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GT4

24hr Challenge

  • Info:

    The Challenge

    The Drivers

    The Equipment

    The Background

    The Planning

    The Event

    Pictures - Race Gallery

    Race Updates and Results

    The challenge!
    To complete a 24hr endurance race on Gran Turismo4 in real time.
    We are going to stick to some ground rules to make sure it still is a bit like the real race.

  • There will be no pausing the game unless we are in the pit lane, and even then only paused enough to change driver. Pausing the game to use the toliet or roll a tab is not allowed (gravy!)

  • There will be shifts on the driving, uncertain who does what, I guess that part we will just play by ear.

  • Once the game starts, thats it! No restarting just because you hit the gravel on the first corner, or you don’t want to race against that super fast Mazda thing, green and orange!

  • Using B-Spec drving will be counted as a loss and there was no point doing the challenge.

  • The wheel will be used at all times, if the wheel breaks we will allow use of the backup wheel but the game will be paused on next entry to pit lane for changing.

  • Drivers will not be tested for drugs as they should be high to even consider this crap!

The Drivers.
Funky Larma - Adam. (me)
Gravy2012 - Sean.
bobgbob - Chris.

The Equipment.
PS2 - of course
Copy of Gran Turismo4
Logitech Driving Force Pro steering wheel
Suitable Seat
The Gaming Hat!

The Background.
I’m a huge fan of the Gran Turismo series and I’ve had the game reserved for a while so when it came out I just about started living in the game. After some trawling through some RSS feeds and checking some sites I found details of the endurance events in the game. Previous versions of the game the endurance events were playable from day one, to which I would as I love just getting absorbed in some driving.
But this new version of GT had the endurance events locked away until you had completed the game by 25%, but what caught my eye was the rumour of a 24 hour LeMans race. Ohhhhh… I love this race at the best of times but now I could actually take part in the race, ok not take part in real life, I’m missing the millions to fund my own team so I guess this is as close as I will get!
The next plan is put together my own team for the virtual race, now Gravy is normally down with most of the crazy ideas I have but playing a game for 24 hours? even that might push the limits. On hearing about it he was more motivated than I was to get it done. So we start there with some Stella and decided a game plan and realised we need a third man. bobgbob can always be relied upon for a laugh or when in doubt but he is not a PS2 owner and is not a driving gamer by heart, but how can you say no to those ‘Duncan - Blue’ blonde highlights!
So we now have our team all we need was the race, so Gravy and I set about playing non stop to unlock the course and put our minds at rest that it does exist! Finally 25% was completed and not only was there a 24 LeMans race but also the chance to drive round the 'ring for 24 hours, how cool another week end taken care of!

The Planning.
The real question to answer was what car should we use for the race?
Me being me really wants to do it in the Bentley Speed 8, or at least a Aston Martin. Alas the Bentley is a locked car, only unlocked by completing the 24hr LeMans race! and the Aston’s are not going to have the muscle to make it. We went through a very strict process of elimination on the correct car to use, testing power, tires, lap times and other import factors, details below:

Audi R8 - Standard Tuning - 783bhp

  • Front Tires: Medium Racing
  • Rear Tires: Super Hard Racing
  • Best Lap: 3.41
  • Comments: Slice of fried gold!
We found we were still lagging at the back of the pack so we looked at an upgrade.

Audi R8 - Stage 4 Turbo - 1043bhp

  • Front Tires: Medium Racing
  • Rear Tires: Super Hard Racing
  • Best Lap: 3.30
  • Comments: Faster Fried Gold!
Looking better!

Pescaroloa - Standard Tuning - ?bhp

  • Front Tires: Hard Racing
  • Rear Tires: Super Hard Racing
  • Best Lap: Dunno, car was poor!
  • Comments: Quit, pants, cockit!
Not a good session.

Pescaroloa - Stage 4 Turbo - 1091bhp

  • Front Tires: Medium Racing
  • Rear Tires: Super Hard Racing
  • Best Lap: 3.24
  • Comments: Nice but no cup holders!
I think we have a winner!

So we have decided on using a Pescaroloa C60 with a stage 4 turbo upgrade, now true GT fans out there will say that this will be easy, the power this puts out will be xyz percent greater than the other cars but since they are not going to sit there for 24 hours and just do the B-Spec cop out version I say 'Cockit!’
We still have one major problem and that is the main man, bobgbob. He still does not really know the course and not owning a PS2 he can not practice. But hopefully the hours gameplay he is putting in should be enough to ensure we can stay on the track for a bit.

The Event
We plan on starting the race at 16:00 on Sat 9th April and all being well and good we will still be there at 15:59 on Sunday!
I have not tried playing a computer game for so long and so I’m not sure what effects you will recieve or how difficult it will be to stay awake. Gravy and I have tried a few hours straight in practice and even then your happy to leave the seat! I think we might have bitten off more than we can chew!

Pictures