In my general opinion, i'm unfit, but in general i'm not really, I don't do any extra exercise beside my work, but when I read the V1 form I saw it needed 50 push ups in a minuit, so I was like oh man, last time I could barely hit 30, but I can hit 45 now, so some short time training wouldn't go a miss.

Quote from Bawbag :

In my general opinion, i'm unfit, but in general i'm not really, I don't do any extra exercise beside my work, but when I read the V1 form I saw it needed 50 push ups in a minuit, so I was like oh man, last time I could barely hit 30, but I can hit 45 now, so some short time training wouldn't go a miss.

Call Chuck Norris to help you out..

Definitely give it your best shot dude. It could be the only cheap chance anybody of your generation gets to get into racing, and it'd be great to have another Norbi to cheer on.

I think 99% of people on this forum wish you well Ray, and if it was me in your position I would be out jogging or doing pressups right now!

Hello all. We have a top 3, but can they make it to Daventry. To make travel arrangements a bit less fraught lets make it next Saturday the 9th 11:00 at Fortecs premises in Daventry NN11 8PG, V1 is based in the right hand of the 2 Fortec buildings. I will leave it to you guys to inform each other as to your availability. Please bring with you some form of identity and any one under the age of 16 must be accompanied by a relative/guardian and be able to prove it, once you have decided who can make it, if you can drop us a line that will be it. Otherwise see you there. Cheers Jay.

And will those who go please take a camera with them and show us some footage later on? (Only if Fortec allows, of course)

Have fun, you three, who are going!

Can the people who can make it to Daventry get in touch so we can make arangements. Looking forward to meeting you. Cheers, Jay.

Did anyone actually go to Daventry?

Yep, me, Jack (Clownpaint) and Ray (Bawbag).

Was a lot of fun, and we learnt a lot about the V1 project.

The simulator felt wierd or slightly alien, but was great fun to drive, and I think as we drove more we got used to the feeling of the big screen, and the (very) low driving position.

Ray's dad took some photos, so hopefully we will get to see them.

Great! I'm pleased that happened!

From the recent silence on this thread I was a bit worried that no-one was going!

Quote from DaveWS :

Yep, me, Jack (Clownpaint) and Ray (Bawbag).

Was a lot of fun, and we learnt a lot about the V1 project.

The simulator felt wierd or slightly alien, but was great fun to drive, and I think as we drove more we got used to the feeling of the big screen, and the (very) low driving position.

Ray's dad took some photos, so hopefully we will get to see them.

howclose were you times in the simulator to your times at home?

Quote from DaveWS :

Yep, me, Jack (Clownpaint) and Ray (Bawbag).

Sounds like it worked out well - I would've picked you three given a choice. Good stuff.

Wow, what an awesome day! Many thanks to Jay again for inviting us along.

I have to apologise though, we got some pictures and videos of us on the simulator but when we got home we realised the SD card wasn't plugged in properly. Tried saving all the stuff from the cameras memory to the card but it would only show as 1 picture. Typical that the 1 picture is crappy but i'll upload it later...

Our day started at 5am and took us about 5 hours to get to Coventry to pick up Jack and Dave, but Dave was playing on his busses so we had a short wait. We still got there at 11.02 though which was rather good timing.

Jay showed us around the fortec factorys and even speant quite some time showing us the specifics of the differnt cars, it was a really good insight when you see what makes them all differnt.

Btw, Scawen...we saw the car that you crashed!!!!!!!!

We also saw Heikki's Formula Renault car and a brand new F3 (I think it was a F3) car out of the box, no paint job, no nothing, just carbon fibre.

As for the simulator, it was great fun and very well set up, as Dave says, it was very alien to drive, but we found out after a while on it that it was still on test patch X10, so we had to make our own sets for the cars that we used. (FBMW and F08)

An interesting thing was that Heikki had been on the simulator and set a 1.02.6 in the F08 around blackwood, so that's what we aimed for...but it wasn't untill half way through our little 8 lap sessions that we realised he done it on the old patch, so when we all ended up within a second on his time we were rather pleased.

The feeling inside the simulator is fantastic to say the least, when watching a video of it, or even watching someone else drive it, it's nothing like when your in the seat. Your so low down and ALL of your vision is the screen, the dome effect kinda makes all the things going past you look amazingly fast, very effective really.

When I think of this, Jay is doing us a huuuge favour by inviting us down to Fortec, but the whole time we were with him, he spoke to us like we were the ones who had done him the favour, a weird thing to describe...

Anyhow, thanks again to Jay for inviting us down and spending so much time with us, especcially on the day of his daughters birthday.

Yeah, thanks to Jay for inviting us down.

Edit: Yeah just to clarify, the patch was a beta version of Y, so it had the new blackwood track etc etc. However the WR setups made in patch Y wouldn't load, hence us having to make our own on the day. Heikki however drove his time on the old version of blackwood, with the old physics from X.

Its great to hear that you 3 made it down there!! Like Scawen I was a bit worried everything had just been forgotten about. It is such a shame that the pics and videos have not survived. I think its safe to say that you have made alot of people on this forum jealous but at least it was 3 people who definitely deserved it.

When I woke up Saturday morning I was thinking sod it shall I just be amazingly cheeky and turn up there but I decided against it Didnt think it would have gone down too well.

Quote from ebola :

When I woke up Saturday morning I was thinking sod it shall I just be amazingly cheeky and turn up there but I decided against it Didnt think it would have gone down too well.

You know these movies where a very talented singer/athlete/actor/racedriver is turned down at first, but bothers the person in charge with persistence and cheekiness until he gets the once-in-a-lifetime chance and eventually becomes a superstar? Could have been you...

Glad you three guys made it. I was also a little worried, tbh.

I assume Heikki means Mr Kovalainen? I see he was with Fortec in 2002 but what got him to drive the FO8 years later?

Quote from Bawbag :

Wow, what an awesome day! Many thanks to Jay again for inviting us along.

I have to apologise though, we got some pictures and videos of us on the simulator but when we got home we realised the SD card wasn't plugged in properly. Tried saving all the stuff from the cameras memory to the card but it would only show as 1 picture. Typical that the 1 picture is crappy but i'll upload it later...

Worthless without pics!!! zomg!!

Dig deeper into that SD card. The pics must be in there somewhere. OMG I wanna see pics!

Quote from J.B. :

I assume Heikki means Mr Kovalainen? I see he was with Fortec in 2002 but what got him to drive the FO8 years later?

Yea I mean Kovasomethinsomethin, his Formula Renault car (Which he still owns) stays at the Fortec warehouse and I assume he made many friends while racing for them in 2002, I guess he went back to see his old buddys who helped get him to where he is today and saw this simulator....

As a result of your incompetence to spell Heikki Kovalainen correctly, from this day I will always write Elwis Halimton. :rolleyes:

LOL deggis...


well.. and who won?

Quote from Bawbag :

Yea I mean Kovasomethinsomethin, his Formula Renault car (Which he still owns) stays at the Fortec warehouse and I assume he made many friends while racing for them in 2002, I guess he went back to see his old buddys who helped get him to where he is today and saw this simulator....

Visiting friends eh? Sounds more like 'helping' Renault make a better simulator. New spy case anyone?

Quote from J.B. :

Visiting friends eh? Sounds more like 'helping' Renault make a better simulator. New spy case anyone?

obviously this will eventually lead to scawen getting close ties with fbmw and f1 teams and dropping support for us the italian way starting to play guitar and develop lfs into a crappy bike whatever youd like to call that thing which surely isnt a sim

Quote from chanoman315 :

LOL deggis...


well.. and who won?

Dave pwned us all!!

The FBMW time that Dave set was a 1.14.9 and I done a 15.0, Jack a couple of tenths off that IIRC, we all pretty much sucked especcially in the FBMW with our horrid attempt at a setup and getting used to the simulator.

The F08 was way more fun to drive and even though our eventual setup wasn't to good, the F08 is very much a drivers car so we all done much better in this, 1.03.21 from Dave, 03.27 from me and 03.6 or 7 from Jack.