Okay, okay, I can take an obelisk–sized hint. I've a spare Volvo 240 Estate; it fits in the boot.
To recap, the ~Special Challenge~ for Week 60 was to take a Volvo 240 SE Estate, modify it to give it a redline higher than its 7,000rpm tachometer can go, and drive it with very low (or no) audio around the Nürburgring with the in–game HUD switched off. This aims to replicate the experience of being a deaf driver in VR. I put said parts on my Volvo and nothing else, which gave me a car with the specs you see below:
Aftermarket Parts Installed:
- Full Control Computer
- High–Lift Camshaft S
- Racing Air Filter
- Racing Exhaust Manifold
- Racing Muffler/Silencer
Power: 149HP | 111kW (+40HP)
Mass: 1,324kg | 2,919lbs (±0kg)
Rev Limit: 7,519rpm (+1,019rpm)
So, you know how I said I didn't enjoy driving the stock Volvo 240, and that it was a rather dangerous drive in my review of the car? Yep, I just gave it more power, and did NOTHING to its suspension and tyres to cope. I then took off my earphones so as not to subject my ears to the infernal groanings of a 149HP Volvo trumpeting through a racing exhaust, and went from my preferred bumper cam to the usually ill–advised co*ckpit view. I can't see how this will turn out badly at all—
I can't see a damn thing on the dash.
...which isn't so much of a problem when you can hear the engine and needn't duck under speed cameras, but when you can't hear nor feel a car's acceleration and need to shift the car manually, the tachometer and speedometers are your only tells as to when to shift. Obelisk has also specified to avoid short shifting as much as possible, and with the dash darker than the souls of masoch*sts who actually enjoy this spilled snake intestines of a track, I can't even tell if I'm short shifting the car or blowing it up.
Yeah, I haven't even driven fifty metres, and I already need to cheat.
Nürburgring, with no sound, a car I don't gel with, in complete darkness! Just so I can see the dash! I set up a custom race with stock One–Make opponents and me starting in the lead so I can just sod off with my tuned 240, but it went so badly that I was at risk of being overtaken by the can't–even–use–full–throttle AI with stock Volvos before I spun it and died at Aremberg. The problem with driving a souped–up Volvo in the dark is that it squats so much on power that the headlight beams lift clean off the road surface. I can only see the road when I get on the brakes! Not to mention, I can't feel much either from the wheel because the soft suspension eats up the tall kerbs of the Nordschleife as though cotton candy, so I can't do the blind thing of groping about in the dark either. I simply don't know The Green Hell well enough to wing it like this. I can't see, I can't hear, and I can barely feel a thing. What am I supposed to do, smell the rev limit? Taste the rubber on the racing line?
Twilight, the next day. I can see the dash and the road. I should've just done this to begin with, but I'm about as bright as Foxhole at midnight. It's an achievement enough for me that I'm smart enough to know how to inhale and exhale and alternate between them.
A method I already have prior to this challenge is to shift the car not with the tach, but with the speedo. I do this with cars that are extremely picky with their revs and demand to be shifted at very specific points, like the Atenza Gr.4 for example. What I do is that I memorise each shift point in km/h instead of rpm, and so for the Atenza, it goes something along the lines of: DON'T, 122, 156, 196, and 235. Helps that km/h is a finer unit of measurement than mph, as if I needed another reason to feel lucky being born in a sensible part of the world. Back in hell with the Volvo: being an old car, its dash may be hard to read in strong sunlight, but otherwise, its analogue dash is no–nonsense, clear, and responsive, not like the garbage screens of cars today with their awful refresh rates prone to burning–in. I brought the car up to its rev limit in 2nd, which topped out at just shy of 120km/h, and 3rd was good for just over 180—not that this soggy brick will see those speeds often, even with upgrade parts thrown at it and the boss themes of the Winds of Destruction backing it. The chances of needing 4th gear with the 240, even on a track with some of the longest straights in motorsport, was lower than the chances of encountering a full–odds Shiny Pokémon with Pokérus and a competitive nature. 1st gear almost proved useful for the rare tight sections like Yokohama-S and Wehrseifen, but was ultimately too short to be worth it, topping out at a mere 60 km/h. Requiring only 2 gears for the entirety of the 25.4km (15.8mi) track (hopefully not needed a third in reverse), having an easy–to–read speedometer in the dark, and being a typical 80s car with plenty of glass to help give it excellent visibility, I think it's safe to say that the 240 is the "easy mode" for this challenge.
And I still struggled with it immensely.
Sure, being able to upshift optimally is one thing, but that still requires taking my eyes off the road to take sporadic glances at the speedo—it's distracting, to say the least. That, and I'm still helpless on braking zones; I don't know when it's safe to downshift, meaning I can't just abuse the absurdly powerful engine braking in this game to my advantage. The first few times I braked without audio, it felt as panic–inducing as sitting down on a chair, only to find that the chair isn't there when you're already falling. It's really amazing the things we take for granted. Of course, there's no penalty to downshifting too early, since engine damage and failure isn't simulated. Heck, in some of the fastest runs in Online Time Trials, players actively downshift early and bang the limiter to slow the car faster, but it's not something I've ever liked doing, not to mention it's against the spirit of the challenge I suspect. Also, I downshifted into 1st with muscle memory into Turn 1, and my 240 SE suddenly became halfway proficient in Japanese, thinking that the Yokohama-S needed to be taken fully yoko. Not being able to hear what revs the engine is doing and with the wheel blocking most of the dash, I can't tell if the NA engine is awake enough to give me the torque to hold a slide, or if it's already banging the limiter uselessly, making slides a whole different dimension of scary. With paddle shifters, I can just click in the left paddle late on braking to be safe, but if I were driving with a stick shift like I wish I could, I don't even know how I'd gauge the amount of throttle blip I'd have to give the car to rev match without audio.
Driving deaf also meant that I had to manually count the gear I'm in and always keep it in the forefront of my thoughts as I drove, because I don't have that automatic "cheat" of hearing an engine dozing off to know I ought to downshift. A lot of times, I take tight corners in low revs in 3rd, realising I'm in the wrong gear only when it dawns on me that it's high time I needed an upshift, long after the wrong gear became the correct gear. It's like how sarcasm doesn't come across well in text, and without the tone, volume, and context to set it apart, sometimes even the most brazen exaggerations can come across as genuine, and that's the closest analogy I can draw to driving a manual car deaf, having been able to hear my whole life. With enough practice, I can turn the lap into a routine: brake here, stay in this gear for this turn, go, brake there, that turn needs a downshift, etc.. In other words, I can't drive as reactionary as I'd like, and instead have to make it a choreographed drive, much like the high–downforce cars I detest. The Döttinger Höhe deserves special mention, as it's the longest straight in the lap, consisting of a downhill into a valley before an uphill roughly in the middle of the straight, and my car was pretty much on its 182km/h limit in 3rd gear on the downhill. I can't tell if my car is at the rev limit, and shifting into 4th just asphyxiates the car come the uphill section. It's bloody frustrating not knowing, and with seemingly no way to know until I check the replay.
As the session wore on, reset after reset, I just grew frustrated. I hated the car. I didn't fancy the track. I just want to string together a safe and slow lap just to get it over and done with, just to be able to say, "I did it". I just wanted to hear again, god damnit! And the very immediate realisation following that—that that isn't an option for some people—really made me feel heavy. And this is just in a game, wherein I'm running by myself! I don't want to imagine what it must be like to drive deaf in a competitive setting, or in real life, where motorcyclists like to straddle lanes to snake past cars. A lot of times the only way I'd know a motorcycle was in my blind spot is if I heard it, because Singaporean riders do NOT care about being safe or seen, despite being in the position to lose the most in the event of contact. I may have strung together two laps of the Nürburgring 24h, but I don't feel like I've gotten how to drive deaf—at all. I don't even want to count how many times I've smacked the limiter of 2nd. The replay is shared here, if you're interested, with the tags #cotw #w60 #deaf
After that, I put back on my earphones, put Korn - Did My Time on full blast, and took my RX-8 screaming around Streets of Willow at 9,500rpm. God, being able to hear is amazing.
~ ♫ I REALLY TRIIIIIIIED
I DID MY TIIIIIIME! ♫ ~
cAr Of ThE wEeK w64 sPeCiAl ChAlLeNgE dRiVe BlInDfOlDed
