Aara-Date 2005-03-19-Sa-02-46-DkT

Aaron's Log

I'm hoping this entry will be quicker than most.

I mainly want to talk about Initial D, a few days ago I played against a friend of mine "Starker". In the RX-8 I won on Usui over his Levin GT-APEX, but he beat me on Akagi even though he wasn't meant to challenge me after the first race. I think I could of beat him with Slower Car Boost off. And due to my confusion on how the games Continue system works I accidentally challenged him to a rematch. On the first Akagi race I accidentally saved him from failure when he bought on a corner my line rammed him back into it and cost me my speed. He did better on the second one. I'm starting to think the physics don't work when you hit the other guy, it seems to disadvantage you more than it should.

I now have a 60% Total Victories over five races, although the first two where my nephews and don't count that much. Starker has a 50% streak two wins vs me and one loss and one other loss vs an annoying guy.

Why do I say annoying? Well we told him not to challenge us and he did anyway. He picked the narrowest course he could find and basically blocked the race the whole way through. When Starker made it past he swore, unfortunately Starker stuffed it on the next corner and the guy made it through. What annoys us is it wasn't skill that the guy used and he didn't even use his card. He was trying to kick us off so he could race his friend card-less so his friend could get easy points on his card.

I think that kind of Point making is cheap, and I advocate Time Trials to make Points easy. You know the crowd? They sink $20 in each and one guy takes a 200 meter head start (he's the one with the card) and won't get closer than 150 meters to the other guy?

We played again well Yesterday now, and although we didn't race, Starker did get his own back my sinking close to $20 worth of credits in himself. He conquered Myogi and Usui, he started on Usui surprisingly.

I took Shingo and Toru in my Celica GT-Four (12,000+ Points) both first time, although Shingo worried me because I forgot the Shift Points. The new tyres I got from defeating Kenji really helped. I've truly learnt to drive the AWD now I just take my foot off the Accelerator turn, and plant it again when the car points the way I want. It's much faster than drifting, not sure if I have bad technique or what, probably my sloppy technique.

The RX-8 (50,000+ Points I think I'm two Trials away from a "Reset ECU") lost twice to Kawada, one time some guy trying to leave his marker for next turn got in the way on the first race, I was already losing but I did hit the wall which made the margin much much bigger. The second one I stuffed the First real corner on Usui both times, the second time was worse. I had an 80 meter lead on the first lap, he closed the gap and made it 150 meters ahead of me. Completely blew me away, I closed it by about 20 meters. I'm thinking a time trial or two is needed to practice the corner, I think if I can make it I'll win. When Kawada said he'll show me the power of 400 horses, I wasn't too worried, now I've seen how quick he can open up the lead I think it will be a challenge to beat him.

A Final note on shift points they mean Acceleration. The Celica is good at 5800, 6500, 7000, not sure of when to go to 5th. The RX-8 is 6000, 7250, 7750, 8000, not sure of when to do 6th. I believe the final gear depends on the track. I know the RX-8 is good after 140 Kph for 6th, still not sure of the Celica.

They do make a difference I watched some play a course and although he had more points (more power) he took longer to get to top speed than I did. Not sure of exact seconds but I knew I could beat his time, unless he tried cutting me off the whole race.