FH5, Series 28, Week 2

The pain and the grind.

I started with the weekly in the BAC Mono which went well.

The photo was a repeat screening of the cave that’s roughly SSE of Ek’ Balam.

Eventab (1). Laderas GP. Another good circuit. Didn’t quite have the polish of Pie de Volcán, but was an excellent choice.

Eventlab (2). Ninja Marv Muddy Mangos. Silly name, but a decent enough rally circuit with some awkward corners. Rubbish SWS. Absolute donkey turd.

Eventlab (3). GP Goyta Full. What in the name of the Forza gods was this sodding ridiculous thing?! The moment I saw S2-class extreme track toys, I knew that I was going to loathe it and I did. I assume that it’s a track where the kiddies can slam into each other, knock each other out of checkpoints, and vote each other capital fellows for being enormous plonkers. Not fun. And the prize was some ridiculous clothing, thus confirming my supposition of the target audience.

I one-shotted the speed trap in the Nova, and then spent half an hour or so building and rebuilding the 2017 Ford Focus as I attempted to do that effing awful speed zone. No idea how I did it. I think the Forza gods smirked graciously. The SWS was one-third good. The car seems to be one of those where there’s always some component missing and you can never quite build it in a way that’s entirely satisfactory. [16th Dec. 2023. I tried the speed zone again for my own amusement, finding the answers to to be full-width, slick tyres and no aero. I seemed to have better luck up hill rather than down, but was able to hit the target speed both ways. Still took more than one attempt, but this particular configuration seemed to solve the problem.]

The drift zone (B class; scream!) was a pain as well. I should probably have kept the tyres stock width, but probably you were meant to leave the car RWD and slap excessive amounts of engine under the bonnet. The SWS was one-third excellent.

By this stage, I’d had enough.

I did the Eliminator because I was actually online in free roam (a state of affairs which didn’t last). On my first attempt I got stuck on the wrong side of Guanajuato and got timed out. The second time, I went into the Street Scene festival site to find that the player I’d seen must’ve got a Brocky from a drop. I didn’t care. Can’t stand the Eliminator and was looking for someone to put me out of my misery.

My 2005 Mazda MX-5 was a sound choice for What’s the Miata? although the drivatars were nuisances. I wasn’t really in the mood for racing and made no real effort.

I started with the 2000 Ford Cobra for Dish the Dirt because I overlooked the fact that the Crown Vic is D class when I’d assume it was B class. I switched to the better car (i.e., the Crown Vic), but can’t declare this seasonal to have been fun.

In An Oldie but a Goodie, my A-class Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale was an excellent choice. Rubbish reward, but a good wheel spin as I approach level 100 (and haven’t quite made it).

By the time I attempted the Trial I was getting disconnected depressingly frequently. It probably took about half a dozen or more times to join a session in my BMW M3 GTR. This was one of those Trials where no one knows what cars belong to a category, but when it got to the car selection screen, there were a good many more options than those which the game had originally offered to me.

I came 5th round the Stadium Circuit. One of the drivatars had vanished into the distance. The lead player must’ve been well ahead of the two planks who were ahead of me. The speed zone was a mess on the first lap and I managed to sneak through the pack and away from the morass of stupidity. There was another driver in a BMW ahead of me who didn’t seem that competent, and I caught him as we went through the speed zone on lap two. That was where I got rammed by some clown in a BMW behind me and nearly missed a checkpoint, surviving that and not losing a place to the drivatar behind me. I then watched these two idiot players annoying each other while seeing chances to overtake them, but knowing they’d ruin my race if I did. At one point I had to do some strategic driving to avoid an unprovoked contretemps.

The second race was Winter Wonderland. Ugh. I was at the front of the human contingent. There was another massive mess early on, but this time I got past everyone else apart from the lead drivatar. On the second lap one of the dunces from the first race sat ghosted at the start-finish line (bad sign). I eventually took first place and at the end, only one other player still seemed to be in the race. The rest had DNF’ed (disconnected, I guess) and the only other player who seemed to have survived then joined their ranks. I alone had won.

I knew that the HW PR stunt was going to be a pain and I was a little right. The 1992 Honda NSX needed to be RWD and no aero or you lost too much speed going up the ramp to the jump. One-third all right SWS.

Hyped for the Holidays. Hypercars. Scream! Chose the Zenvo TSR-S, which was a solid performer. Got bullied by a Veyron in the first race, and the resulting wheel spin was rubbish. The reward was the 2012 MS SLK. Shrug.

The Sierra Nueva PR stunt was also a pain. A common theme this week. The only way to get a C600 Peugeot 205 R to the right speed was to stick too much engine in, which made it barely controllable. One-third good SWS as usual.

Rap-tor Battle was an interesting one. B700 and Raptor. I chose the 2019 Ford Raptor which only goes to B680 (twin turbos alone send it into A class). But that didn’t matter. It spanked the drivatars as – I believe – it did on the previous occasion. They were all in the Velociraptor (no idea why), which was no match for the more agile Ford. Reward: a 2012 Porsche 911 GT2 RS. That’s more like it.

I feel that three Eventlab races, three mainland seasonals, and two expansion seasonals is a bit too much especially when this was coupled with the frustrating, prolonged grind of one of the game’s most infuriating speed zones.