Wow! I remember this thread. Who would have known...
I've got an old replay where he was mighty impressed with my driving, and called me fast... things surely changes.
I forgot to mention in the beginning that it happens mostly when using the clutch pack, and not with locked diff. Anyway, I've since got a wheel, and although it can still happen a little, it's easier to avoid it now.
Oh it's the tag, lol. I've always thought it was supposed to show the whole team name, and whenever I saw it cut off I thought "Darn, still not fixed!"
You won't get LFS running with standard VGA drivers. Try installing the latest chipset drivers and then the Nvidia drivers. Black screen and no signal usually indicates that the resolution is too high for your monitor. You can try and boot into safe mode and set the resolution to a supported one there.
Speaking of team names: the bug that the last letter of a team name is cut off should be fixed. I can't believe it's still there after all these years!
Use more of the tracks width as far a I can see. For example before the left corner approaching 1st split, you're mostly in the middle of the track, causing you too loose speed. You're also a bit cautious through the chicane before the finish line. I bet you can shave off 0.5 second there by going faster.
Something is probably corrupting the replays when they are saved. Do a memory and harddisk test to see if there's something wrong there. You might also try with a clean install of LFS to see if that helps.
I have this happening sometimes when using shift+f4 to go from window/fullscreen mode. The LFS screen goes all black and the sound loops for about 5-10 seconds. Then everything is back to normal again.
Try and completely uninstall Norton. Then run the Norton Removal Tool
It could be Norton causing the hiccups. Also, enter the bios setup and run a harddrive diagnostic to determine if it's healthy or not. I've serviced a heck of a lot HP notebooks with faulty harddrives, so it certainly could be that what's causing the stutter.
Sorry Speed Core Racing, you were just a tiny bit too late to make it. If one of the already entered teams should withdraw, you'll be first in line to take their place.