I want to thank Turn 10 for the Indy 500 hopper. I recently ran it and the results made my day.
I only did 495 miles but what happened during the race is what made it special. We had one driver that shouldn’t have been there. He wasn’t paying attention and caused several accidents. They didn’t appear intentional but it took away from the race. Here is a brief summary of the race.
There was a large wreck in turn 1. I was partly to blame for it. I screwed up my shifting and got plowed into from behind. This ended up crashing about 5 cars. My apologies to the other drivers. I ended up in 11th place of 11 drivers. A couple of laps later I tried to pass the driver that wasn’t paying attention. I spun again and lost more time. I realized the tuning I chose wasn’t what the car was running. I adapted to this new tuning. Over the next 160 or so laps I managed to climb to 5th. There were 4 drivers that ran away from the rest of the pack. I was lapped by the fastest car 3 times. The other 3 lapped me twice. I was catching the car in fourth place trying to get a lap back when I put the nose of my car where is shouldn’t be. I bumped the fourth place car and ended up upside down. I dropped back to 7th position. On the 498th lap of the race which was my last lap, I saw the fifth and sixth place cars trying to pass the car that shouldn’t have been in the race in turn 3. I backed off to avoid another collision. In turn 4 all three of the cars in front of me crashed. Two went into the infield and one went into the outside wall. I went through the cars and finished fifth.
The ending of the race reminded me of the 1967 Indy 500 and A.J. Foyt going through a similar crash in turn 4 and winning the race. I remember watching that race with my Dad. My Dad passed away last year and having this occur brought back some good memories. It is hard to express by gratitude to Turn 10 and the drivers of the race for this great memory. Thank you.
Everyone, please do not express your sympathies for my loss. My Dad lived a long and healthy life. He was 90 and was healthy for most of it. It was only the last 2 or 3 weeks of his life he was hospitalized with an infection that finally took him.
Turn 10, I am also a software developer. The software I work on deals with genetics and disease. When someone writes me telling how much easier the software I helped develop made their research easier I feel great. I hope this posting imparts the same feeling to you.
Wow so I guess you have never made a mistake while racing and have never been the cause of a wreck? I find that very hard to believe.
Well Jim good for you first for owning up to your mistake and secondly for being able too recover with a nice finish. I’m not really sure what’s wrong with the lobby because I also ended up running with a stock or road course tune and not my oval. Did take a few laps before I was able to get a handle on the car because it had way more oversteer than my oval tune.
Yes, the other guy was wrecking other people because he wasn’t paying attention. I can’t repeat what some of the other drivers said when these incidents occurred.
Have you never screwed up during a race? I accidently hit A instead of B to upshift in the first turn. But since I didn’t belong in the race I managed to climb from 11th to 5th without causing any accidents. That clearly shows I didn’t belong there. (That is sarcasm for those who don’t understand.) I also said I was partly responsible for the first accident. It was a mess going into the first turn which is usual for Indy.
I guess I should have mentioned that when I tried to pass the driver that I said shouldn’t have been there, it was he that moved over into me for no reason. I then became very careful when passing him. I learned he took turn 1 wide and I could pass him on the inside.
The second accident I mentioned occurred when traffic got a little heavy. I thought I saw room where there wasn’t. (Who hasn’t?) Now that I look back, I was wrong. It is a luxury of hindsight. The only person who wrecked because of it was me. I chose to go into the wall instead of making the accident worse. I lost 2 places. The racer in fourth suffered little consequence because of it. He didn’t wreck. I guess I should have plowed into him instead of bumping him.
Thanks for your reply. It took me over half an hour to write my reply to jerado. There was a lot of editing and biting my tongue. I screw up occasionally. I try to admit my mistakes and I’ve said I’m sorry more that a few times during multiplayer races. I end up feeling more guilty than the person I hit is upset. I try to be a clean racer but I make mistakes. It is surprising how forgiving most racers are. I thank everyone for that.
It is guys like you that make Forza so good - we are not all fast or perfect, but when people know their limits and keep striving to improve and can admit our mistakes, makes those guys the best to race with. Pity about the small incidents, but you seem to have handled them well and learned things in the process as well as having a good race.
Did it today ended up doing 496 miles. Was actually more fun then I thought it would be since you can do the whole race without ever touching the brakes. Long Beach was more fun but the hoppers where kinder to me at the Indy event only had to join one and waited less then 15 minutes for the race to actually start.
Only driver that does not belong on a track is the one that has no intention of racing. Everyone else, no matter their skill level, has the right to be on the track.
Completing 495 miles with few incidents is still very very good pace. I was in a Indy500 hopper last night (not planned!) and there were couple of drivers who did not even pass 450 miles and created havoc through out the race. From my point of view, it was NOT in their intention to crash people; they just did not have the experience nor good controls to keep the car steady. Some people crash others intentionally, some unintentionally, and some simply cannot be avoided due to speed/smoke/room.
JimB3, you are first owning up to your mistakes and that makes you good in my books. I’ll be happy to share the track with you anytime.
Awesome story, JimB3! I wish I’d been in that room! I did complete it but was in a room with just 5 drivers and 2 left. I ended up at 510 miles at the end with a pretty clean run and the winner by a few laps. I think only one sticky grass touch and I’m sure several wall touches. But I’d have loved to have had that much traffic!