Season 1 Race #1
Spoiler Alert: I won the very first race. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I got lucky starting up front, and I didn’t drive a particularly good race. One of my goals is to make the racing as realistic as possible. In real life, there usually isn’t a lot of contact in a race like this. Of course, this isn’t real life. In Forza Motosport 7, it’s difficult (maybe impossible) to complete a race, be competitive, and not have contact.
I should probably tell you that I finally chose a car to run this season. I’ll be running a B class Honda Civic Type R. I made some changes to the car, including changing the tires to race compound, upgrading the brakes, adding a lighter flywheel, and a couple other things. I upgraded as much as I could without going outside the B class specs.
You’ll notice that most of the cars in the race are class B cars (as they should be), but there are also a few class A cars. I’m not sure why that is. They tend to be fast, especially on the straights. I’m just not sure why they’re running in a class B race.
Okay, now to race #1. Here’s a lap-by-lap breakdown of race one (or just watch the race video below and ignore my griping).
Lap 1 – The grids are set randomly. There are no qualifying sessions. I was lucky to start my first race in fourth position. I gained a spot going into turn one on lap one, and found myself in a podium position quickly. Later in lap one, I had contact with the second place car in turn 8, but he continued on, with me trailing behind in third. But two turns later, I passed him cleanly. It was a good pass, but the earlier contact bothers me.
Lap 2 & 3 – For the next two laps, I set new fast laps and got close to the back bumper of the leader, but I couldn’t get around him. He had too much horsepower and was killing me on the straights. I was happy that, despite how close we were in the turns, we didn’t make contact. In lap three, turn 8, look how close the third and fourth place cars get to us. Until then, I had kind of forgotten about them.
Lap 4 – I grabbed the lead for a quick second coming out of turn 4, but I just didn’t have the power to stay in front. We made contact in turn 6 when I ran into the back of him. He took such a shallow entry into the turn, I should have anticipated it, but I didn’t. The contact allowed me to take the lead momentarily, but again, his horsepower put him back into the lead. The third and fourth place cars were on our tails, and I knew I was stronger in turn 10 than the leader. I went inside of him, and my passenger side slammed hard into his driver’s side. That was the hardest hit of the race. I took the lead coming out of turn 10, but I would have preferred no contact.
Lap 5, & 6 – I pulled out to a nice lead on lap 5 but came dangerously close to losing it in turn 10, where I dropped two tires off track on corner exit. Even so, I set a new fast lap on lap 5. On lap 6, I decided to back off a little. I started braking a little earlier and generally tried to be less aggressive.
Lap 7 – 10 — I had a nice lead and didn’t want to do anything dumb. Despite slowing down, I missed several turn in points over the next few laps. When you’re in a rhythm, it’s hard to break that rhythm without making mistakes. Thankfully, my mistakes didn’t cost me, but I need to be more disciplined in the future.
Overall, I was fairly happy with the race. In the future, I want to get better at avoiding contact, and I also want to make fewer mistakes.
The points standings after one race are:
- Lou Mindar (26 pts)
- Thomas Suzuki (18 pts)
- Claudio Naruda (15 Pts)
- Hugh Navarro (12 pts)
- Maria Templeton (10 pts)
- Sarah Stockdale (8 pts)
- Alex Ravarito (6 pts)
- Pierre Blasno (4 pts)
- Dempsey Marquart (2 pts)
- D.R. “Doc” Massey (1 pt)
Next race: Homestead-Miami Speedway Race #2.
Note: The picture in the header is of Ryan Eversley’s Pirelli World Challenge Honda Civic Type R. Ryan is a helluva driver, and he’s the co-host of the wildly entertaining Dinner with Racers podcast and Amazon Prime show. Check it out. you won’t be disappointed.