IMPORTANT: GT Academy post issues

Hey guys,

The site has had some serious issues over the last few days and because of this my 2 main posts have been removed. I am not sure if they will be restored or not, but I did not back them up so hopefully they will.

Apologies to anyone who came to have a read.

Des

Day 2

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Day 1

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Almost.. Almost....

I've spent the last while just trying to keep as active as possible without over doing it. I'm not an athlete so I have to be careful that I don't do harm to myself. I have gotten a nice pair of running shoes and the difference they make is amazing.

I have given up drinking over the last few weeks as well. I wouldn't consider myself a heavy drinker anyway, but being in college it tends to happen a few times a week. I find that I lose a whole day if I drink because the next day is spent recovering and it's just not good for your muscles either. I have no problem with staying away from alcohol anyway, as focusing on this competition has kept me away from the thought of it, plus I feel a lot healthier.


In other news, I have gotten some great tips and advice from some motorsport experts that I have managed to gain as contacts. I value their help greatly and I feel that given the chance I will really be able to shine at Brands Hatch if I'm let loose in the 370z.

As for Gran Turismo, with the PSN down well over a week now, my hopes of practicing with other finalists have been completely written off. Nonetheless I have been practicing every day using all the Nissan cars on as many different tracks as possible. I have learned a great deal about taking care of my tires as well. With a set of Sports Hard tires on my 370z, I took to the Nurburgring and drove consistently for over 50 minutes, and in the end still had life in the tires. With this is mind I hope tire degradation is turned on in the finals, although I can't imagine it will be as races would have to be at least 30 minutes for it to make a difference.

That's pretty much it for now. It's late on Thursday night. Home tomorrow and then off to the airport after the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday. Really looking forward to the event now and I'm ready for anything that is thrown my way!

Preparations

I once had an idea that this was all just a bit of fun, and that getting to the national finals would be my biggest accomplishment, but I have since dismissed that idea. For me now, it's all about winning the next round and progressing to Silverstone.

We now know that there will be some real driving and physical tests happening at Brands Hatch. I can't imagine that they will be any way near as crazy as the boot camp seen at Silverstone last year, but nonetheless I have started training as hard as I can at this moment in time. Aside from that, the biggest area for me to work on is the mental side of things. I don't consider myself mentally weak, I just need to learn to focus myself better on whatever I am doing. I've been doing a lot of research in this area and over the next two weeks I hope to at least pick up on and improve on one or two things I wasn't doing properly before.


As for GT, I hope to play it with a few of the other finalists online in the next 2 weeks as well. I wouldn't consider it the most important aspect of training anymore, but I still aim to play it 5 days a week. After this length of time I know the cars, I know most of the tracks - it's really just about keeping in tune with the game and staying focused when the time comes to play it at the finals.

This opportunity may not come around again, so now it's full steam ahead and 100% focus on what needs to be done to progress to the next round. I can do it and I will do it.

Qualifying Complete! Roll On Brands Hatch

I spent most of yesterday trying to improve. I could go on about how I nearly had a 16.8 many times but I won't :P It didn't happen, and one way of the other I achieved my goal of making the top 20 so that's all that matters.


Today I received an email from Sony telling me that the finals will be taking place on the 9th and 10th of May in Brands Hatch. Unfortunately my last exam in college is scheduled for the 10th so I am going to have to miss it and repeat in August - a slight downer, but there is no way I am missing the nationals after all the work I put in.

So now for the next few weeks I must train as hard as I can in preparation for whatever physical challenges lie ahead. I'm going to play a reasonable amount of GT5 and race on every possible track as I feel they might run a few races on pretty uncommon ones at the finals.

In other news I once again set the lap record at my local indoor kart track on it's new layout. I have a feeling we could be doing some karting at brands hatch so I am hoping to get to do some outdoor stuff soon as well.

5 Days And Counting - Is 2'17.051 Enough?

I was on top form when I started playing early this afternoon. Within half an hour I had put in a 2'17.301 and could see a lot of time with that ghost. I had a look at a replay of one of the top times and saw something that I could do to help me improve as well. In the end, by lunchtime I had pulled a great lap together that was weak in parts but very strong in others.

As I came out of the last corner and turned my ghost back on, I was overjoyed and was really hoping for the gap to be bigger than it looked. In the end the lap was 2'17.051 and I am very happy to settle for that even though a part of me was wishing for a 16. But nonetheless I'm not going to complain, that time is way beyond what I expected to get so quickly this week and now I am trying to calculate whether it will be enough to keep in the top 20 for another 5 days.


Bearing in mind that second place is ineligible, it means I am technically 9th. I honestly can't see the rest of the table all hitting 16's by the end of the week. I have a busy few days ahead of me and if I go home for the weekend then that's going to be it for me once Friday comes. I will try lap whenever I get the chance but part of me is hoping I won't have to. Come on! Let this be it.. Please!!..

One Week To Go

Well I've had a tough time with GT lately. Not getting much playtime with it and when I do I seem to be hitting a brick wall as regards improvement. Over the last 10 days I watched myself slowly drift from 11th to 18th. I started to worry a little but I knew I could improve, all I needed was some time with the game. Finally today I did it and moved back to 16th with a 2'17.260. The lap was actually awful in the first sector and in parts of the final one, so I know I could easily hit a .1 or .0 in this final week. That is my aim as I feel nobody outside the top 10 is safe.

Also, last weekend I had a few one on one races with a very well respected iRacing player Dave Williams (my3id_Dave). Dave recently finished 3rd in the iRacing GP Series World Finals in Germany, so it's safe to say he is an experienced sim racer. He hasn't been playing GT that long but has managed to pull himself up to 26th in the standings. I have a feeling that he will creep into the top 20 in the final week, and I really hope he does as long as I'm there too!

Myself and Dave having an epic race at the Nurburgring
A very busy week awaits me with college and other commitments, but hopefully my time will keep me up for a few more days and then one last burst at the end of the week.

11 days and back to 11th

Started playing again today and brought my time down from .361 to .309

I was actually quite surprised as the lap seemed to come from nowhere. At halfway through I didn't think it was going to be that great so I think that lack of pressure helped - wish I could be like that every time I played!

Back to real life, I did a half hour session karting yesterday and managed to get within 2 tenths of the lap record, something I am quite proud of as it's only my 4th time there.




EDIT: Second video from a more recent visit. Great fun.

Update

I haven't spent much time with GT over the last week. There were a couple of days where I did some laps and got within a few tenths of my best, but other than that I just haven't had the time. When my college work calms down I hope to give it one last burst in the final week.


On another note, I recently discovered that a Karting track opened up only a 10 minutes walk away from where I live in college. As of today I have only been out twice, but I am going to start going a few times a week to try build up my endurance. I will be combining this with a simple fitness regime so I can slowly build up to tougher challenges. There is a chance that I could end up in Silverstone, so it's important that I have some level of preparation done if I do.

And We're Back!

I am not getting to play as much GT as I would like and it has been worrying to see myself slipping down the leader board after many days without a new time. There was no play time at all on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. When I got back on Sunday I gave it about 2 - 3 hours and was close to improving but no cigar.


It's Monday night now. I played intermittently over the last 3 hours with breaks here and there and I finally managed to improve by almost a tenth, bringing me from 15th back to 11th. I have a lot more time in me and I think by the end a 17.0 or 17.1 will be required to make the top 20. I am just happy that I improved as another day without a time would not have been good. My current time is 2:17.361. I hope to improve on it this week but if not there is still plenty of time left.

A Few Ups and Downs

I got back to playing GT on Sunday evening and did an hour or two, but no improvement. This was quite disheartening as it was the first day I played without any sort of improvement. On Monday I overplayed again, with no real focus and failed to improve. It was quite sickening to be putting in so much time and getting nothing back. I was slowly dropping down the table but it seemed as if it was only the guys at the very top and well outside the top 20 were improving significantly. This resulted in me not moving too much from where I was.

On Tuesday I didn't even get to turn on my ps3 due to college and other social commitments. I was a little worried about this time away but nonetheless I got started on Wednesday afternoon for a session and was in the high 17's after a while. Over the course of the day I played in random chunks and steadily improved my time. Then one of the strangest things happened. I must have ran a tiny bit wide on the previous lap and not notice - I started a new lap only to realize it was invalidated as I came out of the first corner, but I decided to carry on. And wouldn't you know it, some of my best driving to date and I cross the line with a 2:17.277 and it doesn't even count.


By the end of the day I had improved from my original .546 to .456 - Not much but it moved me up a place and that's the main thing since I put so much time in. I also know that I have can achieve at least a .277 within the next week. The leader boards have started to go a little stale so I'm hoping a time like that will keep me in the top 20 for good as I am running out of spare time to play so frequently.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. I may be drunk. No GT5 for another day or so. Hopefully the break will do me good :)

A Weekend Away

Right now it's Friday afternoon. I'm not going to get to play for the rest of the weekend so I gave it one last burst before I head off. Yesterday evening I went up to 9th with a 2:17.701 only to be back in 11th when I returned from my night out. This morning I got up and gave it a go and within half an hour or so I had hit 2:17.546 and was back up to 7th. I was very pleased with this, however there are some new big hitters after joining the ranks and it is starting to get tighter and tighter at the top. Hopefully my time will still be in the top 20 after this weekend - last week I dropped to 33rd after not playing for a day and a half.


More that anything I'm proud to have the Irish flag well up there with the other big names, even though I still have a lot of time to find :)

One Week On... (almost)

It's been almost a week since the Academy started and I can't believe how much the times have dropped. More than likely they will continue to do so and I assume the world record will be around 2:16.7xx, which is quite scary as that means I still have to find a whole second, although I do not expect to be anywhere near the best in the world.

Today I played a bit too much, about 3 hours over the course of the day, something I do not want to do too often. But I did become quite consistent and started making fewer mistakes. My best time of the day was filled with little misjudgments but still managed to push me up to 11th. I was happy with this, yet still kind of frustrated that I did not find more time.


Anyway, my aim is to be in the top 20 (25), and so far I am keeping within that range. I can't see any reason why I won't be able to maintain my position once I keep doing what I am doing. Fingers crossed.

My plan for the next week is more of the same, although things are going to become more stressful with important college work due as well as the many other random activities that happen in my life. I hope to get to the gym at least twice next week and get back into some sort of routine as well.

Another Day Another Tenth

So I didn't get to play GT for most of Saturday and a bit of Sunday. When I returned I had dropped to 33rd. This worried me a lot, but I started lapping again and by the end of the day I was back to 16th. I was quite relieved as admittedly I had my first doubts about the TT and felt that I might not have the patience for it.


Fellow Irish competitor PR1VATEJ0KER shared some useful tips with me regarding active steering and I started taking even more off my time. Big thanks to him. It is now Monday afternoon and I took another 2 - 3 tenths off of yesterdays time. I am currently 13th and very happy with my progress.

Somehow the fastest in the world is almost a full second ahead of me. I can't really understand where he's finding all the time but credit where credit is due.

Day 1

So I woke nice and early to get a head start at the TT. Being slightly hungover and having only had 5 hours sleep didn't help though. The event eventually went live at about 9:45am and I started lapping. I knew it was only a matter of time before some really quick players were going to appear, and sure enough they did, lapping almost a second faster early on. I could see were the time was but I just couldn't string it all together in a perfect lap.


My best time came late in the day and saw me go 7th.

I am not going to get to play this for a good bit of the weekend so I tried my best to get a good lap in that would still see me in the top 20 by Sunday afternoon, however I think I will be lucky if that is the case.

All in all I'm pretty happy with how I've done. Top of the Irish and in the region top 20 - pretty much all I can ask for. It's going to be a tough few weeks!

And So It Begins.....

I created this blog to document all the stages that I have to go through to reach the GT Academy '11 final. It is more for myself than anyone - so I can see what I have done, how I am doing and use it for motivation if and when the going gets tough.
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Hi I'm Des. I'm a 22 year old student from Ireland and over the next few months I plan to play and train as best I can with the aim of reaching the national and grand finals of GT Academy 2011.

Last year I qualified 2nd for the national finals, but on the day I completely messed up and was out in the first round. I learned a great deal from this experience such as how important mental preparation is and how to deal with disappointment in a positive way. In another respect, I saw it as a blessing in disguise as I was nowhere near fit enough to have actually done well in the boot camp at Silverstone. This time around, however, I am more focused, actually on a path to being properly fit and of course willing to give it everything I have to go all the way.

It was quite easy to get to the national finals last year as Ireland had it's own top 20. As far as I am aware, this year we are bunched in with the UK. This is going to make things extremely challenging. My time from the last Academy was only good enough to slot me in 37th if we were part of the UK board, so I am going to have to work very hard and be on top of things from day one.

Myself with last years Irish GT Academy finalists

I see this competition as 3 completely different things. To qualify you have to be in the top 20. To do that you pretty much have to be playing and improving every day. This requires determination, patience and some level of skill for the game. You have the comfort of not being put on the spot and you also have an unlimited amount of attempts to get your time.

The next step is the national final. Getting there proves that you are a very competent GT5 player who more than likely gave a lot of hours to setting a time. But now everyone is in the same boat again. Nerves are a big factor, so preparing mentally for this stage is crucial and probably more important than being the fastest. Also, a lot of people don't believe in luck, but things just have to go right for you on the day too. Who you are seeded against, where you sit, the car you are driving, how well you know the track - all these small things will in some way effect how you do.

Finally, I can't speak personally about the final stage as I have not experienced it, but from watching the last two GT Academy's, it appears that physical conditioning and mental attitude are the main factors. Obviously the team want someone who is fast, but I feel that if you have the other two attributes, then the speed and car control should be there as well.

That's all for now. I'm not sure how often I will update this as there is still over two weeks until the time trials begin. For now it's time to get back into a routine of playing GT5 and also keep up the fitness regime at the gym.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and an experience I would remember forever. I am determined to give it my all and make it to Silverstone.