Forza's Greatest Competition

Posted by: ncasolo

Written by Ryan "Solo" Terpstra, Lead Forza2 Feature Writer

Welcome Back Forza 2 and Core Fans,

It's been a great week for the Carolina Core. Their Counter Strike Source team has had some great success in the XLR8 tournament and we wish them luck in the finals on Sunday which will be available on HLTV.

This week will introduce you to one of the things I enjoy most about Forza 2 and my personal brainchild that was created as a result. Many of you now realize that with the downloadable content that there are approximately 350 cars available for you to use. We can all dream of owning a Ferrari, Dodge Viper, or Corvette Z06, but let's be realistic here. The only way most of us will ever enjoy those cars is by driving them in the virtual world. For those of us who are excessively competitive though we always want to drive the best car out there. Each series of tracks usually has 1 or 2 cars that are definitively the best car to drive, for example the Audi S4 is the cream of the entire R4 class. I'm not sure about the rest of you but it becomes a bit repetitive driving the Lotus Elise 135R in S, A, B, and C class. I like to have a little variety and to enjoy some of the different cars in this game. That's where we came up with the weekly hot lap challenge.


Credit: Guyardo88
Last week we introduced you to hot lapping and the scoreboards. That was a little bit of info so that you could all get your feet wet. Now it is time for everyone to dive in. This week marks the beginning of the 3rd season of the Forzamotorsport.net Weekly Hot Lap Challenge. The series has been running for 6 months now and has been a huge success. The focus of each week is to provide everyone with a variety of challenges to test their skills in a wide range of car classes, types of tracks, and more. Some challenges are set to specific cars while others have specific restrictions designed to get people to think and maybe use some cars they've never tried racing before. In season 2 we ran a challenge that required users to select an All Wheel Drive (AWD) car from Europe in B-class for a challenge on Silverstone International. Before the challenge started there wasn't a single AWD car in the top 100 on the scoreboard. When the week was over the previous #1 time was now the 24th fastest time.

For those of you who are interested you can read the official rules here in this thread. Each week the top 10 finishers receive any in game car of their choice (non-DLC) as a prize and at the end of the season there's even a chance for a substantial credit reward. For the average Joe's out there like me there is always a good chance for you to win a car each week as well. At the end of each week 30 random winners are selected to receive a free car of their choice as well. The higher up you finish the better the odds, but even if you finish dead last there's always a chance that you might be selected as a winner as well. With the CGS having selected Forza this year this is a great opportunity for you to compete against the pros and see where you stack up.

For the third season we have made a slight alteration to the rules. The challenge runs for 5 weeks and the settings for all 5 weeks will be announced at the beginning of the season. Since the series is my brain child I have gotten permission to give all of you an exclusive on the settings for season 3. The only place you can get this info is right here on the Core homepage.

Week 1 will feature the car we will primarily see used this season in the CGS. Competitors will be driving the TVR Speed12 around Sunset Infield (Reverse). Unlike the CGS however you will be able to fully upgrade and tune your TVR. Anyone interested in participating in a little side competition should comment in this thread. The top 5 finishers will all win a copy of their very own Carolina Core TVR.

Week 2 will be R4 cars on Silverstone International. The catch this week will be the car is going to be restricted to RWD. As I mentioned earlier in the article the Audi S4 dominates the scoreboards in R4. There are 20 other cars that don't really see the outside of the garage and this week will give users a reason to experiment and try to find an alternative to the dominant car in the R4 class. On a track where speed is an advantage (which is the one slight drawback to the S4) we could see the scoreboards turned upside down. Can anyone dethrone the top times in the Audi S4? Only time will tell.

Week 3 will be a setting we define as a "mixed PI" restriction. A "mixed PI" means the Performance Index (PI) is limited to something other than the absolute maximum for a car class. For example the top of B-class is limited to a PI of 700. The top of C-class is limited to a PI of 550 and this week's mixed PI challenge will be cars limited to a PI of 450. The restrictions won't end there though as users will be forced to find a Front Wheel Drive (FWD) car from North America to lay down their best lap of the week. The featured track this week is another Forza original and a fan favorite, Maple Valley. Maple Valley was used last season so we're going to change things up a bit and run the reverse version of this scenic track.

Week 4 will be our "scoreboard week." This means there are no restrictions and everyone will get a chance to unseat the current top 10. Last season when we ran R3 on Suzuka East the person who started the week in 10th place finished the week outside the top 100 and the previous #1 time fell almost outside the top 20. When the best of the best in Forza put a big effort in no time is safe. This season's scoreboard week will feature R2 cars on the Mugello Grand Prix track.

Week 5 and the final week of the season will feature a more CGS style challenge as the cars will be restricted to stock upgrades and tuning. The car for this season's stock challenge is going to be the Lamborghini Murcialago. This challenge will mark the first time a test track has ever been used during the season. This will feature one of the CGS tracks as well and will test everyone's patients and ability as people try to navigate around Diamondback.

When all is said and done season 3 will have featured muscle cars, slower cars, lemans series race cars, and all of the different drive-trains as a true test of everyone's ability to adapt to a variety of different settings. For those who are newer to the series and wondering what you can do to compete… see if you can finish higher each week than the previous week and see how many of your friends you can leave in the dust. I know many people have their own little side bets each week (as I lost over 7 million in credits last season challenging my teammates to push their personal limits) to add spice to things. If anyone has any suggestions for season 4 please let me know I'd be happy to take them into consideration.

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About The Author

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Ryan "Solo" Terpstra
Lead Forza2 Feature Writer

Ryan has been involved with the Forza community since the launch of the game in May of 2007. He is a moderator over on the official FM2 forums at ForzaMotorSport.net and also provides valuable feedback to Turn 10 regarding some of the multiplayer competitions. Beyond that, he is an avid racer himself climbing to as high as #5 in the world on the main Time Trials leaderboard.