Occasional Tales

I thought I was going to have problems with the treasure hunt because I’ve probably done S1-class rivals in every road race on the main map and didn’t fancy trying to get the Lotus 2-Eleven to do the job until I realised that I’ve never done rivals in Street Scene. As practice for the seasonal, I did Ruta Norte in a clean time and got a decent reward. I also got a crap wheel spin as well. I mustn’t have driven my McLaren P1 in ages because the tuning was decidedly antiquated, but I managed to get through all the tasks in this week’s weekly without any bother. I also did the HA along with some other people who actually contributed to it. Eventlab (1) was Italia 458 Race Track . Mostly decent track but completely flat. Not helped by the race being set at night, which meant that the tyre bundles tended to vanish into the gloom, making some of the corners tricky to negotiate. The SWS was rubbish. Eventlab (2). Green River GP . I raced in the Porsche Carrera GT for this one. A decent circu

Getting a discount so that you don’t have to. I quickly discovered from the forums that someone had made a boo-boo with the pricing, although I thought that an official announcement to that effect suggested that it probably wasn’t entirely an accident. In a bout of contrariness, the car pack was on the xbox app, but this time they sent you to the MS shop to buy it. Once I’d switched my VPN on. Yes, W11 has this whole annoying geographical location thing going on. Anyway, I got the car pack for the reduced price, but by lunchtime, that so-called glitch had been fixed. All the cars have 8/9 for tuning (the exception is brakes; more often it’s the only thing you can tune apart from tyres) and they all have the same car masteries, including the 200% XP perk. I thought I’d race the cars stock down Copper Canyon , tune them, and race them again to see what difference it made if any. The only thing I mostly didn’t alter was the aero tuning (with one exception). I also raced them round the Sta

Phew! After the picture of the Pro Stock Camaro was released, I predicted a hybrid road-and-drag racing series, but reality has confounded this. I can see the Allstars Car Pack annoying some people, but don’t blame the FM crowd rejecting it because the cars are in the other game. I can also see some FH5 players being annoyed because it seems that we’re paying for the content of the other game, which I, cynical old bastard that I am, suspect may be true because I imagine the figures for FM remain minuscule. I don’t mind buying the car pack because I’m not likely to buy FM and would like some more proper track toys. Pity the Ginetta G55 GT4 wasn’t included. Or anything a bit more up-to-date (as AR12 Nick pointed out in his video). As for the rest of the series, apart from the Pro Stock Camaro and the HW Trans Am… However, before I complete that sentence, an aside. Once again JakeXVX called it a Trans a.m. Now, I know our lad’s never likely to see this blog, but Jake, if you do turn up he

I started with the weekly in the Fiesta M Sport. wasn’t pleased about having to paint the car, which was pointless and unnecessary. Waste of a slot in the paint jobs section. The Eventlab was Figure 8 Tunnel . Interesting, but monotonous style. The reward was another Cadillac. I checked later on to find I have four of one and three of another because someone sent me one as a gift. I need to whittle these down to one apiece. I don’t drive them. The PR stunt was annoying, but attempting it at night didn’t help. Did get a two-thirds quite good wheel spin. I took a picture, I got a T-shirt. I suspect it was a T-shirt I already have. I love playing dressing-up games. I don’t know why there are all these cars in this one. It’s annoying as it gets in the way of all the dressing-up. Come on, PGG, give players what they really want. The Horizon Tour I bumbled into was S1 900 Beetles doing dirt racing. Fortunately, the Andretti Beetle counted, which spared me my blushes. I ended up in a team of

I was hoping to be playing FH5 when this got unlocked because the progress bar was down to a sliver of a sliver last night, but it probably took until after midnight my time. I had a brief play with the car this morning, and more prolonged spell in it this afternoon. A-class (739), 486hp, 1,736kg (fat boy), front 53%. Tuning 1/9 (I suggest you book a ticket on the down train.) Car masteries aren’t worth bothering about. I started with an A-class build, but when it came to tyres, the available options sent the car into S1 class. I limited the tyres to increased width, but was cautious round corners. I did try the car with the body kit, but with the other tuneable (yay!) wing. I thought that the one which goes with the body kit looked a bit silly. I tried a race in the car and then went back to the stock body. I built the Mustang into low mid S1 class and tried it in various races. Nice to drive and had rather good acceleration because I was passing the drivatars sooner, not later at the

As the 2023 Ford Ranger Raptor has finally been unlocked, I thought I’d see whether it might be a replacement for the 2019 Raptor. Out of the box the tuning is 1/9 (pitiful). I tuned the tyres and went for a jaunt in the Titan . The car was decent, but the tyres weren’t great as the vehicle tended to slide round corners. I upgraded the Raptor to the top of A class and tried the Titan again. Again, it was all right, bit of a barge, but I don’t think I’ll use it in place of the 2019 Raptor which has always put in a sound performance in seasonals. Series 33, Prometheus speculates JakeXVX had one of his speculation videos about Series 33 the other day, which got me thinking about it. First, I’m inclined not to get too hopeful about this one. The mention of road racing has the kiddies immediately jumping to cars like the Bolide (unlikely, I think). I doubt whether this will be a series focused on (extreme) track toys since there’s a very wide range of cars that might feature in road races.

Treasure hunt. I drove an ugly car. I won 100FPs. Should I buy the AM Vulcan? I have one already. I don’t drive it that often (ditto FH4). On the other hand I do have a lot of FPs. It’s the reason why I don’t bother with HA’s unless I’m forced to. I used the 2000 Silvia for the weekly. I did the Basedrop (?) danger sign for that task. I flipped the car, but the ref said, “No foul”, and I almost did the same again, tipping the car onto one side like a Mancunian drunk on a Saturday night. I had to delay the photo because there was an HA in the way, but eventually got the clothing I so richly deserved. I could barely contain my squeals of delight in spite of a restraining order. The collectibles this week were tedious, but to be found in and around the golf course. The only thing about this week’s Eventlab, Sneezin’ Dragon Circuit , was that the PI was C600 on a tiddly little circuit. I liked the design elements well enough, but couldn’t see the point of this sausage course. I one-shotted

Treasure Hunt. Drift a clown car. Get three stars. I drifted my Peel P50 very badly and still managed three stars in the Festival drift zone. I did the weekly in my old favourite from FH4, the Renault 5 Turbo. Ten ultimate wreckage skills in the indefinable Tierra Próspera was a pain. I knew if I kept driving about in an aimless fashion, hoping to find something breakable, I’d complete the task. Is there a good collection of destructible things somewhere there? Otherwise, this was a tedious grind. I managed to one-shot the airfield danger sign in my Jesko in spite of it going nose up and tail down. Fortunately it landed in just the right place on the far side of the river for this not to matter. One-third good SWS. I PB’ed the drift zone incompetently (although not as incompetently as I drifted the Peel). The SWS was utter rubbish. I took a photo. I won an infantile reward. That means I can sit here looking huffy and sucking my thumb. The collectibles were easy to find down the back st

a.) Is the Sabre that bad? b.) Is the Artura that good? a.) No, but it’s not good in races. My issue with it is the weird launch. 1st gear is languid to about 7,000 RPM when it goes utterly wild. In the meantime, the drivatars are all off down the track. I tried the Ginetta Solution by lengthening 1st gear, but it made no effective difference. The other issue seems to be poor manoeuvrability in technical sections, which makes the car feel heavy. It’s not a terrible car just to drive once you get past 1st gear, but it’s not competitive, either. Also, it looks like a Speedtail with a ridiculous body kit. b.) I feel the Artura is all right, but nothing really outstanding. I tried it against the 570S in Línea Costera and round the Horizon Festival Circuit . It’s a bit faster (e.g. about 2 seconds over five laps of the Festival Circuit ), but I think I prefer the way the 570S drives. I wonder whether the Artura’s lauded to the skies because the Sabre is so poorly regarded.

I went back to the Ginetta to see whether I could do anything sensible with it. I tried building it to the top of A class because, I believed (deluded boy), it’d be drivable. No, the back end still wanted to be the front end, and wet conditions made it worse. I rebuilt the car to be all handling, but left it RWD. Same again. The back end kept wanting to step out, and rain and wet roads made it hopeless to drive, with me sliding across corners into walls. The solution – imperfect but it works – was to stretch out 1st gear to four units on the graph and have the other gears at one unit each (7-speed gearbox). As I said, this is an imperfect solution. I also found myself still having to be very careful through the corners by being somewhat slow and taking a wide line to prevent the car from spinning. The other part of the solution was to set up races so that they were dry. Many of the stock races are currently wet, which makes the G10 a nightmare to drive competently. I assume from specif