User blog:IFresternoch/ v6.3 Team Autocross Annihilation challenge

I have always wondered what it takes to actually earn gold in team competitions. Solo seems like a good idea as I will get the entire reward to myself, but it is not very meaningful if I couldn't reach far enough to earn gold. I decided to see if It could be achieved, that I would just run the event as soon as possible, and if I cannot reach the top 1000 by bedtime I will quit. I was very surprised that my ranking improved steadily from 3000 to 300 and eventually into the top 200. So I decided to carry on.

From my initial estimations I concluded that around 2000 is good enough for top 500, which pays 500 gold. I committed to see how far a solo team can get, since I have never dedicated so much time continuously to a game for the same thing, solely because I felt the irrational need to experience it at the expense of myself and my own health, so I raced for slightly over 15 (!) hours continuously, and followed by more later on. Thinking back about it now it is both horrifying and impressive at the same time.

I ran Ferrari Evolution 4.3 unserviced with a PR of 123.1 (-3 engine), which averages about 14.5 seconds each race (slightly under 14 for a good run, but can take up to 18 depending on how badly you mess up) but is longer due to the procedures before and after the race. I started around half an hour late and I was able to reach a peak position of 157 about 5 hours in, then I got slowly pushed back to around 170s where I stayed from another few hours (I used a second device to see my ranking movements). Therefore, I think the theoretical solo maximum for this challenge is around the 150 mark.

11 hours in I took a shower break, by then it is already way past midnight. Came back in 10 minutes and dropped about 5 places, then hovered around there within a 10-place radius. This continued for another 4 hours, when it is already into the morning, that I decided it is probably a good idea to sleep a little (lol), as my concentration is being slowly but surely impaired and compromised, after all I have been up for almost 24 hours. By then I have finished 1600.

I slept for 1.5 hours, forced myself up, and was surprised that once I am fully awake I didn't have the urge to go back to sleep, that I actually felt somewhat energetic (?). I was also surprised that I only dropped about 40 places in 90 minutes, to around 230s. I kept going until I reached the number of our current year, when there is about 5 hours left in the competition, and stopped.

After the conclusion of the challenge half an hour ago, I found out that 1650 would have been safe enough for top 500, meaning I could have gone to bed normally, slept for 9 hours, and still be able to finish in top 500 (facepalm).

I did get 500 + 20 gold after all this ordeal, as well as more gold from levelups, but was this experience worth it? It was kind of fun I must admit, as this is something that is drastically different from any of my previous experiences with any games. Before I started I ate a pretty big meal. Throughout the night I used music, sports articles, youtube videos and news articles as distractions in between (where I read about a sentence/watch a 10-second clip) and during races, separately and together, sometimes without any of them. I've chewed on nuts to keep myself awake. I’ve set imaginary goals for myself to accomplish before going to sleep, such as reaching a certain milestone in R$, right after a levelup, or after moving the hundredth digit in the total number of autocrosses, just to get through the long, monotonic, repetitive, and boring process. My original plan was to go to sleep after hitting one of them, but each time I achieved one I suddenly did not want to sleep anymore :/ until all three have been reached, so I decided to just keep going until I get drowsy again.

Will I do it again in the future? Only time will tell…