Reinventing Forza

So I got my Buttkicker as expected and it's all set up on the Playseat. I used the same method for mounting shown in this video. No pictures yet, I need to decide on the placement of the amp and wire everything properly. Right now it is all just thrown together for testing purposes.

It works good, just as advertised. When you hit a rumble strip or accidentally go off road you really feel it. Pretty cool sensation. I was kind of let down that the engines themselves don't really produce any vibrations but I knew this going in.

Like a dumbass I left my flash drive with my Gamertag and all of my Forza saves at my sisters house over the weekend. So I created a new gamertag on my console just so I could race. To my surprise there was a few gifts in my inbox from Turn 10, one being the Ferrari 250 California:

As much as I like the car, I sold it because it gave me over a million in credits to play with. Since I was starting new I decide to play on expert level, no assists, no driving line, manual w/clutch, AI on hard. Most of this wasn't a big deal, I've been playing without most assists since I started played Forza 2 back in 2007. But losing my braking line...what a difference that makes. I haven't played a racing game like this without the line holding my hand since GT4, over 5 years ago. It is fun though. After playing around in the lower class career races I bought a Ferrari F355 Challenge (the spec car this month for 2old4forza):

I started hotlapping around Le Mans Bugatti (the track we're running next Tuesday). For me hotlapping consist of setting up a private online race, filling it up with AI drivers on hard (in this case in the same car I was in) along with full sim damage. The I set the race up with a 2 second roll of on the start, and scoring is set to compare best lap times (this means finishing positions don't count, only lap times). With these settings I start out in front and don't usually don't even see any of the other cars after the first 2 or 3 turns. As long as I run a clean lap I'm pretty much guaranteed the prize money. A quick 3 lap race like this was netting me about 17,000 credits. Not bad a bad payout for running practice laps. A 30 minute session gives me about 100K. Only real drawback is you don't have a ghost to chase.

Well my first few races were a mess, I just couldn't seem to make it through the first Chicane (keep in mind I still have the racing line off). Once I got that dialed in though I started seeing my times dropping. I started in the 1:52's (still almost 2 seconds faster than the AI on hard), then I started seeing 1:51's. Then 1:50's. From here my times started to settle a bit. I am running mid 1:49s to low 1:50's pretty consistently, but I came less than a 10th of a second away from a 1:48 and I know I can get there. I may not break into the 1:47s though. We'll see. Our next race is still 5 days away. I may even run without the braking line there and see what happens.