FH4/5, the trial

No, not that one; not yet.

After the 1953 Corvette got mentioned a few times in connection with recent events in FH5, I thought I’d turn my attention to this car. From FH4 I know it’s nothing outstanding, but it is a fairly solid performer. Instead, in FH5, it vexed the tits off me.

I tried it in D class, the drivatars mocked my efforts. C class, same again. I skipped to A class, and, er…

This morning I went through the same process in FH4. In D-B class races, the Corvette was constantly pestered by the drivatars. The one thing I didn’t alter was the drivetrain, keeping it RWD throughout. In A class (sans aero), the same thing happened again. The drivatars made nuisances of themselves, never being more than a second or so behind me. And then I tried A class (avec aero) and I romped off into the distance. I had to do some fiddling with the car, mostly adjustments to the weight, to get it to A800, but it only worked once I’d added all the herbs and spices.

This afternoon, it was back to Mexico to try the car again, but this time A class with aero. It worked this time, although not as well as it does in FH4.

And FH5 The Trial.

I don’t normally bother with the Trial because it’s always sounded vexatious – impossible drivatars and impossible players. But as the first series car, the Deberti Mustang, was only a few points away, I thought I’d give it a go as reports from the forums were suggesting that it wasn’t that difficult.

The Chevrolet Impala seemed to be a good choice, and under the right circumstances, it can be, but it offers too little PI to play with, and I ended up with a C600 built on stock tyres. I left the Baja Festival site, drove up the road, and the car spun at the first corner. I wasn’t surprised. The car’s an absolute barge (1,700kg) and there’s not much scope to do anything with it. It’s got plenty of power, but you need to be able to build it into A class or higher to get the best out of it.

My second choice was the Chevrolet Bel Air. As this starts in D class, it’s possible to slap on slick tyres, although in the end, I had to have different rim sizes front and rear to keep it in C class. Build done. Result – surprisingly good. Not the fastest car (theoretical max. speed 185kmh), but even RWD, this had so much grip that I was able to take corners a gear higher than usual.

My third choice, and I did test it, was the Ford Five-Window, which also starts in D class. It’s one of those cars where even the widest tyres are narrow, but like the Bel Air, the build was better than I was expecting. Same sort of theoretical top speed as the Bel Air, but a lower PWR, which is why I preferred the preceding car.

And it was off to the Trial in the Bel Air, which turned out to be quite popular among the players. I was on the front of the player grid (which helps) and made my little contribution to the overall victory. Special mention goes to the player who kept driving into barriers instead of turning corners. They had a faster car than my build, but I kept overtaking them on corners. I lagged behind the drivatars in Descansar Dorado, but overtook the two ahead of me near the end of the race to come 4th. Trial done, which got me the Deberti Mustang and some dreary VW Golf that I must delete from my garage sometime.