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Stuart Wright

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This is my first posting back after the show and right away I want to tell you about the wheel.

But first, why were we doing what we were doing?
The Xbox 360 is the first easy to use and (soon to be) readily available HD source in the UK. We wanted to kill two birds by both having a cool HD source and also a competition to spice things up. I think our games theme was maybe a first at the Bristol Show and I hope it demonstrated that gaming has a role to play in what we all enjoy as part of our 'sound and vision'
home entertainment.

We chose PGR3 because it's a firm favourite with folks of all ages and an obvious competition.
We chose the Atom because it has better grip than our favourite the F50. Using the Ferrari would mean some people would be doing doughnuts 4 minutes into their lap and waste too much time.
Also we had to choose a car with an engine sound tollerable for 7 hours a day for 3 days!!
We chose the Big Apple Loop because it has interesting scenery, a great subwoofer moment after turn 4 and is relatively short.

We thought it was a great idea and a real scoop to have 1 of only 4 Joytech 360 wheels in existance available for you guys to try. I also hoped that it would even the competition up.
When we tried the wheel on Thursday we were really unhappy with the dead spot and considered not using it because we didn't want people to come away from our stand with a negative experience.
But we decided to persevere for two reasons. First, we said we'd be using the wheel and second because with the dead spot it actually made it an interesting challenge.
The problem came when a manic little man thought that by bashing the wheel into it's end stop, he could shove the armco out of the way. And the wheel died there and then. There were a couple of guys waiting for a lap who witnessed it. By that time we had quite a lot of people who had used the wheel.
Since we didn't have a back up wheel, our only option was to continue with exactly the same setup but with the joypad.
We're going to subtract the difference between the average times with and without the wheel from the times with the wheel to remove the handicap.
(We kept the entries with the wheel separate from those without).
I can only apologise to those people who raced with the wheel who might feel aggrieved, but I think doing the maths adjustment will be a fair and accurate representation of your skill.

We tried hard to make sure you enjoyed your laps while getting as many in as possible. To that end we (for nearly all of the time) had one person handing out the racing forms and ushering folks into the room (so that we wouldn't upset our neighbour); we had one person instructing on how to do the lap and getting it going, and we had one person noting the lap times down (and giving away pens and keyrings).
The traffic in the room was just about right. Most of the time we had a steady stream of people through. Any more and the queue would have become unmanageable.
I don't have exact numbers for the throughput, yet, but I think we had well over 300 people race.
Over all I'm very happy with the way things went. I'm proud of how Lee, Mandy and Vicki helped run a smooth operation and I hope we impressed punters, other exhibitors and the organisers alike.
Thanks to <a href="http://www.toshiba.co.uk/" target="_blank">Toshiba</a>, <a href="http://www.hyundaiq.com/" target="_blank">Hyundai</a>, <a href="http://www.yamaha-uk.com/" target="_blank">Yamaha</a>, <a href="http://www.av-sales.co.uk/" target="_blank">AV Sales</a>, <a href="http://www.play.com/" target="_blank">Play.com</a> and <a href="http://www.chord.co.uk/" target="_blank">Chord</a> for donating these fantastic prizes. Their help and support made the stand what it was.
 
Stuart Wright said:
We're going to subtract the difference between the average times with and without the wheel from the times with the wheel to remove the handicap.

seeing the posts about the wheel breaking, I wondered how you would deal with it. I had visions of some solomon type sawing of TV's in half.

Ultimately I think you have chosen the only simple / understandable / workable way of settling it.

I just hope everyone else sees it that way.

Thanks for a bit of fun on the day anyway.

As my time was rubbish I am safe in the knowledge that however you settle it I won't win !!!
 
The room was great, well organised by you guys and must of taken a lot of effort so thanks :thumbsup: .
 
Have to agree, was well setup and organised, and wasn't tooo busy either, great fun doing the lap on PGR3 :thumbsup: , makes me want a 360 even more now, and maybe one of those racing seats as well....and possibly a steering wheel to go with it...now where did i hide my wallet;)
 
Hopefully everyone will see it for what it was - a bit of fun.
I was concentrating so much I didn't hear the subwoofer bit you mentioned :)
That steering wheel was absolutely awful though - the PS2 Logitec GT3 ones are in a different league.
I've never player PGR before so my lap was suitably crap - hopefully it will be adjusted using your system to something more resonable :D
 
Just wanted to add to the comments that I too really enjoyed the experience. loving video games as I do it was a real buzz to try and show some skill... (try being the word) but the A/V setup was fantastic. really showed me what is possible if you save and buy quality.. Thanks for the opportunity to shorten my wait by a few years :)
 
I enjoyed the challlenge but I do think we should have a warm up lap then go for it.

How about A rally car version next year :)
 
sadly i wasnt there to try a lap...but if you promise to do Wario Stadium next year on Mariokart64 i'll pwn all with my 18.3 second full race time ;-)

(no word of a lie either....bounce left, then bounce left straight after....heh....)
 
So the big question is still......................


When are the competition results announced ??


Rgds,
Bruce.
 
Vicki is busy entering the data into the computer. Should be all in today.
 
Good position for the Forums stand. The ceiling sign was one of the first thing I noticed on entering the Hotel.:smashin:

First time Ive used a 360 and must say I liked the game but I was expecting more from the graphics I messed up my lap by thinking there was a U turn when in fact there wasnt a turn at all LOL:suicide: :D
 
Stuart Wright said:
Vicki is busy entering the data into the computer. Should be all in today.

Let's hope she mistypes my lap time so I win :thumbsup:
 
I also noticed the stand as soon as I came in and faced the stairs. Nice to meet our Administrator in person.

I was impressed with the sound from the Yamaha, even though it was not ideal conditions and the sub 'rumble' as I went under the bridge was great.

I missed the wheel and actually had one on order but only cancelled it after the launch kept getting put back from Mid Jan. Quite glad I did now :(

Funny how knowing you are in whith a chance of winning £000's of kit if you put in a good lap adds to the pressure :eek: :rotfl:

And I now have a new favourite pen :smashin:

Great idea for the stand and seemed to flow well.

Looking forward to seeing some of the times. Some of the chaps in the AV Forum league are in the top 10 in the world for the 'race against the clock' it will be interesting to see ho the pressure and lack of warm up (which I think was the best way to do it) affected the times people are capable of.

Just couldn't quite get my arse straight into the narrow :)nono: )seat........should change my name to James Mansell :(
 

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