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Indy Car Driver (Pro IV)
 
Posts: 140
Joined: 09 Sep 2014, 9:06 am

Post 21 Dec 2015, 7:15 pm

SLOTerp wrote:I found a moment for the final adjudication... yay!


Now that the race is over:


I was locked in mortal combat (until I died) with race steward Mike. Afterward I was able to banter a bit with him. He and I actually "finished" the race as if I were still racing (he beat me by a space). That was fun. My understanding of this league is that communication between racers while racing is prohibited. <<as compared with, say, Diplomacy where it is vital>>

My crash was my bad. I was on a biz trip, didn't spend more than 7 minutes on my plot. Silly me. In hindsight my plot was badly flawed. All on me.

Now I have a 5th and a crash, instead of a 5th and a 3rd. I'll need to up my game to avoid relegation. Watch out, fellas -- I'm bringing my A game to Singapore! :)

Thanks, Mike, for stewarding a well-run race! And thanks for the really good racing.

Warm regards and merry Christmas from NJ,
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NASCAR Driver (Pro V)
 
Posts: 7810
Joined: 08 Apr 2002, 9:45 am

Post 21 Dec 2015, 9:33 pm

Overall, I think I really enjoyed this track. The changing speed corners make it important to hit them just right or you waste tires. If you do miss some corners, there are places to play catch up as well. Kudos to Doug for a well thought-out design.

Build / Bid
This looked like a fast track with enough slow corners to keep you honest. I chose flexibility over extra top speed (160/60/60). I prefer running near the front so I burned 2 wear and all my meager skill into the bid. I was in a 3-way tie for the pole and ended up 2nd row. Not bad for my bid.

The Race
I think I burned too much wear in the first lap but I stayed close to the leaders. At the end of that lap, Tim B. was ahead by a space with a 7 wear advantage. However, he was running a relatively weak car (140/40/40) so I thought I had a chance. Other frontrunners included Brad, who also had a weak car but with comparable wear to me, and Tim C. with the same car as me but slightly less wear.

It was somewhere around the Spoon in lap 2 that I passed Tim C. and Brad. It was also around then that Randy became a potential problem (i.e. pain in my ass). We spent around 20 turns in constant contact.

By the time lap 3 started, I figured this race was all Tim B’s with Rando & I fighting for 2nd. We fought fiercely, forcing me to roll dice, in some cases just to maintain initiative (it was tense but fun). He then made that fatal error in the Spoon. I knew I could now at least force Tim B. to roll a few dice to guarantee the win. His luck ran out and mine didn’t. I you ask me, he was more deserving of the win with a perfectly run race. I'm not giving the trophy back, though!
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NASCAR Driver (Pro V)
 
Posts: 2982
Joined: 22 Nov 2014, 4:13 pm

Post 19 Jan 2016, 5:05 am

The 24 car composite field for Suzuka.
FullField.png
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Indy Car Driver (Pro IV)
 
Posts: 23
Joined: 26 Aug 2015, 8:57 am

Post 29 Jan 2016, 2:38 pm

I find Suzuka to be really interesting because it has some features of a track that can reward a large car (accel/decel/top) and/or a race from behind strategy.

Its a long track at 83 spaces. 76 spaces is my current median. It also has 5 straights of 10 or more spaces (no track I've built has more).

But, it doe snot have a straight over 15 spaces in length and has the least 3-wide area of any track I've built (a mere 18%).

At the end of the day, the track layout and width led me to go for a run from the front strategy and more wear instead of top speed/accel/decel. It certainly paid off for me in C2, but I almost got caught by the bigger car.

In the end I did not have to bid too much for pole and was not effectively challenged early which meant that I was not forced off my line. Given how close the finish was, one more wear of bid or an early challenge that forced me to use wear less efficiently would have probably made me 2nd at best.