It's been an insanely hectic day. I just looked up from my pile of stuff to do and noticed it was well-past 6pm. Yikes. Sorry for the late blog entry today, but that's how it is around here I guess. As you can guess, we're putting the final touches on our DLC promo video that will go live tomorrow morning on Gametrailers.com (and remain exclusive there for a day before we put it on our own site). That is, if everything goes according to plan -- heck, the way stuff has been catching on fire lately, I wouldn't be surprised if something ends up derailed and awry. Landin and I are pretty happy with how the video turned out, and like someone said on the forum, it'll be just like a BLKJ video without the drifting and with much better production values.
In other news: NASCAR driver Robby Gordon is coming into Turn 10 tomorrow to check out the December car pack DLC. Okay, so he's not really in town to play Forza, but we've got him coming by the studio for an hour to check out our triple-screen setup here so it should be fun.
And in the spirit of fun, one of our design researchers, Ryan Williams, has a little story to tell regarding his first encounter with Mr. Gordon when he was just a little junior high kid. I'll let Ryan tell it in his own words...
Meeting Robby
By: Ryan Williams
From about 5th grade until I graduated from High School my father and I would hit up 5-6 car races a year. Formula 1, CART, Trans Am, American Le Mans Series we were game for anything, as long as it wasn’t NASCAR©! Our racing season would always begin in the middle of April, on the streets of Long Beach, California.
The event originally started as the United States Grand Prix in the mid seventies, eventually converting to the CART race it is today. In the center of the racetrack is the Long Beach Hyatt hotel, where most of the teams and drivers stay for the race weekend. Rooms go very quickly and reservations are very difficult to get for spectators, not to mention expensive.
At any rate for the 1995 or 1996 event, can’t remember exactly, we finally managed to get a room in the Hyatt. The timing was great as those were the “Golden Years” of CART, when it rivaled F1. The turbocharged V8’s were producing in excess of 800hp and were piloted by a highly talented field: Alex Zanardi, Jimmy Vasser, Greg Moore, Gil de Ferran, Dario Franchitti and Michael Andretti to name a few.
In the lobby of the hotel a couple side-by-side arcade racers were set up for fans and hotel guests, think it was Off-Road Challenge and Cruisin’ USA but I am not positive. So like most 14 year old males I was down in the lobby playing racing games all evening. After a couple of solo races a guy, who turned out to be Robbie Gordon (who was driving in the Grand Prix) sat down next to me and wanted to race!
Accompanying Robbie was Alex Gurney (son of the legendary Dan Gurney) and Robbie’s girlfriend or wife…more on her later. It quickly became apparent that Robbie loved racing games and was as competitive in the arcade as he was on track! For the next couple hours Robbie and Alex raced one another and many fans, great fun was had by all. Both Robbie and Alex couldn’t have been nicer and it seemed like they truly had time for everyone. For those of you who haven’t met professional race car drivers, especially successful ones like Robbie and Alex, more often than not they aren’t exactly the *nicest* people in the world. So it was a real breath of fresh air to meet a couple cool dudes like Robbie and Alex, and it certainly left a lasting impression on me.
Oh yeah and Robbie’s wife/girlfriend…she was standing next to the arcade holding his helmet, obviously not too thrilled about video games. After about 30 minutes of pacing she was getting pretty pissed off and by time Robbie was done racing it was clear that he was probably sleeping on the couch that night! Not even professional race car drivers can escape the dreaded girlfriend aggro….