Racing lovers have October 11, 2011, marked on their calendars as Forza Motorsport 4 comes roaring onto the track. At Gamescom 2011, Forza designers revealed two famous tracks and the painstaking steps they took to make them reality.

The Top Gear test track from the popular TV show is in the game. On TV, it’s the playground for real race car drivers or celebrities famous enough to rub elbows with them. Now you’ll be able to take cars ranging from the Kia Cee’d to the Lamborghini Gallardo for a spin in amazing detail.

Need for Speed is one of the biggest franchises in racing, and EA is now splitting it into different branches. Need for Speed:The Run is the racer’s latest installment, and the plot features a cross-country race from San Francisco to New York. You’ll be battling other racers and a mysterious force that will use any means at its disposal to stop you from getting to the Big Apple. This sounds like EA’s answer to Cannonball Run. The Autolog feature from NFS:Hot Pursuit returns, and will again show you just how much faster somebody on your friends list is than you. It sounds like you’ll be racing not only against the game, but your friends to make it to New York first.

Driver: San Francisco, a rather unconventional game in the racing series, is now scheduled for a September 2011 release date, according to Ubisoft.

This one was confirmed to exist at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show and has seen a few delays along the way. The last reported release date was March 2011 and that was a reschedule from the fourth quarter of 2010. So, it’s probably not necessary to plop down your cash for a preorder just yet.

NASCAR’s popularity is huge, but so far that hasn’t translated into sales for games based on the sport. EA was the last company to make NASCAR games but let the license lapse in 2009 after disappointing sales. Activision has announced it will partner with developer Eutechnyx for NASCAR The Game 2011. You can create yourself as a driver or choose from a stable of real life racing stars. AI versions of real drivers will be programmed with their respective racing styles.

At EA’s GamesCom 2010 press event, more details about Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit became available.

As is becoming the industry standard with highly anticipated titles, Hot Pursuit will have a limited edition version. Unlike most limited editions, this one will cost the same as regular versions.

Three new racing games got lapped by their competition on the May retail track, according to the latest NPD numbers. Sony’s ModNation Racers, Disney Interactive’s Split Second and Activision’s Blur all met with cool receptions, ModNation not making Top 15 while the other two racers didn’t even crack the Top 30.

The multiplayer demo for Activision’s upcoming racing title Blur is now available on Xbox Live, allowing players to race all the way to a level cap of 15. Yup, that’s a level cap.

It’s no coincidence that along with arcade racing moves perfected by Mario Kart, Blur borrows heavily from the Modern Warfare games, Activision’s reigning cash cow.

Your racer gains fans (basically experience) from your on-track performance that unlock new cars and upgrades. Just as in Modern Warfare games, there are challenges to complete that unlock more goodies. You can even preset a loadout that will determine how you use your power-ups, another convention from the world of first-person shooters.

One of the sleeper titles Gamertell encountered at Consumer Electronics Show 2010 was arcade style racer Split Second. The destructible environments aren’t just part of the course, they alter the course.

Disney Interactive is burning up the Xbox showroom floor with Split Second, a racer that is poised to provide a unique take on a well-represented genre. As with many arcade style racers, Split Second allows you to fill a power meter by racing aggressively. The moves you can unleash though, go a little further than typical racing powerups such as “go really fast” or “make your car do something acrobatic.”