To get started on this sim racing journey, I’ll be doing my racing on Forza Motorsport 7. If you know anything about sim racing, you may consider this an odd choice. The Forza series of racing games are considered more arcade than sim racing games. I think this is true, but I have very little experience with sim racing, and I wanted to get started without spending a bunch of money.
I have a habit of getting interested in something, only to lose interest after I’ve spent a pile of money on whatever endeavor I was interested in. Starting with Forza 7 is an inexpensive way to begin this journey. I’ve committed to spending my first season of sim racing on Forza 7. If I’m still itching to race virtually, I’ll probably upgrade to iRacing, RaceRoom, or one of the other sim racing platforms.
Of course, to do any of these upgraded sim racing platforms is significantly more expensive. Forza 7 runs on Xbox One, which I already own. The better sim racing platforms run on PC, which means that, in addition to the more expensive membership option of these platforms, I’ll have to buy a gaming computer, monitor(s), and likely, new steering wheel and pedals. Rather than incur those costs now, I’m going to dip my toe into sim racing via Forza 7. Since I don’t currently own it, my only cost is the $30-$80 (depending on edition) it will cost to download the game.
I’ll be concentrating on running sports cars on road courses in the United States. That means that there are 14 tracks across the country that I’ll be visiting. To get started, I’ll be doing doubleheaders at each track, for a total of 28 races. I’m going to try to visit at least one track each week, maybe two, completing the season in around 10-12 weeks, although that may change.
Here is my schedule:
- Race 1 & 2: Homestead-Miami Speedway
- Race 3 & 4: Road Atlanta
- Race 5 & 6: Barber Motorsports Park
- Race 7 & 8: Circuit of the Americas
- Race 9 & 10: Long Beach Grand Prix Street Circuit
- Race 11 & 12: Sonoma Raceway
- Race 13 & 14: WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca
- Race 15 & 16: Road America
- Race 17 & 18: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
- Race 19 & 20: Watkins Glen
- Race 21 & 22: Lime Rock Park
- Race 23 & 24: Virginia International Raceway
- Race 25 & 26: Daytona International Speedway
- Race 27 & 28: Sebring International Raceway
I won’t be following the career progression that is part of Forza 7. Instead, I’ll likely do the entire season in just one or two cars. I’m not sure how all of that will work out. For now, I’m just playing by ear. In the end, I may need to follow some of the Forza 7 career mode in order to unlock the cars I want to use.
Also, I’m planning to stick with racing sports cars on road courses, but Forza offers a lot of other cars, tracks, and types of motorsports. You never know, I may give something else a try just for fun.