FH5, Series 21, Week 3
The treasure hunt was another round of find the start of the pathfinder. For example, the clue said, “Go to Playa Tranquila”. I did, and there were the three balloons marking the end of the course. That meant doing the whole thing backwards to find the starting point. The second pathfinder in Ek’ Balam was confusing because the course seemed to go to the right when after a period of bafflement on my part, it wanted you to go to the left. It also didn’t help where the red balloons vanished from sight because of the terrain furniture impeding the view. In the third event I more or less headed straight for the finish.
I like the BMW X5M and the weekly challenge was easily done.
For the photo challenge, the trick seemed to be to look for a dirty yellow balloon once you managed to spot the hard-to-read Lago Blanco and thus identify where the camera equipment was to be found.
The location of the collectables was about as precise as claiming that pi has a value of 4. I explored quite a way from the Baja California circuit and found some of the gerbils (?) beyond the bounds where I expected them to be. I ended up circling rocks, and finished this tiresome, grindy task by finding the last one between some rocks.
The Eventlab tile worked first time this week. It hasn’t done that in ages. My machine of choice was one of those Extreme E barges, and I thought the props round the circuit were well used. The reward was a car to help me develop my deletion skills. No, of course I don’t want yet another tedious old banger in my garage. I am a tedious old banger.
I somehow managed to PB the speed zone in my Hoonigan RS200, and the trailblazer in the same. I got a decent SWS out of it.
Horizon Tour is where the pain started. It seems that because the Eventlab tile worked, something else had to be broken. It was a bit of a struggle to get Horizon Tour to even co-operate. On my first attempt, I came third round Panorámica. And then got kicked back to the main map. I did a fairly miserable Reservorio (which I loathe) in some awful, untuned, RWD 1950s Ferrari. Kicked back to the main map. And this happened five times before I decided to give up on Horizon Tour.
Let’s fast forward to today, and not only was Horizon Tour working, I managed two seconds and a first because the lobby wasn’t full of cheaters, although I managed to lap a human who was showing considerable incompetence.
I completed the Horizon Open custom race, but only survived one race before I was sent scurrying back to the main map. Whatever was affecting Tour racing was also buggering up Open racing. Didn’t matter as I got my Brownie points.
For Tropic like it’s hot, I went for the Willys Jeep which was a sound, manoeuvrable choice until Restos when some CJ5 strapped on its jet-powered roller skates and passed me as if I wasn’t there. I did manage to defeat it, but I don’t recall the reward being worth it.
The Renault Turbo 5, and old favourite from FH4, should’ve knocked it out in Ramble Scramble, but came up against an XPeng that was the most rally car ever. Some Chinese EV vs. a nimble hot hatch? Oh, silly boy that I am. This is Horizon where participants can drive anything they like and the cars that ought to be absolute rubbish in dirt or cross country racing are the best.
Off to the Hot Wheels theme park. Somehow I PB’ed the danger sign.
The Chosen One was another round of cheating drivatars in ridiculous races for a prize that I wouldn’t wipe my arse with. I opted for the FE Exocet since it was ready to go. Well, ready to go in some race. The first event was that one with the sleeping policeman in which you may as well use a road-specced car for all the difference the bumps make. The other two races were better, but the prize – well, you know what I wouldn’t do with it.
I also managed to PB the danger sign in Sierra Nueva. It was that annoying jump in which hitting a tree, no matter how frangible it may be, is an insta-fail.
Part of me died when I saw the Rally Adventure seasonal, Letting off Steam – D500 Buggies. What is wrong with PGG? Do they think these underpowered, roly-poly things are fun to race? Are VW sponsoring such seasonals? I knew from experience that the car needed to be RWD with max. engine or I wouldn’t have a chance. It variously spun out (when I wasn’t expecting it) or fell over on the slightest bumps (partly my fault as the ARBs were set too soft; and the ride height could’ve been lowered).
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