My Diaries

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

Saturday, October 13, 2001

I Quickly Get Another A License Gold on A-5 in Gran Turismo 1

Well, it took most of a Saturday, but I finally got gold on test A-5 (Prelude at Grand Valley, going from after the second hairpin until the exit of the first tunnel). That was a lot faster progress than the previous test, at least.

Here are my final standings for my A-5 license test.

In spite of trying to reload when I got too many good times, I did keep each new personal best. So my top two times above were done with no other times between them. That is 0:30.319 was the closest I got to passing without passing, and 0:30.189 was my first pass. It was a lot faster than my previous best, and somewhat of a surprise. And, so, I was able too keep one old good time from over a year ago. A somewhat interesting thing is that not only are all my times, as shown, better than the silver standard of 30.700, they are better than the Replay Theater demo time of 30.591.

Perhaps more than any other test this one was based strongly on the principle of sacrificing speed in the internal turns of the esses so as to maximize final exit speed.

Since this car is a little less powerful than some of the others, and the Gran Turismo modeling of front-wheel drive cars doesn't seem to cause even a realistic amount of wheel-spin, I just pinned the gas pedal after an initial two or three blips.

I moved only slightly to the right to ease the first corner just a little; ending up with my left side just over the right side of the center line. I studied my replays and began the first turn just as I shifted up, at about 64mph, without braking, although a little feathering through the corner was necessary in order to hold the car in tight without too much speed loss due to tire slippage. I did go up ever so slightly over the curb on that first corner, and throughout the run slight, but not excessive, tire squeal could be heard.

I didn't hold the car in too tight for the exit of the first turn, so as to be able to smoothly head into the second. A lot practice was necessary in order to learn just how to feather the throttle around the second corner so as to avoid going too fast and coming off, but also keep up enough speed for a fast time. I apexed late, but not so late as to stay on the right side of the road; I smoothly swung out toward the left on exit, taking a smooth course that took me just to the left of the center line before I eased back to the right side of the road, though not quite to the edge, in order to set up for the left-hander into the tunnel. Although I entered the second turn at 85mph, my speed dropped to 80 through the turn, and remained an almost constant 80 going to the final corner, rising only to 81.

I went into that final left-hander a little deep, lightly dabbing the brakes before turning a little sharply so as to apex late and get hard on the gas very early, maximizing my speed down the finishing straight.

My shifting points (mph) were something like:

So this was a pretty good day. I actually did two batches of attempts, since I was forced to power off my PlayStation at one point to run some errands. Since I reset when I set enough good but not record times I used only 17 game days getting this medal--and in the first session I only used up 4.

So now all that stands between me and the TRD 3000GT is the dreaded A-4 test in the Valley of Death at Trial Mountain. Everyone says this is so hard, and, certainly I seem to be a fairly long way away right now. My personal best on that last test is 37.748, while the gold standard is 37.400 and the demo time is 37.594.