Looking down towards the main straight from the iconic Nurburgring Castle, you can tell that the Nurburgring is located in a highland.

Gran Turismo for the PSP is out on sale now.
This PSP version is of course on a portable device with a broader range of users, so it's been made friendlier for beginners knocking on the doors of GT for the first time, and also for those who may have abandoned GT in the past because of the perhaps overly stoic, path-finding nature of the game. Unfortunately, those expecting that truly stoic GT experience will have to wait for GT5. But in this PSP version with its more casual playing style, I'm hoping people will just have fun gaining lot's and lot's of cars, the tempo of the game, and it's adhoc head to head play as a party game.
I hope everyone reading this blog gets a chance to try it out.


Now, continuing on from where we left off…
The Lexus garage was located in a small village, just a 10 minutes drive out from the Nurburgring.

I made my visit on the day before the race, as the garage bustled with final race preparations.
There I was welcomed by Norbert, the German Chief mechanic.

"The new suspension arm arrived just this morning, we have to install it now…", he says to me, as he pours me some coffee.

Norbert, with his vast racing experience and veteran skills, was calm and relaxed. In contrast, I immediately started to bombard him with questions though we had only just met.

What's the corner weights of the car? Tire size? Toe and camber? Caster angle, gear ratios, fuel economy, the length of the stint, ...?

Not having racing experience, the only place I could start was by anticipating the characteristics of the car from a variety of hard numerical figures. My apologies, Norbert…
I was desperate to learn the basic characteristics of the car, and he was very considerate in answering my barrage of questions thoroughly, one by one.

Because they are the "Lexus Europe" team, I had initially imagined they would be a huge army of a team, maybe equal to or even larger in size and scale than the massive teams in Formula 1 racing. However, my imagination deceived me in a good way.
Though I had been slightly worried at first, thinking "what would a novice like me do, amidst a team like that?", it turned out that the Lexus Europe Racing team was a small, family-like organization.

In the garage, a few young mechanics worked diligently on the final finishing touches of the competition machine.

There I was told that these men were not professional racing mechanics, but in fact, were a team of select mechanics chosen from dealers in Lexus Europe, headquartered in Brussels. The regular day jobs of these young Belgian mechanics in their early 20's in whom I still saw signs of boyish youth, are the repair and maintenance of production Lexus cars.

Perhaps the job of a race mechanic was a challenge they were not accustomed to, as their eyes were serious, their words few, and their work meticulous.
Seeing them, I was reminded of how good it is to see people fully dedicated and without a single doubt in their mind, not imagining or fretting over the future in store for them, but totally focused on the work at hand.

With one of these mechanics who looked particularly young, I noticed a young lady who stood by, that would not leave his side. It seemed as though she did not want to step away even for a moment, and even while he labored, silently sweating over his work, she continued to hover close by.
I asked, and was told that she is his girlfriend, and that today is his birthday.

"It's noon, lets all take a break and have lunch."

Norbert called out, and lining up tables haphazardly under the sun, everyone gathered to eat the pizza that had been delivered.
For dessert was an apple pie baked by that girlfriend of the young mechanic.
In their birthplace of Belgium, I was told it is customary for a girlfriend to bake a cake on the birthday of a boyfriend, and to treat everyone around.

With beautiful color, gloss, looks and texture…in the perfectly baked pie crust, was a sweet, rich apple filling.
The scent of cinnamon and nutmeg was slightly stronger than what you would find in the same in Japan; it was the real thing.

"They build the car, and I drive the car."

If you take a step back and you look at the distribution of roles between the two parties here, it is none other than what is called a "racing team". And the story called a "Race" with its vague significance, probably often begins silently, unnoticed, in moments just like these.

These were the thoughts racing through my head as I enjoyed the fabulous apple pie made by the girlfriend, in modest reserve.

My work starts tomorrow.


To be continued…

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To the Nürburgring