Picked up a random memory card and it had some OG Gran Turismo save files on there..
I played the first game back in the day a little, but I quickly moved on to the later releases and never put much time into it. Out of nostalgia, I’ve been picking up old games and consoles and during my PS1 collecting phase I grabbed a PS1 memory card (picked totally at random at a retro game shop) out of necessity. As a sim racing nerd I have the original Gran Turismo in my collection as it’s a pretty important racing game, to say the least.
Anyway, by pure chance when firing it up I realized I could load a game and holy balls he unlocked EVERYTHING. Fully upgraded Viper’s, RX-7’s, Supra’s with 900+ hp, crazy lap records, and all the licenses unlocked. What are the odds. Copied the save files to a second memory card as a backup and ima just buy another memory card instead of ever deleting these save files.
To the guy who unlocked all this stuff over 25 years ago: Thank you. There’s no way I’d ever have the time/patience to do it now. This save file makes the game 100x better and it’s genuinely a treat now to boot up and reaffirm how revolutionary the series was to the racing genre. It really is amazing to see what Polyphony Digital achieved in 1997 when you look at racing games prior. Sure simulation racing advanced in many ways and the Gran Turismo series is now comparatively pretty arcadey as they’ve targeted general audiences and couch play with a controller on Playstation consoles, whereas the typical racing simulator generally appeals to a niche audience with custom hardware. But make no mistake, they were the beginning. The genesis of simulated race tracks, cars, etc. attempting to emulate reality. I’ll always respect the series for that.
Anyway, I wonder what this fella is up to now. Wild to think about how this person probably obsessively played this game to completion a quarter of a century ago.
As a fan of both F1 and IndyCar and their respective feeder series, for fun I put together a list of how I personally rate the top 20 open-wheel racing drivers in motorsport currently. There’s definitely more F1 drivers on this list, but I think there’s actually more IndyCar drivers than folks would expect. A few of them I think are knocking on the door of the very best, and just as a fan of motorsport if you love racing and want more then don’t limit yourself to just one series!
For the most part I feel I’m pretty unbiased here. Only active or reserve drivers in an open-wheel series for the 2025 season are considered:
1st – Max Verstappen
2nd – Lewis Hamilton
3rd – Charles Leclerc
4th – Fernando Alonso
5th – George Russell
6th – Lando Norris
7th – Carlos Sainz
8th – Álex Palou
9th – Oscar Piastri
10th – Colton Herta
11th – Pierre Gasly
12th – Pat O’Ward
13th – Josef Newgarden
14th – Scott Dixon
15th – Scott McLaughlin
16th – Esteban Ocon
17th – Lance Stroll
18th – Yuki Tsunoda
19th – Nico Hülkenberg
20th – Alexander Rossi
??? these drivers could be in the top 20, but I’m not sure about and/or just don’t have enough information for me to rate yet:
Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Liam Lawson
Franco Colapinto
Jack Doohan
Oliver Bearman
Gabriel Bortoleto
Kyle Kirkwood
Felipe Drugovich
I don’t watch enough Formula E or Super Formula beyond the occasional race and highlight to gauge if I’d rate any of those drivers up there. From what I’ve seen and know of the drivers I think only a few would possibly sniff around 15-20th on this list. Like Vandoorne and Wehrlein. Vergne and Buemi definitely back in the day, dunno if they’re still as high tier though after so many years outta high level open wheel racing. Formula E is only just now starting to get performance and competitiveness that I’d consider enough for me to rate at this level. Legacy talents in that series are a question mark for me. Especially if they aren’t fighting for wins and championships the last couple seasons.
While past results do influence my decision, it’s not the main factor. It’s why Dixon is a bit lower on the list despite having the best record in IndyCar, as I just think he’s a bit down on his prime, he was actually edged out by Franchitti back in the day, and today Palou is comfortably beating him. And Hamilton is statistically the goat, but Russell (who I rate a few spots below him actually as he’s consistent, but I don’t think has outshined the best of what Hamilton is capable of) has edged him out at Mercedes. I still think he’s got it in him and is impressive on his day, so we’ll see how the Ferrari move goes, but if he’s unsuccessful he might drop a few spots for me. I also try to keep in mind their team either holding them back or flattering them when considering the ranking. In IndyCar a “Penske Perfect” seat can elevate even a mediocre driver into contending for wins. Same goes for top teams in F1. Yes these teams attract top talent, but that doesn’t necessarily determine their ranking for me. Overall I think Verstappen is the greatest active open-wheel racer right now. While I can see debates for the rest of my list play out, I think at least that is pretty much agreed upon.
–
Here’s a handful of honorable mentions that I’d totally understand arguing for, but this is my list so kick rocks and go make yer own:
21st – Alexander Albon
22nd – Will Power
23rd – Valtteri Bottas
24th – Romain Grosjean
….aaand now you can complain about how your opinion is correct and mine is wrong.
I hope your holidays were great, but mannn, I’m happy to be past em! Bring on the new year. There’s a lot I want to accomplish and I’m certainly over spending money I don’t have! Anyhoo, while I was busy with IRL nonsense, I casually chipped away at comic stuff. I finished a page of Driving Nowhere, and I have a fun six-part (!) mini comic I’m excited to throw together.
While working on that I observed and was reminded of the bizarre (to me..) culture of the current generation. A term I like being labeled for this nonsense, brain rot, made me think initially about how there’s no way my generation would be this stupid… then I thought more deeply about our cringe and… yeah we weren’t any better.
Every generation has their own pop culture cringe they try to forget about… they’re no worse than us…
I’m back… again! The website got compromised and I had to start from scratch, so I took the opportunity to build it back better than it was. While it was really annoying to go through this, considering how things were basically duct taped together outta hope and desperation before, it ended up being a blessing in disguise as this forced me to start over with a clean slate. Annoyingly this nonsense kinda put me on a holding pattern for comics/posts, but luckily when this happened I was already nearly done with a few pages anyway…
ANYHOO I’m super excited to be at this point with the comic finally. I was also mindful about making them flexible to cut up for social media. On here I’ll have the original full pages though.
I’ve looked forward to this arc for a while as one of my personal interests is sim racing, and I’ve simply never seen a good representation of it in media/comics before. While Driving Nowhere is about a broader ‘slice of life’ view of various characters living with different circumstances, on a personal note Layne’s interest in motorsport and sim racing is something I love. Making it has been challenging, but I’m having a blast! Of course, the first attempt at this had to be centered around Formula Vee.
I’ve always been a fan of Formula Vee since I first tried a simulation of one out. It’s just a good simple race car platform and one I always go back to when I wanna learn a track or something. Racing those things is a joy and I knew when the time came to illustrate racing in Driving Nowhere, the first one I’d tackle is Formula Vee.
It was a pleasant surprise to learn that my affinity for the category extended to my family who ran an entry during the 60’s. These vintage shots from Willow Springs are amazing. I love em.
Lost everything. Site got compromised I guess and I had to reinstall wordpress. Was hoping my files would at least be saved, but yeah it’s all gone. I have the comics backed up and thankfully got those posts I was writing saved too. I’ll eventually get things sorted here… but yeah this sucks.
Stay tuned I guess. Might as well try and make the site better than it was since I gotta start from scratch anyway.
The past week was a bit messy due to some IRL nonsense, so I just focused on drawing the comic. Since I don’t wanna go too long without updating y’all here with something, I figure a preview of what’s to come and a look at what I did prior is in order!
So for the most recent page in Layne’s room there’s a picture above his bed, which is supposed to be him as a kid on a podium where he won a karting race. The last time you saw this was early in the comic and that original drawing asset is pretty low resolution and it looked kinda… shit when I tried reusing it. So I decided to redraw that picture. Considering it was gonna be shrunken down a bunch I didn’t spend too much time on it, but I think it turned out okay!
I also redrew the picture on the wall of Mario Andretti’s Lotus F1 car to better fit the black and white art style I’m using now.
I’m really excited about the comics ahead! They’re coming along nicely. I’m also experimenting with a more flexible style of panels that I can still be dynamic with, but have the ability to cut em up easily for various social media platforms.
Now here’s a little insight into my obsessiveness. Take a look at the suspension details on this page:
I spent an entire day refining this to look ‘right’ to me. At first, it was just a rough take on what it looks like from the incar perspective on iracing. Then I cleaned it up a bit. From there it was just a bit too visually complicated and didn’t mesh well with the rest of the art, particularly with the other perspectives of the formula vee from farther away as those details ended up not making sense in comparison, so I had to sorta ‘simplify’ it while still somehow making it make sense mechanically. So I basically had to break down elements of the suspension into simpler shapes and leave out details that weren’t necessary. I’m glad I spent the time to do this as if I went with the initial version I’d be mildly annoyed every time I looked at this page..
There’s still a ton to do. I am really hoping sim racers appreciate what I’m doing here as I don’t think anybody has truly captured that excitement and fun we experience when sim racing. Either it’s seen as boring or they nonsensically exaggerate stuff and are silly with it… This arc is hopefully relatable to folks in the sim racing scene and I’m just aiming to create something that *I* would enjoy reading. Hopefully y’all will like it too. 🙂
I might have an update for next week, but with the whole election hysteria taking over, who knows? Whatever happens, keep calm and carry on.
Board Track Racing is a fascinating bit of motorsport history that I’d like to talk about a bit. It’s largely a forgotten sport that was only active for a little over a decade during the early turning of the twentieth century. Why? Insanely dangerous and insanely expensive. During a time when World War I veterans with a death wish and a new level of adrenaline to chase along with the obscene amounts of money being tossed around during the Roaring Twenties, such an exciting form of entertainment was perfect for its era.
Now what WAS board track racing? Imagine oval racing… but scarier.
Started on two wheels and expanded to four wheel competition, where my interest lies. It was called “board” track racing because the tracks were constructed with wooden boards, and with a minimal knowledge of the engineering behind it, the sketchiness of these tracks was an understatement. Later on there was some number crunching done by somewhat competent engineers, but what remained the same was the insane costs of construction and maintenance… and the speeds.
Indianapolis 500: 111.73mph
Fulford Speedway: 142.93mph
Same year.
With banking that’d put Talladega to shame, these guys took what amounted to basically lawnmowers with bicycle tires up to speeds that wouldn’t be seen at Indianapolis for decades. Where the 1950’s and 1960’s era of racing saw a tremendous amount of fatalities, what was seen during the era of board track racing was basically a blood sport for the spectator’s entertainment. Few survived long enough to retire.
When the Great Depression came Board Track Racing went. With few survivors from that era, there just wasn’t really anybody clamoring for it to come back when the world economy recovered. And with the increased focus on safety over the years we’ll likely never see anything like it again.
That said, the concept of essentially wacky hot wheels inspired track racing just seems fun. You see it in arcade racing videogames and people love the idea of it… but you won’t see anybody with a pulse race this way again… in reality. Perhaps iRacing could give it a crack? Would be pretty cool to see a realistic take on this largely forgotten style of racing.
If you’re curious like me, here’s a few documentaries I enjoyed that do a deep dive on the world of board track racing:
With the nostalgia bug latching onto me recently, I’ve started revisiting some old favorites. Pokemon being one that pretty much every kid has at least one major experience with dumping countless hours of their life into.
As an overall property I didn’t watch too much of the anime, Digimon was my jam as a kid and I’ll die on the hill that its theme song blows Pokemon outta the water. Yet I wasn’t a total outcast as a kid, or at least tried not to be, so of course I collected the cards when they came onto the scene during the late 90’s. I was literally the exact target demographic and age. Resistance was futile.
What saved me was not being able to keep up with my friends. I’d get like… one or two packs a month. I had a friend who would get cards all the time. His dad even took him to a niche collecting card spot and that motherfucker had BINDERS of cards. I think what ended my enthusiasm for card collecting was when we went to Blockbuster one time and my mom bought us each a pack of cards.
Dude pulled a holographic Charizard. Not. Fair.
As for the games… I went hard on those. I vaguely remember getting Blue as a kid and not really knowing what to do, but I ended up getting Yellow and a Game Boy Pocket (that my brother destroyed with a sharpie when he was a stupid baby… that’s a whole other story for a different time. I got a Game Boy Color shortly after that.) and I probably dumped hundreds of hours into each release from that point. Gold/Silver/Crystal was such a huge deal with its day/night cycle. Fire Red and Leaf Green introduced those little wifi warts that made trading on the school bus SO much easier. The last game I really was invested in was Diamond on the DS. After that I was too old and too cool for Pokemon games.
Guilty admission: Around 2004-2005 I used to run role-playing threads on the nsider forums as the ‘leader’ of Team Rocket. As embarrassing as that is to share, it really did cultivate my love for crafting stories. I actually was so involved with it that I grew to be friendly with the Nintendo of America staff that operated the nsider forums and when Twilight Princess was first previewed I got a print with the signatures of all of em on it lol. After so many years and so many moves, I’ve unfortunately lost it.. To be fair… it was kind of a crappy print. Probably off a cheap laser printer as an easy gift for an overactive user in their community lol.
Fast forward 15 years and I started hearing rumblings about a 3D Pokemon game and after getting a Switch to finally play Breath of the Wild with its sequel looming I was mildly curious. I didn’t think much of Arceus when I picked it up, but upon playing it holy crap. I was in. This was the Pokemon game I dreamed of as a kid. And I adored the new battle mechanics. Being even older and yet much less cool, I didn’t care what people thought about me playing Pokemon. It was fun! I even beat the dang game, which is quite an accomplishment for a known quitter like me.
…
If Ash can become a world champion at 35, then there’s still time for me to become the very best.
When Scarlet and Violet were announced it was the first Pokemon games I actively was excited to see released in ages. They got roasted pretty bad when they finally came out, but I had fun with em. Yes, they were buggy. Yes, Game Freak struggles with the 3rd dimension (Seriously they should’ve adopted that retro 2D/3D Octopath Traveler / Dragon Quest HD-2D style. They used to be SO good at pixel art!), but the core gameplay was FUN. Especially if you played it at the same time with friends. Being able to adventure through the world and catch stuff with others was just a good time. The first DLC was crap. Second DLC was okay. Overall I enjoyed the experience. Enough that I had the craving for more. What about those games in the series I missed during my absence…?
I began my adventure looking back with Heart Gold. That game is quite possibly the most refined old school Pokemon experience you can have. After that, I played Black and Black 2. Peak sprite art from Game Freak and was a delightful play. The later games I’m dabbling with are okay, but if ya wanna go back to the older style those two generations were the peak of traditional Pokemon.
I actually like and prefer the new direction that Arceus introduced in the overall design. Scarlet/Violet was kind of a mix of that and traditional Pokemon. I hope Legends Z-A brings back and expands upon what Arceus started. I liked how much quicker and interactive the battles felt.
I will say there’s a certain charm to the traditional Pokemon formula. Funneling you through an obvious direction and straight up expecting you to grind away mindlessly. Those games ended up being kind of a fidget spinner for me when I wasn’t feeling great due to chronic pain. If I was having a hard time I could at least grind away and level up my pokermans. The end result was the longer I was in pain, the stronger my team would be!
So while I have a newfound appreciation for that old formula, I still want them to pursue the quicker and more interactive style that Arceus introduced. With its sprawling open-world design… just hire better 3D artists/designers Game Freak. You can afford it.
When it was rather cold last winter I craved a hot brew. Unfortunately, since I can’t have too much caffeine due to my heart problems and never liking a decaf cup of coffee, I decided to give tea a shot. It was pretty good… Wondered how a different flavor/brand would taste. Oh my. Lemon Ginger is tasty. Hmm… wonder what a bit of sugar and honey would do… lawd have mercy this is delightful.
What have I done.
Here’s the bedtime tea I look forward to every night: One Celestial “Sleep” tea and one Bigelow “Peppermint” tea together with one spoonful of sugar and three splenda packets. Tastes sooo good and knocks me out… …it’s actually kind of a problem as I crave it during the day.
I’ve really fallen in love with the ritual of preparing tea. Especially at night when I’m winding down for bed. Ever since I was a kid I struggled with insomnia. Like, it was really bad. I’d straight up not sleep some nights and end up pounding energy drinks to get through the day after…
It really is a mystery how my heart exploded…
The act of preparing my favorite cup of tea is extremely relaxing and the melatonin in the blend I drink seals the deal by knocking me out. It’s genuinely been a life changing habit. Wish I had this when I was a kid struggling to sleep due to stress over exams or whatever…
Since it’s so cheap I already have a dozen boxes of various flavors/brands of tea and I fear this disturbing trend has been escalating. I’ve already acquired an electric tea kettle and I’m curious about graduating from tea bags… I’m dangerously close to experimenting with obscure loose leaf teas and specialized kettles/teapots. My future is grim.
The only downside to these things is they’re a bit chonky compared to modern laptops…
When my dad passed away five years ago I inherited his work laptop and ever since it has sorta collected dust in storage. I’ve always had a gaming PC and while I liked the keyboards on Thinkpads, this one always felt a bit slow with the spinny hard drive and 8gb of ram. Well lately I’ve been working on the comic and while I was thinking about better methods of writing I recalled how nice this Thinkpad keyboard was. Figured if I could at least make it responsive enough to not be infuriating to use I could try adding it to my workflow.
Unless you’re replacing the network card (whoever designed the antenna leads for those things is evil) upgrading old laptops is pretty easy!
Well on a whim I spent $39 on a 240gb SSD and a 16gb ram kit and threw a fresh installation of Windows on it… holy crap! This thing is downright snappy now!
Glancing over at my ultrawide monitor on my sim racing rig, I thought about how it’s generally unused otherwise, as my Mac Mini only supports two monitors. I wondered.. what’s the max resolution output of the Thinkpad T440p…? Ooh it can do 4k 60hz over display port? Hm. The dongle I need is only $10…
..aaand ordered.
What I learned from this is if all you want is a machine to browse the web and do basic office work there’s zero reason to drop a grand on a new laptop. Get something old (<10 years roughly) for under $100 or even free and spend less than $50 getting the ram to 16gb and replace the spinny hard drive with the cheapest SSD you can find. Then just throw on a fresh operating system installation free of bloat and you’re set!
The user experience between one of these machines upgraded this way and a modern $1000 laptop is virtually identical. No, you won’t be gaming on it. The screen is probably mediocre so you won’t be watching movies on this thing. But if you use your laptop for work, there’s no reason to have anything more than this. And in a way by having a mediocre screen and no gaming intentions, my laptop is strictly a focused work machine. No distractions. If I wanna watch videos or play games: I have my phone, gaming systems, TV, and desktop PC to choose from. I like this arrangement.
-K
..although when plugged into my ultrawide it makes for one helluva auxiliary media machine… That old 4th gen dual core i5 can even play 4k video on youtube!