Clubin
Written By: Donald "GTDon" Gaetke
I realize that many of you out there in the greater simulation racing metropolis of Forza2 are only faintly aware of such things as, "club tags", club names, club presidents, club events, multi-club events, or anything to do with organized racing on any kind of serious cooperative level. For most of you "Forza2" is more or less a vast racing game that exceeds your casual interest by leaps and bounds. Nothing at all wrong with this take on the game either. You are among the majority of those who have ever played the game, and that's cool.
There is however a much smaller but not insubstantial number of Forza devotees (read freaks) who prefer to band together and form racing clubs to get the most out of their cars, and their skills. They have prefix club tags such as, VVV, TRC, DMR, V12, ISRC, R2P, F4H, TDR, GSR, and of course many more. These are the sim-drivers who have taken a mere "video game" to the next level. It is out of these clubs that many of the CGS pros came from. Their efforts to have fun and be entertained has resulted in the almost accidental creation of a new hobby, one that harkens back to a day long before most of you were born.
Back in the early 1970s before the invention of video games and during the same period when both auto racing and the automobile were in what many feel was their "hay-day" there was a growing fad known as "H.O. Slot Car Racing." These were miniature electric powered versions of their real-world counterparts on a track with a guide slot for the little cars to follow. They were in effect the Forza2 of their day. So popular did they become at one point that every hobby store in town had a multi-lane track you could pay to race on, join the local club scene, and have a chance to race against some of the local fast guys. And the "fast guys" were really fast too! These regular club members would have weekly club meets, bring their hot-rodded highly modified H.O.'s to the hobby store on a Saturday afternoon, and race for cash and prizes! These racers were way serious about their tiny whips as you might imagine.
Although lately there has been a small slot car resurgence in new tech "digital tracks" for example , it's still nothing compared to what it once was. The broader point, and no doubt one of the reasons why slot car racing will probably never regain its preeminence ever again is because of video game simulation racing. Add to this the wildly popular RC racing associations, and slot cars have a hard row to hoe as a dominant entertainment hobby.
Today, you can "virtually drive" a simulated car with nearly all the same parameters and restrictions associated with the known physics of the real world of racing, while sitting in front of your TV. This is essentially what slot car racing was all about in its own small way. In order to achieve this replication of realism however, it still required a certain dedicated sense of suspended disbelief. No matter how awesome the cars were, or the racing was, you always had to keep a blind eye turned to the fact that these were just tiny models of real cars, and not actual cars in any normal sense of the word.
Holding this against the hobby of slot car racing as I do, what they really had going for them in spades was that strong sense of community. There was almost a mystique about the elite slot car hobbyist for example, who would occasionally show up at a big meet with a specially prepared brief case full of exotic parts and cars. He would take on the local club fast guys and usually win. The whole atmosphere was obsessively intense, but extremely fun. No one was left out because there were all levels of skill and classes to compete with.
Today's club driver is a breed apart in Forza simulation racing circles. He's a hold out for the return of what appears to be a nearly bygone era already. Many have left the scene for lack of an integrated club feature that once kept them cheering, "all for one, and one for all!" "Forza2" as great as it is lost this key feature which ripped the true heart right out of the fanatics who wanted to "belong." Still, the hardest of the hardcore stayed on, and these are today's elite Forza club racers. Longing for the time when the integrated club feature possibly returns in "Forza3" they are the elite core of the game. Through websites such as the multi-club supported IFCA, these hobby racers continue to compete at the highest levels in a wide variety of international competitions. Go there, and you will have the chance to see what it is like to pit your skills against some of the best Forza drivers in the world.
Better yet, join a club, and support your hobby! Soon, new sim-based racers will be offered for the Xbox360, and I pity the "T10 studios" if one of these new games discovers the communal magic that once was the club feature of "Forza1."
Yours in Forza,
VVV GTDon
Pro Gamer
Pro Gamer
^_^ - #eFlow