It’s a Drag… … Racing, that is!

The Torch invited me to try out something that frankly I’ve never given any thought about. And the idea of it at first had me puzzled at first: how can you drive extremely high powered vehicles down a virtual 1/4 mile? But, as I live by the motto “try most things ones”, I didn’t have to think long before saying “yes, I’m game”.

I got in touch with Tresbon Toocool, who agreed to be my mentor for my first time. He showed, Izzie, Morph and me around the shop, where I couldn’t take my eyes of all the finely crafted cars for sale. They truely have everything for every taste, ranging from bikes, imports and genuine kickass Detroit Muscle. Boy, it almost made me break the bank, and I’m genuinly considering getting me a car…

But that’s not what we came for today. Up next: the track… Abike can be gotten from a vendor on the wall at no charge, and Tresbon had me drive it up to the far lane, as two other people were racing on lanes 3 and 4, and showed me the basics on setting up the bike so it returns to the start grid after a race. That went pretty smooth, as all of it is pretty much done via a menu. Actually, the only two buttons on the keyboard you really need are two for racing: PgUp to set your gear, and the “up” key to race away…

Time to stage (put your vehicle in the starting position and gear) and hit the accelator when the yellow light comes on… I must tell you, it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced in Second Life! A race lasts… one second!

After getting a few pointers on what to do, we had a few races between us (somebody even offered us the use of his car) and I must say: Izzie by far has the best reaction speed overall, although I did beat her best: 0.06 seconds after the yellow light went on I hit the accelerator. Trescool mentioned that anything under 0.05 is usually a winner, and he was correct: I saw reaction times of 0.02 seconds!!!

A few pointers: avoid personal lag! Take off anything scripted to minimize missing that reaction sweet spot. Another one is take your time, after 3 runs I was hooked!

I’d like to thank Trescool for his expert advice and guidance; me and my baby have a date soon to the races…

Oh, and did I mention it’s freakin’ addictive? Well, now I have! 🙂

Article by: Sven Hyx 

Photos by: Morphman