Ciao - Back to racesim

-What is your name?
Giovanni Pagliarulo - gdg in OLR

-What is your age?
49

-Where are you located?
Italy

-What Sims do you race?
GTR2, P&G Mod, at the moment.

-Are you a Modder or Skinner?
No

-How did you hear about European Endurance Center?
Searching for a still alive community of GTR2

-Why do you want to be a member?
I'm an old simmer, away from OLR and racesims for a long time. This place looks serious and reminds me of other communities that no longer exist

-Write a short paragraph about you and your interests
The first racing games I played with were Pole Position, Pit Stop and Revs on C-64; then Stunt Car Racer on the Amiga.
The first software that can be defined a race sim I played with was Indianapolis 500 (Papyrus, 1989, Amiga) Then: F1GP (Geoff Crammond, Amiga and PC version) Indycar racing 1 and 2 (Papyrus, PC) GP2 (Crammond, PC) Nascar racing 1, 2, 3 (Papyrus)
My first steering wheel (Microsoft Sidewinder FFB) came with Nascar 3 (but I used it also with the previous sims) and then arrived what introduced me to OLR: Grand Prix Legends.
I raced with: Rally Championship 2000, Nascar Heat, Viper Racing, Sporstcar GT, F1 CHallenge 99-02 and its mod that I think everybody here knows, or should: GT Racing 2002.
In 2005 I got a Logitech DFP, the first steering wheel with 900 rotation degrees (I still use it) and then played with GTR, GTR2 (NAPP mod from its birth) GTL, rfactor, netkar, Live For Speed, Richard Burns Rally. IN the second half of 2008 I was on iRacing (I had an invitation code at the beginning) but I didn't want to keep on paying (also due to the lack of time I had to play/race) and I quit in 2009. My account should still exist, anyway.
On GTR2 and rFactor I think I've tried almost every mod published until 2010.
From what concern  (serious) OnLine Racing,
I raced in the Grand Prix Legends Italian Championship in 2003 (on my own) 2004 and 2005 (with the italian team Scuderia Ferrari Legends, shortly SFL)
in GTR-Italia Gtr championship in 2005 (GTR) and 2006 (GTR2) with the SFL team, plus many special events (as the 3h of Le Mans, with the LMCars Mod for GTR, july 2006, and 24h of Northschleife, -GTR2-  2007) and in the CTStar6 -GTR2 napp mod- with SFL)
In 2008-2010 I raced with rFactor in minor leagues on rLeague.eu, with F1 79 mod (Still with SFL team, but I'm not sure) CART 1995 mod (experiencing ovals after so many years from Indycar Papy-sims) Endurance series by Enduracers mod.
In late 2010 the main hard-disk of my PC broke bad,and I lost every data on it. To be more precise: I still have it and data should be on the platters but I should take it to a professional data-recovery lab. I was so shocked that I never touched the steering wheel again.
Until a month ago.
I don't know why -it was even before the covid quarantine- I took the DFP off the dust and tried to play again.
Maybe the reason is that sometimes I drive a real 1969 911-S 2.0 of a friend of mine and wanted him to try the sim-version, maybe it was just time to come back.
The fact is that I decided to reboot from GTR2 and the P&G mod (besides, some of the testers and developers of the first version raced in GTR-Italia championships with/against me) And due to customisation I used to have (i.e. I forgot almost everything about .plr file, that was heavily edited; I had many Motec project files and I forgot all about MoTec usage too; all my Sims where on Win XP; I even didn't know if the DFP would be working and with which drivers. etc.) I started to rebuild all my know-how looking for Racesim communities on the web. And I also wanted to know what new was developed meanwhile (HQ mod collection, tracks, etc.)
I don't have so much time for race sim actually, and at the moment I'm just getting off the rust driving offline. But I'm still capable to setup a car and beat the AI at 100% strength in an evening session.
About my favourite sims (until 2010, for the above reasons)
GPL  will be maybe always the most-loved. No other sim has given to me that "first time" emotion ever. Atmosphere, realism, "old-style" driving, tracks (the first Norsdchleife in a racesim) no realtime time-laps (you didn't know the laptime until the next one) difficulty... I think in racesim there is a before and after GPL. If you have lived the GPL-era you keep a certain style of racing -that doesn't mean exactly the way you technically drive- also in any other racesim.
GTR and GTR2 were the next step. Especially in league racing, they were the -natural- next step. GPL was beginning to be old and when GTR appeared (we all knew his "father" GT Racing, a mod of F1 Challenge 99-02) it was THE sim to use for online leagues. In 2005 I convinced my mates in SFL team to race (also) in GTR leagues. I don't have to explain here the qualities of GTR 1 and 2 ...
GTL was very good but it never seduced me; better GTR2 and P&G mod, to be frank.
rFactor - In the late years I raced it was undoubtly my favourite. Apart technical reasons, I was so involved in championships that I used GTR2 very methodically and only to prepare races and most of all, always with the same car. I wanted and needed to change. And rFactor had so many good mods that was perfect. Besides, the FFB, especially with the RealFeel plugin, was certainly better. I always thought that rFactor was the best sim (at his time) for openwheelers cars. I liked very much the F179 mod, WSC 1970, Endurance mod, F Nippon, BMW E21, CART 1995.
RIchard Burns Rally - One of the best physics-engine ever. And in my experience, the scariest sim. Even more than Grand Prix Legends. Goin' at top speed was so frightening... I'd like to try it with a VR headset...
iRacing - in 2008 was probably the best at all. No doubt on it and I'm a Kaemmer fan since 1989, but as I wrote, I didn't want to keep on paying. It would be justified only if I started to race a lot but I didn't have time to do it.

The present.
I would like to try rFactor2 and AssettoCorsa, obviously. Maybe a month back on iracing, who knows.
I've always been a great fan of Group-C cars but until 2010 there was nothing good around, except an unofficial megamod for rFactor
(I don't remember the name) that was fun (I liked the Sauber C9) but I never understood how realistic it  was .
I'm very curious to try some prototype.
Anyway, for now, I'm starting over with the good old GTR2.

Hope I haven't been too boring.
Ciao
Giovanni -gdg- Pagliarulo

Benvenuto!

The community is very small because many people switched to newer games and many modders left because there are thief who grab free mods to convert and sell them for AC and rF2. However here you can still find someone very active who will never abandon GTR2.

Grazie, bentrovato.