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I'd also like to share some of my ideas with the community.

There are some who don't like PG racing because it has been confirmed as a bug - but I think they would also not like it if it had been confirmed as a feature, or let's say, an easter egg. 
And yeah, I really see it as an "unintended easter egg". There are ways to restrict PG usage on a track by flooding certain sections, by placing blocking elements outside the track, or by specifying a high negative coefficient for PG cars.

In addition, there are also so many other bugs we are all used to. For example, the grass bug in chicanes, and I would never say that is unfair to use it when racing, because it allows some clever track design with diagonal paths.
Also the speedup jumps that can happen on start/end segments of banked roads, corkscrews, split roads, and so on, are clearly bugs, but I would never think that it is unfair to use them.

While I really like driving skillfully "as intended by the creators of Stunts", I also like unlimited freestyle driving and finding tricks and shortcuts on a specific track - as (in most cases) also intended by the creator of the track. Since my return to the Stunts racing world in January 2023, I have seen so many tracks with skillfully crafted shortcut sections, and it was fun discovering them during the racing attempts (and learning from public replays and team mates). 

If I were asked about my personal opinion for some additional restriction rules in this contest I'd just vote for this:
- Exploiting the collision bug is forbidden when driving directly through solid objects (except scenery objects), like road blocks, the ride side of loops, bridge railings.
But the main reason for this opinion might just be that I'm still very bad at these specific tricks. 

Hi @Erik Barros, sorry for being so late in answering your question about my strategy. Well, first of all, the main difference between the competitions in the late 90s / early 00s and today is that in the past it was much easier for me to win a race.
Honestly, now being in my second season after my comeback, I think that I'm now pretty much at the same skill level as 2 decades ago, so it might be fun to retry a race of the past to compare my times. But, but for sure, the skill level of the community has improved significantly during my absence, and there are now some top pipsqueaks who will always be several seconds ahead of me.
My racing strategy is pretty much the same as in the past: When a new track is published, I'm just curious and drive "for fun", then during the next days I try to improve this time, with some replay handling, but not too serious and without paying really much attention on my time in certain sections - just to get a feeling for the complete track. Then, during the "serious" phase, usually starting 1-2 weeks before the end of the race (depending on my mood and also on the time I can afford), I divide the track into certain sections (defined by "checkpoints", as you have called it, like "tunnel start", "bridge jump", "curve end" - for example, 15 checkpoints in total on C276), write down my time on these sections in my best replay so far, and then try to improve these section times.
The only difference to my first racing career is that now I'm not using pencil and paper any more for this task, but I have an Excel table on a second monitor where I list the checkpoint times of my previous best lap and the current one, and the table compares the current section times with the previous ones.
It depends on the type of a track whether I concentrate more on perfecting each section before going to the next one or if I try to improve all sections several times. For example, if there is a difficult section in the early part of a track which takes a long time to get it right (e.g. jumping through a loop), I invest more time in the beginning to achieve a replay where I am satisfied with my driving until after this point, and then spend the rest of the racing days to improve only the remaining sections. If there is a difficult part at the end of a track, I try to get a perfect as possible replay until this part and then only concentrate on the difficult section at the end during the last days.

Do you like to, @Mark Nailwood ?

Sure, thanks for the invitation. 

Thanks @Spoonboy, and congrats for your fastest lap of all with the Indy.
Of course, also congrats to @Erik Barros for the second place on the podium. When looking at your constant performance on ZakStunts during the 2023 season, I think you will also easily keep the lead on the amateur board in 2024.

This race was my first participation in the CCC contest, and for me it was a great way of re-learning some of my skills from more than 2 decades ago with the fast cars. Maybe I will not have so much for perfecting my replays in the next CCC races, but I'll definitely take part in these, and also on ZakStunts, of course. Looking forward to the new season!

I'm fine with the modified rules for this race. As @Cas mentioned, the issue is at the very end of the lap, and it's easy for the ones who followed the original rule to post an updated replay that should automatically replace the previous one.

Hey @Mark Nailwood , thanks for the warning, in fact I checked @Duplode replay yesterday and noticed that he slowed down at the finish line, I thought it was strange and went to confirm the rules. I have already participated in previous editions and never paid attention to passing through the banner, if there were valid laps it was due to pure luck. You did very good laps with all the cars, what did you think of this version of the modified cars? @Daniel3D did a great job with this pack.

@Erik Barros - Yes, I really like the driving experience with these cars, and I would not even be able to tell you which is my favourite one. Well, for me in my early Stunts days, it was fun to discover the PG "feature" and the things that it made possible (wide jumps, driving over grass and water, ...). And I will never call it a "bug", as there are so many other "not so realistic" driving effects which contribute to the magic of this game . But in a contest like this, it's completely fine for me to have it disabled, unless there is a track specifically created for PG cars where PG would be obviously needed for passing certain segments.

[or over the banner]

Hi @Daniel3D and all the others racing at the CCC! As stated in the "Rules": Finishing by passing outside the poles or over the banner is not considered a legal finish.
I just checked the fastest replays from all current drivers, and only the ones from @Duplode and @Spoonboy are clearly finishing with passing under the banner. The one from @Shoegazing Leo is a borderline case, as it just touches the top of the banner, but the ones from @Cas, @Erik Barros and @alanrotoi all finish with jumping high above the banner. Also, all of my current replays are invalid, as I was not aware of this rule when I sent them.
Sure, we could fix our replays easily by just braking at the appropriate point before the finish, but then the resulting times will be slower and will not replace the previously sent ones with the invalid finish. So, I suggest making all current and possible future pipsqueaks aware of this rule, maybe by placing an extra remark at the "Post a Replay" section, and additionally all current invalid replays should be removed so that we can send fixed ones.

@Mark Nailwood — by creating a new account, you start in the "Amateur" scoreboard. If you feel you don't belong there, you can ask to be promoted immediately

Well, I have to admit, position 8 in my comeback race is better than expected. And hey, I also managed to place my name at one of the car podiums! 

@dreadnaut - I think after more than 20 years of retirement, it's ok if I race at least my comeback season in the amateuer league (if no one of the other amateurs objects). Or is there also a league for "Resurrected professionals"? 

Looking forward to the next track. Thanks to all for the warm welcome in the community!

Sorry for the (again) very long delay. I tried all my old hard drives, but was not able to locate the needed packages on any of them. Apparently I never installed the development environment after having migrated from my 486 I used during my studies of computer science to my first Pentium. I could not even find any floppy discs with the packages.
Strange that it is not possible to find it in some internet archives.

Unfortunately, I cannot find the power supply for the external HDD adapter.    I'm now at my weekend house, which is currently under renovation, so some items have just been packed away somewhere. But in a few days I'll visit my apartment, and there I'll have another power adapter. Then may the force be with my old hard drives (that they are still working), and let's hope that they contain the needed code packages.

Sorry for the delay, I was distracted by some work in the world outside Stunts during the last weeks.

Well, I had a look into some of my current external and backup HDDs, but was not able to find anything. Not really surprising, as I didn't do any Turbo Pascal development since the last changes of my Stunts tools almost a quarter of a century ago.
Guess I will have to dig into my storage of old HDDs. Let's hope they are still working.

Just found the adapter to connect them to USB. This shall be the work for my next evenings. Will let you know if I found anything (or not).

Of course, I take "pipsqueak legend" as a compliment!

Well, it has been a very long time since I took part in contests, and when I tried to race on the default track some days ago (2 decades after my last official races), I saw that now even with replay handling I don't have any chance against current contestants without replay handling (according to the comments in the "Default" thread).
But I am really planning to return to the contest race tracks - just for fun, and don't expect my times to be really challenging for you.

At least it will be much easier for me to talk about my Stunts history than to return to my racing performance of the past - so feel free to ask.

Well, the tools didn't use db functions, but I think Topaz also provided some UI routines for text input/output.
Will have a look at it when I'm back home...

I remember we had to add a package called "Topaz" to our Turbo Pascal installation, and there was something like "sayget4", but I also could not find any download so far.
Currently, I am away from home and cannot look into my backups. Will try to search again next week, unless you manage to find it until then.

Ok, can you please give me an example of a function you are missing?
I could then search in my Turbo Pascal archive - as soon as I have found it.

Well, as far as I remember the sayget*.tpu (with "e" suffix for english) is responsible for generating the dialog elements of the user interface, and the pic*.tpu could be somehow connected to graphics. They were included in the installation that I used for my study works, maybe as an optional package after installation. Unfortunately they are not on the hard drive where I found the source code, so I will take some time to dig them out from some other backup media. First I have to find this backup media in my collection of hard drives, DVDs, CDs and maybe also floppy discs.

But have a look at this page: http://www.dcee.net/Files/Programm/Pascal/

At least you can find a sayget.arj file there, and the pic unit may be included in some other archive.