Inaugural Foreign Classic Tuning Challenge

[DirtDriver]

"I know it frontwards and backwards!"

Back at the FCT Garage...

"Hey Cooter, call Dirt and ask him what I told him would happen."

Cooter replied, "When?"

"Never mind!"

I shrugged my shoulders, once again stymied by Cooter's peculiar mix of apathy and ignorance.

"I'll call him myself!"

I called Dirt up and before I could even open my mouth, he was filling my ears.

"I don't know whether you grew up riding your bike on that track or you've got some kinda bionic connection with that little Italian Job, but I bet you haven't got two cars that fast!"

and with that Dirt hung up.

I thought about what he'd said and wondered for a minute. I'd been racing the Dino for a long time and putting in a lot of time on that track lately. I wondered, was it the car I knew backwards and forwards or the track?

I figured it was time to find out so I asked Cooter to load up two cars, "NOW" I added. I could think of two cars from a couple of countries that weren't I-tailian that were just as fast! Then I thought about another little Italian Job that had just arrived at the garage...

It was time to find out, and I knew just the place.



Tracks: Maple Valley Short, Maple Valley Short Reverse
Restrictions: B Class, PI700, older than 1976, Sport or Race Tires
Special Restriction: Different car for each track, cars must be from same country.
IE; Italy= Lamborghini, Ferrari, Lancia
Germany= Mercedes, Porsche
Japan= Toyota, Nissan (please use only one Fairlady Z variant)
GB= Jaguar, Lotus

Scoring will be based upon combined times. Times will be posted with cars chosen, combined times and individual times.


Leadboard will remain in this post.  Please post all times in seconds only. 

Example: 1:20.647 should be posted as 80.647.

Driver	Total Time	Short Car	Short Time	Rev Car	Rev Time
Racing Pro 97	79.174	Lotus Elan	39.496	Jaguar E-Type	39.678
Ske	79.432	Lotus Elan	39.580	Jaguar E-Type	39.852
Racing Pro 97	79.610	Porsche 914/6	39.638	Porsche 911	39.972
bazdc2	79.631	Ferrari Dino	39.735	Lamborghini Miura	39.896
Big MC	79.945	Porsche 914/6	39.922	Porsche 911	40.023
Big MC	79.961	M000GT	40.004	Datsun Z423	39.957
Hoplee	80.131	Lotus Elan	39.946	Jaguar E-Type	40.185
Spiny Anteater	80.485	Toyota 2000GT	40.177	Datsun Z423	40.308
Hekalite	80.516	Porsche 911	39.862	Porsche 914/6	40.654
Drift2XL	80.518	Mercedes 300SL	40.219	Porsche 911	40.299
Hoplee	80.647	Lamborghini Miura	40.175	Ferrari Dino	40.472
TheJohnNewton	80.989	Lamborghini Miura	40.868	Ferrari Dino	40.121
Hoplee	81.170	Porsche 911	40.585	Porsche 914/6	40.585
TheJohnNewton	81.816	Jaguar E-Type	40.639	Lotus Elan	41.177
Hoplee	82.028	Fairlady	40.953	2000GT	41.075

[Hoplee]

Dino      MS Reverse  40.472 (hotlap scoreboard #155)
Miura     MS             40.175 (hotlap scoreboard #471)
80.647 combined

914/6    MS Reverse  40.585
911       MS             40.585
81.170 combined

2000GT  MS Reverse  41.075
Fairlady  MS             40.953
82.028 combined

Team GB coming soon!

[Hoplee]

It looks like the dream team for this challenge will be the Italians, but I'm not going to count out the others just yet. Team Germany might be hampered by the 911's lack of racing tires in B-Class on such a short track, but it isn't showing. The Japanese may have the most time left on the table. The Fairlady is a grip monster that should do very well here.

Team GB I would expect to be the least popular choice as no one really has that much seat time in an Elan yet. I'll try and tune one out to get the British into the mix over the next day or so. The E-Type will do well here, given the latest tune and its acres of grip.

[Hoplee]

at least one person has the Elan figured out, it's now the highest placing FCT eligible car on the Tsukuba hotlap leaderboard with a 57.4xx! team GB may be a real sleeper!

[Hoplee]

Maple Valley Short Reverse has been my favorite track for about two weeks now. It's got a critical sweeper coming onto the stretch, a la Suzuka West, and a nasty bit just after the first couple of curves that tends to throw cars into a skid. There are some truly odd things going on with the pavement around this turn (3 or 4?). When I mess up, it's either because I started to skid before hitting the whoop-de-doo in the pavement (which just makes it worse), or I tagged the inside curbing a little (starting a skid usually!). Stay off the curbing, stay patient with the gas, and this is where you'll do a lot of your passing as cars lose it and drift outside.

My strategy is to take my best car on the reverse, and the weaker car on the regular track. That's why the 914, Dino and 2000GT all ran reverse. 

Still surprised that the 911 and 914 ran the exact same time going forwards and backwards. Weird!

[Hekalite]

I'm really looking forward to this.  I did not get nearly enough seat time with the 911 in the last challenge.  I only hope it feels as good in B-class.

[Hoplee]

I have heard but have not confirmed that the 300SL can do well on the short stuff. I was only considering it for 'Ring Runs but now it seems I need to take a look at how much grip it can make.

The 911 seems right at home in any class. There are very few cars that deserve the appelation "The Immortal..." 

[iCH3AT5]

well I kicked it off last night trying it out. let's see where the time stands.

I ran the miura to a 40.551 on the maple valley short normal direction. I am sure I can get alot more out of it, but that car is pretty stout in carrying speed through corners.

[Racing Pro 97]

Driver             Total Time       Short Car          Short Time     Rev Car          Rev Time   
Racing Pro 97        79.610         Porsche 914/6     39.638       Porsche 911    39.972

Thought I would start with team Germany-I have always loved German cars and their engineering!

[Hoplee]

and just like that, RP97 takes over #65 in his 911 and #108 in his 914 on the B-Class Hotlap Leaderboards. Nicely done! Any advice for the slightly slower masses?

[Spiny Anteater]

Quick pari of marker times here for Team Japan.

The Z432 has managed to get around the right way in 40.355. However, I'm not totally convinced that I've got this set-up right - every time I made the back end looser it got faster. Maybe I shouldn't have gone AWD  As for going around in reverse, there's some serious work required on the nut behind the wheel. Best I could achieve was 40.789 in the 2000GT. So I think that's a total for  me of 81.144 if my maths haven't failed me. Fingers crossed I can manage to find a bit more out there - I really do believe that the Z432R has a 39 hiding out there for someone, just maybe not me 

[Big Mooing Cow]

I ran this last night before the challenge opened officially, but didn't post.  Have you ever been driving in Forza and actually wake up about to hit a wall?  That's where I was last night.  I thought I was driving pretty quick, but after re-running some laps tonight I'm more than a second faster!

The lesson:  Don't Drive Tired. 

MVS - Porsche 914 - 39.922
MVS Reverse - Porsche 911 - 40.023
Combined: 79.945

MVS Reverse is a really tricky little track!  The blind kink-chicane is extremely tricky to apex properly, and the hairpin is tough to run a good exit and not lose rear traction.  The forward track is a cake walk by comparison!

[Ske]

Same experiences here as BMC here... Just back from work (3 am now), barely able to keep my eyes open heh... I had a hard time even making out the track on screen. Both of the cars I went with are twitchy SOBs too. I think I managed to tame them pretty good, but I still need to work on the Elan's damping and the E-type's ARBs.

Gonna try swapping tracks.. the Elan is a bit more stable so it might work better on the reverse track.

Normal - Lotus Elan - 40.080
Reverse - Jaguar E-type - 40.268
-----------------------------------
Combined - 80.348

Edit:
That's definitely the right combination of Car/Track... Rebuilt the Elan (took away all the weight reduction and powered up the engine) and ran a 39.984, bumping my combined time to 80.252. Not sure if those cars can run much faster than that in my hands. The E-type feels rock solid now, but the Elan's still a bit unstable.

Normal - Lotus Elan - 39.984
Reverse - Jaguar E-type - 40.268
-----------------------------------
Combined - 80.252

[Hoplee]

Elan MShort 39.946
E-Type MSReverse 40.185
80.131 combined

Posting Elan build now.

[Big Mooing Cow]

Just got back from some rather interesting track sessions... I bought a 432 and 2000GT, ran the Nissan at both tracks and the Toyota at MVS (I'm out of time for the night).  Strangely, my 432 was faster at MVSR than MVS!  And surprisingly, I had a heck of a time tuning the 2000GT.  I couldn't tune in enough turn-in to make it good at the MVS kink without making the rear end skittish.  I compromised by playing with the diffs, but the tune is far from ideal.  Still got some good times to post, though!

MVS - Toyota 2000GT - 40.004
MVSR - Nissan 432 - 39.957
Combined - 79.961

Please pardon my extreme shorthand.  I'm even sicker of typing out "Maple Valley Short Reverse" than I am Anti-Roll Bar! 

More tomorrow!