SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Driving GT Legends: A Fast Lap at Monza Junior

The timing was serendipitous. Last Christmas I received a gorgeous, well crafted book as a present from my father, who's also a big motorsports aficionado. To say the least, I became instantly enthralled with the history and sheer beauty of this legendary race car. And then as if on cue, GTL arrived on U.S. shores, replete with the mighty GT40 in its stable. What a treat it has been to drive the virtual recreation of this car while I am so interested in it.

Of course, were it not for the GTL unlock cheat, I would still be driving Mini's while my interest in the GT40 waned, but that story is for another time. Let's just say that the contrived, restrictive, arcade-ish structure of GTL is its least endearing feature for me, and without the unlock cheat I'd have lost much of my interest and enthusiasm for the GT40 long before I could ever hope to unlock it. So endeth my first constructive "hint" to SimBin!

If you're too young to remember the legendary "Ford That Beat Ferrari," you really owe it to yourself to become more familiar with this car and its storied place in the history of sports car racing. This book is a great place to start, and you can purchase it via a link in our motorsports library. For those not familiar, the number "40" in the car's designation refers to the 40 inch height of the car's roof above the track, and that low height along with the car's wide stance gave it menacing look.

Starting in 1965, Ford Advanced Vehicles of Slough, England, built GT40s for sale, supporting private owners and teams who raced their own cars. These cars were equipped with a 4.7 L (289 cu.in.) engine, as opposed to Ford's Shelby-managed "works" cars (the GT40 MkII) that won Le Mans in 1966 equipped with 7 Litre (427 cu.in.) engines. For the latter half of the 1960's independent teams ran their FAV-built GT40s in races all across Europe, including the 1000km of Monza, Spa and of course, Le Mans.

The GT40s recreated in GTL appear to be the small block FAV cars built in the mid '60s, as opposed to the Ford "works" cars that won almost every major race they entered. Nevertheless, the customer cars were also quite competitive, and there were a wide variety of liveries to attract the eye. Cruising the Internet, you can easily find plenty of "stand-alone" cars to spice up your stable of drivable cars in GTL. Two very well crafted, historically accurate GT40s that I found are the #52 car by InsaneDruid, and the #5 car by Berca. The #52 car replicates one of the Ford-France team cars, while the #5 revives the Pittsburgh-based Essex Wire team that competed in the 1966 racing season. In fact, you'll notice that the cars that appear in this article's screenshots are these 3rd party cars. I highly recommend them to enhance your GTL racing experience.

In GTL, the GT40 is one fun car to drive, really gets my historic race car juices flowing. But when I say "fun" I don't mean "easy" — the car is a beast, one that loves to understeer mid-corner and has enough torque to swap ends if not handled properly as you exit the turns. Because it was designed to conquer long, high speed circuits like Le Mans, Spa and Monza GP, the GT 40 is poorly suited to the short straights and low speed turns of the Monza Jr. circuit. The GT40 always lets you know that it's big, heavy, and takes time to get up to speed. All those things work against it at Monza Jr.

So, why drive the GT40 in this "Fast Lap"? The challenge! That, and of course, as mentioned earlier Monza Junior offers an accelerated learning curve for drivers new to the GT40, or to GTL in general.

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