My Diaries

A Lurid Tale of Obsession, Depravity, Wits and Attempted Wit

Tue Feb 2, 1999

Figures for Maxed Demio A spec

Based on mail to Nick.

I determined the max figures for the Demio A spec prize car 211bhp, 1210lb.

I got:

latter with gears of

At one point I overgeared it so badly that shifting to fifth slowed it down.

160mph is the practical maximum; you can eek above that with a close pair of top gears, and run out of power and straight about the same time. I could believe someone could coax 165 to 167 out of it.

Anyway, I took this baby to the Sunday Cup.

Autumn Mini

pole: 1st 43.900 (-2.208) race: 1st 1:21.025 (-1.x) 0:40.893 0:40.132

Not sure what drugs I was on for that first lap, wish I could ingest them for my IA time trials. I think I stayed on the track all the time, but, of course, a lot of time was spent on two wheels. This Demio really wishes to be a motorcycle.

HS Ring

GVE

pole: 1st 1:12.288 (-11.128) race: 1st 2:16.329 (-9.933) 1:11.252 1:05.077

I used "-S.XXX" to indicate the distance to next competitor, similar to TT ghost reporting. Er, no. Maybe I do have it backwards. Doesn't matter, I think you know what I mean.

So the Demio went out and won itself another Demio!!! (Which, of course, I promptly sold).

For the souped-up Demio, even though it had relatively poor low-speed torque, the handbrake would not keep the clutch out. Strange.

The trick works flawlessly with other cars. They actually won't go anywhere until you release the handbrake. But not with the Demio. It hops forward against the handbrake, and then comes close to stalling.

I finally got silver in B-3 license test. I never fail that test now unless I make a gross mistake, or a bad experiment. I can't reproduce the silver, but when I did it, I braked entirely with tire action and engine, and I stayed in the middle of the track approaching the turn so I could turn outwards to rock the car into it. The action seems to work. It's interesting being able to make repeated runs, try slightly different lines and actions, see times vary, but nearly always come in under the required bronze 30 seconds. Staying in the middle of the track, of course, avoids losing acceleration, as well.

I got 28.466 (silver was 28.500). I notice the demo did slightly better at 28,448, but, unlike most demos, that demo is not a gold medal run. (Gold is 28.150)

It's interesting to speculate how much of one's improvement relative to the past is due to learning the PSX interface (I'm not sure when I switched to my Barracuda 2 controller, for instance), and how much is due to learning driving techniques. (And a little comes from learning somewhat silly nuances of the game).

The Barracuda 2 is nice and adult-sized, and has a noticeable dead zone in the centre of the analog sticks. That has advantages and disadvantages, of course.