Here are the results, replays, and photos from the second round of The Oppositelock Forza 7 Endurance Championship at Maple Valley. In addition, the current points standings are in this post, as well as a few notes for the next round in May.




THE RACE

If you missed the race, check out the streaming list. All of the replays can be found there. Special thanks to everyone who streamed. We had some timing issues, a few disconnects, and a few other incidents, but the good racing was there in force.


RESULTS

Here are the results by class, as well as a picture of the car used by each driver. Here is the full results sheet. Sorry to everyone as I couldn’t get a replay of the race and forgot to download mine, so have some recycled photos :(

Sports - Proto


GT









PHOTOS

Don’t have photos from the race because I didn’t download it, nearly no one else did, and those who did either deleted it on accident or it got corrupted because Forza 7 is a high quality product that has no faults whatsoever. I do have some replays that catch all the action, though.

POINTS STANDINGS

Here are the current championship standings for both drivers and manufactures in both classes. For sprint and endurance cup standings, click here to go to the full points sheet.


Sports - Proto Driver’s Championship


Sports - Proto Constructor’s Championship




GT Driver’s Championship




GT Constructor’s Championship




THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS

So, this was a thing that happened. The racing was fantastic. There were a ton of crazy battles, crazier passes, and a two lap shootout right at the end. However, we ran into that recurring problem of lobby start up issues and disconnects. I have some things I want to address. Now to properly address these things, I’ll have to basically single people out. I’m not using names but if you were at the race or saw a replay with chat audio you’ll probably know who I’m talking about. Though I’m using somewhat specific examples, what I’m saying applies to everyone, including myself. I don’t like doing it this way. Hell I’ve been procrastinating this post race partly because of this. But I feel it’s the best way to properly address what needs addressing. A wise man once said that when you’re race director sometimes you have to be a dick. So bear with me for about a paragraph or 5 here. Love y’all, nothing personal, but this needs addressed.


Firstly, please be on time for this stuff. I announce the time and date weeks in advance. It’s one thing to be in the process of joining the lobby at start time, it’s something else to say you’ll be there in a minute and not get there until 15 minutes later, by which point the lobby has imploded because quality game. Now, part of this is a lapse in judgement on my part as I should just start these things with or without people. See the thing is I’m willing to wait an hour or more to make sure everyone is in and everything is perfect. However, no one else is willing to do this, and rightfully so. I don’t care if my time is wasted, but other people care about their time. So going forward, be on time or get left behind for qualifying, and I will be leaving people behind from now on unless you are actively joining the lobby. Not prepping a car or finishing a tune. Actively joining.

The only thing that will cause a stoppage would be a lobby implosion, which hopefully will be mitigated by more punctual running. But to be perfectly honest I don’t trust the lobby to not implode unless it exists for less than 5 minutes, maybe less. So I’ll also have the lobby open for as little time as possible before the race, just enough to set up and send invites, so about 5-10 minutes before start. So be ready before it’s time to run. Closely related to this is making sure you are actually prepared. Get streams going as quickly as possible and have your tunes, if any, ready to go. Normally I’d be okay with people leaving and rejoining, but until these game issues are fixed I don’t think it’s advisable for the sake of keeping the lobby intact. I won’t stop you from leaving and rejoining, but you better be quick and I do mean quick. Alternatively, just be ready to run so it’s not necessary to leave.


There were also a few things regarding voice chat I wanted to mention. If someone’s mic is causing you grief, mute them. At a worst case scenario, the only person you should need to hear is the lobby host, so me or whoever I have hosting if there are multiple lobbies. If someone’s mic is really that big of a problem, just mute them and move on. I doubt anyone’s feelings would be hurt if you didn’t talk to them for a bit. Don’t go around announcing it, just solve the problem yourself. In 99/100 cases, it’s only affecting one person at a time rather than the whole chat. And believe me in that 1/100 case it is an obvious issue and known to the person with the problem mic. Otherwise, individual people should handle it themselves.

Also with voice chat there was some definite anger over some race incidents. Now, I get that it was probably heat of the moment and most likely not deliberate. However, this is not the kind of thing I want to see happening. Don’t lash out at people, regardless of fault. All it does it make things uncomfortable for everyone, especially those directly involved. If there is a legitimate grievance, send it to me after the race. Hold back comments if you can and just deal with it later. Thankfully, this a rare issue, and I want to keep it that way. I don’t think this is something that we’ll run into again.


I also want to briefly touch on the racing incidents. I went into this race expecting crashes to occur. Hell I picked the track with a huge jump right before a turn to get sick pictures, which didn’t even work out. To be honest, both configurations of Maple Valley are dangerous. Most of what I saw was most likely just racing incidents. Though some of them were rather quite spectacular. My only real critique here is to not dwell on them. Shit happens, just roll with it. If you have a legitimate concern, like I said before send it to me. That still applies to this race, as I guarantee I didn’t see everything. I also got out of this some changes to caution procedure, namely letting proto lead pass GT lead if they are close enough, and also a green-white-checkered procedure for extremely late cautions.

Now I’m bringing this all up in order to improve things going forward. People are frustrated with some things, which means I failed at the one thing I set out to do. I want to make this as good an experience as possible for everyone involved. Doing that involves addressing problems as they arise, taking into account your comments and ideas. It became clear, and you all made it clear, some things needed mentioned and changed. I have always said I run these with as much community input as possible. I’m confident future rounds will rise past this and return to the truly great events we all want. Once again, nothing personal against anyone, and please don’t take offence. I’m targeting no one and no one should feel targeted. Though I used specific examples, if you were involved I’m not trying to single you out. Just trying to properly address what needs addressed. I highly doubt we’ll be in this situation again, but nonetheless this needed done.


For the first time this season, we go to Europe! Spa is next on the calendar, and this is one I’m looking forward to. Spa makes for some great racing. Every Spa race I can think of in recent memory has been fantastic. Check out what happened when we raced 1970s F1 cars there. We’ll have the possibility of a rain or night race too, so look for that in the voting. The voting thread for the date will be up tomorrow. Time options will be very limited, so I’ll be including the first weekend of June as well in the voting. BoP may or may not be changed very much. I’m going to try a new BoP method based on what I learned from this round’s BoP. Not sure what all will change. Either way, BoP will be done a week before the next round at the latest.

We’re 1/3 of the way through the championship now, finally heading overseas. If the previous events held here were any indication, we’re in for a great run. See you at the next race!