Gentlemen, start your engines!

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Hello, is this thing on?

Popular posts from this blog

Jam tomorrow

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My heart goes out to Robert Kubica. This time last year, he was fighting for the F1 world title. At one stage, he even led the championship . Things were going brilliantly for him, he was driving well and people were saying some very good things about him. Fast forward to 2009 and where is he? Nowhere. Where's the press coverage and hype about his talents? Nowhere. It's as if he's fallen off the face of the planet. What went wrong? From what I've read, halfway through the 2008 season, BMW decided to shift their development efforts to the 2009 car, despite the success they were enjoying in 2008. The effect of this was that their 2008 season quietly tailed off, taking their #1 driver from championship leader to frustrated also-ran. If I were Kubica, I would've been mad as all hell. What makes it even worse is that, while Honda adopted the same approach and built a pretty awesome car for 2009, BMW completely failed to capitalise on their long development time for...
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Nostalgia: GP2 and racing lines

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Funny how songs can bring back specific memories so vividly. Here I am, sat at my computer, and I put on OK Computer by Radiohead. Airbag kicks into life and I'm instantly transported back to 1998, designing my first track using the Grand Prix 2 Track Editor . Based on the Estoril circuit — as nearly all early tracks were, thanks to its simple pitlane layout — it swept down and to the right from the start/finish straight. The opening bars of Airbag often accompanied this stretch as I popped in a CD before starting play-testing. That first corner will forever be strongly connected with Radiohead for me, which is no bad thing. I loved creating tracks and I still love OK Computer. The track, I believe, was called Cheviot, named after the hill in Northumberland . This was a highly apt name, as I completely misunderstood the editor's height settings. What I thought was a change in absolute height was actually a gradient change. Consequently, when I tried to make a slight h...
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FL: Mal Ross (#45)

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Was back at Teamsport in Newcastle again last night, this time with a couple of colleagues and... wooo! Got my first win. 🏆 If I'm honest, that was largely down to the fact there were no ringers there. In fact, I did a good job of looking like the only ringer, being the only person with an avatar next to their name on the timing charts (meaning I was keen enough to have the Teamsport app and set up my profile). Even so, I didn't have it all my own way. I may have got the fastest lap in session #1, but I was pipped in session #2. Add to that the fact that I was over a second slower than my previous visit and it doesn't sound that awesome. But a win's a win; I'll take it. 🙂 Looking at the above results for the second session, it's not clear why I say I was "pipped" in that session. Thing is, some of the other people were taking so long to come back to the karts for this session that I was switched into a kart nearer the pitlane ...
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