Yo all,

I've noticed something very, very interesting when racing against friend's bots in H2H events:

After a dozen or so races - and I'm sure anyone else who's been doing a lot if this will agree, such as Stig's US Cuz'n and Lusk Racing - their bots get much, MUCH faster and behave as if they were actually driven live.

Thinking about it, I went back through FEMA's explanations of how TSM is supposed to work. Since a regular Cup race with a full field creates too much detail for an actual, fully functional "ghost" driver to be stored, it seems that the cars simply strive to achieve the time last posted by their real driver in that event (though never really as fast).

But a H2H? That's an entirely different ballgame. Two cars - that's it. When racing against a friend's bot I've gone against numerous times - and I am NOT making this up - it really does almost seem a live race. As an example, take just someone on my friend's list I don't know and who's not a MRR member. I can expect, in a one-lap Mt. Panorama race, to beat their car by roughly a thousand yards. Give or take a little, but that's around the norm.

But racing a friend's bot I've gone up against many times before?

It comes very, very close to being a real race. Often I am actually behind the first half-lap (hard to believe, I know), and only get ahead in the second half. Last night I ran H2H with both above members - and the distance between us at the finish?

In these most recent matches, it's rarely more then ten to twenty yards. It really can come down to an actual duel. I don't pretend to understand how any of this really works - a computer genius I am not; I am a writer and ex pro-filmmaker, so I can run word processors and video editors - and that's the extent of my computer knowledge.

Maybe it's only me - but I really don't think so. So - anyone else who's noticed something along these lines, please chime in so we can get a better handle on what's going on here.

When I first started running H2H races more than any other kind, it was just because of the fun of going up against a friend's custom cars. Now, though - it really does seem to have the potential to be far more than that.

Comments/observations, anyone?

J.