Forzanightly Vol.4

Mar 1, 2017
7 min read

Welcome back to Forzanightly, your round up of the races at Revolution Online Racing from the past 2 weeks.

Getting into the spirit of the start of the NASCAR season (a little prematurely admittedly) the Pickups headed to Daytona for the 3rd event of the season. This superspeedway was nothing at all like the last superspeedway the pickups raced at, being Indianapolis. Daytona has a much higher banking around all of its turns, meaning the trucks can run flat out 100% of the time and the track can accommodate multiple lines being run by the drivers. Hopefully this was to mean more excitement and no runaway victories.

The previous oval round was dominated by thebeardyguy. However, a mistake in qualifying which saw him hit the wall resulted in him starting dead last, at the back of the pack, putting him at a huge disadvantage. FIA LMC Alflo took pole by the narrowest of margins from ObscurePluto7 with a lap time of 1:03.202. The whole grid (barring thebeardyguy) were covered by 0.7 seconds making this the closest qualifying session to date.

The qualifying session showed that the racing would be tight, and this meant that with the cars racing closely together on track, it could prove to be quite a dangerous race weekend. This turned out to be true as in turns 1 and 2, the whole field remained 2 or even 3 abreast. However, FIA LMC Alflo came down and cut off DFOLEY64 forcing him to the apron of the circuit. And as physics should have taught everyone, what goes up, must come down…. Wait, in this case, it was what goes down, must come up…. So as DFOLEY64 was regaining control of his car, it slid back up into the track and caused possibly the largest crash of the season. All but 5 drivers were involved in some manner or another. This incident spread out the field into smaller groups which fortunately were able to race together without (major) incidents. The big winners out of this crash were ObscurePluto7 who had cleared the wreck and therefore continued as normal, and thebeardyguy who had made his way up to 5th by merely avoiding all the spinning cars.

The lap one crash did result in Gdad Bilko retiring there and then. It also saw FIA LMC Alflo retire the next lap after he managed to continue through the carnage. In the end, GenuineGull095 and Tyronee487163 also couldn’t finish the race and retired due to damage. This saw the field reduce in size to 10, meaning everyone was guaranteed points. A race long battle between thebeardyguy and MR Field 420 continued throughout the race, only to be interrupted when the pair caught the leader, ObscurePluto7. thebeardyguy managed to pass ObscurePluto7 whereas MR Field 420 got caught up in a battle allowing thebeardyguy to take another oval victory. He didn’t get maximum points though, as TheSpig managed to sneak the quickest lap of the race while trying to catch the pack after being repaired after the lap one wreck.

Race 2 was a much cleaner affair, and with those drivers who had retired eager to make up for lost points, it was a close one too. After a clean getaway from pole, TheSpig took an early lead closely followed by a pack of 5 cars all wanting the win. As the race went on, the pack of cars in contention for the win slowly whittled down to 3 cars, with several cars close behind, but not directly in the hunt of a win without some kind of incident. TheSpig managed to hold on though for the most important lap, and was ahead when the chequered flag flew, but only just as he was merely 0.1 seconds ahead of thebeardyguy who had been pushing him the full race. 3rd went to BakedBean57 who had recovered his weekend after being involved in the race 1 crash.

Following Rounds 5 and 6, there has been a slight shuffle at the top of the standings. thebeardyguy is still in 1st with 134 points, with TheSpig in 2nd position on 85 points and BakedBean57 in 3rd position with 78 points.

Next up, the Revolution Cup.

Aaaaaaaand surprise surprise, the track for rounds 3 and 4 were at Lime Rock Park. By now you would think that all the drivers would know Lime Rock like the back of their hands, and you would probably be right. However, it still doesn’t mean it’s an easy track.

The track is almost perfect for the Mini Cooper to fly around so even if you don’t plan on racing, give the tune a little test around here (tune by BakedBean57). Now that the cheeky little plug is over, qualifying was very close yet again, as is the nature of the circuit. With the top half of the field being separated by less than half of a second, it was again going to be some close racing. Pole was taken by thebeardyguy with a time of 57.304 seconds.

The race out front was to be anything but close, as after a close initial lap, thebeardyguy simply drove away from the field. A late charge from Tyronee487163 in the ‘beigemobile’ saw thebeardyguy’s lead cut, but a mistake nearing the end of the race from Tyronee487163 saw a comfortable win for the Yorkshireman. This mistake almost dropped him into the clutches of TheSpig who had been holding onto 3rd place for most of the race. Tyronee487163 did take a consolation point in that he got the quickest lap with a solid 57.136 seconds.

Race 2 saw a starting grid based on the fastest lap from race 1. With some of the quicker guys located at the back of the grid due to ‘dirty’ fastest laps, they had opted to be cautious into turn 1. But connection issues had other ideas. Through no fault of his own, FeltDeano1971 had unknowingly ‘punted’ off potential race winners BakedBean57, GenuineGull095 and thebeardyguy at turn 1, giving them all a mountain to climb. BakedBean57 more so as he came off much worse. These 2 weren’t the only casualties to succumb to the lag though. Much later in the race,

Tyronee487163 was coming to pass the laggy car, and he was also punted off resulting in the Team Beige Mini rolling several times and totalling the vehicle. Meanwhile, at the front, a newcomer to the series was working his way past drivers to take the lead. ZeroRumble56844 managed to avoid the carnage behind him and also managed to fend of proven driver TheSpig to take a maiden victory. Also involved in this battle for the win was TidalSwifty 23, until an unfortunate altercation with a back-marker when leaving the pitlane resulted in him having to retire from the race. BakedBean57 managed to get the quickest lap of the race in his attempt to recover from the 1st corner incident, so a bonus point would go to him.

Standings are now as follows; thebeardyguy in 1st position with 78 points, BakedBean57 in 2nd position with 64 points, and closely behind in 3rd is TheSpig with 60 points.

Since lag affected this race and multiple drivers so badly, there are now new rules in place that if a car is seen to be lagging to an extreme degree, we would ask the driver to pull into the pits or off the road and retire the car. In a way, it is now the equivalent of the black and orange mechanical failure flag.

Our final races were the Pre ’66 Touring Cars and this saw us visiting Silverstone GP. Due to issues beyond our control, the grid for the races were slightly reduced but unfortunately, we can’t control weather and work commitments! Qualifying was quite spread out, but with two Lotus Cortina’s in the top 3, we knew who we needed to watch out for. Pole position was claimed by TidalSwifty 23 in the Lotus Cortina with a more then respectable 2:29.500, with thebeardyguy only 0.051 of a second behind. With only 8 on the starting grid, everyone was in a point scoring position. Whether they could hold their own and make it to the end was another story.

Race 1 saw disaster for thebeardyguy who was unable to capitalise on a 2nd position start and due to some kind of fault, he had to retire before making it half way through the race meaning no points were to be awarded for this race. Due to the nature of the track, the racing was quite spread out but this was not to say there were to be no battles across the track. Further down the pack saw battles between DFOLEY64, Gdad Bilko and DEADorGONE, with DFOLEY64 coming out on top and getting a solid 5th place finish. TidalSwifty 23 ran away with the race, leading from beginning to end and finishing 7 seconds clear of Tyronee487163 in 2nd and 13 seconds clear of BakedBean57 who finished in 3rd.

Unfortunately, in race 2, TidalSwifty 23 was not able to continue his winning streak as disaster struck at the end of lap 5 with some kind of mechanical failure. This would have been a perfect opportunity for FeltDeano1971 to capitalise on the failure and finish on the podium for the first time but he was too far away and TidalSwifty 23’s mechanical issues were not to be fatal, meaning he limped home in 3rd position behind Tyronee487163 in 1st and BakedBean57 in 2nd. It wasn’t all bad for TidalSwifty 23 though as he also took home a bonus point for fastest lap, meaning he claimed all 3 bonus points across the race weekend.

Standings after rounds 7 and 8 are as follows; TidalSwifty 23 is in 1st position on 132, BakedBean57 in 2nd position with 120 points, and Tyronee487163 in 3rd position with 111 points.

That’s all for this time guys and girls. We hope to see you on track soon and remember, keep the wheels turning!