I remember needing to wrap my head around rallying in GT3, and what i’d recommend first, is checking whether the Astra is a FF rally-car (similar to the 1600-class of yore, where FF 206es were monsters compared to tame Puntos and Fabias).
If so, take an FF civic and try that as a rally car. Its redline should help out-drag the Astra!
If it’s available, you may wanna use the 206 WRC car. Its driving physics (at least in part tres and quartre) are comparable to a car that’s literally rotating around the center of gravity in the middle of the car, like a box with a stick in the middle. Quick to rotate, hard to stop - meaning you drive it somewhat like this (n. b. with your Rally experience, you can skip that bit, since I would be telling you nothing new, it’s a short intro for the few other interested readers that may never have tried rallying in GT before):
You point the front at the corner apex before the corner, then you wait for the tires to catch up again, and drag you out the corner in a straight line - which obv necessitates rotating it quickly. It’s all about knowing when to start to rotate then, and gets easy very quickly. If the car has a trunk, think of it as a part upkeeping the momentum for longer. The closer the wheels are to the front/rear end, the more it behaves like said box with a stick, the more overhang (front/rear) it has, the less likely it is to behave like this/the more likely it is to skew the momentum to that front/rear end.
That’s how i muscled my way through GT3 rallying and never looked back… and that experience actually made me get into the proper WRC rallying games on the PS2, where you had to learn to properly drive (and not game the handling model against the CPU opponents, as in GT3/4) and understand the different physics of a 206, Impreza, Focus, Lancer and 307 in the latter title(s).
I think 20 year old me’s GT2 rallying strategy was “buy the Suzuki Escudo and send it.” Unfortunately that thing costs 2 million credits! Maybe I’ll have that much cash after the GT nationals. I am not grinding for cash!
I want to put the US Nationals races to bed. So tonight we’ll do that! As thought about last time, Susan and I head to the tuning shop for some performance tires and a stage 1 weight reduction. I mistakenly went to the Honda dealer first where we were promplty refused service! The Acura dealer was happy to help us out. I take Susan to the first race at Laguna Seca once again to see if we can squeeze out a win. The first attempt results in second place, but the second attempt results in a first place finish! The last turn is really tricky for me, and I love to give up a good lead there. Especially to those Ford Kas that seem to defy the laws of physics! Watching street cars bob and lean into turns is good fun!
The second of two races in the US Nationals event is also at Laguna Seca. This one has a 295hp limit though. I know Susan probably doesn’t have a chance without some extensive modifications. I remember another American car we have in the garage. Yvonne! Yvonne has more power that Susan and an MR layout. That might just be all we need! In fact, I could have used Yvonne in the first race, but where’s the fun in that?
It only takes one try to win the second race with Yvonne. Now this is an MR car that handles well and has just the right amount of power! I’m digging the 24V Mondeos and of course the SHO Jelly Bean! Yvonne’s strange looks really grow on me during this race!
I’m running out of viable cars for available races again, but I want to squeeze every drop out of what I have. Bridgette is French, and there’s a French Nationals event! Let’s see what a little Clio can do! We head to the first French Nationals race at Tahiti Road. I try not to think about the 246hp limit as Bridgette has well under half that! We try this race three times. The first two attempts result in second place finishes. We have to use every single bit of momentum here as we are down on power compared to most of the field. This is some of the most intense racing I’ve done yet!
Damn. That first attempt was so close! 6ms behind the lead car! I take Bridgette for a quick stage 1 weight reduction. We try again and finish dead last. Any single mistake means the momentum is lost along with the race. No matter! I think we can get it with a few more tries! That Pug 106 is a fearsome opponent!
Welcome to the french racing experience, we hópe you ënjoy your stáy
(the S16 and VTS models from former PSA, now Stellantis, were well-weighted rockets because they had to duel with the hot Clios (kinda funny how Clio is a muse, inspiring other companies to put out hot hatches to match their handling prowess) that ruled the class big time. As such, they were treated as racing cars by most 2nd+ hand owners, hard to find a mint example these days…
After that gen, they dropped the ball, and it took them until the 208 GTi to rediscover their quick hatches mojo again.
Tonight we will finish two races in over two hours of play time! First we take Bridgette back to the Renault shop to get a stage 2 weight reduction. This gives us what we need to barely eek out a win at the French Nationals first race at Tahiti Road. It’s a hard battle!
I still think these short common car races are the kinds of races that really embody Gran Turismo, but endurance races have been part of the series since the beginning. GT2 has plenty of endurance races, and I’m feeling like taking care of one today! We hop in Sasha at the Grand Valley 300km race. This will be sixty laps of Grand Valley Speedway. Sasha is close to the power limit, but doesn’t exceed it. So let’s put on some hard racing tires and see what’s what!
Six laps into the race, I’m pretty far ahead of the other cars. I decide not to worry too much about pit strategy. I’ll just pit when the tires are starting get a little squirrely. I never bothered to really study the tire wear indicators for GT games, but it feels like the light yellow color is when you are on the edge of driving on blocks of ice.
The first pit stop is taken at lap 8. I normally would try to push at least to lap 10, but I’m so far ahead of the competition there is plenty of time.
You get the idea. I should probably learn more about the tire wear indicators before going into hours long endurance races, but going by feel always worked out pretty well for me. None of the competition here are race cars.
We complete (and win) this endurance race in one hour and forty-seven minutes. I did do the whole race in one sitting, but I did save states at pit stops just in case my controller batteries died or I accidentally hit the space bar and unlocked the emulator’s speed limiter in the middle of the race.
You learn a whole lot about a course doing an endurance race. Eventually you know exactly what gear to be in in a given situation and exactly when to hit an apex, etc. It’s a cool feeling that causes time to sort of just melt away. There are two very tight turns leading up to the final turn of the course. I’d say those and the final turn are probably the most challenging and deceptive parts of this track. There are sections of chicanes that can be taken at full throttle in fifth gear if you’re brave, but one wrong input and you can lose control over a rumble strip.
And our prize car ends up being a Nissan R390GT1 LM race car. This is the real purpose-built stuff! That is seriously light weight! Meet Edmund! Edmund has no info screen.
Yellow Green is when tire traction begins to degrade. IME, your car’s probably okay until tires start to turn fully orange. Beyond orange makes getting to the pit a real chore, and if the tires are red you may as well be on ice.
If you approach the left-hander of this corner from farther right, you can straighten the entry of the left hander towards the apex, and have a bit more leeway to position the car for the right-hander exiting that chicane.
Guess you have figured that out naturally after the enduro anyway tho!
(n. b. did a lot of testing different lines in the dumbed down/more FIA-approved GT4 version of Gran Valley, with the GT-One TS020 and later the 905 Evo II and 787B… ahhh, good times.
Also, I still can hear the Amemia RX-7 GT300 13B rotary engine singing in the tunnel bits of this version of the track.
GOOD TIMES
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(Also, taking a Renault to a PSA… NEE Stellantis festival, of course they would life miserable for you, allez le inline four FF, olala )
One race happens tonight in a little over one hour. It’s the Apricot Hill 200km endurance race. This one is 50 laps at Apricot Hill. Freddie seems like a good fit, so we take Freddie. This car isn’t quite as broken as it was in GT. I’m not taking turns literally on two wheels. I am still taking turns at pretty insane speeds. Apricot Hill looks deceptively simple, but the track is pretty technical overall. We pit roughly every 11 laps. This is another race where being close to the limit in a race car means easily overtaking and beating the street car competition.
I have a hyper-specific memory of playing the Laguna Seca endurance race when I played GT2 around its release. I don’t remember what car I used, but you better believe I restarted the course until I rolled either Stone Temple Pilots or Garbage as the soundtrack so I could listen exactly one song I liked for an hour on loop while I was comfortably 5 laps ahead for most of the race.
or the Viper GTS-R in its glorious PS2 livery.
They also had a say in the Viper Competition Coupe, ran some of the most successful prototypes in the world,
… just read up on that guy (and that article was even before the Oreca 05 took off as the default LMP2 chassis, this year we had the entire P2 field (bar one lone Ligier) using Orecas, quasi a single make class - not bad for a goodish ex-driver, yeppp!
I got my electricity back tonight! So it’s time to take care of another endurance race!
Seattle Circuit 100 miles looks like a good way to kill an hour! Freddie and I head there to see what’s up.
This is 40 laps of the Seattle Circuit. We end up pitting three times. The bumps and jumps make this course seem impossible in the real world. Too many drivers would probably die. Then again, the Nürburgring and rallying in Finland exist.
Nothing very eventful happens here. We easily take the lead and stay there for the whole race. This is probably the most arcade-feeling course/car combination in the game.
And we unlock the extremely cool Ford GT90 concept car. I love how much of the styling in this concept ended up in a lot of Ford’s mundane cars. The engine sounds cool as well! This is John.
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