Hey everyone, Che here. Those of you who have been around the track with me a few times in the Forza community know the routine:  Every Friday I write a bunch of words updating hundreds of thousands of you (I’m not exaggerating!) regarding the goings-on here at Turn 10 and within the Forza Motorsport game du jour. This March marks my 4 year anniversary as community manager here at Turn 10 and it’s been a fantastic 4 years of Friday Pitpass Reports. As I continue to search for Turn 10’s next community manager to help me run our passionate and creative society of gamers here at Forzamotorsport.net, I’m going to start handing over weekly Pitpass Report penning duties to young Jube, whom many of you already know from the forums. So his first Pitpass is below. I’m watching over his shoulder. I’m feeding him info and topics he should talk about. We’ll see how this goes…

Hi guys, Jube here in my first Pitpass report! I can’t believe it has been 2 weeks already, they have absolutely flown by. The Turn 10 studio is such a unique place to work at, how special this place is hits you really fast. There aren’t many work places where you can sit down to lunch next to a triple screen cockpit, let alone the monster one from E3. Over the past 10 days, Che and Fred have been working with me to show me the ropes and help me get settled in my new role. There is always going on here and March is no exception, it really is shaping up to be exciting month here at Turn 10. We have the upcoming car DLC ready to hit the marketplace on March 9th, and the VIP car battles have been more exciting than ever.  The first Jalopnik pack in (set of 2) will hit the Xbox Live Marketplace on Tuesday for 400 Microsoft points. The car pack will feature a collection of 10 cars from around the planet and as I hinted earlier in the week, this month’s car pack is going to be an awesome one. Some of the cars you may be familiar with, and some you will discover for the first time, from the #40 Robertson Racing Ford GT, to the 92 Bugatti EB110SS, it’s going to be very hard to decide what to drive first. Me, well personally I’m going straight for the Mazda Furai. I love cars that look like a designer was set loose on it with very few restrictions and the Furai is definitely one of those vehicles. Click here to see all of the vehicles in the Jalopnik car pack DLC.

Image by KTLR - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

In preparation for the March car pack we did another set of spy shot reveals this month. We teamed up with Jalopnik again to hold a contest that lead up to today’s reveal. You know the drill, we take shots of a certain section of one of the DLC cars and make it as difficult as we can. Then you guys somehow manage to figure them out each and every time, never fails to impress me. Next time we’ll have to really ramp up the difficulty by just taking pictures of the keyholes!  Each day we revealed a spy shot of the mystery DLC, 10 photos over the course of the week which prompted a lot of excitement and discussion over the identity of the car in each photograph. On Monday one image was shown of the Mazda Furai with three more images shown on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. First place winners will receive a copy of Forza Motorsport 3 along with a copy of the Car pack, and Second and Third place winners will receive a copy of the Jalopnik Car pack. How close some of the guesses were really impressed me so great job on that guys and thanks for participating in the discussion on the boards. It was really fun to participate in that thread and see the theories evolve over the course of the week.

It was covered in an FM.net article on Tuesday but in case you missed it we released four game Add-ons on the marketplace. Each pack is available on the marketplace now and features the VIP pack for 800 points, the “Sidewinder Proving Grounds Track Pack” and the “Benchmark High Speed Ring Track Pack” for 400 points each and the “Motorsport Legends Car Pack” for 400 points. Turn 10 is calling on all racers, tuners and artists to assist in the global relief effort for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. For every purchase of the “VIP Membership Car Pack” during the month of March, Turn 10 pledges to donate $10 to Save the Children up to $100,000.

For more information on the Haiti Relief effort, visit http://www.savethechildren.org/ .

(IMPORTANT NOTE: VIP Membership are available for FREE with an Xbox LIVE token included in new Limited Collector’s Edition copies of “Forza Motorsport 3. The car pack and two DLC tracks are available with new copies of the Collector’s Edition and Standard Edition”)

Image by Manual Clutch - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

I was really excited about the new VIP only Time Trial that kicked off last week. The time trial is for a new Xbox Live game from Microsoft Games and Signal Studios: Toy Soldiers. Toy Soldiers is a unique take on strategy/Tower defense genre that has you in control of your army as you protect your toy box from the enemy troops. The second it was off, our time attackers took to the leaderboard in the Ford Falcon Vodafone to try and put up a time solid enough to hold on a top 5 finish. Daveyskills took it right to the competition putting up a top time that remained untouched for four days. It was a blast seeing the top ten fight back and forth for position to try to secure a copy of the game. The top 5 times win a copy of Toy Soldiers for the Xbox 360 but if you didn’t place don’t give up we will be doing a random draw on 5 copies of the game. Thanks so much to everyone that participated in both the time trials and the discussion thread, if you picked up Toy Soldiers look for me online and my airplane rush!

And the winners are! (send me a PM on the forums to redeem your prize)

Top Time Trial Times:
1. GSR D4rK Sp33D
2. Daveyskills
3. TRC Scooty
4. F4H Fullspe3D
5. GSR Cybertron

Winners of the random raffle
II Ric3y II
Jujub38
Stage One204
X skyshadow5 X
Huachipato


Also, no new info on the title update this week, but I can say it is coming along and hopefully by the next Pitpass we'll have the final details/patch notes for you guys to look over (including the final hopper additions). The patch is being tested and will be submitted to certification soon. Also, thanks for all of your feedback on the storefront cap prices via the message boards and twitter. We’ve decided to keep the storefront prices the same for the time being.

Image by Chron0sZer0 - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

Takata and their driver James Elterman hosted a sequel to a competition they ran during Forza Motorsport 2 in which one skilled painter (Ag Drizzle) had his artwork brought to life. This is a dream for any painter, there is nothing like seeing something you create materialize especially into something as awesome as a time attack car.  The winner of Takata 2.0 will be announced via Youtube so be sure to check out James Elterman’s discussion thread to see what painter's vision will be realized.

To end the week on a fun note, the Geneva Auto Show opened its doors to the public yesterday showcasing some out of this world concept cars along with an incredible looking Porsche Hybrid that boasts 78 MPG and 500 horsepower, don’t ask me how that’s possible (seriously don’t, I couldn’t tell you) but that’s pretty awesome none the less. For up to date info on the Geneva Auto Show check out Jalopniks coverage of the show. Would you like to see any of these cars in Forza 3? Let us know in the comments section!

This week in the Forza Community

Featured Video: FM3 BDD's Rise of the 9


Week 10 - Saab on Maple Valley

What: Official Turn 10 Featured Time Trial Challenge

When: Now until Friday March 12th at 12:00PM PST

Where: Time Trials in Forza Motorsport 3.

Track and Car: Maple Valley Reverse – 2008 Saab 9-3 Turbo X

How: Navigate to the “Leaderboards” menu and scroll down to “Time Trial”. Scroll down to Saab on Maple Valley and “Press A to Start Race” at the top of the leaderboard. Set your best possible lap time! 

Image by ID Lizard - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

Forza Pro League: M251Speed is looking to start an ambitious new racing league. This will be a no assist league that will be running Stock Car, ILMS, FDTM, V8 Supercars and much more. Currently there are still spots available in all series, if you would like to get involved in some no assist racing check out the details on this new series here.

Lost Community Colab: After recently becoming hooked on the show “Lost”, Steve Sq has decided to put together another community collaboration project with a “Lost” theme. Steve’s past community contests have been a huge success so we should expect to see some amazing artwork produced for this new collaboration. If you want to offer your painting skills or would like to follow along with the project, you can find all the details here.

Painters World Series Voting: The voting thread for Round Two of the Painters World Series is now open and will run till March 10th.  This is an open community vote, all you have to do is post your top 5 picks in sequential order in this thread. Points are awarded for each place and then tallied at the conclusion of the community vote.

Image by Me monkey 8 me - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

FM3 Drift Documentary: SCS Pat has suggested creating a FM3 Drift Documentary that will be showcase the drifting community in Forza 3. SCS Pat is looking for both input into the creative message and help in creating the cuts to be used in the video. If you would like to contribute ideas or offer your assistance in creating the video, you can post your suggestions here.

Show Car Photo Comp: Brad O Shizno has moved over into the photo section this past week to hold a photo competition. The Show Car Photo comp, according to Shizno, is about big wheels, simple paints and custom colors. The competition closes on March 17th so check out the official thread for all the entry details.

Our last announcement of the weekly update is sure to break the hearts of all the women in our community. TRC Solo, one of our longest running moderators has officially given up his life as a single man. Congratulations on your marriage and we wish you both the very best for you future together.