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Monday, June 24, 2013

[R]GARAGE Watches Le Mans! - Toyotas, McDreamy, and of course, RIP Allan Simonsen

The 90th 24 Hours of Le Mans Race has provided its spectators a great competition between Le Mans Prototypes and GT cars in the world's highly-regarded, historical, and wonderful French circuit of Sarthe. More than 50 cars were on the grid in this year's race, hoping that they will do their best to reach the podium, or even better; to win the race in their respective categories.


sources: http://www.drivesrt.com/  and http://www.motorauthority.com, respectively

The competition is separated between two types of cars: LMPs, and GTs, which are separated yet again into LMP1 and LMP2, and GT Pro and GT Am(ateur) respectively. This year also marked the return of Toyota since its last Le Mans race in 1999 with its Toyota GT-ONE cars. This time, Toyota sent 2 of their new works TS030 cars to this year's Le Mans, competing with the Audi LMPs. They hoped that they could snatch Audi's dominance in the Le Mans race. Also, Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd Patrick Dempsey raced Le Mans once again, driving Porsche 911 GT3 RSR for Dempsey Del Piero-Proton racing with Patrick Long and Joe Foster, hoping that they could at least place themselves in the podium of GT Am class after their success in American Le Mans Series (and to be honest, I DO rooted them throughout the race! Because I know the leader of LMP1 class would be too mainstream to follow).

The bad thing about my watching Le Mans is that I forgot that Le Mans ran on 22nd June at 8pm Jakarta time; at that time, I went to Thamrin Street with my family to celebrate Jakarta's 486th anniversary. Due to that, streets from MH Thamrin to Monas (read: National Monument) and any streets that heads to Monas were closed; there were thousands of people flooding the street just to celebrate Jakarta's anniversary, and it became more crowded as night came in. There were lots of food sellers, toy sellers, stuff sellers, and some shows held near Monas, plus fireworks. To be honest I wanted to eat Kerak Telor (a Jakartan food that looks like an omelette) to celebrate its anniversary, but failed because there weren't Kerak Telor sellers throughout MH Thamrin and I ended up eating the fried rice with my family...

This is where it became more Le Mans-y: The next day as I woke up, I missed the 14th episode of Inazuma Eleven Go! (I was skeptical about Indonesian dubbers, but fortunately those skeptical feelings are gone thanks to their improving efforts of dubbing) and had an intention to download it, but when I open my Facebook, guess what happens:



Allan Simonsen, one of the drivers of Gulf Aston Martin Vantage V8, died of a fatal crash SEVENTEEN MINUTES after the race's start. RIP.

It was so sad because not only am I missed almost halfway of the LM race, but also didn't know how Allan crashed. (But, to this date, from the news I read, he lost control of his Aston Martin on a fast Tetre Rouge corner and broke his car in process, with medical team nearby quickly after the driver and he died just before they got to the medical center). So sad that the motorsport world has lost its another figure albeit the amount the safety technology given in Le Mans. All thoughts go to him and his family and friends.

And here is how he crashed...



It was there, the halfway of the 24 hours, that I eager to watch the whole race for three reasons:

1) Seeing how Toyota LMPs fare against the dominating Audis (Wished Toyota could win Le Mans after having a hiatus since the last time GT-ONEs were deployed in 1999)

source: http://hakkalocken.tumblr.com

 2) Seeing how GT Academy Nismo LMP2 (Greaves Motorsport) car Lucas Ordóñez and co. drive (I should get a PS3 and Gran Turismo 5 to be like him... orz)

source: stated / http://www.endurance-info.com

3) And finally, the last but very important reason, McDREAMY!!! (I'm sure the moment Dempsey Del Piero won / got a podium in GT Am class, we'll expect a Le Mans reference in a Grey's Anatomy episode or two. Meredith's gonna be proud!)

source: Dempsey Racing's official site

And after lots of dramas, safety cars, pits, speedings, cornerings, crashes, and overtakes, the 90th 24 Hours of Le Mans goes to...




Audi Joest Team! Driven by Tom Kristensen and co. There's no surprise that Audi won, but to see a Danish flag rised halfway and Kristensen being emotional, this victory would mean a lot to them (especially after Kristensen lost his fellow Danish friend). Toyotas snatched second, but they've done well; their prototype program is a success despite they didn't take first. The other Audi completed the podium trio for this class.

Meanwhile, the LMP2 winner is OAK Racing's Morgan / Nissan. Well, sadly I don't follow LMP2s, but congrats anyway! Oh wait, did I forget about GT Academy team? Ordóñez and co. is *just* a little more to the podium actually, finishing fourth... :( Until one team who finished third faced disqualification after it is revealed that team broke one of the regulations...

In GT Pro class we have Porsche AG Team Manthey as the winner! Not following it sadly...

Finally, GT Am class seek IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche as the winner! Sadly, McDreamy is out of the podium as two Ferraris completed the podium of said class. However, fourth isn't bad, and Dempsey Del Piero racing, while not getting its podium, won hearts of its fans thanks to its interesting action feeds in its twitter. This is the reason why I can't miss Le Mans even though I have to follow all the action from twitter feeds. And finishing the Le Mans race is much better than to retire for this team! Plus, there's one Aston Martin standing, with Goethe and co. finally finished the race despite unable to avenge Simonsen by either winning or podium in the class. Great happy endings for both Dempsey team and Aston Martin!

I hope the competition escalates more in the next year. With Peugeot hibernating, having 908 HDI FAPs or newer would make a Toyota vs. Audi turn into a threesome fight in LMP1s, which would be cool, and McDreamy's return to the Le Mans race will definitely add a color to the race!

Merci Beaucoup Le Mans! See you next year, and remember, "Keep Allan Simonsen in your thoughts" -

EDIT: G-Drive Racing is revealed to broke a regulation, so in exchange of their disqualification, Greaves Motorsports took the podium in the final provisional results. (News from motorsport.com)

~[R]

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Thursday Throwback: TGS - A GR carmaking house that followed the RSC-era mainstream

Welcome to the second edition of Thursday Throwback! This is where I'm reviewing my old game stuffs. As you could imagine, these stuffs were there since I signed up for a SkyDrive in 2008 and made stuffs for years since then.

Previously, I've shown you my Turbo Sliders tracks that use the default tracks. These tracks are now available on the Full Contact server where available! (There's a random rotation though, so you would likely drive at least one track of mine...). For this issue, the Thursday Throwback action moves to GeneRally, an addictive PC racing game for six players with a vast room for creating your own tracks and cars! Imagination guaranteed!

GeneRally is an addictive racing game with up to 6 players, and unlimited modification possibilities where you can make your own tracks and cars! Need to say more?


An official forum for the game was established in now-defunct RaceSimCentral forums, which most GR racers who read this post will remember what this site was. There, there have been many stuffs created by the game's fans, and there are competitions that use this game and made tools related to this game, such as CarEditor, SaveGameMerger for competition-related things, and many more.

Fictitious car makers born; there was Herbal Motors, and then there was DHV, and there were many others whose name I couldn't remember, but only a handful of fictitious makers that are still alive until now. Then there was another fictional car company that followed the mainstream: TGS, short for TRR General Staff. TGS made two cars; the first car is the TGS Devilbat RS, a "performance box car", which is first of its kind. Some veterans heralded it being "too boxy" for their standards, but some liked its performance and design. Then as TGS planned to make a "real car" as suggested, they came up with an idea: a hot hatch. The TGS hot hatch's development took months following the forum exodus from RSC Forums to GeneRally International Forum, and several days later, TGS Sasuke ST, the name of the latest hot hatch, is born.


Sasuke ST's promotional image


Sasuke ST has 3 different types: normal, tuned version, and the hard-top convertible version, which might be unpopular amongst the car enthusiasts in the universe. Both Devilbat and Sasuke has 120cc and 2000cc engines respectively, and both have their own distinct characteristics; Sasuke is agile in turns, while Devilbat RS... can't remember... To top it off, Devilbat wasn't a mass-produced car as there were only 200 built at the time of its production, while Sasuke ST was and there were 1000 built.

However, it was "that's it" for TGS; years after Sasuke ST and as they were to create a sedan, they ran out of their resources. TGS filed for bankruptcy months after, and its founder was focused on developing the machines for two cars in the Update Original GeneRally Cars: Triangle, and Rallycar in 2011.

Years later, a new car is born to celebrate Sasuke's existence: some of ex-TGS workers worked hard to make this car a great tribute to their old product: SST Sports Type-R, created by [R] GARAGE. The vehicle is said to carry on TGS's spirit, and to live it on.



The engine and the performance remain the same, only this time it's [R] GARAGE's TR16-V 2.0L engine beneath the sport hatch's hood, sporting the same agility on the corners, but with improved top speed. There are three options for this car: Two of them have same out-of-the-factory performances but their coloring; single color and two colors. The last one is a tuned version where it acts like a drift car. It's meant to drift anyway... There's no cabrio version unlike the old model...

The car will soon be available as I update my site, so just wait :), but meanwhile, you can get it in its GRIF thread!

~[R]