Getting the best or Rivals Mode

Rivals mode: it's hot laps on steroids and totally addictive. And by far the best way to improve your lap times on track without the distraction of the public lobbys or driving with the dumb AI. How do you get the best out of it? You do not have to use the stock car they provide you.
If a certian car allows for tuning, then you can buy the car, keep it stock but tune it to that particular track, save the tune on the car, and then select it from you garage before you race. If a car doesn't allow tuning, you can still adjust the tire pressure at least. There is no need to race with the standard car and out-of-the-box tune they give you. On some of the rivals events, it allows you to have totally different cars, as long as they meet the race requirements everything is sweet.

Great advice, a perfect way to shave away the seconds. Also really useful for improving the clubs times. Set the clubs best lap time as your rival, try and scrape past the line with a few milliseconds to your name and it's a win/win - you get some handy credits and the club gets an improved time overall!

For the gents and ladies that don't have a lot of money. I actually used Rivals mode to make my first fortune...

Get into the top 2500ish in lap times and you will start to pull in a couple hundred thousand dollars each time you beat your rival. Don't try and smash your rival, just beat them by a couple hundredths of a second (put the breaks on to slow yourself down if you have to). Once you beat them, end the race, collect the money and then select the next rival in the list. Don't let Forza select for you, if you are ranked 2500, choose rival position 2499 to race against.

Rinse and Repeat and your sure to earn your first fortune in a non-grinding way.

^ that. Can be a huge money spinner if you're careful about the times you pull - either 100,000 or 150,000 a pop.

Great ideas guys. But most newbies , like me, wouldn't be able to crack those top times. Most of the time I'm in the top 2-3% on leaderboards and I don't think I've ever cracked a top 1000 in any of them, most rivals I face have a payout of 25k.