FH5, Series 26, Week 2

“I say, chaps, I’ve got a frightfully stupid idea.”

The stupid ideas started with the weekly, which forced you to do the Vocho Story to unlock the VW Beetle. So, good luck if you had and then thought to sell the car which, I suspect, is rare in the AH. You then had to hope you hadn’t bought every part in sight already because you’d be unable to spend CR25,000 upgrading the car. I used an engine swap because I don’t normally bother with such things.

Take a photo at night. Night has been needlessly extended in the game, but, of course, it had to be dawn when I attempted this. Fortunately, the time of day can be changed in the photo settings, which means they have some use.

The collectibles were easily sorted. Well, destroyed.

Eventlab (1). Self-Sabotage, Vehicular Therapy. A circuit race in the Porsche Macan Rally Raid for an annoying, pointless phrase. Some annoying turns and an irritating narrow section, but not terrible.

Eventlab (2). Del Mar City. D500 Lotus Elan (which is my sort of default D500 car for road races). I got a two-thirds good SWS.

I one-shotted all the PR stunts in my ever-reliable Renault 5 Turbo, although I cheesed the speed trap by using the hill outside Mulegé for a speed boost, and the drift zone was entirely awful. One SWS was two-thirds good, and the other two were one-third good.

We had to have a Street Scene seasonal, Natural Habitat, didn’t we? I chose the Dodge Magnum, which apart being understeery, put in a creditable performance.

I went for a RWD Lotus Elan for Pocket Pandemonium, but on reflection wonder whether the Abarth 595 might’ve been a better choice. The conditions were slippery and the car struggled to take corners without losing grip. A decent reward, the Mégane R26.R, and a rather good wheel spin after the final race.

But then it was time for another stupid suggestion, Escaping the Heat. D’you know what a really good idea would be? Super hot hatches in cross country races. I selected the 2010 VW Golf R, but wonder whether a Ford Focus might’ve been a better choice. The races were as annoying as you might predict when you’re forced to drive cars in races where they don’t belong. The reward was a 2017 Nissan GT-R, which makes so much sense after a cross country race.

I also one-shotted the HW PR stunt, but got an absolutely rubbish SWS.

Slip and Slide. A800 BMW. Which one? Who knows? (Not the 2023 BMW M2.) I started with the M3 GTR on rally tyres because of the wet conditions, but those tyres were possibly a mistake because I struggled to win. I then switched to the Z4 for part of a race, but that was never going to win, and so I tried the 1M, which was the official drivatar cheatmobile. Yes, I won; no, I didn’t win convincingly.

The Sierra Nueva PR stunt took a couple of goes. I somehow ended up wobbling on my first approach to the speed trap.

For the seasonal, You’re doing super, sport, I picked the 1969 Chevrolet Nova (from a suggestion on the forums). Since it was C600, I left it RWD, although may have been creating more problems for myself because these races had to include the twistiest (i.e., most irritating) races in Sierra Nueva in the wet. I managed to keep the car from spinning, but all my grip was wider tyres. The car had the speed, which it could only occasionally use.

And finally, the Trial. “You have been disconnected… You have been disconnected… You have been disconnected…” Joining session… “You have been disconnected… You have been disconnected… You have been disconnected…” [I think readers get the idea. –ed.] I was going to use my Renault 5 Turbo, but I chickened out and chose my B-class Audi Quattro, which was a more powerful car. This was, I think, a mistake because as I realised at the start of the first race, it was probably built for road racing from a recent seasonal championship.

Eventually, I managed to join a session, but after blasting past the drivatars at the start of Montaña, the player in first vanished, leaving me in the lead, with an irate drivatar persistently gnawing at my rear bumper. We lost the race because my teammates in AMG Hammers couldn’t make any progress. In the Baja California race, I got into second place after the Tristan drivatar, and my teammates managed to overhaul a sufficient number of drivatars to give us the win.

The third race, Cordillera, started much the same as the second, with me in last place, zipping between my teammates and passing all the drivatars apart from Tristan. I had a glance at the running order, seeing that my teammates were both at the back of the field. This didn’t bode well. And then they vanished for which I’m grateful because I’ve heard stories about lagging players dragging their whole team down when they ought to have quit the event. I kept second place and took victory.

But the bad ideas manifested themselves in the Meyers Manx 2.0 which on top of being an EV, appears to have nothing else to recommend it.