After weeks of attempting, I finally qualified for my first official tournament in Forza Motorsport 2 last night. Twice in fact, as I made it into the top 192 on the two B class tournaments that are running today. I just ran my first-round race about an hour ago and came in second. Qualifying was an agonizing process of turning tons of laps and spending a lot of time experimenting with tuning setups. On the other hand, coming in second place during the race among drivers--a couple of whom were quite clearly faster than me--was simply a matter of following my #1 rule when playing Forza 2 (or any highly realistic console driving sim for that matter):

　　Start at the back.

　　Really. That's all there is to it. Start at or near the back of the pack and wait for the nearly inevitable first- or second-turn disaster.

　　For the tournament race, my car's performance index was slightly lower than everyone else, ensuring that I started in last place.With our cars and abilties on a more or less equal playing field, it was simply a matter of time before someone touched bumpers and cars went flying. In this particular race, the accident occured on the second turn and, after dodging the pileup, I cruised to an easy second-place finish. In my experience, starting in the rear of the pack and playing it conservative in the beginning is a near-surefire path to success in Forza 2. Naturally, as the level of your competition increases, the rule's effectiveness begins to taper off, as skilled players know how to run different lines into turns without causing chaos. Still, in a good chunk of the online races you'll run in Forza 2, starting from the back is a great strategy. Races aren't won in the first turn but they can be ruined. As long as you are set up to take advantage of other folks' mistakes, you'll increase your chances of victory.