Hello and welcome to the latest edition of TORA News.

We kick things off with the 5th Forza Motorsport Photo competition where we asked the community to use their creative minds and come up with an “Offroad Theme” to their pictures. You guys have voted and the winner of the competition was XPR Devil who created this rather splendid image. Many congratulations to him and many thanks to those of you who took part.




Now it's time for Photo Competition number 6. And seeing as the Le Mans 24 hours is starting this weekend, the theme for this compeition is going to be "Endurance". Your theme doesn't necessarily have to be set at the Le Mans circuit. However, you guys are only allowed to submit 1 picture per entry and you're not allowed to edit your images.
You have until the 15th June to enter and the community will be casting their votes soon afterwards. If you are interested in entering this fabulous competition, please click the link below and follow the instructions:

http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t13413-photo-competition-06


Speaking of Le Mans, we are ever closer to the main event this weekend. This is without a doubt one of the most unpredictable races in recent history. The defending champions, Audi, are the favourites as they have won Le Mans 12 times in this new Millenium. However, Toyota have proved this year that their new TS 040 is a well proven machine after they claimed the first two rounds of this years World Endurance Championship. And finally, after 16 years away from the top flight of sportscar racing, Porsche are back with their 919 Hybrid. Who will rain supreme in the 2014 Le Mans 24 hours? Only time will tell.
Some of our TORA members are heading to the Circuit De La Sarthe this year including Ian Marr (Ianmr), Richard Millard (Richy59) and Steven Wilkinson (ShrinkingSteven). And a great piece of news to all of our members who are attending this year, Ian Webster from Turn 10 Studios has offered an open invitation to all TORA members to meet the Turn 10 team and have a go at the Forza Horizon 2, as well as being able to relax in their VIP booth.
This is a fantastic opportunity and we would like to wish our TORA members all the best for the entire Le Mans weekend. Be sure to take plenty of pictures for us guys.
For the rest of who are stuck in our homelands, we don't want to leave anyone left out so if you want to chat everything about Le Mans, all through the build up and during the race, please be sure to join in and use the 2014 Le Mans 24 Hours Thread via the link below:

http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t13456-2014-le-mans-24-hours-thread


Our TORA Video Editor extraordinaire, Stan Stulpa (Standaman94), is currently busy creating the new trailor to this years TORA Le Mans 24 Hour race. However, he requires a few more replays from the 2013 event to be able to complete his latest project. So if you participated in last years race, could you please send a friend request on XBOX Live to Stan (if you haven't already) and send over any replays to him please, as soon as you can.
Just to tempt you, here is Stan's brilliant creation from the 2013 edition of the TORA Le Mans 24 Hours:





Finally, we have an exciting new edition to the TORA racing calendar, in the form of the Touring Car Legends on Forza Motorsport 5. One thing that is official is the car list comprises of 3 legendary cars from the world of Touring Cars. We have the BMW M3, the Mercedes 190E Cosworth, and finally, we have the fire breathing monster that is the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth.
At this present time, the championship will consist of 5 rounds starting on July 16th from the Silverstone circuit and finally finishing on the 10th September on the Le Mans Bugatti circuit. The calendar isn't complete and may subject to change so keep your eyes peeled.
If you are really interested in registering for this series, please click the link below and fill in the registration form as shown in the thread.

http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t13425-touring-car-legends-registration-thread




Round 5 of the TORA GT Championship was hosted at the Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. After circulating around the flat service of Sebring, this was a completely different challenge for the drivers with so many highly demanding corners and elevation changes. But it's a circuit which is highly respected and loved by everyone who has completed in the past & present.
A total of 20 cars took to the ciruit for the fifth round with the Advanced Racing Aston Martin of AR Forbidden taking pole position ahead of championship leader, ONR EagleEye. XPR Soundwave was the first non Aston by qualifying in 3rd place. This being a larger track compared to some of the events on the calendar, the gaps between the cars will be slightly larger. The gap between pole position & tenth place on the grid was 3.1 seconds.
After two intense races, AR Forbidden managed to claim victory in both races to claim full points with a maximum of 200. Joint second in the points were the two Virtual SRT Motorsport 2 team mates of XPR Devil & XPR Soundwave who each claimed a second & third place finish each in the two races.
Despite finishing in fourth place in the points, ONR EagleEye still holds a 142 point lead over XPR Devil with Blacky Mojo taking over 3rd position with 1466 to his score. In the teams, Screw The Pooch Racing still lead but Virtual SRT Motorsport are 64 points closer after they had more overall sucess. They now sit just 76 points behind with Black Death Racing a very distant third.
With the championship being so tight, the final round will be a very hard fort for contest as the cars travel to France for round 6 at the Le Mans Bugatti circuit this Sunday June 15th. Will ONR Eagle Eye hang on to win the drivers championship & can Screw The Pooch do the same in the teams? Be sure to stick around to find out.




Since the last edition of TORA news, we've had two rounds of the Pro Endurance championship with Round 2 from Road Atlanta & Round 3 from Road America. So the teams were injected with a lot an american flavouring in these back to back races.
F4H Rosso still leads the points by winning the second round at Road Atlanta, but suffered a DNF in round 3. As a result, he holds a narrow 17 points lead in the LMP category from l RickyTan l, who took the chequered flag at Road America. Joint third in the points are F4H Chrisupra & F4H Trash who are only ten points behind Ricky. Each driver has had some form of bad luck so the championship is really close.
Things are even closer in the GT category with cardsrule96 holding a 7 point advantage over F4H Facepalmer when both drivers took a win a piece from the second & third rounds. F4H Krux is a further 10 points adrift of second.
The fourth round of the Pro Endurance Series takes on a completely brand new location for the drivers. The tight & narrow street circuit of Long Beach on June 21st.




Forza 4 action now with the TORA Tascar Cup. Again, like the Pro Endurance Series, we had two rounds of the series Infineon and the Benchmark circuits. The Sonoma Valley 112k was the fourth event of the championship and the honours of claiming victory on the road course was the Team HARD Ford of Jordan Groves (jgroves1996). He finished ahead of the XP Racing Chevrolets of Cain Piotrowski (XPR ChicaiN) and Robert Burley (XPR Soundwave)
From the road course, the teams switched back to the ovals for the 5th round, the Texas 112. Chevrolet clinched their third victory in the 5 races so far with XP Racing taking all three steps on the podium. Steve Colgate (XPR Moontower) went to victory lane ahead of XPR ChicaiN second and XPR Soundwave once again finishing in third place.
With their recent domination, XPR Soundwave holds a very narrow 3 point from his team mate XPR ChicaiN and LMR DarthMario is currently lying in third, only 8 points from the top.
This series is possibly going to be the closest in TORA history and the drivers still have a lot of races to cover. Before they can claim to be the 2014 TORA Tascar Champion. For now, the drivers are preparing for the sixth round at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca which is hosted on June 21st.




The third round of the US GT series was contested on the very challenging and very narrow track of Infineon Long Course.
LMR Deftone MX continued his domination of this championship by claiming the most amount of points from Infineon by finishing third in race one but took victory in race two. He accumilated one more point than The Bulin Wall5 and aTasteyNip. Nastey claimed the win in the first race.
Deftone holds the lead in the series with a 56 point advantage over IBlueIJaBBRexI in his Jaguar XKR. Third in the series is the Teixeira XP Racing driver of XPR Soundwave who is only another 4 points behind.
In the teams, Corvette Racing Team LMR holds the advantage with a 64 point cushion over the Castrol Racing LMR squad and Lunchie's Speed Shop sit third, another 34 points adrift.
The fourth round will be contested at the Indianapolis GP Circuit on June 22nd. Will Deftone be able to keep his good form going or will the chasing pack creep up to his advantage? Bue sure to stick around to find out.




The third series of the Spec cup has now finally been completed and all of the teams Hyundai Veloster Turbos are either now parked up at the teams headquarters or have now been sold on to contest in other championships all over the globe.
At the end of the series, it was HCR Hamish who claimed the overall title by only three points from HCR Mad Dog and HCR Bellmond finished in third place, only 19 points behind the championship victor.
Many congratulations to HCR Hamish.

And that’s it for TORA news folks. Many thanks for taking the time to read this. Be sure to stick around for the next edition.

For now, Happy Racing and enjoy the 2014 edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours!

Author: Daniel Austins (ATR DAN)