Victory Run/Courses

Course 1


Course 1 starts off with an easy straightaway that will allow you to get up to fourth gear before you have to concern yourself with anything else. Cars will begin to appear after the first dip. Get used to the traffic patterns and learn how to weave around the cars without losing too much speed. By the time you reach the second dip, you may be approaching the hop speed of 220 km/h, so back off the accelerator before you reach the top of the climb and fly over it. The early portion of this course contains many such dips, so get used to slowing down when you begin climbing. After many dips, you'll hit the first very sharp right turn. Tap the right direction instead of holding it in order to prevent the car from spinning out. If you do sense that the car is at risk of spinning out, tap the brakes. The course will contain many variations on these themes until about halfway through the course where it straightens out for a while, before bearing to the right again with a bump in the middle. The next of turns until the finish tend to be very sharp and very long, so do your best not to over-steer and spin out. Eventually the turns will break into the final stretch. It is rather difficult to complete this course in the 2 minute time limit unless you drive with near perfection.

Course 2


This course starts out with a very long straightaway, giving you plenty of time to reach top speed before you have to worry about turning in any direction. However, after that ends, it is followed up with three long turns, each one sharper than the next. You won't hit any dips until after these three turns have concluded. Traffic on this course is about the same as the previous course, don't let the presence of cop cars throw you, they will do nothing to stop you as you speed right by them. Compared to the previous course, there are a lot more patches of gravel that you may drive over. They are difficult to spot from far off, and they will slow your car down slightly, but not significantly. The bigger problem to worry about is if they throw you off the road. Try not to get too close to other cars if that happens, as this will only slow down your recovery. After driving through over half the course, it finishes in another series of long winding turns. Watch your steering and don't turn in any one direction too long to avoid spinning out. With careful driving, it is quite possible to drive into the finish before the 1 minute and 50 seconds are up, and pick up a few seconds in your total race time, but you need to avoid crashing or driving too far off the road.

Course 3


Before this race begins, it is important to make sure that you replace your wheels and suspension if they are not blue. This course is the first dirt course, and it is guaranteed to wear those parts down, so it's important that they be as good as they can be when you start. However, if your gears are green, it's not necessary to replace them yet. Since this is a dirt course, you will not really have a big need to shift into fourth until the final stretch, and even then it's not very helpful. As you drive through this course, you will largely stay in third gear. However, note that the speed at which your car will hop is much lower, so you still need to let off the gas as you climb a hill in order to reduce your speed below 150 km/h so that you stay in control. A new element that is introduce in this course are the rocks, which like gravel patches, are difficult to see coming along on the road. They will make your car hop if you drive over them, causing you to briefly lose control over the car. Another thing to be careful of is driving on dirt at night. Unlike during the day, the color of the road is poorly distinguished from the sides at night. You will have to play closer attention to the pattern on the road in contrast to the sides in order to determine where you should steer. Because of the many new issues that you must deal with, this can be another course that is difficult to finish on time.

Course 4


Happily back on pavement, restore your wheels and suspension if they wore down quite a bit on the last course, and if you have the parts to spare for them. After gathering speed on the initial straightaway, you will go into a long sharp right turn. This is followed by an equally long, but not quite as sharp left turn, with a dip at the end of it. You may notice that traffic picks up quite a bit on this stage, and you'll have to weave your way through many more cars. After a long S turn, there's a bump that you should slow down on before a short straight stretch. You won't have to time enjoy it before another left turn begins. This will be the start of a series of turns weaving back and forth before another short straight section. The last quarter of the course is dominated by a rather long, and at times very sharp, right turn that straightens out into the final stretch. Although this course is challenging, it doesn't introduce anything new, so you should be able to keep good control of the car if you don't collide with traffic. This is actually a very good course for picking up a good deal of lost time.

Course 5


Once again, repair any wheels and suspension issues that you have before going into this course, but don't repair your gears if they are only green. This dirt section is very much like the one you drove through in Course 3, but it has a tricky start aspect to it. Thec dirt on this course is not quite as firm as it was in course 3. As a result, if you attempt to go beyond 30 km/h in first gear, the engine will over power your wheels, and you will lose your grip in the ground. Your wheels will slip and you will drop to 0 km/h. In order to get moving on this course, you must switch from first gear to second between 20 and 30 km/h in order to avoid slipping in the dirt. You'll have to do this every time you ever stall and have to get the car moving from 0 again. If you master this approach, you will know just about all you need to know for this course. It has the increased traffic that you experienced in the fourth course, and it is almost entirely dominated by a long sweeping right turn of varying degrees of sharpness. Once again, you will drive on the dirt at night, where the distinction between the road and the edges is a little less defined. If you manage to stay on the road and avoid collisions, there's a very good chance you can pick up a few more seconds on your clock.

Course 6


The sixth course is the only course where you get to drive through bushland. This means driving on a lot of grass. Driving on grass is a mixed blessing; you can drive a little faster on grass than you can on dirt, but grass is much more slippery, and the faster you go, the more trouble you will have staying on the "road." You may think that it's safer to stay in third gear to keep yourself from going much faster tha 150 km/h. However, since your car can easily push up to 160 km/h on grass, you are more likely to wear down your engine as a result of redlining for too long. You will have to choose whether it's worth damaging your engine for a slight gain in control over your car. If you've got the extra parts to spare, it may help you complete an otherwise difficult course of the race. If you're more confident about your driving, shifting between third and fourth gear shouldn't present too much of a challenge. Traffic on this course is slightly reduced, and you will drive through here at night, which presents roughly the same challenge of distinguishing the road from the edges as driving in the dirt does. This course will no doubt put the most wear on your tires and suspensions out of all the courses, so plan on replacing them after the course.

Course 7


This is your final course on pavement. Restore your car parts to working order, and gather speed on the opening straightaway. If you accelerate optimally, you will reach 220 km/h right around the time you hit the first bump, so remember to reduce your speed to avoid flying over the hill. After that, the course goes into three long and fairly sharp turns, one after another, before briefly straightening out. After that, a short right turn is followed up by a much longer and sharper right turn as you reach the middle of the course. This is followed by a similar pattern—a short left turn followed by a long sharp left turn. Three more sharp turns, right, left, right, lead you into the final stretch for the course. By now, you should have developed a good sense of how to keep the car on the road through tight turns. This should permit you to pick up a few seconds on the total race timer if you did a good job avoiding collisions with traffic.

Course 8


Congratulations, you've made it to the final leg of the race. Surprisingly, you may find this course a bit anti-climatic compared to how challenging some of the others can be. On the other hand, you may be grateful that the game doesn't throw too much at you and cause you to lose before you finish the race. Replace all of the parts for you car that require attention. Since you are driving along the west coast of Africa, you are driving on beach sand, which the game treats the same as dirt, meaning you will probably not shift into fourth. As you gather speed off the start, it is very likely that a motorcyclist will catch up to you from behind on your left. Watch out for him as you reach your top speed in third gear. The first left turn is likely to keep the biker in your vicinity for some time. The rest of the course is actually quite pleasant, feature turns that are long, but rarely very sharp, allowing you to stay in relatively good control over the car as you make your way to the finish. Provided you reach the end with time to spare, you will see your driver exit the car and enthusiastically splash around in the ocean.