Talk:Victory by Design/@comment-27510501-20161216201621

Stage 5 Report:

Upgrades/PR: Bought the tier 4 engine upgrade and rush-built the tier 5 one before I started today, to give a PR of 71.9 (5323332). I raced Goals 1 & 2 with that configuration, then added the tier 3 body upgrade for Goals 3 & 4 to reach PR 72.4 (5333332). (Also started the tier 6 engine and tier 4 body R$ upgrades for tomorrow.)

Controls: Tilt B, no assists, no traction.

Goal 1: Was not hard at this PR. My target speed was 330.1 kph, and I reached 331 in the straight coming back to the start/finish line, then hit the brakes and limped over the line. My tip for lower PRs is to make sure you come clean through the bus stop chicane and accelerat out of it well - traction control may need to be turned off to ensure you get the acceleration you need. High PRs should pass this with ease.

Goal 2: on my first attempt, I made it to second place after the hairpin. But I failed as Ahmed was too fast, and I could not catch him once we were on the banked track section without running out of fuel. On my second attempt, I attacked harder from the green lights, even tough it burnt more fuel. This time I got past Ahmed not far past the hairpin. I then settled into fuel-conservation mode while blocking Ahmed's attempts to overtake me. This worked well during the remaining road section of track, but once we were back out on the speedway banked sections, Ahmed was once again fast... I managed to block him up until the bus-stop, got a small lead up through there - about 150 metres was the maximum gap - but that last section of track felt awfully long as I didn't have enough fuel to go full-throttle. Ahmed ended up right on my tail and I had to block his aggressive attempts at passing. Crossedvwith less than 0.2 units of fuel remaining, and a margin of 11 metres over Ahmed. Remember, it's ok to go off-track for this challenge if you have to to overtake cars on the turns.

Goal 3: After Ahmed's speed on the last goal, I was suspicious, so I bought the tier 3 body upgrade to give me a bit more speed and acceleration. On my first attempt, I was in second place after lap 1, but I never caught Ahmed - he beat me by 250 metres, even though my average speed was 222 kph. We ran into backmarkers just before the bus stop chicane on lap 3, but Ahmed went past them without slowing much (if at all). On the second attempt, I used a free engineer to preserve car condition, and I went really hard at the start. This time I managed to get to second place before reentering the banked track portion, and passed Ahmed just after the bus stop on lap 1. He stayed within 200 metres of me for the rest of the race. I tried blocking him a bit on the last lap, but he was aggressive and almost knocked me off-track. So I concaentrated on staying only a bit in front of him and won by a small margin of 7 metres in the end. My tip for this one is to go hard and make up as many positions as you can at the start of lap 1 - you risk going offf-track, but Ahmed may be hard to catch on laps 2 & 3 if you are not right on his tail before the end of lap 1.

Goal 4: This goal was very straightforward at the PR I have the car at now. You can go full throttle around Daytona Speedway, so provided you have got enough speed in the car, you should beat this readily. I was on Ahmed's rear bumper right from the green lights, then went past him on the high side of the first corner. I powered the first lap, then slowed down for the second to lower my winning margin -it was 7 metres again.