Rear View Mirror 5/21/12

 Welcome to Rear View Mirror, ForzaMotorsport.net’s weekly look back at the week in racing in the real world and the world of Forza.

This week has been another busy week announcing all the Porsche’s in the Porsche Expansion Pack and giving away prizes. Only a few more hours until racing legend Porsche is reunited with Forza and you can race the 30 new cars and experience all the new Porsche related features. See the Porsche Unveiled story for all the details.

And check out the new Porsche trailer.

Nürburgring 24 Hours 

In the 40^th running of the Nürburgring 24 Hour race, two Audi R8’s took top honors, the Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS Ultra #3 finished first and the Mamerow #26 second. This was Audi’s first win overall at “the Ring’s” extreme endurance race but one of several endurance victories  earned this year including the Bathurst 12 Hour as well as the 24 Hour races at Spa and Zolder.  Third was achieved by the Hankook Mercedes SLS #66, their best showing in this race so far. In the final laps the Wochenspeigel-Porsche #11 fought hard with the Mercedes only to run out of fuel on the home stretch on the very last lap.

The lead was exchanged 30 times throughout the course of the race.  A total of 171 cars were on the grid, and all four German brands held the lead at one time. Some of the most famous names in racing participated. Check out the Official Nürburgring 24 Hour website for more about this amazing race. Here are a couple summary YouTube Videos as well.

Part One

Part Two

Indianapolis 500 Top 10 Qualifiers 

Pole position and the top 10 spots on the grid have been set by top qualifiers for the Indianapolis 500, which takes place next weekend. Nine Chevy’s and one Honda make up the top ten.

Taking the pole is Ryan Briscoe in the Chevy powered #2, with a four lap average of 226.484. Second position is held by James Hinchcliffe in the Go Daddy #27. He set top speed at 226.934 and was only three thousandths of a second behind Briscoe in the four lap average. A little over 2 seconds separates the top ten qualifiers. Expect a close race next week. For all the times and qualifying positions read this page.

Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway 

In a less traditional race format where 90 laps race are broken into four 20 lap segments closing with a 10 lap finale, Jimmie Johnson in the Lowe’s #48 won the exhibition event. His third win tying Dale Earnhardt and teammate Jeff Gordon for most victories in the All-Star Race. Johnson took home over a million dollars for his performance.

Running hard and winning a segment grants a leading start position for the following segment. Each segment is followed by a mandatory pit stop. It was an interesting race format that called for innovative strategies to be employed by all teams.  All the details of the race and the entire results can be found at the NASCAR news page.

 

Aussie V8 Supercars Philip Island 

Saturday’s 32 lap race at picturesque Philip Island gave Mark Winterbottom and his FPR Ford the win. This race also saw a lap 29, high speed crash take out championship contenders Jamie Whincup and Will Davison. Second and third were filled out by Shane van Gisbergen and Tim Slade in a Falcon FG sweep of the podium. Check out this race summary video.

 

Will Davison and the Trading Post Falcon came back with a vengeance in Sunday’s 45 lap race to win against a battling Craig Lowndes and his Team Vodafone Commodore VE2. Davison had fastest lap and retook the title lead from Jamie Whincup. Only 29 points separate Davison from Frosty’s third place standing, so it’s anyone’s game as Event Six arrives the weekend of June 15 in Darwin.

 

Virtual Motorsports 

Virtual Motorsports is an online racing mecca that provides globally time friendly racing every Sunday. Competition is fierce and the variety of racing is plentiful. Check them out if you want to compete with some of the best online Forza 4 drivers.

 

Community photo contest favorite from jeesmok 

VM GP2 Series 2

This week’s battle of grippy FWD SEAT Leon Supercup cars took place in Japan at Tsukuba and it’s tight turns and multiple hairpins. Understeer showed its face more than once and the battle among club members was fierce. Two races, a 19 lap preliminary and a 27 lap final race, yielded hard fought winners among seven rooms of racing. Read the full results here.

 

VM Super GT Series

High horsepower and high speed Super GT cars met at the speed conducive Road Atlanta for week two of this series.

Canadian independent #266 GambitOnHisOwn in his Lark F1 GTR took the pole position and won the 20 lap race. He also set the fastest lap. Full race results are in the VM weekly newsletter.

 

VM NASCAR Series 1

In race two of the chase period at Sedona the remaining 20 drivers competed in two rooms. #20 GLR Brizzo took the win in room one and #606 ChevyRacer330 came out on top in room two. Congratulations winners! For the complete NASCAR Series story look here.

 

VM 2.4 Hour Nürburgring GP Endurance

In a true test of driving stamina and skill this two and a half hour endurance race pitted 49 drivers against one another in DTM and LMP class cars with no assists and no braking line on drag compound tires. Pit strategy and tire management are key elements to winning such an event.

 

Community photo contest favorite from iHomie OG 

The final winners are determined by distance travelled in a timed race using the Forza 4 lobbies.

 

German driver #885 TPR b0x saw victory in the LMP class and in DTM #599 V12 NiKroX won by over a second.

 

Don’t forget this Saturday is the kickoff of the VM Classics Series 2 check out the VM site to get the full story on how you can join the racing action.

 

Johniwanna’s 5 Days of Green Hell Challenge 

Last week I offered a challenge to RVM readers to take a lap around the Nürburgring in a car of their choice, with no assists, no HUD, cockpit view and then make a YouTube video to the best of their ability. Just doing a decent lap around “the Ring” isn’t easy, and many people haven’t made videos before. Both are time consuming processes so this challenge rated an eight on a scale of one to ten.

 

Community photo contest favorite from CrazY x DrummeR 

Since this challenge was so time consuming and since I wanted to reward the hard work of the entrants I awarded unicorns to all who got their video submitted close to the deadline. I watched all of them, and will now share the highlights and lowlights.

 

The winner was announced Friday in the Week in Review but deserves mention here. Winning in every way, laZyTriP set a top speed time, created a killer “5 Days of Green Hell” livery, put together a well-produced and directed video that was fun to watch, and added a soundtrack by my favorite band of all time AC-DC featuring “Hell’s Bells”. The grin on my face watching what I had inspired him to create was wider than the Nürburgring track itself.  

Some honorable mentions:

 

• KAMAKAZIE 111 the sole drift contestant. A radical display of drifting skill, even drifting most of the straightaways.  Also a themed livery.  Well done Sir!
• carlalsford Thanks go out to this fella who enabled many to participate.
• total ownership Raced his sooped up Scion tC through traffic, mad driving skills, watching this guy drive was like watching a real race.
• DiarheaRobusto Submitted an improved video with featuring the very aptly titled “Highway to Hell.” I don’t know if he planned this but there was a point in the video where banged his Ruf against the wall just as Bon wails “Owww!”     
• Sadioki Thank you to this gentleman for his super cool Ford Transit SuperSportsVan with custom “5 Days of Green Hell” livery. Which he gifted me. Thanks also to him for all the enthusiasm and tips he provided to participants throughout the challenge.  

 

 

Community photo contest favorite from AmpD Panic240sx 

Thanks to all of you for your efforts, I enjoyed all of your submissions. Want to discuss any of these topics, utilize this weeks RVM Thread 

 

Next week we turn our focus to E3 so Rear View Mirror and Heavy Metal Affliction will be taking a week off. Upon their return I will have a new challenge ready for you!