Let’s talk about Maple Valley Raceway. It’s a blast to drive. It’s fast, technical, and it never gives you an opportunity to relax. There’s always something happening. This is the first time I’ve ever driven Maple Valley, and it’s already become one of my favorite tracks.
But things at Maple Valley are not perfect. For one, the AI drivers in Forza Motorsport 7 are much more aggressive at Maple Valley that at any other track I have run so far. While running practices races, I had to restart one race eight times because other drivers either door slammed me or hit me from behind at the start. During those eight aborted races, I never made it past turn 3.
The other problem I have at Maple Valley is that I am significantly faster than the AI cars there. At first blush, that doesn’t seem like a problem, but I don’t want to be handed race wins. I want to work for them. I want to have to get better to do well in the races. For whatever reason, I’m anywhere from 1.5 to 2 seconds a lap faster than the AI drivers. That hasn’t happened at any of the other tracks I’ve visited.
The most glaring example of this “problem” came during race #1. In the middle of the race, I spun the car and went off track. I thought I was done for, hoping, at that point, to just finish in the top 10. Instead, I went on to win the race. That shouldn’t be possible in a 10 lap sprint race.
As long as I’m complaining, let me add that there are at least two problems with Forza that don’t make sense. First, it doesn’t make sense that we are racing on cold tires on the first lap of the race. We’re doing a rolling start, which pre-supposes that we’ve already run at least one warm-up lap. The tires should come up to temp by then.
The second problem is that the physics on crashes is all wrong. I can’t tell you the number of times I have had contact with another car, and bounced off that car at an impossible angle, ending up off track. At the same time, the car I had contact with barely goes off-line. Maybe my expectations are too high for a video game, but it seems like if you’re going to put in so much time and effort into creating the game, you’d put a little effort into getting it right.
Okay, enough complaining. Let’s talk about the race. I qualified 9th and drove fairly well. I mentioned that the AI drivers are more aggressive at Maple Valley, so I’ve gotten into the habit of being more aggressive there. If I’m not mistaken, I think all of the car-to-car contact in this race was caused by me. At any other track, I’d be concerned about that. After getting knocked around by AI drivers during practice races, I’m not as concerned here.
As I mentioned, I spun the car in the middle of the race. It was my own fault. I thought my race was over, but I got back after it and ended up winning the race. I’ll take it, but it shouldn’t be possible.
Here are the points standings after 17 races:
- Lou Mindar (225 pts)
- Josh Pettibone (110 pts)
- Hugh Navarro (101 pts)
- Richard Chan (97 pts)
- Peter Ward Jr (92 pts)
Next Race : Maple Valley raceway — Race #2