It’s been a busy few weeks here at TURN. We have been working hard to bring you what you’re all here for, some great racing. As a few of the community members who helped out with lobby testing for our Project CARS race series will know, we ran in to some major problems with getting stable lobbies that would be enjoyable to race in. Saying that, there has been some patches released but they have still not fixed the issues that we came across during the lobby testing. Hopefully within the next few rounds of updates there will be a significant performance boost to multiplayer lobbies. The game does have its merits though and I am sure we can all agree that for a relatively small development company, Slightly Mad Studios have done a great job, but at the moment its just not quite ready for running the quality of organized racing that we want to bring to the community.

       TURN Masters Series in Forza 5

In the coming weeks there will be several Forza 5 events, kicking off with TURN Masters using the much loved Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. The action starts on July 28th for the Americas championship and the 29th for the European championship. There will be much more info put on the forum in the coming days including the car build rules, track list, and the livery rules for the budding painters out there. So keep an eye out for that and get registered as it should be quite a popular series. As part of the Masters series we will be running an exhibition round a week prior to the first race that will be a chance to meet other people competing and show of your livery designs.

We hope the choice to run on Forza for now is not too disappointing. As we already stated, the reason we have decided to run events on Forza Motorsport 5 is due to the issues that Project CARS currently has. We have established a standard of quality we expect to provide with our official series and unfortunately, at this time Project CARS just wouldn’t allow us to deliver.

To get racing you will need a TURN Race Number. I am sure a lot of you already have one but if you don’t, no need to worry. just go over to the forums and apply for your number with your gamertag, real name, nationality and, if you represent a team, your team name. The post hasn’t been up too long so there are still plenty of good numbers to pick from.

       TURN Community Organized Race Events

The community organized race events (CORE) are starting strong with registration for the Virtual Touring Car Series open today, the F4H Scuderia Trophy which starts a week on Sunday, and the World Time Attack Championship being set up as you read this. The community events are a great way to meet like minded racers and do certain types of motorsports that the TURN official series might not be covering at the present time. Go check them out on the forum and show your support to the individuals who use their own spare time to set them up.

       Forza Motorsport 6: looking promising

E3 is turning in to a distant memory now but the Forza 6 teasers have blown some of us away, and from what they have showed us so far, its looking like Turn 10 have taken on the wants of the racing community, and especially organised racing, and stepped up their game by adding day and night, weather, plus lots more. I am not going into too much detail at this time as I am currently working on article based on the upcoming release of the game, with all the information you could possibly need to get clued up before getting your hands upon this much anticipated addition to the Forza franchise.

       Be A Part of TURN

We at TURN need your help. With the 2015 seasons now opening up, it’s time for us to fill some internal vacancies. Firstly, let’s discuss the plan for Race Stewards. The role of Race Steward is a vital one to organised racing. The stewards ensure that any and all incidents that occur on track are dealt with quickly and efficiently in the fairest way possible. The current plan is for the TURN staff to appoint a single Chief Steward with two to three appointed stewards helping share their opinions and insights with the Chief Steward, so that as a team, they can feel comfortable adjudicating on inquiries or other infractions of the TURN official series rules. Stewards will serve their term for the calendar year, and the appointment process will be reevaluated in December of each year. We feel that these roles should come from qualified and respected members of the community, so that TURN staff itself can focus on the management of the series and simply accept the ruling of the stewards. We ask that anyone thinking of applying for these positions, has a good understanding of race craft and be level headed when making important decisions. Most importantly you must be able to dedicate and commit yourself to this role and be available to view incidents as and when they arise for all of the official series for the remainder of the calendar year. If stewards are frequently absent when needed, or prove to make biased judgments, the TURN staff reserves the right to appoint an interim steward.

Secondly, every official series will need race hosts. Much like the Race Steward positions, this role is also a critical position at TURN. Without reliable and competent hosts, the quality of the experience diminishes to a level that simply isn’t acceptable. Upon applying to be a qualified race host, we ask you to check your availability and commitment but firstly ask yourself if you want the responsibility of organizing lobbies, taking results, and ensuring that race days run as smoothly as possible. Race hosts must also understand the series rule book and procedures completely. Cool and collected under pressure, with an ability to communicate instructions clearly, whilst remembering to record and share results with the TURN staff are nearly must-have personality traits. Consider also your ability to reliably host, based on your internet connection and NAT type. If you still have the desire to proudly be a part of TURN’s trusted support team, we would encourage you to apply. This doesn’t mean you will need to host every session you participate in, but the more members that qualify to be race hosts, the smoother the entire operation goes.

To apply for any of the above positions just send your details to one of the staff members, or alternatively you can apply publicly via our forums. The information you would need to include is as follows:

– Gamertag
– Experience / Qualifications
– Position applying for
– Why you want the position
– Internet Connection Speeds and NAT Type (for race hosts only)

Last of all we are looking for people to join the media team for roles such as content creators, article writers, photographers, streamers, plus other roles within the Media Team. If this interests you and you have experience, please get in contact with Chris Parker (Fariko Epicus) on the forum. We are always looking for eager community members that can help share their perspective of the action, even if they aren’t participating.

As always, we the staff at TURN are always happy to hear your feedback.

     Chris Parker
     Media Manager