FH5, Series 24, Week 3

Smash his legs into jam with red-hot sledgehammers.

Spread the paste on sun-baked camel turds buttered with rancid hyena shit.

Make him eat those delicious sandwiches.

The Festival painlist [sic!] can annoy me, and then there’s this week’s offering which descended into a chasm of immeasurable frustration that brought me close to being physically sick.

The treasure hunt was straightforward. Quick danger sign in the Stratos and I got my loot.

The weekly in the Fiat 124 Spider was all right apart from the game not telling me that I’d completed tasks.

The Eventlab tiles were working this week. I didn’t see any flying pigs, but can’t always be looking out of my window.

Av. Paradise: Circuito Callejero was an urban version of Sierra Nueva, being a tiresome amount of start-stop-start-stop. I kept understeering at the same hairpin and can only be grateful that we only had to do two laps of this thing for another 458 Italia. (I like the car and am not complaining.)

Pipeline Stadium Circuit (Night) was Sierra Nueva in the stadium. Ugh! Rubbish SWS.

The reward for the photo challenge was another ridiculous American hat. Why do people wear these things? Unless you’re an American, you’re going to look like a total dickhead.

I got excellent SWSs from the danger sign and the speed trap. I managed to do the drift zone in the Ferrari Portofino (with the top down; what a daring boy I am). The SWS was three shrugs. I mean, cars. I shrugged.

I did Horizon Open. Missed a checkpoint in Dunas Blancas to avoid the risk of contact with another player, but came third in the Horizon Festival Circuit and the Riviera Sprint to place me third equal at the end of the race.

I did the Trial next. The Urus seemed to be a bit better choice than the Levante. I came first round Caldera, but I was at the front of the grid at the start of the race. I managed a third in Barranca, which awarded me another Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

And this is where I started to hate the Festival painlist.

Country Run was an nightmare. Who thought making us drive a Lancia Stratos with almost no scope for upgrades (and certainly none that you’d want) in cross country races was a good idea? But it didn’t stop with the despoliation of a decent car in inappropriate races. No, the seasonal had to include some of the most loathsome cross-country courses in the game. I absolute hate the Festival cross-country race because of the river where I get slowed to an utter crawl while the drivatars barrel past as if there’s nothing there. And if that wretched excretion from a Doom mancubus was bad enough, we were also forced to do Copper Canyon, which is awful enough in proper off-road vehicles, and ten times more awful in a car that shouldn’t be used in such races. I don’t even know what the reward was.

And then there was Bulls on Parade. Lamborghinis. I thought this ought to have been all right. My Huracán was ready to go. First race, Reservorio. I hate it so much that I won’t even do it voluntarily. It’s stressful and about as fun as buggering yourself with porcupine quills. That’s not the worst because then there was Panorámica, which was like being given an enema of molten lead first before being buggered with porcupine quills coated in more rancid hyena shit. It seemed that the car to use was the Diablo GTR. This and restarting the race or quitting the race and restarting it because the game seemed to constantly recruit some unbeatable drivatar to shit acid turds into your face. The reward was another Huracán Performante.

The F40 Competizione nailed the HW PR stunt. The SWS was rubbish.

Fire and Ice was another HW seasonal with hazard races. I started and instantly abandoned the Lancia Delta S4 in favour of the Enzo Ferrari. In the third race, I went back to the Lancia as a better choice for racing off road. What happened? I came second to a Ferrari Enzo. The reward was a bog-standard Aventador.

And then it was off to Sierra Nueva. Once again, why don’t PGG just tell us exactly which car to use  for the PR stunt because, I suspect, they meant for us to use the Lamborghini Diablo SV. Long run-up and it has the speed to complete the task. There’s a risk of front flipping, but I was lucky.

For the first two races of Dune Dash, I used the Audi Sport Quattro. Dirt racing, use the right sort of car for the job. But these were FFA races which meant drivatars in cars that shouldn’t be in dirt races. For example, I was pestered by a Veloster in the first race. I switched to the Scirocco for the last race because I thought it was a road race. Instead it was mixed, but I survived and got my reward – another sodding pointless emote.

This seasonal was like Horizon Open races which seem to be populated by clowns in the wrong sort of cars in races where they ought not to be allowed.

The rest of the week will be limited to the dailies. I have the Abarth 131, which I like very much, and the Alfa Romeo 8C (also much liked), but I hate Horizon 5 so much right now that I want as little to do with it as possible.