Based on the chatter on chat boards, Dirty Laps are the hobgoblin of the Forza world, largely because of the uncertainty of what causes them, and what their impact is to your racer.
What causes a dirty lap? A number of things, including:
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Leaving the designated track area (like cutting a corner with all four tires or going off of the side of the track briefly).
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Hitting another car and causing damage to it OR being hit by another car and causing damage to it.
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Causing damage to your OWN car by rubbing a jersey barrier or other obstruction.
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Drafting off of another racer OR having another racer draft off of you.
Those are the four primary causes for getting flagged with a Dirty Lap – and while number 1 and 3 are pretty much within your control assuming you are in control, numbers 2 and 4 are not.
In fact 9 times out of 10 during the first lap of a race you get the Dirty Lap flag due to the contact that takes place in the crush around the first two turns. What is worse half the time when you get a dirty lap it happens because you either allowed another raced to draft off of you, or you inadvertently draft off of another racer.
For the single-player campaign getting flagged for a Dirty Lap is not really all that big a deal since you will get your pay-out for the race regardless of the flag, but for multiplayer online you do need a clean lap in order to collect the reward for races you set up.
The good news is that as long as the race is 2 or more laps you have a better than even chance of getting one clean lap in, because once you get out in front there is far less a chance of damage causing a dirty lap.
For single-player the objective of a clean lap is so that the time for that lap – or the best time for all of the clean laps - is considered for your best lap time.
That is the good news - the bad news is that if you make a mistake and flag in the last section of the lap, that flag carries forward to you into the next lap, which means getting dirty in one lap can dirty you in another. Not fair? I tend to agree with that. But it is what it is.
On the happy face side if you spot the flag you can hit rewind as long as you do it before the new lap starts, back up past where you flagged, and then don’t flag and you will start a clean lap.
But bear this in mind - if you use rewind anywhere other than the last section to correct, it dirties the lap.
If it is any comfort to you there is a backstory on why drafting is considered dirty… It seems that in FM2 a certain type of racer would work with a buddy to draft in series in order to set impossibly fast lap times. To combat that they made drafting dirty. I might not have made that call myself but I can respect the decision that they made, and why they made it.
Next to my score?