Rear View Mirror 7/9/12

Welcome to this week’s edition of Rear View Mirror, our look back at the week in real world racing and what’s going on in the world of Forza.

American Le Mans Series presented by Patron Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock 

Lime Rock represents the shortest track in the American Le Mans Series and, with 30 cars completing its seven turns and 1.5 miles in around a minute or less, it was a tight-quartered and action-packed race.

GT Class saw Flying Lizard Motorsports in its Porsche 911 GT3 RSR take the win, the team’s first trip to the podium so far this year. Driving the #3 C6R, Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia took Corvette Racing to second place and further extended their team, driver, and manufacturer championship leads. Corvette Racing teammates Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin landed third. All were driving cars on Michelin tires making it a podium sweep for the tire maker.

In LMP it was all Muscle Milk in its patriotic livery, coming from four laps down to achieve the win. This was the team’s third victory this season and tenth since entering the ALMS. After leading early, a shifting issue sent the HPD ARX-03A to the pits where the problem was quickly remedied but at a cost of four laps. After Lucas Luhr quickly earned back three of those laps, he handed the driving duties to Klaus Graf, who regained the lead lap within the next 30 minutes then took the overall lead with 24 minutes left. From there, Muscle Milk never looked back.

Photo courtesy of JA 37 Viggen 

With so many classes and so many cars and race details, I recommend reading the ALMS race wrap up story to get the big picture.

In addition to the couple photos featured here in RVM from community member JA 37 Viggen, take a look at the rest of his album covering the race at Lime Rock. Thanks JA!

Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone 

Again, another great Forza track is featured in the Formula One Grand Prix, each turn reminiscent of the many races we have all conducted there. Well almost, because the speeds and G-forces achieved in F1 are nothing short of miraculous.

In a race that was lead almost entirely by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, tire strategy seemed to be the defining factor that gave Red Bull and Mark Webber the win. Ferrari started out on the prime tire and drove superbly, then fell off pace on the options when pushed near the end of the race. Red Bull started on the option then ran two sets of primes, which gave them the grip they needed to gain the lead and the top podium spot.

Photo courtesy of JA 37 Viggen  

In the end Red Bull ran first and third and Ferrari took second and fourth. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa (P4) ran a tough initial battle with Schumacher (P7) and Vettel (P3). Pastor Maldonado was cursed by Sergio Perez for a collision that took him out. Maldonado received a reprimand and 10,000-Euro fine.

This is the second such controversy involving the Williams driver, as Maldonado was involved in a similar incident at Valencia a few weeks ago. Maldonado may have won in South America but it seems his racing acumen is not appreciated by those who have been sidelined by his apparent recklessness.

Indy Car Honda Indy Toronto 

A relatively uneventful street race was taking place in Toronto on their 1.75 mile, 11-turn course until, with only two laps left, two multiple-car pile-ups following a restart drew the race to a close under caution. Ryan Hunter-Reay took the lead on lap 57 and held it to the end. Charlie Kimball and Mike Conway, who placed second and third behind him, gave chase but never really challenged the eventual victor.

In practice and qualifying, hometown Canadian hero James Hinchcliffe suffered mechanical problems that lead to an engine swap. This lead to a ten-position grid penalty that he was making a valiant effort to rectify. When he had worked his way all the way up to a fourth place position his motor expired again. That is just plain bad luck!

Here are the video highlights.

NASCAR Coke Zero 400 at Daytona 

The race was clean until lap 81 when Sam Hornish Jr. blew a tire and wrecked in the backstretch. Hornish Jr. was a last minute substitute for A.J. Allmendinger, who was suspended for having a random drug test come up dirty. The rest of the race was as wild as any at Daytona.

Tony Stewart collected win number 18 at Daytona after pulling ahead of Jeff Burton and Matt Kenseth in the final turn. Behind them chaos ensued as a massive 15 car pile-up took place, confusing the rest of the field and seriously damaged many of the cars. Burton had barely saved his Wheaties car from spinning in the previous turn, then went high just before the wreck to challenge Stewart for the victory.

Aussie V8Supercars Sucrogen Townsville 400 

Jamie Whincup came from ninth-place to win the second race of the weekend, sweeping the Townsville 400 in the Team Vodafone Holden race car. It was his fifth race win of the season and 57^th win overall.

In Saturday’s race Mark Winterbottom managed second and Garth Tander filled out the podium in third. Sunday had Whincup’s team mate Craig Lowndes taking second for a Team Vodafone 1-2. This was the second 1-2 in a row for them at Townsville. Will Davison settled for third, which is also where he sits in the points standings behind Whincup and Frosty.

Gymkhana Five 

You don’t have to be into drifting or rally to appreciate the outright, blatant, jaw-dropping, awesomeness of this video. It is sheer epic, over the top driving in one of the most beautiful cities in the world: San Francisco—a city that was apparently abandoned to allow for the shoot.  

When you combine this level of driving, creativity, and production, the end product is something that words can barely describe. Thanks R S Turbo for calling it out.

This week’s featured club: FEDS 

Thanks to SatNiteEduardo for submitting his club—known as FEDS--to be featured in Rear View Mirror. FEDS do a lot of good while they have fun. If you read the forums you will know a lot of these guys are enthusiastic and frequent posters. Here is SatNiteEduardo talking about FEDS in his own words.

“[FEDS] was created in October, 2011. Sadioki is the leader with SatNiteEduardo as co-leader. Sadioki founded the club to honor the fallen heroes, and to pay tribute to all who sacrifice their life to save others. He wanted to name it NYPD, but this name was already taken. We are passionate about making police designs and have done so since Forza Motorsport 3. Sadioki has recently decided to make 50 police designs from all over the world chosen by the Forza community and showcase them in a series of photos and videos.

We also have tuners, racers, hot lappers, photographers and videographers in the club. In short we believe we have every Forza 4 feature covered within our club.

Some of our members have a long history of racing games behind them.

As a club we try to sponsor competitions on the forums that promote good interaction on the forums, we try to be helpful in bounty hunter events by sponsoring side competitions, providing racing advice and videos to encourage people to take part and improve and show racing lines that will result in the time being beaten and general competitions for hotlaps, photos and liveries.”

Would you like to see your club featured, submit a brief summary of what makes your club special in the RVM thread. All members of featured clubs get a unicorn of choice.

TORA The Online Racing Association 

The MSA TORA GT Championship kicks off soon at Silverstone International Circuit. A huge prize is up for grabs this season, and more than one hundred racers have signed up. Who will come out on top at the end of the first round is anyone’s guess.

Check out this top notch promotional video highlighting some of the top competitors in the MSA Tora GT Championship. There are some sweet cars and beautiful liveries.

ISCC America (Season 4)

TORA is also offering their version of the American Le Mans Series and it starts in less than three weeks. With four classes available this season and with the frantic nature of multi-class racing anything can happen on the track, so why not throw yourself into the mix?

Season 4 starts July 29th at Sebring. Check out the TORA site for all the details.

Virtual Motorsports 

At VM they have wrapped up their June Calendar Competition. This month’s winner is Friedrich II and his beat up Herbie shot which garnered 29 percent of the vote. If you are interested in participating submit a photo for the July contest here.

Check out this week’s highlight video from the Spec racing series.

VM is also beginning their 2012 Championship which will define the top three drivers out of the top 24 who competed in the 2012 VM Season thus far. Check out the details here. Congratulations to all who qualified!

If you have a racing league or series you would like to shine some like on, post about it in the RVM thread.

Stance Wars 2012