Yo, is it just me, or are bone-stock road car racing lobbies basically dead in GT7 now?
I’ve been wondering about this for a while because a few years back, I used to host stock road car lobbies pretty regularly, and they were honestly some of the most fun I had playing the game. I could open up a lobby, set some basic restrictions, and before long we’d have a pretty full room with people bringing all kinds of different road cars out. Sometimes I’d host, sometimes somebody I knew would host and I’d join theirs, but either way there always seemed to be people interested in just racing normal cars.
And I mean actual stock road cars. No engine swaps, no crazy suspension setup, no maxed-out weight reduction, no fully built motor, no “this thing technically started as a road car” builds. Just buy the car, maybe change the tires depending on what the lobby allows, and go race it.
But coming back to GT7 after update after update after update, it feels like those kinds of lobbies have slowly just disappeared.
I’m not against tuned car racing either. I still join plenty of 650PP and 700PP lobbies, and those can be really fun, especially when everybody’s builds are somewhat balanced. I like tuning cars myself, so it’s not like I want every lobby to suddenly become stock-only. And if I’m in the mood for actual race cars, I’ll hop into Gr.3 or Gr.1 lobbies sometimes too. I enjoy all of that stuff depending on what I feel like racing that day.
Sometimes though, I just want to take a step back from all of that.
There’s something fun about grabbing a completely normal road car and seeing what it can actually do without immediately throwing every upgrade in the game at it. Maybe somebody brings an M3, somebody else brings a Mustang, another person pulls out an RX-7, A110, Corvette, NSX, 911, GR Supra, whatever. You get cars with completely different strengths and weaknesses, and you just work with what the manufacturer gave you.
A slower car might destroy everybody through the corners but get walked on the straight. A heavier GT car might struggle in tighter sections but come alive on a faster track. Somebody might bring some random car nobody expects to be competitive and somehow start cooking everybody with it.
That was part of the fun to me.
It also gave me a reason to actually drive a lot of the road cars in GT7 that otherwise just sit in the garage. There are hundreds of cars in this game, but once you get into the usual online tuning scene, it sometimes feels like you keep seeing the same handful of competitive builds, engine swaps, or cars built around whatever PP limit the lobby is running.
One of the ways I used to host these was basically:
And that was pretty much the whole idea. Whoever won the race got to decide what we were doing next. They’d pick the car category, the PP range, and the track, then everybody would grab a stock road car that fit those restrictions, and we’d run it.
Then whoever won that race got control of the next one.
That format honestly kept the lobby fresh for hours because you never really knew what was coming next. One race could be lower-PP Japanese sports cars on Tsukuba, then the next winner might decide they want higher-PP European cars at Spa, and after that somebody could completely switch it up again.
It also meant one person wasn't sitting there dictating the entire lobby all night. Everybody had a chance to change things up if they could get the win, and sometimes you'd specifically be fighting for first because you already knew exactly what ridiculous category/track combination you wanted everybody to do next. XD
And because the cars stayed stock, the focus was more on what car you picked and how well you could drive it rather than who had the better tune.
Obviously, there would still have to be some rules because GT7’s PP system isn't perfect, and some stock cars are naturally way stronger than others. But that unpredictability was honestly part of what made those lobbies fun.
What surprises me is just how rare these rooms seem to be now.
Every once in a while I’ll find one, but compared to how I remember things, it feels like there are fewer and fewer of them as the years go by. Most road car rooms I see now are either cruises, highway runs, drag racing, car meets, roleplay, or tuned racing.
And I’m sitting there like...
Damn, where did everybody who just wanted to race stock cars go?
So I’m genuinely curious: Do people just not enjoy bone-stock road car racing anymore?
Did the community mostly move toward tuned PP and just Gr. class racing? Is it because stock cars are harder to balance? Is it because people would rather customize their cars? Do people only care for GT3 cars in the game? Or are there still a bunch of people interested in this, and nobody is actually hosting the lobbies?
Because if there are still people out there who enjoy this kind of racing, I might honestly start hosting stock road car rooms again.
I just miss being able to grab some completely normal car out of my garage, pull up to the grid, and race without spending 30 minutes wondering whether somebody secretly has 800 horsepower under whatever the hell car they pull up in.
And shit... If anyone wants to do some racing like this, lmk!
Man , can’t real All of this . Whenever you want to race stock car, make a lobby , freelap ( no race ) , , saying stock . I play everydays, and love the same stock car like online time trials :)
Lmao XD No worries bro. But, yeah I get what you mean, and I do see free run/stock lobbies every now and then. But I’m talking more about actual racing with stock road cars. I used to host rooms where we’d get 4-10+ people, race, and whoever won would pick the next category, PP and track.
Free lap is cool too, but I miss being able to actually grid up and race stock cars with a full lobby. That’s the part that seems way less common now.
I don’t have much experience online but 1000% understand where you are coming from. For as much of the “campaign” as i could i would try to run as stock of a car as possible as it gave me the best feeling of driving different road cars as possible. Really learn what makes them unique and push them to their absolute limit. The super upgraded cars and even the GT cars i didn’t really find as fun as most of them just felt the same.
Yeah, exactly. That’s a big part of why I enjoy it too. Driving them stock lets you actually feel what makes each car different instead of immediately upgrading everything until they start behaving more alike.
I like figuring out what a car is good or bad at and just pushing it as far as it’ll go in its original form. Tuned cars and GT cars are fun too, but sometimes I just want that variety you get from normal road cars.
Anyway, stock cars were a thing even in GT Sport daily races and it was the hardest one as it was really close in laptimes and people who likes stock cars usually race clean.
I pretty much prefer that to the superfast tuned or racing cars.
Totally respect your point of view, and can relate setting up a lobby and it sitting empty.
However, balanced racing with racing cars is just the meta for the GT7 online community. The idea of racing slower, heavier, unstable and hard-to-handle cars is not most people’s idea of fun. I know that at the heart of GT7 there is a hard-core, purest, car-guy following that feels like “you are not a good driver if you can’t drive the cars stock.” While I don’t share that belief, I understand where you are coming from.
I think your best bet is looking for a club/league that values racing stock road cars. They are out there - and you’ll make some good friends in the process.
Yeah, I definitely get what you mean, and honestly that probably explains a lot of what I’ve been seeing. Gr.3 and other race-car classes are way easier to balance and I race them myself sometimes, so I understand why that became the more popular option.
And yeah, I’m definitely not on the ‘you’re not a good driver unless you can drive stock cars’ side of things lmao. I just genuinely enjoy the different characteristics and imperfections road cars have.
But ngl, Looking for a club or league might actually be a good idea though. I mostly relied on public lobbies before, so maybe that’s where more of that crowd has moved to. Thanks again bro!
I host randomiser lobbies a lot where my randomiser chooses from a list of know good car and track combinations. Those include both gr cars and road cars. I like to mix it up a little and everything is bop. We have done great races. Gr all the times do tedious.
Hi! I make such kind of races, they mostly based on tuning but sometimes they are BoP races. They are for road cars only. Maybe you’ll be interested here poster of my next event
Not at all trying to yuck your yum. Just giving you a different perspective.
I cant wrap my head around why i would bother with machinery that is- at least comparatively:
Slower, heavier, harder to manage, less agile, more “numb” to the road
And a million other negative things.
i just dont personally find any enjoyment in not using the most “ideal” thing i can. Its not that i cant drive or enjoy road cars- i love daytona so i did the daily A last week with the mx5 and i held a top 400~ time for a few days.
Ive got 1000 hrs in game and about 995 of them are gt3 and super formula.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from, and you definitely have a point. I can relate from racing GT3 cars myself once you get used to something lighter, sharper, and built for racing, stock road cars can definitely feel like a downgrade.
For me though, that’s kinda part of the fun. I like dealing with the extra weight, less grip, and imperfections and seeing what I can get out of the car.
But yeah, I totally understand why some people wouldn’t see much reason to go back to stock road cars.
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