Introduce yourself thread [Part 2]

[Attila Domján]

Welcome to all new members of the Racing Club, make yourselves home guys, and have fun!

Cheers: Atti

[Rich Tranter]

Hi guys,

My names Rich and I am 26 years old. I still live at home in England, sadly as the housing market is waaay out of my reach right now.

I play a range of racing games, mainly Race 07, F1 challenge, Rfactor, Colin Mcrae 4, TOCA, GT Legends and sometimes dabble with GRID for a nice easy race.

I have been playing racing games since the days of Sega Mega Drives, although got serious a few years ago with online racing. I have competed in the Sim Challenge F1, my first season with little sucess. However it was a vital learning curve and wake up call to the level I had to reach.

I moved onto the Venezuela F3 league, where I scored a couple of top 5 finishes, relying mainly on other peoples mistakes.

I moved away from PC sims to race with a friend in Forza 2 BTCC and BGT leagues, with mixed results and a lot of disapointment in their professionalism.

I am now back racing in the RDWTCC and plan to compete in the GT Evo league with my new team.

I believe I am a fair racer. If you disagree, tell me and I can try and become a better driver. I pride myself on being hard to overtake, without deliverately driving people off the road, especially if the place looks lost.

Look forward to meeting you all on track!

[Sebastien Bortoli]

welcome to the racing club man!

[Andrew Dawes]

Hi my name is Andrew Dawes. I'm 28 and living in Sydney. I got recently married to a wonderful wife who lets me sim race. I've been playing Race and Race 07 for a while now (but have been out of it for about 6 months now). I was previously racing online in RSC Development Series and Oceania events in Race 07. I have GTR Evo and this is really as much racing as i will have time for.

I've got a long history of racing games but most semi-sim/semi-arcade.
Lets see First ther was Grand Prix on C64. The Cycles on PC. Every Need for Speed to High Stakes. Indianapolis 500, Bill Elliots Nascar, Screamer, Papyrus Indycar Racing (a lot !!), F1 Racing, F1RS2, Sports Car GT, GP500, GP3, GP4. There's a lot more but they make NFS seem like a sim. I think what's obvious is there is little recent history. Just GTR2 to add to that list.

I did a few skins for bikes in GP500 but that was about 11 yrs ago now.

I love online racing in organised events. It feels real! The heart beating the sweaty palms. The grip pressure on the wheel on the last two laps (okay 6 laps). To this stage i'm a very safe driver and try to avoid accidents. My main aim is getting through the first corner, the first lap and the race unscathed. I'd rather be on track and running at the back of the pack than sitting in the pits with busted suspension. I'm not fast in one lap but i can usually do consistent laps and am reasonably smooth. I've always been a better F1 driver than a touring car driver and this means Magny Cours is the only track i have decent experience on.

Look forward to meeting you out on track.

[Attila Domján]

Originally Posted by Andrew Dawes

I got recently married to a wonderful wife who lets me sim race.

I agree she must be lovely, dream of every sim racer to have a wife like that. Of course there is a possibility to do decent amount of software testing before you upgrade to Wife 1.0 from Girlfriend 7.5, but sooner or later the upgrade is inevitable, and to make sim-racing friendly upgrades on the Wife software is only possible with the command Format C: ...

Welcome again to the family Andrew!

[Andrew Dawes]

Originally Posted by Attila Domján

I agree she must be lovely, dream of every sim racer to have a wife like that. Of course there is a possibility to do decent amount of software testing before you upgrade to Wife 1.0 from Girlfriend 7.5, but sooner or later the upgrade is inevitable, and to make sim-racing friendly upgrades on the Wife software is only possible with the command Format C: ...

Yes, I can't understand it. GF7.5 was perfectly compatible to Race07, worked flawlessly and then suddenly, install Wife 1.0 and 8 months later finally a version of sim racing is running but only for short periods and there seem to be more scheduling conflicts. I finally worked out there are 'service packs' that you can apply which improve compatability. I've found the SPcooking and SPcleaning to greatly improve stability. Good to be back.

[Attila Domján]

looooooooooooooool

good to c u again back

[Marcel vd Aa]

Hi my fellow speedfreaks,
My name is Marcel van der Aa and i live in The Hague, Holland.
I'm currently somewhat of a noob when it comes to online racing.
But offline i started in 1994 with the first NFS and since then i practicly played almost every racing game there is.
So the racing experience is there, now to put it to use against real people.
Looking forward to that, i can tell you that.

My hobbies include: High poly 3D car modeling (the wheels i make consist of more polygons the an entire Race07/GTR-Evo car), Music making and Drawing and Racing offcourse.

I am by nature a very curious person often driving people mad with questions ( no just kidding, but i do want know everything there is to know about things i intend to do).

I'm hoping to compete at the top here at RD ( hey you gotta aim high) but i'm nowhere nearly there so i will put a lot of energy in getting to know the tracks, cars and people who drive them.

Hope to see you soon on a track near you....

Greetings, Marcel vd Aa

[Chad711]

Hello,

Well I'm sure you already know my name and age!

I live in the Dallas, TX area. I am originally from Missoula, Montana. I, along with the rest of my family are speed nuts! I current drive a 2007 corvette. I have tracked sport bikes for a couple of years. This is my 3rd corvette. I love them!

I sometimes considered selling it though due to tough times with finances. I think if I did I would get a SUV and purchase a kart and start racing that.

As for sim racing I am very new to it. I have been a gamer all my life. Always loved racing games. I started out on GTR2. Been into sims for about 5 months now.

I also have rFactor but do not play it much at all. I like the F1 mods for it but just don't get on it much.

[Colin Shaw]

Hi Guys,
My name is Colin Shaw i'm a retired engineer living in leeds UK with my wife Eileen and 2 dogs..all the children are grown up now so lots of time to practice.

I first started sim racing with GP4 many moons back and still racing but seem to be getting slower not faster maybe thats down to my age reflexes and all that but not giving up yet.

[Daniel Hartmann]

Hi there!
My name is Daniel. I'm 26, living in central Germany. Before I got into simracing I played shooters (quake 3, counterstrike) most of the time, only occasionally i did some arcade racing (from "Buggy Boy" on Amiga to the "Need for Speed" series). But in this games you are very dependend on your teammates and regular practice needs to be scheduled. Now, behind the steering wheel, I am most of the time free to decide when to race and it is a lot more fun. So the only games on my pc today is the Simbin-Collection: GTL, GTR2, race07/evo and rfactor.
I like close but fair driving free of wrecking, therefore this is the place to race hopefully. We'll see, but I'm quite positive in this. :-)

[Edward Leake]

A nice mix of new faces, welcome aboard one and all.

[Frank Sutton]

Hello,

I live in a little place called Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey (just inland of Atlantic City). I'm not new to sim racing, but I've only been sim'ing for about 3 years. It all started one day when I decided to go purchase a copy of GT Legends and a MoMo wheel from Circuit City. I can't say I remember what prompted me to do it, other than fond memories of playing "Pole Position" in a local arcade back in the early 80's as a young teen. Since that time, I've purchased every sim I could get my hands on. So there it started and not sure where it will end.

Glad to be here

[Chris Buchanan]

Mornin all, or at least it's morning here in Pittsburgh.

Now onto myself. I have been a race fan for years, starting originally with NASCAR((yeah I know)), and I have since moved on I now am a fan of any type of racing but lean more towards good competition, but I'm especially in love with road courses like Road American and Magny Cours etc.

I started with NASCAR Racing by Papyrus and have played most of those when it comes to simming, but I haven't been doing to much recently until I saw the upcoming release of a new GTR game. To say the least I felt that if I had a community to play in I would find myself actually driving more often and maybe teaching myself how to use that MoMo Racing wheel that I bought over a year ago now.

I'm a motorhead at heart but haven't ever taken the time to put into my cars, although until about last year I never really had one I wanted to put the time into, but now I have a 1997 Saturn SL1 and am ready to put some time money and effort into her.

[Marty Pierce]

Hi my name is Marty Pierce and I got started racing with the original granturismo game and was hooked right away. I think I have played most of the racing games for playstation 1 to 3. I just recently started playing on pc with gt legends, gtr 2, race 07, gtr evo and rfactor.I was amazed how great the simbin games play and how much more you learn to drive. my user name on those was mp61 but will change to real name in future. I am a huge fan of formula 1, moto gp, and cycling. I have been racing bicycles for the the past 15 years and have a cat 1 classification in usa cycling. Like any kind of racing as long as it has wheels. I hope to learn about setups downloading and general pc knowledge. Thanks for being patient with me, I promise to be a dedicated and respectfull member here. Marty

[Neil Johnson]

Hi All Neil Johnson from Sydney Australia, I.T tech by trade, and i'm 36. Have been PC racing for 8 or 9 years, but my only track experience IRL has been carting a couple of times. I'm running a G25 that has replaced my red momo, and hoping to set some good times around Nordschleife. See you all on the track (that'll be me that you just passed ;)) Oh, by the way, long story, but my friends call me Steely, and i'd invite you all to do the same Neil

[Bruce Saltzman]

Hello everyone, glad to be getting back into sim racing after a prolonged absence. I've been in the community for 10 years now. Most recently I was involved with the guys from Sim Racing Tonight helping them with their web site. Prior to that I was an admin with RaceSimCentral working with them to bring RSC to the next level. That's where I met Bram and the RPM guys when they initially created the RaceDepartment over there.

I've been involved in league racing for much of my time in the community and really miss the interaction and competition. The RD guys will probably be ready to 'alert the media' that I'm finally getting my wheel and pedals dusted off again.

I'll try to stay out of everyone's way for the time being.

[Attila Domján]

Nice to see you catched on racing again here Bruce.

[Stuart Thomson]

Hi all,
My name is Stuart Thomson, apologies for my poor english, I'm from London .

39 years old (40 in about 2 weeks time), married with 2 sons, 13 & 11 years old.

My kids don't "get" sim racing, they're happier indiscriminately maiming and eviscerating hordes of generic aliens on their Xbox. My wife sort of understands the appeal of racing, but she still thinks it's faintly ridiculous.

I've been playing sims for about 6-7 years in total, but for the first few of those, I only played GPL, and that is still the only game that I've ever raced online.

The mechanics of GPL has heavily influenced the way I drive in games, and that may turn out to be a disadvantage, but so far it's worked well enough for me.

I got GTL as it appealed to the GPL-er in me, really enjoyed it and got Race07 on a punt (mostly for the FBMW and the Caterhams). Absolutely loved it, went onto No-Grip, heard about this place, joined and volunteered to help out on the periphery of the skinning side.

I'm looking forward to driving against you, and hopefully I won't be too much of a hazard.

See you on the grid

[Peter Byun]

Greetings everyone.

I'm from the West Coast of America. Live in the SF Bay Area @ the moment. I started sim racing with F1C 99-02 and GP4. Always been an F1 and motorsports fan but never really was interested in sim racing until I one day picked up those two sims and started playing online. Then I was hooked.

I've been through racing schools earlier in my life in Formula Fords but never had time nor the money to do any competitive racing. Eventually, I'd like to get back into a race car again but until then, I will be sim racing to satisfy my fix.

I really got interested in the Race Department community because of it's strong support & affiliation with Race07/GTR-Evo.

[Garry Pullen]

Just like to say Welcome to all new comers

[Victor Shaw]

Hello everyone, my name is Victor Shaw from Ballywalter Co Down Northern Ireland I live four doors from David Lemon and round the corner from his brother Lawrance. David got me started racing in Race 07 and I must admit I really enjoy it. I have had a few problems at the start learning the brake points but I seem to have that sorted now. I've only been playing for a short time so I think I will be ok. See you all on the track, keep the pedal to the metal.

[Damian Dainhumain]

Hi all,

I'm Damian from Nottingham, England and I'm 24.

I spent most of my childhood working in professional music studio's and being a DJ, made a good name for myself in the underground music scene and have been a professional sound engineer / audio producer / teacher for about 10 years now. I left school at the age of 10 due to reasons I won't go into, and just spent most of my childhood learning about music production, teaching other kids how to make music and DJ in a attempt to get them off the streets doing bad stuff and giving them something constructive they can live life from, I also traveled accross Europe in my youth. I have 1 kid and have settled down a bit more now as after 10+ years of audio work it got a little much.

I've been racing in sims since 2005, starting off in GTR and rFactor, made a little race team called DH-Racing and started racing with friends having fun. In 2007 the team started to grow after winning a few championships and now this year I merged the team with another race team forming the GMT-DHRacing team and race in some top leagues like SSCA and FSR and have some top drivers racing along with us.

If your interested have a look at our team website:
http://gmt-dhr.com/index.php

I’m here to have fun racing with you all, as this is a great and wonderful community here and hope to have some great battles on track with you all which am sure I will and look foward to meeting you all on the track!


All the best and Kind regards,
Damian

[Gary Lennon]

Very big welcome to all new arrivals,some nice reading in those introductions,seeing some old games brought fond memories,SCGT,man i loved that,and seeing Buggy Boy for the Amiga!!,simply brought a lump to my throat,Happy Times .
But many more happy times ahead,with the arrival of all the new stuff and new series on the brink of being announced,you have all arrived at very good point in time .

See You Guys On The Tracks Soon!

[Trevor Catt]

Hi.
I am 56 and from Yorkshire England I have been sim racing for 10 years in GPL,GTL,GTR and now GTR2
I race in the Gamers Crib A league(races 1hr 30 mins), STES Endurance series (most races are 3 Hours) and at the ADC.(sprint and 1 hour)
I have a GTR2 rank of over -100 for GT cars and an NGT Rank of over -190
(which only means something if you know what it is)
I am looking forward to racing with you guys albeit not as often as I would like because of other sim racing committments.

See you on the track
Trevor