Forzanightly Vol.2

Feb 1, 2017
7 min read

Welcome to Forzanightly Vol.2!

The second instalment of Forzanightly sees out the races for the second half of January. It also sees a big shake up here at Revolution Online Racing. Due to popular demand, a new series was released which did unfortunately see one of our current series come to an end, but the phoenix rises from the ashes and is always stronger…

Pre '66 Touring Car Championship took us on a trip to Kent, England at Brands Hatch GP. It also saw yet another close qualifying session, which was to be won by FIA LMC Alflo, taking it by mere hundredths of a second. This qualifying session showed that the Cortina was the car to beat around this layout, as TidalSwifty 23 lined up 2nd on the grid, with another Cortina placed in the top 5 on the grid. Only a Mustang and a Mini managed to stop a 1-2-3 start for the Cortina’s.

Unfortunately for FIA LMC Alflo, he couldn’t turn pole into a win, as a coming together with fellow front runner BakedBean57 put him down the field. The win eventually went to TidalSwifty 23 who was to have a very prosperous visit to Brands Hatch. He took his maiden victory in the series with a comfortable lead over thebeardyguy and Tyrone487163, with FIA LMC Alflo taking the point for fastest lap.

Race 2 was much of the same for TidalSwifty 23 as he eased out to take another victory. The weekend went further downhill for FIA LMC Alflo as he retired from race 2, but first he managed to set a blisteringly time, quick enough to take the bonus point. 3 manufacturers made it to the race 2 podium, with thebeardyguy in 2nd and ObscurePluto7 coming home in 3rd in the highest placing Mini. This allowed thebeardyguy to extend his lead in the points to 16pts from TidalSwifty 23 with BakedBean57 in 3rd, 5pts further adrift due to FIA LMC Alflo’s poor points scoring weekend.

In a change to our original calendar, we will no longer be running any races on Ride 2. In place of this, we have started a Revolution Touring Car Championship which will run for 5 rounds to begin with and we will see how we go.

The RTCC was the next event on the calendar. It was the first event to be run with the newly balanced global touring cars so everyone was eager to find out which manufacturers were now the ones to beat. Previous iterations of the touring cars had shown the Toyota Avensis to be one of the weaker competitors, but this season of RTCC seems to have shown that Toyota have upped their game. No longer is it the Donkey amongst the thoroughbreds.

The first race of the new championship was to be run at the designated test track which was apt. Catalunya Grand Prix Circuit held host and all the drivers had been testing beforehand to increase their chances of a title. The grid held a wide variety of cars, but it was the Audi S3 of thebeardyguy that was to take the first point of the season for taking pole with a time of 1:57.679, but it was a tightly contested affair from the Toyota Avensis of BakedBean57, the Mercedes A-Class of TidalSwifty 23 and speedcrazy26 in the BMW 125i M Sport. They all were separated by less than a few tenths.

Making the perfect start to the RTCC was thebeardyguy as he also managed to take the first race win after capitalising on a mistake from speedcrazy26 who had taken an early lead in the race. Thebeardyguy also took the fastest lap of the race with a 1:57.526 taking it from speedcrazy26 by 0.036 secs.

Race 2 saw a reverse grid from the fastest laps of race 1, this meant the faster guys were located further down the grid. Several of the people starting nearer the front tried to make the most of this good starting position, but in doing so caused a couple of minor racing incidents, ultimately knocking them back down the order. BUCKO VERSUS was the driver to make the most of the reverse grid, managing to pull out a vast lead while the quicker drivers navigated their way through the field. BUCKO VERSUS took the first win for the Chevrolet Cruze TCI after holding off a very hard charging thebeardyguy, who in turn managed to hold off TidalSwifty 23, FIA LMC Alflo and BakedBean57 who were all breathing down one another’s necks. BakedBean57 took the fastest lap point with a 1:58.616.

This saw thebeardyguy sitting atop the points table on 45pts, ahead of BUCKO VERSUS on 35, TidalSwifty23 on 30pts and BakedBean57 on 29pts. The close racing in the RTCC quickly made it a fan and driver favourite alike. It also saw a little special treatment in the post-race show… more to come on that…

The final race event of the month was a big one. The Revolution Cup and the Mini John Cooper Works GP 2012 was the weapon of choice. Taking a car that is loved by most and is known to be a great little track car and making it into a fully-fledged race car was the only thing we could think of to do to it.

The first race of our flagship trophy was a very entertaining one, if not alone for a slight hiccup on behalf of yours truly… The point for pole position and the fastest time in the qualifying session went to BakedBean57 who managed to set the pace with a 1:11.470 around Hockenheim Short. The layout did catch out a fair few of the drivers as it shoots off right way before the traditional turn 2. The point may have gone to BakedBean5, however, due to a technical mishap (me forgetting to change a setting) he started dead last in a reverse grid scenario. This meant for a very interesting race.

Carving their way through the pack, thebeardyguy and BakedBean57 managed to get to the podium, but they fell short of their main objective and the top step. That man again, the reverse grid guru, BUCKO VERSUS made the most of the mishap and managed to get to the front quickest and then pull away an unsurmountable lead. This saw him take the chequered flag and a full 25pts haul. BakedBean57 managed to take the fastest lap in his attempts to make up positions and he set an outstanding lap of 1:11.395.

As a way to somewhat make the qualifying relevant, the grid for race 2 (which should be the reverse grid race) was set none-reverse. This gave BakedBean57 pole, it also gave him the perfect opportunity to show his true dominance in the Mini. After managing to avoid all of the shenanigans and battles with the rest of the pack, he waltzed away to a victory, taking the fastest lap on his journey too. Thebeardyguy managed to make the most of a fantastic last lap of battling. TheSpig and BUCKO VERSUS were in 2nd and 3rd going into lap 16/16, but through the stadium section, both were eager to get that silver medal. In doing so, they slowed each other down just enough for thebeardyguy to sneak in and take it from their grasps. TheSpig managed to hold off a last corner lunge from BUCKO VERSUS in what was a must watch race (if you ignore the ‘2010-2012 Vettelesque’ lights to flag victory up front).

This weekend saw a dominant display from BakedBean57 a thus saw him atop the table and rightly so, on 43pts, from a tightly fought battle for 2nd between BUCKO VERSUS on 37pts and thebeardyguy on 36pts.

That’s all for the circuit racing side of things. But the off-road side, not so much. The launch of our month long(ish) full rally league on DiRT happened this month, and was quite a hit. The league ‘RoRWORLDWIDE’ is a 6-month long rally league using the Group B 4WD and Group B RWD rally cars.

The first event was the full rally of Greece and can be joined by anyone. We aren’t completely evil here at ROR UK though… Actually its more because we’re not all that good at rallying, but anyway, the league allows as many restarts as you can handle; any assists, checkpoints after every stage, service stops after every other stage and vehicle tuning is allowed. The events last for 3 weeks out of the month, so there is plenty of time for you to complete it, see someone else’s time, cry, and restart with a different car hoping it will somehow knock 10 minutes off your final time… If you’re quick, and read this the second it is posted, you might be able to finish round one at Greece. If not the next round is Germany and will start on Saturday 11th of February, lasting for 3 weeks. Other rallies with different cars are in the pipelines too, so keep an eye on this space to get your off-road fix.

Finally, behind the scenes here at Revolution, we’ve been hard at work trying new and daring things. We have begun using more editing software in order to drastically improve our YouTube presentation in terms of overlays and now we have very exciting grid walks, courtesy of our very own resident no lifer. Learning completely new software while juggling a job and kids must have been stressful, and that's not mentioning having to put up with the rest of us on the team as well! But, here at Revolution, we are all striving to bring the best content to our racers, fans and friends both on and off the track.

ROR USA & Canada are set to launch this weekend with their first Tofu Drift Night on Saturday 7pm EST/12pm GMT and their first JDM Nights '84 to '99 on Sunday 7pm EST/12pm GMT. Head over to the ROR USA & Canada Facebook for detailed info on the events and make sure to join the Revolution Online Racing USA & Canada club on Xbox if you fancy any of the events!

And with that being said, keep the wheels turning!

All the best from the team @ ROR UK