 
For me it is tracks that show me how I've improved. Just last ngiht I was playing and I said to my wife "notice how I don't crash anymore?" :lol:

Trial Mountian from the first tunnel to the second tunnel... man I used to just bounce from wall to wall all the way through that. Now I can fly through it.
 
yea i used to suck at all the tracks, that is untill summer vacation then i became a gt2 freak and havn't looked back since, except for gt3 that is, but i dont got a ps2 yet:banghead:
 
well lately i have just gotten back into GT2, and one thing that DEFINETLY made a benchmark is that back when i played it before, i tried getting all golds on the B liscence, but was missing 3. Just a couple days ago i attempted it, thinking "hey, i havto have improved a little" and bang, i am now a proud owner of the spoon S2000 in a nice silver color. I'm now working on A but 2 tests are giving me trouble. Im sure a little more experience and ill be able to do it! oh plus ive been trying to get into the whole drifting thing, and so far, with a total of about 100 laps practice, ive succesfully drifted 10 corners! its an amazing feeling pullin off a beautiful drift...gives you SUCH a rush!!
im back to 32% now that ive started playing again (only got to 35 the first time)

ive got GT3 sitting right beside me, but no PS2 so heh....im killing time! (and man is it fun!):D :D :D
 
my greatest benchmark was beating all the endurance races and keeping all the prize cars. I too used the Usia skyline to clean up the harder races. Compedative racing is the mainstream right now.
 
I've gone to setting car damage on and tire wear fast, 5 laps. It has'nt slowed me down most of the time. Makes you concentrate on your marks and being carefull in traffic.
 
Originally posted by cerbera
I've gone to setting car damage on and tire wear fast, 5 laps. It has'nt slowed me down most of the time. Makes you concentrate on your marks and being carefull in traffic.

I haven't tried damage controll. Can you see the damage on the cars?
 
With damage on it really changes the feeling of the game.The way you race. You just can't bull your way thru Seattle or skip off the cars at the High Speed Ring. You need patience and wait for the openings and have to watch out for the other cars knockin you around. And avoid the other cars spinning out in the cork-screw at Leguna. And can you get to the next turn and out -break the other guy or chance it and stick it in the corner with them. Try it ;)
 
Tracks do tell us something: almost every track in gt2 I thought mastered showed a better aproach to corners with experience. Testing lots of cars is also the deal (I´ve just changed from 100 cars in my garage to 193 so testing yeah there´s gonna be testing). And driving "clean" - ok i´m a little cheap I usually don´t use car damage but trying to race with openings in gt 300 in the alfa 156 2.5 without all the pillow strategy (you know avoid crashing against the wall and crash into the other guy´s car instead) is rather competitive.

But for me real benchmark was the speed 12: that car got me to return to game again and again - GT ones and the like came tuned already - at least in an acceptable way - but not him. Took me days to fine tune him but when I did it .... well I had more 99 cars to do the same; but it was a goal reached (sometimes I still change something :banghead:
 
Getting some cars to do what you like is a real milestone.

Elise GT1, Speed 12, getting the 3000GT LM to turn...
 
SandStorm, MSLand, I remember very vaguely, I'm not surprised I got trashed there lol, couldn't get out of 2nd gear lol, kept running over this little hill. That's one track where I think going with an automatic tranny may be better than manuel. I might just check that out again. That track would definately qualify as a bench-mark to master. I never run there.Do you remember what your lap time was?
 
Not really a garage with 193 just two mem cards with different ones . I say a garage with 193 cause in arcade mode you can load the guests garage and have 200 cars at your disposal
 
mine's is beating the red rock, where you win the speed 12, with a race Tuned Supra rz. that's a benchmark at that time. :( i lost my memory and the car.:( one spin and you lose.
 
for me its probably when i sold this one skyline i had and my money came out exactly to $12,000,000. Not really important, but I thought it was cool.
 
My fave for GT2 is the Blue RX-7 GT-C, with suspension and Drivetrain mods only.
This cars DOMINATES in the 295HP class.
 
my bench mark vehicle was a Skyline GT-R V-Spec R-34 with all the mods except for rather than turbo stage 4 i have it at stage 2 which makes it perfect for the 591 races and i keep all my cars with super soft racing slicks except on endurance because you dont get tire wear on non endurance racing. if any one wants my upgrade tips i will put them all down for you
 
my benchmark is usually the records at my GT2 page, i can't beat most of them (according to hp) because they were made by good drivers, but the one i can beat make me look good! :)
 
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