March 2000 is dying, and clearly I had no chance to comment some important events. Here is one patch, about FIA's Rally of Portugal [RoP].

RoP was once considered, for many years, the "world's best rally". Well, it once was a very interesting challenge, that started on the tarmac of Lagoa Azul and ended on the rocky / dusty / deep night stages of Arganil. Those days, rallies lasted for 5 days, and were run more on an endurance spirit, than on today's sprint fashion.

That was good. And that was bad... The good thing was that the very first stages were spectacular flying adventures, that one day killed some 20 people, after a crash of the great portuguese driver Joaquim Santos, on a group B Ford, with many, many, hundreds of horse power. That same year, the extreme power of the group B cars would kill Ari Vatanen and Atilio Bethega @ Corsega. FIA changed the rallies. It had to be done.

2000's RoP was raced with great weather, but the loss of too many top drivers, too soon, had its price on overall interest. Tommi Makinnen, Juha Kankunnen and Colin McRae were out due to crashes and mechanical problems, less than 10 stages deep into the rally... To make things worst, flying french Didier Auriol, continued unlucky with the Seat. Damn!

But the worst thing of this years' event was its TV coverage. SIC, a portuguese TV station, had the rights for the live broadcasts, and they did - as they usually do - a SH*TTY job! It is very irritating to hear the commentaries of people who know nothing about cars.

Plus, if you had never seen a real-life car and only knew cars from SIC's transmissions, you would believe that cars play rock songs, as they accelerate. This terrible musical thing, comes from the Cairo-Dakar days, when the camels @ SIC decided "the spectators prefer music, to the car's engine"...

On the sports' side, despite all adversities, RoP was fun. Not great. Just fun. Burns, Gronholm and Sainz were the top 3.

Michelin Race of Champions (#1)

Michelle Mouton is a (french) she. She once won the World Rally World Championship, and became an icon for women on motorsports. Her success was never repeated, by no other woman, on any other motorsport event.

You might think that Michelle abandoned the rallies, but that is not true. For years that she organizes the Michelin Race of Champions [MRC] an impressive weekend of rally racing on closed circuits!

The real-life MRC consists of a series of races, that go on eliminating drivers, until the point where only two will be competing for the 1st place. The drivers must use identical cars, and the winner is the first of the two, to have an advantage of two victories. Drivers race on separate tracks, on the same circuit, so there could be no more equality.

Recently, the MRC event has been held @ Canarias... and Didier Auriol is usually the winner.

Now you can try your chance, not only @ Canarias, but @ many other similar tracks, thanks to Infogrames' MRC.

This game is much more of a simulator, than an arcade racing game. And that is superb news!

MRC has a splendid physics engine, that helps you feel the car, with a realism that beats Code Master's Colin McRae Rally and the more recent Rally Championship.

The most impressive bits are the suspensions, that really twist and cry, as you stress them. All these movements are translated to feedback forces, if you have a compatible control device. I tried it with a MS FF Wheel, and whow!!

MRC is original, 100% based on racing against a single opponent. The coolest thing is the OBVIOUS difference there is on the handling of different vehicles. For example, the RAV4 is very easy... the AUDI S1 is very hard... the buggy is top fun, and the Toyota WRC will win, should you understand the high sensitivity of its throttle pedal :)

The game's audio is the best rally audio I have ever heard! The sounds are 110% realistic, and I absolutely suspect that very few people could distinct it from the REAL thing. AT LAST!

I play on "extreme difficulty" level and I can win almost all races, as long as I don't do any mistakes. One mistake and you are history.

There is a refined cockpit view, which is something that should be mandatory for racing games...

More on CMR, soon. Meanwhile, go buy it!

Hardcore Novelties

Coming, **this weekend**:

- Mini-áudios @ www.audiopt.com (finally!)

- Cinemania 96, installment #2

- Windows 2000 gaming status update

- 1 GB RAM on a PC?!

- Artificial Intelligence document #2

- Interface novelties (!!! - techy warning - !!!)

- Return of the voyeur (snapshot craziness)

- **Hundreds** of new books from Amazon

- Pick your music (what the heck?)

- PC-GUIA new and independent section (with editorials)

Entering this site's second year, It is going to be strongest weekend, ever, here @ www.arturmarques.com