Online Competitions

WRS Week 51 is Posted!

GTPlanet’s Weekly Race Series (WRS) is the longest running online Time Trial competition dedicated to the Gran Turismo series. Having run continuously since its humble introduction in February of 2003, the WRS has been run for nearly 9 years and boasts 445 completed weekly time trials! For the first time in its long history, the WRS began hosting live, weekly online racing events shortly after the start of this year. Each week, participants from around the globe race against one another in live competitions organized by GTPlanet’s very own team of race administrators.

One of the most ambitious online races ever organized is currently taking shape right here in GTPlanet’s forums. It’s a 24-hour, online endurance challenge at the famed Nurburgring, complete with every possible real-world challenge, including tire wear, fuel-consumption, damage, weather, and time change.

GTPlanet’s Online Events forum is home to hundreds of Gran Turismo 5 race series, clubs, and leagues, where the world’s best GT players come to participate in clean, fair, and competitive online races.

It’s been interesting and entertaining to watch America’s fastest Gran Turismo players make the transition from virtual to reality over the last four weeks, and now the final episode of GT Academy on Speed TV airs this Tuesday, October 18th at 10PM Eastern Time. If you haven’t been able to watch, don’t worry – all the episodes are right here.

If you’ve taken a look at the Mercedes’ Live Race Seasonal Event, you’ve probably noticed that many players atop the leaderboards scored their times by exploiting “shortcuts” around the track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_le496-npM8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVgBFBNyxS0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibkOX0w7SoY

Sony Hong Kong is launching an interesting new “online tournament”, starting September 1st, open to players from Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. The tournament consists of three regional and cross-regional rounds of competition, with some hefty prizes up for grabs, including a GT5-Edition Tissot watch, an Apiga AP1 racing seat, a Thrustmaster T500RS steering wheel, and over HK$10,000 in PSN vouchers.

Polyphony Digital has, curiously, announced a special “NASCAR-themed online racing event” to be held in GT5’s Seasonal Events next Monday, August 29th at approximately 8:00PM PST. Though specifics remain sparse, they have confirmed a unique prize for the event will be available in the form of Jeff Gordon’s 2010 driving suit and helmet. Kazunori Yamauchi has also commented on the event via Twitter.

Mercedes-Benz has just announced a new Gran Turismo 5 contest (for UK residents only) featuring former F1 star David Coulthard. The contest starts out with a familiar formula: 24 entrants will be chosen at random, then brought to Mercedes-Benz World where they’ll be tested in real and virtual driving challenges to determine the top 6 contestants.

I’m very excited to announce that GTPlanet has partnered with GT Academy and the Gran Turismo Boutique to run two special challenges alongside this year’s GT Academy 2011! Here’s an overview of how each works:

Since the Logitech Challenge cheaters were exposed, many of you have spread the word and contacted Sony/Logitech, expressing your anger with poorly-skilled drivers who were bending the rules to get ahead.  Now, we’ve got official word from Logitech on exactly what is (not) going to happen.   Chris Pate, Logitech’s Global Product Marketing Manager, stopped by the GTPlanet Forums:

The Logitech Challenge in GT5 Prologue is well under way.  Unfortunately, though, with thousands of dollars worth of prizes up for grabs, it has attracted the attention of cheaters with no regards for fair play or clean driving.  The first week of competition ended on Tuesday, and GTPlanet’s own challengers are up in arms over the drivers who took the top positions by “wall riding” around the High Speed Ring circuit.  “Wall riding” consists of nothing more than exploiting the game’s physics engine to carry unrealistic speed through a corner without losing momentum.  The only skill involved is simply avoiding activation of the penalty system – a far cry from watching your braking points, turn in angles, and throttle modulation.