Hey everyone,

First off, Merry Christmas to those who celebrated it! The team here is grateful to everyone who's supported us and submitted runs over 2022. I personally only joined in June of this year, but in that time so many runs came in and we changed / grew a lot.

With that all being said, that big growth and change taught us a few things, but here's what you can expect to come in very soon as we round off this year and head into 2023 to make speedrunning in FH5 even better:

Full Game Leaderboard Rework:

• Categories are being renamed to reduce confusion.
• Platform separation is coming, as the platform has a massive effect on runs (Load times, etc.)
• Fast Travel / No Fast Travel for all categories and other backend cleanup.
• Rules are being rewritten / tidied to remove any ambiguity present, game-wide, as well as tidy up any grammatical issues.

Board-wide Audit: It has come to our attention, both from changing standards and justified criticism from the community, that some runs being admitted or currently present on the boards do not meet the standard for a valid run. In response to this, I (Sappy) will conducting an audit and validating EVERY RUN as to them meeting the current standard, including altering and adjusting timings where necessary to be accurate to run criteria. Please understand this will take a long time, but eventually all runs will meet the necessary standard for integrity and quality.

Moderation Team: These past couple months have seen runners wait excessively long periods of time before having their runs validated, which is unacceptable. In response, we are seeking out and looking at our moderation team, to ensure that someone is always available in future to check and ensure runs are being validated and kept on top of at all times.

Once again, thank you to everyone who submitted runs and guided us along as we continue to improve our boards, and here's to 2023!

Happy Running! The FH5 Mod Team

Hi all - First off, apologies to everyone who has waited for their runs to be verified. In some cases people have been waiting almost a month and that's unacceptable. I can't speak for any other mods / staff of the boards, but I will personally take the next couple of days to validate and clear the backlog of runs.

That brings us to the next point of Rules. The large quantity and variety of runs has brought some 'holes' in the rules to our attention, so in lieu of the massive influx of runs we are adding / clarifying on the following points:

Classes - You will need to prove your car's class at some point during the run. Whether that is pre-race menus, post-race leaderboards or pausing at any point without edits, runs have come in that do not show the car's Class at any point and as such cannot be verified unfortunately. The rules have been amended to highlight this.

SimHub - SimHub overlays are ALLOWED. This includes HUD Swaps and overlays like Horizon Plus. They do not interface in the game in any way beyond using the baked-in Data Out feature, and thus have been ruled as legal. (Runs with SimHub Overlays that are not identified as being on PC will be rejected however.)

That's all for now - Happy Running! Sappy

The winners are finally in!

After much deliberation and judging within the panel, we have come to our final decisions. Before we get there, we want to preface that all the submissions were top class and deserve a spotlight in their own right, but in the end there could only be two winners.

Your winners are: Mainland: Horizon Super Scramble - Subie156 - 182 142 695 https://www.speedrun.com/forza_horizon_5/level/Horizon_Super_Scramble_MapFest_Winner

Hot Wheels: Hot Wheels Underground Extended - DMFDxGamer - 111 725 383 https://www.speedrun.com/forza_horizon_5/level/Hot_Wheels_Underground_Extended_MapFest_Winner

The pages are available right now for you to start sending your times!

Hey everyone, we are partnering up with Autosport Therapy to bring some user-generated content to the boards and see the creativity of the FH5 community!

Our joint mapping competition will be running for 3 weeks, and submissions will be handled through this Google Form: https://forms.gle/PS3htsSy584GsfUh7

Whether new or old, bring your best to the table, as the best submissions will see themselves permanently added to the boards for all drivers to run and experience your creations. Maps will be judged on drivability, creativity and visuals by a carefully curated judging panel. One submission per map is allowed. (Mainland and Hot Wheels maps respectively - HW tracks in the base map are treated as Mainland)

We also recommend checking out the Autosport Therapy server, as they have a thriving eventlab community: https://discord.gg/rRmevzUBkP

We look forward to seeing your creations - If you have any questions, contact the Mods either here or on our Discord. Happy Mapping!

Hey all,

We have officially implemented all Hot Wheels tracks into the Individual Levels list - These will operate identically in terms of runs to the standard races in the base game.

The other part of this update is to discuss the use of Assists. It's an ongoing topic of discussion currently, and while this may be open to change in the near future and we will update you accordingly, the speedrun boards should be a showcase of a driver's talents, not the AI's - On this basis we have come to the decision that the following assists will be BANNED from use:

STEERING > Auto-Steering: Not only is it much slower than steering manually, but the game is practically playing itself at that stage. That's not the kind of content we come to Speedrun.com for, so we have elected to ban it's use. STEERING > Assisted: To that extent, we want to assure that all runs are the product of the player's skill, so Assisted steering is also being ruled out. BRAKING > Assisted: See above.

To clarify, Steering is now restricted to Normal or Simulation, with Braking being set to ABS On or Off. We will continue to update as the discussions continue and other assists are evaluated.

Happy Running! Sappy

Hi again all,

Sappy here once again - We can say that the overhaul of the boards is officially complete!

You will see that runs are now divided into two distinct categories - Standard Race and Rivals. These should be self explanatory - Races are for the standard Forza layout and length with AI, and Rivals for the time trial mode respectively. Classes have now been moved to a subcategory within these two, so overall the site is much cleaner and more organised, and should be a much better experience overall. Be sure to specify the correct Car Class when submitting your run.

I would also like to take this time to say that some rules have been changed, as well as give some clarity on key rule changes and explain the approach going forward: (Note: I will be exclusively talking about the Single Track levels, while some changes carry over be sure to read the rules of your specific category.

REPLAYS HAVE BEEN BANNED AS A FORM OF PROOF - Replays hide that rewinds have been used during a run, as well as key timing data needed to validate runs, so for those reasons Replays are being banned outright as proof.

NO REWINDS - Anyone can get a WR if they Rewind every turn 50 times to get it 'just right', which really isn't representative of any true skill. That and for making the validation process much more difficult, runs with Rewinds will be immediately rejected.

Those are the key notes - You may see some minor wording changes to other category rules, as well as tweaks for consistency, but for now the major changes are all done! If your run is not displaying on the leaderboards, or you find a run that is not consistent with our new rules, let us know.

Happy Racing!

Hi All,

First off, newest Mod Sappy here! A pleasure to meet you all, in case you're wondering who I am I have a big hand in running the competitive community in FH5.

You may notice your runs aren't appearing in their respective categories, or are appearing in X Class. This is no mistake, as we are currently undergoing a massive overhaul to make the boards much cleaner and easier to navigate, as well as introduce some new categories and update old ones. Eventually all single-race boards will have their Class categories replaced with a 'Dirty' and 'Clean' leaderboard, and classes switched to a sub-category. This will allow for expansion as well as tightening up the rules on allowed / disallowed runs and using mechanics such as Rivals.

But, that's all that can be said for now. You'll have to see once it's done.

If your runs are still missing from the boards, please edit your runs so the "Class" variable is correct to the run you posted. If that still doesn't work, let us know.

Happy racing!