I have to wonder if his conquering of Ulcerative Colitis in mid to late 2004 has affected his confidence in general. Defeating a nasty disease that could leave you sh*tting bloody stools into a bag for the rest of your life could definitely change your outlook on life .

Here's SS's version of events:

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/38964/

Quote :

“The fact of the matter is when we left the pit wall, Franz was furious that I’d crashed in Turn One, regardless of the fact that nearly every single driver behind Button did the exact same thing, including Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. He was furious that I crashed. When I asked him about the pit stop he said it doesn’t matter because you crashed, and he didn’t want to hear any criticisms about what the team did. He was trying to blame me about the pit stop. After that I just turned away and walked towards the garage, and I guess he must have caught up behind me. When he reached me, he hit me in the middle of the back with a closed fist. Everyone in the team saw it. As I was leaving the garage, he then followed me behind the partition, where none of the mechanics could see. He grabbed me from the front of my shirt, jerked me around, ripping my firesuit a little bit, and pushed me against the wall. After that, my only response was to back up in the middle of the garage and ask him if he wanted to hit me in front of everyone else.”

Q: So did anybody see what happened when he grabbed you?

“There were a couple of people who saw. He grabbed me right below the neck, on my fireproof T-shirt, and jerked me back and forth, let go, and then pushed me into the wall behind where the cars are. There were two team people there, and another person, who saw it.”

Q: What happened next – is it true that you went to Gerhard Berger and said something?

“Immediately after that situation, as you can imagine, I was furious. I walked to the pit wall and wanted to inform everyone that this happened. So I looked at my team manager, the technical director, and Gerhard Berger, and told them that if my team chief ever touches me again, I’m going to knock him out.

To those of you interested (i.e. North Americans ), looks like Scott Speed's been sacked following an altercation in the pits with one of the STR team bosses. Prior to the race he had some brutally honest things to say about his bosses and I'm quite happy he let some of the issues in the team be known.

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/38937/

I think they had unrealistic expectations of him and Liuzzi, especially given that their cars have had performance issues from the beginning. They also screwed around with Speed prior to the season, only giving him 2 days of practice in their new car (V8 vs. V10) before Melbourne. They've had unrealistically high expectations for their cars and honestly believe that with the right drivers they'd be consistently in the points. Perhaps with a true racing prodigy it would be possible to squeeze 0.5s / lap, but I have a feeling that would involve a perfect setup. Besides, if two drivers with different backgrounds (Liuzi F3000 champ, Speed GP2 Bronze) consistently end up placed closely in the grid with the same car, I think it's safe to say that the car is mostly to blame.

Now, I'd hardly consider Speed to be the next Schumi, but him being American, he's the closest thing to a Canadian driver there is and it was still fun to root for the underdogs (him and Liuzzi). Now that he's gone my interest in F1 has definitely lowered, since once again I have to watch a field of foreigners battle it out . I'll still watch, for sure, but I'm still disappointed that Speed wasn't given a better chance in F1, especially since he's had some solid results that were consistently better than his teammate's. But I guess that's F1; you don't always get the ideal circumstances to showcase your talent.

I think my hope rests in Marco Andretti making it to F1, which would be very influential in popularizing F1 in North America.

I often rode my motorcycle with my fingertips when going quick, as fewer inputs from the rider help the bike stay straight when going over bumps, etc. Staying loose is the key to smooth driving!

Last edited by DrDNA, Sun 22 Jul 2007, 19:49. Reason : speeling

Quote from Dorkman :

I love how Rubb and Sis are speeding off they almost smoke a parked car, then run a stop sign.

The shot of them driving off in the car remains one of the funniest things I've ever seen .

I'm pretty sure that's a feature useful only to yourself and the guy that lives in your bathroom mirror.

Slopi: Come back

Quote from deggis :

I don't think they could get away with legal issues because track is still a copy from the real life one.

I have a feeling that if it were possible then we'd already have some real life circuits. Would be nice if it could in fact be done, though .

"A Night at the Roxbury i ... aturday Night Live."

But thanks for playing.

Real as in a track that exists in the real world, which it doesn't. Still interesting to know that it captures the environment properly .

I have my left paddle-shifter set as the clutch and use it between shifts most of the time when fooling around offline. It's completely unnecessary but having that rpm drop-off before the next gear engages can sound quite good .

Yeah, yeah, I'll drop the money on a g25 eventually :P.

Living in western Canada makes significantly populated servers a rarity. Finland is 9 hours ahead of me, for example . The only times I ever race on the STCC servers are on my days off.

Needs more banana.

...anyway, thanks for the new version of lfstweak. Despite missing some pretty important adjustments it's still possible to make some bloody quick yet driveable cars .

For the record it's spelt 'Alcantara'.

Quote from Michael Denham :

Okay, it has inconvenienced the LFS devs,
but that's completely their business not ours.

Exactly.

The skid sounds are a lot nicer, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of quiet scrubbing anymore, just screeching. Therefore, even turning in a circle at 10 kph produces audible screeching. I've also noticed that my tires are making noise the majority of the time I'm playing, even when cruising gently or accelerating in 2nd and a bit of 3rd in the XRT. A scrubbing sound would be more fitting for small measures of traction loss then a screech.

I also think it's a great training tool and really wish more people would take advantage of it. The AI is slower, yes, but they also don't care much for your car at all, so any overtaking takes some actual planning. Several years ago I used to practice by seeing how quickly I could overtake the AI after giving them a 10-15 second head-start and doing my best not to make contact. If you can manage that then you're more likely to be a cleaner and smoother driver online.

I'm just getting so tired of joining a server to race and being smacked around by other cars who try to fit in the smallest of gaps, without any foresight whatsoever. Being a good racer means making smart decisions about where you should be in relation to other cars for the conditions. Too many racers are reactionary and just go for it without considering any upcoming corners or the lines that other cars will need to be taking. Yes, that only comes with experience, but if you aren't a good racer then you shouldn't be making bold moves that often end up ruining your race and the race of others.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just seldom impressed with the quality of racing on the STCC Silver & Gold servers, especially considering it's supposed to be a step up from the poor/learning drivers (and that's not a swipe at Becky, I still feel she's done a marvellous thing for LFS!).

Usually it just depends on the combo, how much time I've had to practice and if I've got a set that suits my style. I'm generally towards the front, but once in awhile I'll end up on a server where it's obvious that the top racers have more than a few laps of experience putting together some fast times .

However, even if I know I'm not quite as fast as the top guys, I'll just do my best to defend my position cleanly and hope that they run into trouble amongst themselves .

Yes, it's all in good fun, but the desire to win is always front and foremost.

I think what he's getting at is he wants the kind of integration HL2's comm. system has (all you need is a mic) with the same ability to mute players if need be. Ventrilo and TS are great if you wish to chat with people that have those programs, but quite often people don't or they can't be bothered switching out of LFS to open those programs. By having voice comm. integrated, if you wish to speak to someone about setups or race strategy then a private channel could be created quickly within LFS, or you could address everyone at once with announcements regarding the server, the upcoming race, etc.

It would be useful, yeah, but I don't think it's crucial at this stage. Would be a nice idea post-S3, though .

It's a very harsh system and I still can't fathom why the penalty is so high, especially since I've yet to see it actually punish someone who's deserved it! It always seems to affect either the noobs that pit without knowing the rules, drivers that are knocked into restricted areas due to another driver or the catapulting barriers or those who are disconnected due to something beyond their control. It's obvious that an attempt has been made to keep wreckers, etc, under control, but now that the method of punishment has been tested on the public, IMO it's obvious it should be modified.

Two days ago I lost my LX4 because, while taking the corner onto the bridge from the 'proper' direction, I bumped the wall, not particularly hard, and it sent me into a barrel-roll through the air, followed by about 1/2 a second of spastic mid-air gymnastics and a fine. According to someone spectating, I was nowhere near a marshall, so I still don't know what happened, but naturally I was pretty annoyed, having driven less than a dozen laps in the thing.

I've heard there's going to be a money-wipe coming up soon, hopefully a new version will be implemented that DOESN'T punish its users so harshly.

Another factor that I think contributes to people driving all over the road is the lack of centerlines around most of the track. I know the CLC crew has centerlines that can be downloaded and used, but personally, I don't wanna be hotlapping offline at another time and have those lines on the track! It's a shame there's no way to force the lines simply for the CC servers' use.

Well, what seems strange to me is that the rules state that all users should observe posted speed limits and yet the money system rewards fast driving. The faster you go, the more you get, so what do you expect people to do?

Personally, I tend to spend a lot of the time hotlapping in order to save up for the more expensive cars, but I keep an eye on the map and do my best to ensure that I'm not rounding a corner in the wrong lane and 99% of the time it all goes well. However, as has been said, a lot of people really don't give a sh*t. There were two idiots in CC #2 yesterday driving around in black UF1's and they were all over the place driving flat out and blatantly ignoring the rules dozens of times per lap. Every time I saw them lap me from the other direction they were cutting corners and in my lane. Sure, they were probably having a blast, but they weren't concerned with anyone else.

Last thing I wanna mention is that I'm also getting tired of people stopping in the middle of the road to chat, including on a NUMBER of occasions, the cops. If I'm approaching someone from behind and they're just cruising, I'll usually slow down and pass when it's safe, but that's not easy to do when the person suddenly slams on the brakes to finish typing their message. It's extremely annoying and has left me limping back to the pits many times. If you're going to type a message, check your map or mirrors, put on a turn signal and PULL OVER.

As people have said, a greater police presence helps control poor behavior and also makes crusing much more interesting. Do you guys need more cops? I'd be glad to join, it would be an absolute joy fining people that don't wanna play along and preserving the experience for those that do.

I was actually making measurements for cable when burN|TWEAKSTUR suggested a solution . It's too late to get a refund for my router/antenna, so i wasn't looking forward to spending even more money.

Well, my issues are resolved. Turns out that the Windows wireless service was treating my connection as though it was simply one of many possible choices, despite it being my regular home dedicated connection, and was searching for other wireless services in the area, which was causing lag spikes every minute or so. I just played for about 45 mins on the CC server and wasn't disconnected once and my little connection bar didn't start climbing at all. If anyone else is having issues while using a wireless connection, and plan on using the same one all the time, go into:

Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Services>Wireless Zero Configuration

and 'Stop' the service (if you're already connected). This should stop the service from screwing around with your connection once it's been established.

This will need to be done every time you start Windows and establish your regular connection. If, while Windows is running, you wish to switch to another wireless service, or need to connect to your network again for whatever reason, you must activate the service once again to establish the connection.

Thanks to "burN|TWEAKSTUR" for the tip!

Last edited by DrDNA, Sat 6 Jan 2007, 22:14.

Yep, I started experiencing this a month or two ago. Everything will be running smoothly and then I'll get up to several seconds of stuttering, where my fps will drop to around 5 and I have to do my best to keep the car on the road. It doesn't happen very often, but it does seem to occur mostly around the pit area, although I've experienced it elsewhere.

I've also noticed some crazy warping as well. The lights will go green and the car in front of me stays completely stationary, making me swerve as though I need to avoid him, but a second or so later he's right where he should be. I also question every single incident in front of me, such as someone losing control and spinning, because often they'll warp back onto the track driving normally. It's annoying, yes, but luckily doesn't happen often enough to ruin the online experience, at least IMO.