FH6, Series 6, Week 2

 The weekly in the 2017 Ford Focus was undemanding.

The clue for the treasure hunt was immensely vague, but I was rescued by some kind player, who sent me a message telling me where the chest was located (I’d guessed the right area of the map). It’s as vague as vague can be, being south-west of Mount Haruna on the south side of a small lake.

Jodogahama. Where the hell is Jodogahama? It’s near the spaceport, but not marked on the map. That’s where you take a photo of some Mazda.

The collectibles round the 7-Eleven were easy enough to find, but you may have to wait for some of them to respawn if someone else is smashing them. I don’t know why this is a thing in FH6.

I used the Peugeot 205 Rallye for Coming in Hot for which the prize was some American barge (which makes no sense to me. #OldPersonProblems). The car was all right once it was on the dirt sections.

For Weekend Break, I went with the 2000 “Mustang”. For some reason I’d built and tuned it, but don’t seem to have raced it. It was an absolute rocket, but would appear to have been on stock tyres, which made cornering a bit tricky because it didn’t really have the handling.

And then we had EVs in Street Scene racing in Fully Charged. The range of options was thinner than a politician’s honesty. I picked the Hyundai N Vision 74. This was another inspired choice because like the “Mustang” it was an absolute rocket once it got going. The only blot on the landscape was the Meyers EV Tampon car… sorry, Manx for part of Shimanoyama Charge, which made an unwelcome pest of itself.

For the 7-Eleven ST, I used the 2003 Silvia Spec R, with a race turbo sending it instantly to the top of B class. One-shotted this PR stunt. Yes, the WS was complete rubbish. Again. I semi-randomly switched to the 1997 Skyline for the DZ, but then found that the car was already partly tuned for drifting. I don’t recall doing this. Anyway, I somehow managed to smash the target by about 40,000pts. Oh, and the WS was… Yeah, you know what it was.

I chose the Trailcat for the Trial. There were four of us in the lobby today. I came 4th in Ruriko-ji CC, managing to avoid getting DNF’ed by a player in that lifted FE Subaru BRZ. I also managed to get to the finish line in spite of a lot of pinball physics. After one jump the drivatar ahead of me drifted leftwards. I did the same. We both slammed into the end of a barrier, but I managed to reverse and get away before the drivatar reset. Soni Highlands CC was a solid team win, but again, the physics were awful at times. I managed a 3rd.

2025 BMW M4 CS

After this I turned my attention to the BMW M4 CS. Rubbish perks which include Street Scene races. This doesn’t make me want to do them. Tuning is 2.5/9 (once again, see me after class).

I had qualms about it, suspecting that it was going to be a barge with the usual issues that plague AWD cars, Instead, I was pleasantly surprised. I started with a race in the stock car round Daikoku (15 laps), with the drivatars all in the same car. It had stock car issues, but wasn’t a complete mess (although only afterwards did I discover that it was already on semi-slicks). 15:57.288, with my best lap being 01:02.565.

I built the car to the top of S1 class, finding a bunch of aftermarket gear (although I’ve now discovered that there’s a well tasty body kit as well) and raced it round Narai-juku (12:26.178; best lap 00:48.382) and Shirakawa (15:42.754; best lap 01:01.831) for 15 laps apiece. Unlike the M4 GTS, which DUBS lauded so much while turning up his nose at the M4 CS, the car was nice to drive and very well behaved. (I drove the M4 GTS again just recently; also top of S1 class; too much power without the handling to match; PWR needed toning down.)

Overall, this car was much better than I anticipated.

Ferrari Purosangue

Perks are probably worth it. They include the CC racing perk. Tuning 2/9.

I tried the stock version of the car in a couple of races, one cross country and one on the road. It was better on the road. It was only better in cross country once I built and tuned it, but I think it’d also be good for road racing if I built it for such a purpose. I also switched tyres and tried the Ine Scramble, although I didn’t manage to take much of a lead over the drivatars.

I wasn’t really that taken by the Purosangue. If I want to drive an SUV, I’ll choose something else.

The 240Z No. 5

A shrug. Built it to the top of A class with a camshaft. Didn’t like its performance. Removed the camshaft and added a bigger engine block. Bit better. Overall, still a shrug. I assume that this is some piece of automotive history – at least to the people who know about such things.