It's March, and it's time for the new track at Zak's competition. This turned out to be a two way track, but it's nothing like ZCT11. The track is divided into The Hard Way, and The Chicken way. However, deciding between the two is not so difficult, since the Hard Way is approximately 20 seconds faster than the chicken way. If the Lamborghini LM-002 (Jeep) had had a power gear, it would probably have been a different story though. But the Jeep is incredibly slow. It is deceptively slow on straigthways, which makes you think you have to go much slower in corners, but actually the jeep can go through regular corners almost without losing speed, which of course mostly owes to its incredible slowness. This car is horrible for grass shortcuts, since it loses even more speed than other cars when it drives on grass, and it has no power gear that goes over grass without losing speed. So it is almost never a good idea to cut corners or stray from the track when you are driving this car.
Most of this track is actually quite easy. When you start driving, you go through a tunnel (just for the hell of it I guess J) and then turn in a muddy corner. These are no big challenge in your slow car. After this muddy corner, you go on to a banked road. Keeping speed and not sliding out in this part takes some, but little, pracitce. After the banked road, you come down to a regular corner, again no big challenge. It takes you on to a slalom road, which is no big challenge. Then you jump upon a bridge and down again. This is all it takes to get the Lamborghini LM-002 to its mind-boggling top speed of 126 mph. After this jump, you face the first actual challenge of the track. A bridge jump where you land on a bridge corner. In order to get across the jump in the first place, you need to drive at a decent speed, in this car meaning 5th gear. But then when you land on the corner, your 5th gear speed is much too high. So you are thankful that the car can go through corners in top 4th gear, which means you can barely make it. Your car will undoubtedly slide out of the track here if you are not careful. This is because the road goes to the right (chicane) and so did the corner. So, braking down slightly, you drive out on the fast grass and start to think about whether to jump the boulevard in front of you or not. The pleasant thing about the Jeep is you have time to think about what to do next when you are driving a track. In the Indy you would just hammer on and hope for the best, but here, you have the time to bring in different aspects when you choose, for an example, whether to jump a boulevard or not. In this case it seems like a sensible idea not to jump it, since there is a bridge coming right after it, and you would eventually be going by top speed once you get to that bridge. This in itself is not a problem, but you have to go left in the next corner right after the jump, unless you want to drive The Chicken Way.
THE CHICKEN WAY:
The toughest challenge when you drive this way is to avoid falling asleep while driving. It is very long, and very boring. Here is a list of what you are likely to think while you are driving the chicken way. "Sharp corner. Straight road. Sharp corner. Banked road. Banked road. I must remember to go to the bank after I've driven this. Banked road. Banked road. Bridge. Damn, I have to catch the bus in 3 minutes, I wonder if this road will have ended by then. Banke road. Banked road. Zzzzzzzz. Jump. Loop. Sharp corner. Finish line." Seeing as how the the chicken way is about 20 seconds slower than the hard way, there is really no point in taking it, unless you are REALLY a chicken.
THE HARD WAY:
If, or rather, when you choose to go left right after the jump, the first obstacle that comes your way is a slalom road. Not so hard. But after this slalom road, you come to a jump, which is just like the one you did earlier. You land on a bridge corner. Again, this demands an accurate speed balance. After coming down from this bridge, you land on the way up a "mini" jump, which lands you on a banked corner. This part is quite difficult too. You have to go slightly to the left in order to stay on the road, which is very important in this car. Racing down the banked road now at a speed of nearly 100 mph, you see a boulevard ahead. Again you have the choice of jumping it or not jumping it. In this case you might want to jump it, because after this boulevard, you pass several jumps and no obstacles. So, maybe having jumped the boulevard, you merrily jump up and down and up and down until you see a corner ahead. You time the brakedown precisely and land on the corner, careful not to hit the bridge hovering over the track. After this corner, you come to a corkscrew followed by a sharp corner. For the first time in more than a minute, you are forced to go down into the 3rd gear, otherwise you will slide out into the water that surrounds this part of the track. You drive the corkscrew on the (right) side, go through the corner as fast as you can, and drive through the pipe that comes next. This pipe is not really any problem, but then there is a corkscrew after it, which is slightly more annoying, since it also ends in a corner, and the little jump you are bound to make when leaving a corkscrew makes both corners harder. Anyway, after this you can drive through the finish line.
This is a track that demands precision most of all, but also judgement and perfectionism. This month's competition results are probably going to be decided on marginals. Although I have been proved wrong many times, I believe that there can not be any shortcuts in this track. The two ways are too far from each other and the Jeep is too slow on grass. Therefore, all you can do is drive the track accurately, precisely and quickly. You need good judgement in this track because it can be hard to decide, especially in this car, how fast to go in the different Stunts, as I mentioned before, the handling is deceptive. Perfectionism comes with precision. In most tracks you can afford to do some parts better than other parts, if you have found a trick or a shortcut or something, but in this track, you will have to do everything perfectly in order to get a good time. Everytime I drive the track, I get 1.57. It is very hard to improve, and when you do, you only do it by splitseconds. That is very unlikely in a 2 minute track, but nevertheless true! I like the theme of the track, and I am looking very much forward to the close race at the end of the month.
The track has a lot of scenery, but still it fails to achieve the cozy atmosphere that some of JTK's tracks had. This of course has nothing to do with the competition, but if there is a nice atmosphere (combination of track, scenery and horizon) it makes me want to drive the track more. However, this is a carefully laid challenge for the daring drivers, and it looks like another exciting month. I believe Bismarck will win it - it is his car we are driving in J I should really not try to guess the winning time, but I think it will be around 1.53. I may be very wrong.
Have an eye for details, and don't make any mistakes!
--Bonzai Joe