A couple of the things I really dislike about Forza Motorsport 7 were on display in the first couple of turns in tonight’s race. At the start going into turn one, the field came to a complete stop. I went wide right around the field, passing 15 cars in the process. When I got by the stopped cars, I saw that they were stopped for no reason whatsoever. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
The other thing that bugs me—and I’ve talked about this before—I don’t understand why my tires are ice cold. The race features a rolling start, which pre-supposes that we have already done at least one warm up lap around the track. I don’t know why I continue to complain about this. It’s not going to change. It just bugs me.
Moving on…
Lap one was a mess. In addition to a bunch of cars coming to a dead stop in turn one, I had contact with two or three different cars before we even got to turn two. I started in 24th position, but by the time I reached turn two, I was in 9th.
Over the next few laps, I swapped between 9th and 10th position. When I finally settled into 9th, the action pretty much stopped. The 10th place car threatened to pass, but didn’t. I threatened to pass the 8th place car, but didn’t. That is, until the final lap.
I started lap 10 in 9th position, I thought I would probably finish there. But when I caught the 8th place car going into the bus stop, he braked early, I braked late, and I entered the bus stop in 8th position. I made it through the bus stop in good shape, and quickly caught and passed the 7th place car. To my surprise, I was gaining on the 6th place car. I passed him just before the start-finish line, and finished P6.
This was not my finest race. I did a few stupid things on lap one, and more stupid things on laps nine and ten. I overdrove the car (The tires never hooked up the way they did in my practice races), missing my marks throughout the race, nearly throwing away three positions in the closing laps.
In any case, leaving Daytona scoring points in both races was unexpected. If the drivatars wouldn’t stop for no reason at the beginning of these races, I likely wouldn’t have sniffed points in race #2, but they did, I took advantage of it, and I earned points in both races.
As Bill Belichick would say, we’re on to Cincinnati Sebring.
The top five in points are:
- Lou Mindar (312 pts)
- Josh Pettibone (170 pts)
- Callie Carr (152 pts)
- Hugh Navarro (145 pts)
- Richard Chan (142 pts)
Next Race: Sebring International Raceway – Race #2