FH5, Series 36, Week 2

Treasure hunt. Nevera. Easy money.

The weekly in the CC8S was mostly straightforward apart from the showoff skill which I got, er, somehow. I had to stop racing to find out whether I’d completed this especially vexatious task.

The Eventlab tiles weren’t just broken again, but really broken. Normally I can restart the game and they be fine. Well, probably fine once I’m outside, but it took a reboot to get the tiles functioning. Grrr.

Eventlab (1). Sunset Palms Raceway. Apart from a lack of elevation changes, this was a good GP circuit with its sweeping curves and well-designed technical sections.

Eventlab (2). Calvo’s Karting. Oh dear. If the game had karts, this might be quite fun, but this was an irritating tangle in the stadium. It was also another event where you won the car (the Mustang Boss 302) you needed for another event.

Eventlab (3). Cordillera Rally. Oh dear (part 2), someone didn’t proofread the name of the event. Two l’s, one r. Not bad, but suffered from my lack of familiarity with the course.

I practised the PR stunts beforehand. Speed trap needs to be done from the east with a quite long run-up. One-shotted the danger sign and the speed zone. One SWS was one-third excellent, and the other two were complete rubbish.

The mural for the photo is on the side of Lugar Tranquilo (sp?) in Playa Azul.

I was concerned that Finger on the Pulsar was going to be a pain. I tested the Gordini, but once again, it wasn’t up to the task (but is when the drivatars use it). I went with the Lancia Fulvia, which was all right. I dislike these sorts of seasonals, C600 with cars that have almost no scope for adequate upgrading. I have no objections to adding a second Nissan Pulsar to my garage. Good car if restrictions don’t neuter it.

I thought that Feel the Hype was going to be a series of races in wet conditions, but it was all dry. If I read the symbol for Reservorio correctly, conditions were meant to be stormy; except they weren’t. Why wasn’t the reward a hypercar?

In spite of a couple of wet tracks, my RWD 1965 AR Giulia Sprint was a decent choice for A Pretty Swede Deal. I got an excellent wheel spin after Sierra Verde.

The Trial. We got two team victories without any real issues for the team as a whole. I was 3rd in Hilltop Decent, but Teagan ran off into the distance. As for Wetland Charge I contributed nothing after understeering into some trees and flipping my car on the approach to the turn ahead of the roundabout. But as the team had a comfortable win, I continued to the end of the race, avoiding a DNF. My 2000 Nissan Silvia was a good choice, but I went into the turn a bit too fast and with a bit too much confidence that the car would stick to the road under treacherous conditions.

I one-shotted the HW PR stunt in the Aventador by a generous margin and got a one-third excellent SWS.

Hot n Cold was hazard racing in S1-class modern supercars. With that in mind, I went with the innately AWD Audi R8 V10 Plus. The gears were terrible (no, I don’t know what I was thinking when I last tuned the car) and the races annoying. I may have been better off on snow or dirt tyres. The reward was also my fourth Aventador, which I removed from my garage. I expect a gift drop in the near future. The car? A 2012 Lamborghini Aventador. <span class = "malevolent.voice">I’ll take care of it.</span>

The SWS for the RA PR stunt was one-third very excellent, although I botched the first run in the Volvo 242 with an undesteery moment.

Since it had the best PWR, I used the Subaru Impreza 22B in Retro Reapers. It was one of those mixed seasonals with two dirt races and one road race. I suppose I ought to have rebuilt and retuned the car for the road race, but I couldn’t be arsed.

And speaking of things that can’t be arsed…

What’s up with the drivatars in single-player races? Races seem to start as they usual do, with the drivatars racing off at the start of an event and sometimes being persistent nuisances. But once I’m past them inn circuit races, they lag further and further behind so that by the end of the race, I’m winning by a strangely large margin (e.g. Plaza Circuit in the revised Audi R8 V10 Plus, 5 laps, 19 secs. ahead at the end of the race).

Sprint races seem to be much the same, and without a range of seasonals in clement conditions, I can’t tell whether the same is going to happen in playlist races.

I have to wonder whether PGG are gathering telemetry for FH6 and using us as their guinea pigs. I wouldn’t be surprised if in Series 37, the drivatars are back to their old ways.