Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of TORA news. Many apologies for the long gap between the last news article I wrote last month. It’s been an extremely busy time but now I shall make amends.
Just before we begin with the news, I would like to say a big personal thank you to everyone who has taken their time to read my rather long blog. The response that I’ve received from the community has been extremely immense. Whether it was via the TORA forums, Private Message, Facebook or Messenger. I feel completely humbled and it means a great deal to me. It shows just what a fantastic community we have here at TORA. I do hope that my blog has inspired either yourselves or people you know who suffer with depression to speak out and not hide away their personal issues. So a very big thanks to everyone and I do hope to continue to provide you with the best articles that I can.

First up, we have the 7th incarnation of the TORA Photo competition. It’s great to see that the number of people participating in these competitions is increasing all the time so we thank you all. This time around, we’ve got 8 submitted entries for you to vote on. The competition ends in 2 days (27th July 2014) so please take your time to cast your vote and decide on who shall be the winner for the 7th competition by clicking on the link below.

http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t13724-photo-competition-07-vote


After a very mixed campaign in the previous GT Championship, we are delighted to say that for our Forza Motorsport 5 gamers, the 12th season of the TORA GT Championship will be switching back to using racing machinery. So you’ll be seeing vehicles like the BMW M3 GT2, the Chevrolet Corvette C6R and the Dodge Viper GTE.

The third Forza Motorsport 4 TORA Spec has been announced with the weapon of choice being the 1965 Ford Mustang GT Coupe. This will be a five round series which starts on July 30th at the Twin Ring Motegi East and then concluding with the final round at the Sebring Circuit on August 27th. If you haven’t already, be sure to register for the series via the link below:

http://forums.theonlineracingassociation.com/t13599-2014-tora-spec-series-3-cup-3-registration

Two events have been confirmed for the switch to Forza Motorsport 5. The TORA Race of Champions has been confirmed to be taking place at the end of this year with the TROC creator Jamie Anderson (BG Chucky82) taking the helm once again.
Also, just to put this to bed as well, there have been concerns about whether the Touring Car Championship will be coming to the next gen console. The great news is that there will be a Touring Car Championship on Forza 5, as confirmed by president Matt Hunter (Jenson09) in the latest episode of TORA Radio. There’s currently testing behind the scenes but hopefully, this series will be confirmed within the next month or so. Be sure to stick around for that one.


Speaking of TORA Radio, if you’ve missed the opportunity to listen in live on July 17th, we had a special guest in Ian Webster from Turn 10 studios talking to us about the upcoming title, Forza Horizon 2 & also a little bit about Forza 5. We also talk about any upcoming events, Race reviews and also an appearance from myself.

http://downforce-radio.co.uk/tora-radio/


Finally, this evening will see the first round of the eagerly awaited Demolition Derby series on Codemasters new title, GRID Autosport.
A total of 14 drivers have registered for the series so far. It will be intriguing to see how all of the competitors will take to this new form of motorsport. Where all of the crews will go in guns blazing as they literally try to smash each other to pieces to achieve the ultimate prize. This will be a three round series and the winner of the championship will receive a Season Pass to Grid Autosport.
Also, there will be a random prize draw at the end of the season where any driver can win a goodie bag courtesy of Sparco. The more races you enter, the more tickets you’ll have included into the prize draw. We would personally like to thank Codemasters for this exclusive competition and may the best destroyer win.

In case you’ve missed it, check out the rather excellent Codemasters blog:

http://blog.codemasters.com/grid/07/club-tora/




We kick things off with the action from Forza Motorsport 5 and the Grand Prix Championship. The series hosted its opening round at the Catalunya GP Circuit on June 29th. This very warm Mediterranean circuit would be a real test of the cars & drivers as the air temperatures sky rocketed towards 32 degrees Celsius & track temperatures were in the high 50’s in the midst of a hot summer. This meant that the Pirelli tyres would need to be well preserved during the entire weekend as they have a tendency to degrade rather quickly. This was the evaluation from all the teams when they were taking part in pre-season testing.

13 drivers braved the conditions and took part at Catalunya. Qualifying honours went to Darryl Crewe (Ricky Tan) in his Williams by just over a second from Deano Cox (XPR Devil) and Will Hinds (BG Wumba) completed the top 3 on the grid in his Jaguar.
After 50 gruelling laps, Darryl Crewe converted his pole position into race victory ahead of the Jaguar Racing car of Will Hinds. However, the performance of the race definitely belonged to the Allied Force India machine of Kane Kilroy (Kilroy8) who stormed through the field to finish on the final step of the podium from 13th on the grid. Those are your top 3 in the drivers championship after just one round but in the teams standings, Williams HR Racing are first with a 147 point lead over Black Death Racers and Jaguar hold the third spot.
The next round will be contested at the Nurburgring GP Circuit on the July 27th.


We move on now to the Forza 5 Spec cups including the North American series. We have just one more round of the MX-5 cup remaining at the Silverstone National Circuit which will be hosted on July 28th. The championship is extremely close with the top 5 drivers who are the only ones that have a mathematical chance of claiming the championship. 51 points is all that separates them with Ricky Tan leading the way from iteknix, BG Wumba, BG Smithy and XPR Devil. We wish all 5 of them the best of luck for the series finale.

In the North American MX-5 Championship, the top five positions in the series are filled by XPR drivers with Eggy top of the tree after claiming two victories in the first round of the series at the Sebring International Raceway. He’s followed by Venom after he finished second in both races and third in the points table is Gillard by claiming a fourth & third in the two events.
Round 2 will be contested on July 31st at the Road Atlanta track.



We’ll switch consoles now to the elderly but not quite redundant 360 to catch up on the Forza 4 action, starting with the TORA Tascar Championship.
Since the last news letter, we’ve had two rounds of the series from Le Mans for round 8 and the 9th round at the famous brickyard at Indy. Things are looking pretty equal as both the GM & FORD stables have been sharing the victories. It’s great to see that both manufactures are very much equal in terms of performance.
The eight round belonged to FORD as James Bishop (IBlueIJaBBRexI) claimed top honours at Le Mans whilst Cain Piotrowski (XPR ChicaiN) took victory at Indy.
In the points standings, the top 8 drivers are covered by only 58 points with 3 rounds left to run. However, the top 4 are even closer than that. Just 9 points separate the leader XPR Soundwave with LMR Darthmario second, XPR ChicaiN is lying third with IBlueIJaBBRexI in fourth.
Who will be able to keep their cool and drag their V8 monsters across the finish line to claim the Tascar title? Be sure to see what the chapter will be as the next round will be at Silverstone National on July 26th.


The 6th Round of the USGT Championship was hosted at the Sedona Full Circuit. This circuit is quite unique as it’s located in the desert. But like the Bahrain International Circuit, the track would have some issues with sand blowing its way onto the circuit. The infield section wouldn’t be as hazardous however.
Despite the vast size of the circuit, the results in qualifying proved to be extremely close. The only exception was the pole sitter rainonef1 who claimed pole position by nearly a whole second in his Chevy Corvette from The British 1st.
After two extremely hard fought for races, we had two drivers sharing the top spot with 237 points despite neither driver winning either race. IRT Bubba and The British 1st claimed a second and third position each in both the races but it was enough to gather the most amount of points from the race meeting. Despite winning the first race, rainonef1 could only finish fourth in the points as he could only manage an 11th place in the second race. The second race was won by BG Cowboy in his Ford GT.

In terms of the overall standings, IBlueIJaBBRexI holds top spot with two rounds to go. He holds a 29 gap back to dave sp2 and The British 1st is a further 51 points adrift. In the teams, Corvette Racing Team LMR are first with a 118 points advantage over Castrol Racing LMR and Lunchie's Speed Shop are 41 behind second.
The penultimate round of the series will be contested at the Twin Ring Motegi Full Circuit on August 3rd.


Tuesday 22nd July saw the TORA Touring Car Championship media day. Just under 30 drivers turned up as everyone was prepared to show off their highly polished vehicles & stunning liveries. However, by the end, the cars were far from polished. They seemed more fitting in a scrap yard than a car showroom. But that’s just showcases the competitive nature of the Touring Car Championship. Not only did the teams unveil all their cars, but it was more of a demonstration, particularly to the new drivers to TORA, the unique starting procedure at each meeting.

All in all, the Media Day was a huge success. Everyone who came & went from the day wasn’t disappointed. The TORA Commentator, Jake Sanson, who’s competing with the Cadbury ATR Dynamics with Downforce Radio team, quoted during the event that this was the most fun that he’s ever had. So this will no doubt be a sign of things to come.
The first round will be hosted at the Catalunya National Circuit on July 29th. Also, we have the NATCC for our North American friends and their championship also starts on the 29th.

You can check out the photo gallery from the TORA Touring Car Championship Media day via the link below:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28140035@N07/sets/72157645881463484/

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!

Author: Daniel Austins (ATR DAN)
Photos: Daniel Austins (ATR DAN) and JVanEssen