Occasional Tales

I recall the end of that May as if it was 35 years ago, which it was back in 2024. Terrible weather. Leaden skies threatening rain and occasionally delivering the goods from its gruesome maw. But in particular, I recall it was one of those weeks in Horizon 5 when the Festival playlist didn’t include a treasure hunt. I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered from the trauma. I started with the weekly in the old Countach, which I’ve been driving a fair amount. The weekly was a bit grindy, but otherwise all right. I filled in some of my pointless 8km by doing Copper Canyon . I’d already been practising the PR stunts, hence I knew a stock Sián could be upgraded to S1 900 and would have no problem with the speed trap (utter rubbish SWS) or the speed zone (403kmh; better than my practice run) with its one-third good SWS. I’d also tried my Diablo SV on the speed trap. Yes, it could’ve done, but only just. I took the photo as I flew off the jump outside the hotel. I got a helmet. This reminds me that t...

A couple of near misses got the treasure hunt done in about ten seconds. I wasn’t even trying. The weekly in the 1992 Honda NSX passed without any real issues. I had to do an engine swap for the CR20,000 worth of upgrades, but left it alone and got six stars in speed zones in two attempts (Punta Allen). I did the PR stunts early because I was waiting for the timer on an HA to count down. I knew the stock 1987 Pontiac Trans Am could do the stunts. The only bother was the speed zone because I kept having issues with that nuisance of a right-hander, but knew that the car could hit the right speed after that point. The SWSs were two-thirds good, absolute rubbish, and one-third good. And the HA was done after that. I was going to do the drift one, but another player turned up and I didn’t want to find myself doing all the work. I switched to the wreckage HA, and then other people turned up. Possibly newbies because I kept fast travelling and doing a goodly share of the graft before anyone e...

Move along, nothing much to see here. All right, the 2021 Lamborghini Countach is a welcome addition. I’m hoping that there might be something else that turns out to be a nice surprise. The Citroen BX4TC is apparently a failed Group B rally car, but might be all right on dirt. I can’t imagine the 1986 BMW M6 will be much different from other BMWs of the period (probably right down to the tuning and the perks; #CopyandPaste). I tried the Lotus Esprit in FH4 last night and found to my surprise that I must’ve driven it fairly recently because I didn’t need to retune it. It wasn’t bad to drive, but struggled to get away from the drivatars in the Colossus by a decent margin. I must try the BMW 850CSi again as well, but I didn’t think much of it the last time and doubt whether I’ll like it better this time. The motorway decorations will sync to your music, but that can be switched off. Might work well with the yoof stations or the new station, but perhaps not with Radio Eterna. I wonder whet...

I’ve been in my hot, sexy Portia this afternoon [ You old perv! –ed.] … I mean, hot, sexy Porsche [ You old perv! –ed.] The treasure hunt seemed to be a matter of crashing the Chevrolet Impala into things until the game decided that enough was enough and gave me CR250,000. The weekly in the Corvette E-Ray was easy money. Eventlab (1). Eagle Forest Raceway . My choices of car were the BMW i8 or a stock (?) Lamborghini Gallardo Spider. I chose the latter. If you want to practise changing from 2nd to 3rd gear and back again, this was the race for you. Decent use of decorative elements, but the layout lacked flow. A one-third excellent and a one-third good SWS. Eventlab (2). Emerald GP . My only real choice was the Hyundai i30N or the Clio Williams, and as I used the latter last week, I used the former to complete this event. I thought this was a decent medium-length circuit with good spacing of the technical sections. I started the PR stunts in the Ferrari F40 Competizione. One-shotted ...

 The weekly challenge was in the 2018 911 GT2 RS. I used Street Scene for the Rivals challenge for reasons I’ve previously mentioned – I’ve not generally used Street Scene for Rivals. I tried to use one of this week’s Eventlabs for the Eventlab task, but it didn’t register, and I used some circuit created by DJS to deal with this. Eventlab (1). Park Valley Raceway . I drove my BMW M3 GTR again round this nice, flowing circuit and got an SWS that was one-third good. Eventlab (2). GP Mantavo . Went with the Elise 190. This was another good, flowing circuit. The reward was a BMW i8. I’ve actually seen one of these unpopular cars in real life. Eventlab (3). Kruos Circuit . Rubbish. Another track that’s mostly ridiculously tight corners in 2nd gear. Might improve with a good deal of practice, but there’s good technical and bad technical. I started the PR stunts with the 1966 Porsche 906, which did the Riviera Maya speed zone in one go for an SWS which the critics said was “utter rubbis...

I had to drive my Zenvo TSR-S fast to win the treasure which was placed in the least accessible location for a hypercar. O Game, th’art such a wit. The weekly in the 2017 Ford GT posed no issues at all. Eventlab (1) was Red Bramble Raceway by YouTuber, HokiHoshi. A decent circuit, but made out of that pretend tarmac that’s just a bit too viscous. As others have noted, it’s all flat. A one-third good SWS. I thought we’d already had a Circuit de Mulegé GP as an Eventlab event. I opted for my (RWD) AM V12 Vantage, but am not sure whether this was a bad choice or the circuit was awful. Probably a bit of both. I seemed to spend about 90% of the race in 2nd, wondering where the next ridiculously tight corner was. Better done in an AWD car after a lot of practice. The reward was a Zenvo TSR-S. My third, I think. It was back in the CC8S for the Lodge Raceway for which I was rewarded with a 2002 Nissan Skyline. Not my favourite version of the car, and I need to see how many of them I have (a...