Hi all

Id like to start by saying this is far from a goodbye from HCR as a whole. HCR will continue their involvement with TORA and Forza in 2017 and I will continue my position at HCR albeit on another platform.

Starting back in late 2010 on F1 2010 I had grew tired of racing AI and my passion for motorsport as a whole was on the up. I had out of curiosity took to google (as I'm sure many here did) in search of something different. At the time I had no idea organised online racing existed as it was in its infancy and received very little coverage in comparison with today. I stumbled across an organisation called Race Department. It was here I first met Dan (HCR Mystic) and Karl (HCR Karlos). Both of these drivers were far beyond my talent as I found myself happy to simply finish races I entered. After a while I finally plucked up the courage to approach these guys and ask for help. Both were instantly helpful offering advice and tips on how to improve. As the year went on I found myself moving forwards in the small community we had, branching out to Forza amongst other titles. Quite soon after this Forza 4 arrived along with the car clubs. The community had decided to run in the same club with the aim of making our events easier to manage due to the features being in a club offered. Dan however decided that he wanted to create his own club, Team Yamagura. Joined by myself and Karl we regularly ran at the top of the community and things began to become stale. As much as we enjoyed racing each other we knew we had to find more competition in order to improve. It was here where we found TORA.

September 2012 we arrived in awe of the teams and organisation TORA had to offer. Full of confidence from our successful beginnings we had entered the Britcar 24hrs with the team of Myself, Dan, Karl and another Race Department refugee Tom Moreno. After the longest race we had attempted by a long long way we had finish a distant 3rd after bad luck for a couple of teams in front. We had deemed the race a success and were officially hooked on TORA.

2013 saw Karl begin his plans to move to Sydney, with this myself and Dan began competing as a two man team amongst giants of the console racing world. Our early attempts in endurance races were met with lobby B positons but we had managed to run clean and consistently to place ourselves into top 5 positions until Silverstone where after an epic battle with CQR in their Ikea Kia we managed to best them over the 12hours by a mere 800ft. Hailed as a real David vs Goliath moment we had cemented ourselves amongst our peers at TORA. This was followed by a 2nd place finish at the Nurburgring 12hrs in our now trusty Civic TCC. The win clinched us the 2013 TEC Drivers and Teams title which remains our biggest success to date.

At the end of 2013 Hayden (HCR Mad Dog) and David (HCR Pinto Power) had teamed up in a similar way to create Happy Cat Racing. The team suffered a tough N12 event in December 2013 and were on the lookout for new drivers for the 2014 season. The addition of the new console at this time provided us with a difficult period ahead for all at TORA and for console racing as a whole. Due to certain factors our main efforts remained on the previous generation. February 2014 saw Yamagura's final endurance race as a standalone team the BHF TORA Bathurst 1000. Myself teamed with Mike (TG Takumi) took our Ford Falcon to victory against a strong field.

February 2014 also saw the merger between Yamagura and HCR, after Yamagura's success in endurance events and HCR's success in sprint racing both teams felt we complimented each other with the merger proving to be the right choice. HCR fielded 3 Ferrari 458 GTEs in March's Sebring 12hrs with the team taking victory Myself and Dan finished 5th in the HCR Yamagura entry. Success came again in June with the overall victory at Le Mans for Myself, Hayden and Thom (Koenigsegg R) and our 2nd victory in a row at the Silverstone 12hrs in September, again in the trusty Civic TCC. The team enjoyed victories and growth across the 2014 season until November when Hayden announced he would leave the team. The decision was difficult for the remaining drivers who looked to find direction after increasing pressure from the console split. TORA had suffered at the time as a whole with the loss of a number of big name teams as the community struggled to work with a divided platform. HCR had been left in the hands of Dan who soon felt his passion fall due to the ongoing issues in the community. This paved the way for myself to attempt to continue Dan's work.

The console split continued to decline the community through early 2015, HCR continued to focus on the previous generation due to the limitations of Forza 5. The lack of a true endurance championship left the team scratching around for events to complete in. We began competing on smaller sites in and around TORA with good results however the competition and organisation lacked from what we had enjoyed previously.

2016 was a different matter, Turn 10 had provided us with a united platform covering most of our needs towards the end of 2015 and TORA had announced an ambitious calendar that was mouth watering to behold. TURN had also risen at the time providing another endurance calendar that was equally impressive. HCR had decided each championship deserved attendance and were fully committed to both sites. HCR enjoyed success throughout both championships along with the sprint championships on both sites. As the team grew to over 40 members combined with 2 busy schedules this took its toll and a number of us began to look elsewhere.

After a huge season for myself at TORA with overall wins at Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans thing had become stale and after a lot of thought I had decided to step away from my role at TORA and to also buy into the world of PC sim racing. Since doing this I hadn't been onto the Xbox in months and I also missed the final round of the TEC so I decided that id sell my Xbox to fund upgrades for my PC. This obviously means I have had my final race on TORA being the Silverstone 12hrs where myself and Dan completed 4 podiums from 4 Silverstone endurance races matching our very 1st result on TORA. I felt this was a fitting time to finish my console racing and move onto iRacing.

As mentioned above HCR will still compete at TORA and look to continue our success at these events. James (HCR Motorhead) and Callum (HCR Noodle) will take over at the helm of our Forza involvement whilst myself, Dan, Karl, Gordon (HCR Skodaboie) and Greg (HCR Karma) move over to PC to establish ourselves there as we did here.

Finally I would like to thank all of our friends, rivals and the staff for the past four years of racing. This site has introduced me to friends I would have otherwise never had the chance to meet. From meeting up at Silverstone to driving around the continent to the Spa 24hrs this site has truly had an effect on my life and I thank everyone for it.

It has been a pleasure. See you on track.

HCR Bellmond