Forza 3 players have driven over 1.1 billion miles on Live

If you'd been wondering whether or not Forza 3 was "working," you can stop: game director Dan Greenawalt has given VG247 some staggering stats on just how heavily the 360 racer's being used.

"Our community has driven well over 126 million races on Xbox LIVE, totaling over 13 million man-hours of time spent playing the game online," said the exec, speaking in an interview to be published later today.

"They drove over 1.1 billion miles in online races, which is more than five return trips from the earth to the sun. So yeah, we have a community that’s deeply engaged with the game."

The figures were compiled "a few weeks ago," Greenawalt said, "so they’re not the most recent server stats, but it gives you an idea the kind of momentum we’ve had nearly 90 days post-release."

And if Forza 3's actual play stats aren't baffling enough, check out its auction figures.

"We’ve had over 8 million auction bids placed online, with over 3.3 million auctions created," Greenawalt added.

"Our community has purchased or downloaded nearly 10 million Storefront items."

Forza 3 released in late October last year to universal acclaim.

We'll have the full chat with Dan up for you this afternoon.