Happy Birthday Graeme!

f1 challenge. unfortunately, the only picture i have left of this game.

From the early days of F1 2002, to F1 Challenge with its various bits of mods, to the current modern racing simulation in the form of rFactor, you've been there through thick and thin.

Surviving the initial shock of the jump from arcade games to real simulation, and then later braving the shit storm that i so happily created.

Happily trodding along in my messed up modifications that i conjure out of nothing but simple notepads and file converters. Gamely installing anything on a badly scratched disk i frequently pass to you at school.

And then enduring the confusing and troublesome change to a new simulation.

You have been there.


Of course, it hasnt been all that messed up.
We've had fun in every single racing simulation that we have switched to.
F1 Challenge was epicly fun, even though we played with a lousy interpretation of the 2007 season of F1.

Modding it also created a ton of shenanigans, like remember how you could not reverse faster than 6km/h before your car started flying? Epic.
There wasnt a treasure trove of circuits in F1 Challenge, but there wasnt a need for it.
We soon picked out the "good" circiuts.

Monaco was good for close racing, Brazil was good for goofing around. Nordschleife was an impossible challenge.

Then came 2009. Things changed rapidly.

No one was putting out good mods for our considerably old simulation. Not that it had much more to give anyway. Coughing and sputtering, infected with tons of bugs that had built up over 1 year of tinkering with its files.

We made the painful decision to abandon ship.

rFactor was an entirely different beast.

Confusion, frustration, and some sense of helplessness ensured we did not enjoy our first week with this new simulation. Its functionality, behaviour and new dimension of physics meant that it did not feel Real.

But we stuck to it. And perseverance paid off.


The usual messing around resumes.



and close racing at another street circuit.

too close it is.


Messing around with clement.


or even at an oval. (screen shot from graemes comp, showing my car only on 2 wheels due to my "special" setup. which im still not gonna divulge. :D)

rFactor was great. We even managed to get Clement and Jia Qing to play a game that so little people have heard of.

After 2 full years of driving with a keyboard, you've finally become a master at it.
Racing was really close now, so close that only a few hundredths of a second separated our timings. We could even do 20 lap stints at the limit, without crashing or spinning a single time.


Super close racing, time and time again.




and of course, the mess we usually cause.



rfactor opened up other racing mods. Racing was even closer with the gallardo mods.


or drifting...


and more close racing.


Interlagos was one of the best tracks. Almost every turn allows easy overtaking.




thats how close our racing has become. just 0.026 of a second seperates us on the final lap of the race.

JQ arrived at the scene and carnage ensued.




on the final lap of the Canadian gp. at the last corner. with JQ and Graeme fighting for first, and me looking for a slip up by one of them to get 2nd.


really really close.


singapore is a greate drifting track.




drifting...



It was all great fun, with the daily skype conversations with JQ, one of our weirdest friends, and Gabriel (our "pit engineer" that just spews useless information about gays and gay-hos.) it has made every night, a night to look forward to.

Without you though, the nightly conversations on skype wouldnt be filled with invalid nonsense and utter baloney, or the inevitable gay puns directed at you. It would just become a small gathering of guys, rummaging through their pants to find something interesting to discuss.

I just want to let you know, that you are an important part to our closely knit circle of friends, and that you mean much more to us that just "Gay rammer, gay hammer, ghurka boy and mild banana".



Happy Birthday Graeme.



and, pardon my really poor composition. im starting to suck at english.
really. and im not sure how rfactor relates to the last part either.