ForzaRC Team Racing?

https://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/news/ForzaRC_2019_Announce

Gee, I wonder where they got this idea from? Hmm, could it be from the IFCA, again???

As some of you know the IFCA and in particular yours truly have often been the source for new and inspired ideas for T10 to explore.  Back in the early days of FM1, T10 by way of Che Chow would frequently ask me how to go about creating formats for organized league racing and so forth.  I gladly shared my ideas with Che Chow to which he would make some modest promises to me for.  Sadly, those promises never materialized even though my ideas would be implemented in some way or another.  When I called Che Chow out on it, the T10 silence was deafening and no further contact was made.  They got what they wanted, and saw no further need to maintain contact on any level.  That's the loving T10 I know.

Ever since those days, we periodically saw from time to time reasonable facsimiles of the kinds of things we were doing right here at the IFCA.  At first we thought it was just a coincidence that T10 started to do some similar things with the game we were already doing, because they weren't exact copies of what we were doing.  Then, because of a disgruntled former employee, we were told that T10 was carefully watching everything the IFCA was doing to enhance Forza simulation racing.  We were told that all the leagues are monitored to some degree or another to be mined for new ideas, free of charge.

With the latest announcement of the 2019 ForzaRC we see that T10 has decided to go with, a team format.  You mean like the team format we have been doing here at the IFCA in our Trans-Am Relay Challenge for the past year?  No not exactly like ours, but for the same reasons.

The IFCA is the innovator of team format racing originally started back in FM3.  We like it because, "it’s not just about being the best driver on the track anymore. Team racing brings a whole new layer of strategy and cooperation, to the on-track mix."  Oh wait, that's what T10 just said.  

We like it because more driver skill levels can have more fun together.  It's not just about being the fastest guy, it's about preparation and teamwork and strategy.  It's also about letting the less killed get into the competitive mix, and supporting the grassroots drivers.  It's about creating a more level playing field so that everyone can have fun while getting better at driving.  Our idea of team racing is to give the little guy a chance, to give him some hope, to incentivize him to work harder to get better.  We do this by allowing our slower drivers to use slightly faster and better handling cars than our fast guys.  Giving them a real chance knowing that it isn't the car that is holding them back, it is, in fact, their own driving.

Unfortunately, T10 isn't interested in this reason for team racing.  As you can read it is by special invitation only that a team is allowed to compete in the ForzaRC.  This means that the entire format is exclusively set up for the fastest guys with no room for your lower-skilled grassroots drivers.

So what does this say to you and me?  It says that T10 still doesn't get it.  With all of their resources and millions of dollars, they still don't understand how to build a simulation racing community that will grow in popularity.  They don't understand that without the rank and file grassroots racers who are also the fans of the sport, it will never be big.  Like every other racing organization under the sun, you have to cultivate the racing fan and create a tiered structure to climb, from local racing to regional to nationals.  Otherwise, there is no support, because no one can get in at a starting point, and no one can relate to the pros.  Whether it's F1, NASCAR, or the NHRA, they all have grown their sport in the same way, from the bottom up, not from the top down.

My prediction?  They will gain a slightly larger audience than they had in the ForzaRC 2018, but that's not saying much.  Very few people even knew it was going on last year in comparison to the numbers of Forza copies sold.  And this alone should tell you something.

Yes, we will rate the results of the ForzaRC depending on exactly how the format works.  Not every format works for the IFCA ratings formula.  Team formats can sometimes be prohibitive in this regard so we shall see.