I started 24th, dead last on the field, and by the first turn, I was up to 11th. By the time the first lap ended, I was back in last place. From there, over the next nine laps, I worked my way up to third. Let’s break down a few aspects of this race.
Why do the AI cars stack up every race before the first corner on the first lap? It has happened at every track, and it really doesn’t make any sense. You can see from the video that I was ready for it, but it almost feels like cheating to take advantage of it. It’s not realistic.
Why on the first lap does the car act like I’ve just pulled out of the pits on cold tires. The handling is horrible even though the rolling start insinuates that we’ve done a least one warm up lap. It’s frustrating.
Why does it seem like my car is the only car that ever spins following contact. Other cars may drive off the optimal line or go too deep into a corner after contact, but I’ve yet to see one of the AI cars spin, going off course.
In six races, I’ve won three, and finished in the top ten two other times. I like winning and finishing well as much as the next guy, but it’s been too easy. Today is a good example. I drove like crap and still finished on the podium. That’s not realistic. Because of that, I will be switching the AI difficulty from “Expert” to “Pro.” I know I likely won’t be finishing as well in future races, but I think it will be more realistic.
Several years ago, I was racing at Roebling Road, a club track near Savannah, GA. The track is made up of a long front straight, and then a bunch of big, sweeping turns. I don’t think most people would say it’s a difficult track. In fact, once you find your rhythm, it a fun track to drive. But for me, learning the track and finding my rhythm were easier said than done.
During practice for an SCCA ECR endurance race at Roebling Road, I made one mistake after another. I just coudn’t get the track clear in my mind. After three or four laps of mistake after mistake after mistake, I pulled the car into the pits, and got out, angry and frustrated. My co-driver asked what the problem was, and I told him, “You can take it out. I can’t find my way around out there and I’m afraid I’m going to wreck the car.”
In that respect, Circuit of the Americas reminds me of Roebling Road. I had a horrible time learning the track. In fact, I still don’t feel very comfortable with several of the turns. I swear, there were times during practice I wanted to stop the car and ask for directions.
Even so, I won race #1 at COTA. I qualified 6th and, as with most Forza races, there was a big, chaotic bottleneck in turn one at the start, including making contact with one or two other cars, but things sorted themselves out fairly quickly.
Although there was still contact in this race, I felt like I was more patient and made fewer mistakes. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t impatient or didn’t make any mistakes. I was just more patient and made fewer mistakes than in previous races. I’d like to get even better in future races.
I screwed up. I was getting ready to race at Barber Motorsports Park, and then I realized, Forza Motorsports 7 doesn’t have Barber Motorsports Park. Oops…
So, our 28-race season just became a 26-race season, and I’m now virtually on my way to Texas to race at Circuit of the Americas. And on the way, I need to update the schedule. Oh well, live and learn.
I’ve never been to Barber Motorsports Park. It’s a newer track, first opened in 2003. The grounds, which encompass 880 acres, are beautifully manicured, and include a sculpture garden, as well as the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum.
The facility was built by George Barber, a resident of Birmingham, AL, where the track is located. The track consists of 16 turns, and is technical in nature. IndyCar and IMSA hold races there every year, as well as SCCA and other motorsports clubs.
I’m looking forward to my first visit to Barber, even if it is virtual. I’ve watched several races from the facility, and the racing is always good.
In case you were wondering, the schedule was set up based on where I would race if I was actually towing from track to track. Starting in Florida, I go from Homestead-Miami Speedway in South Florida, to Road Atlanta in Georgia. Then I head west to Barber Motorsports Park, followed by Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, TX.
Next, I go on my California swing, hitting the street circuit in Long Beach, Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, CA, and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, CA. From there, I make the long (virtual) drive to Wisconsin where I’ll race at Road America (my favorite track), then on to the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Heading northeast, the next race will be in Upstate New York at Watkins Glen.
Lime Rock Park in Connecticut will host the next round of races, followed by Virginia International Raceway in Alton, VA. Then it’s back to Florida for the final two tracks. First, Daytona International Speedway, and finally, Sebring International Raceway.
When I was putting the schedule together, I thought about starting at the beginning of the year in the warm weather and slowly making it to tracks farther north once the year progressed and the weather improved. Tracks like Road America, Indianapolis, Watkins Glen, and Lime Rock are definitely summer tracks. It can get pretty cold at VIR too. In fact, one of the coldest places I ever raced was Road Atlanta 4-5 years ago. Man, it was cold.
That was the method behind my madness. Hope it makes sense for you now.
I’m trying to be happy about this one. I started from the pole, led every lap, and set fastest lap time. What’s not to love about that?
Despite the dominant victory, I didn’t drive the car particularly well. If you watch the video, you’ll see that I was particularly weak going through turns 6 and 7, even going off track at the exit of turn 7 twice. I also wasn’t great in turn 5, getting it wrong a few times.
Even so, I should be happy about this victory. After all the hardships I’ve suffered at Road Atlanta—in real and virtual life—it’s nice to finally win a race.
I just had the worst race of my life. Race #1 at Road Atlanta was a fiasco. I started 22nd out of 24 cars, which didn’t help. In the chaos of the first lap/first turn, I picked up several positions, and over the next few laps, worked my way up to 9th position. Then, everything went wrong.
Over the next several laps I went off course several times. You can tell by the way I was driving, I was getting increasingly frustrated. I had contact several times with different cars, pushing too hard to move up in the field. It didn’t work out.
At the end of lap 8, I tried to make a move coming onto the front straight and I hit the wall, flipping the car over and dropping into 24th position. I was able to carry on, but I pushed too hard again, going off track in turn one. I finished the lap, but never did catch the pack.
Over the course of a 28-race season, I know I’m going to have some bad results, but the way this one unfolded really stings. Let’s hope I don’t have another race this bad in the future.
I’ve been to Road Atlanta several times, both as a spectator and competitor. I never had much success as a competitor, but I always enjoyed the track. It’s a blast to drive, both fast and challenging.
In 1993, I was in the pits when my pal, Randy Pobst, won the SCCA Run-Offs in his SSC Mazda Miata. It was exhilarating until a post-race inspection resulted in Randy’s disqualification.
I was behind the wheel of my Geo Storm when the harmonic balancer on the engine went flying off in turn 12, ending our race and ruining our weekend.
I was in the paddock in below-freezing temperatures trying to get our red Mazda RX7 to run correctly. We never got the car to run right, and it took several hours after leaving the track to get feeling back in my feet.
I was in the pits unable to drive due to a nasty sinus infection (I was dizzy just sitting still) while my pals Mike Guido and Bill Boye drove my white Mazda RX7 in a 14-hour race. All I could do was sit and watch while they raced my car.
The next year, I was in the scorers tower visiting with the race director when Mike Guido, behind the wheel of that same RX7, was hit from behind in turn 2 and pushed into a wall, totaling the car.
Now that I think about it, I’ve had nothing but bad luck at Road Atlanta. Even so, I’m looking forward to racing there. It’s a great track.
Race 2 at Homestead-Miami was chaotic, full of contact, and had loads of lousy driving by me. Let’s get to the lap-by-lap breakdown.
Lap 1 – I started 18th for this race. It wasn’t the best place to be. The chaos started early. Going into turn two, the field backed up badly, coming to a complete stop. I hit the car in front of me hard, but eventually continued on in 18th position. Heading into turn 6, I was hit from behind, which got me out of shape, and I fell to P19. I got hit again coming out of turn 7 and fell to P20. This was not shaping up to be a stellar lap. I re-gained one position in turn 10. And then set out to catch the pack.
Lap 2 – I caught the pack and picked up one position in turn 8. Going through turn 10, I passed two cars, and had contact with the white Mustang. The contact wasn’t too bad, but bad enough. I gained another position in turn 11, and moved up to P15. I also set fast lap of the race on lap 2.
Lap 3 – I moved up to P14 after making a pass in turn 10. That’s when I came up behind Samantha Downing in the BMW. Considering how the next few laps would go, I can only imagine Samantha would like to strangle me.
Lap 4-6 – On lap 4 alone, I made contact with Samantha once, and went completely off track twice. Not a good lap. But I wasn’t done. On lap 5, I hit her coming out of turn 2, went off track in turn 3, hit her again in turn 4, and finally passed her (without contact) in turn 10 to move into 13th position. On lap 6, I moved into 12th position when another car went off course between turns 2 and 3. I had a good run coming out of 7, but when I tried to pass the Corvette on the outside, I went off course again. I maintained 12th position, but fell back again. I got by the Corvette in turn 10 and moved into 11th.
Lap 7 – I caught the Alfa going through turn 2 and we stayed nose to tail going into turn 6. We went side-by-side through turn 7 and 8, where we made contact. The Alfa maintained position down the back straight, but I was able to get by him in turn 10 to take over 10th position.
Lap 8 – I caught and passed Brent Post in the Dodge Viper coming out of turn 7. I can only imagine that Viper is running a big restrictor plate in order to be qualified to run in this race. Without one, I would have never been able to pass him on the straight. Now I was in 9th position. I moved up to 8th position by making an inside move on the Camaro in turn 10.
Lap 9 – I moved into 7th position momentarily when I passed Pierre Blasno coming out of turn 7, but I promptly went off course in turn 8, not only giving back P7, but also P8 and P9. I was lucky I didn’t fall back even farther. I recovered and caught the pack, re-passing the Viper just before start/finish to move back into 9th position.
Lap 10 – I caught Doc Massey in the Camaro in turn 7, and we went through turn 8 side-by-side. He maintained position down the back straight, but I passed him in turn 10, before going off track again between turns 10 and 11. Thankfully, I was able to control the car and maintain position. I was right on the back bumper of 7th place Pierre Blasno heading into turn 11, and I got a better launch coming out of turn 12, We went down the front straight side-by-side, and I just edged him out at the line to finish P7.
The top five in points after two races look like this
Lou Mindar (33 pts)
Callie Carr (25 pts)
(tie) Quint Blackmore (18 pts)
(tie) Thomas Suzuki (18 Pts)
(tie)Claudio Naruda (15 pts)
(tie) Julio Sanchez-Romero (15 pts)
This race was more exciting than the previous one, but I also made a lot more mistakes. I was lucky to do as well as I did.
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.
