Trying hard and failing miserably to get better than 9th or 10th in the first Storm Island Gauntlet. The Stupid - er - Stadium Super Truck has three gears and seems to top out at 70mph in its stock config. Anyone have any advice on this one? I’m not a beginner by any stretch, but this race makes me feel like one …
First of all, go into this with an open mind and the knowledge that the Stadium Super Truck is probably the singe worst car in the game. That will makes things easier and less frustrating.
Second, realize you won’t do much of the line because while the cars behind you and ahead of you start of on a much flatter surface, you start off on a pretty sharp incline in a vehicle that wasn’t meant to handle it at such a low speed and engine rpm.
The car is not too light but it’s not heavy either. I has a lot of power, and is built for - well, as the name says, Stadium style rally cross. Use lots and lots of throttle control, make sure you use the entire course as best as you can to maintain a good line, and for the most part you will stay in third. Once I got in third, I only downshifted once on the very last corner and only because my line was poor thanks to another car being in the way. In third, you will get up to around 90 but you must exercise care on throttle. Even on a straight, don’t use 100% gas. While you will continue to drive straight and well, you will spin the back wheels and lose out on speed and grip.
After the race is done, either upgrade and tune the truck a bit - or shelve it semi-permanently.
The Stadium Truck is a tricky little thing. I thought I was maxed out with the thing at ~102mph though.
It’s a lot of throttle control. Maybe act like a (insert cute animal you love here) is under the trigger (pedal, if you roll that way). I’d hate to say it, but you may need to nudge some of the other cars out of the way. With Gauntlet events, you’ll probably bump into some or some will bump into you anyway, but you maybe need to do a little push and shove to get up there. Mind you, of course, I’m not saying “use them as your brakes”, nor am I saying “do that online”.
If all else fails, maybe turn down the difficulty until you can beat them.
And the Stadium Truck, while looking and sounding awesome, is not very fun when it comes to the Extreme Offroad races on the island. The amount of times I had to restart some of the races made me want to snap the truck in half (Rewind always off, and I have OCD about finishing first every single race). Then again, my build had 738hp going still just to the rear wheels. Maybe if you make it AWD it’ll help with them, provided you still have enough happiness and respect towards the truck after you win it to use it again.
Wow, I didn’t realize it was such a “bad” vehicle. It took me three tries before I won that race. Granted, I wasn’t thrilled with the top end, and I did race a little dirtier than usual, but I still got 1st place. I haven’t yet, but I expect it’s going to get some much needed upgrades coughcough transmission coughcough.
I did the same thing. I just couldn’t get the thing to drive late. I typically brake late and apex late and that is just NOT the way to do things on the dirt, rain, mud, slip of Storm Island. Even more so in a RWD truck.
I feel your pain. I redid this stupid race about five times. I drift in the game, and am pretty fast when racing, and to top this I completed all the solo bucket lists, but wow. This challenge was unnecessarily hard, and therefore stupid.
Here is my experience:
First you sit at the start, noticing all the other vehicles you are facing are AWD whilst you are in a RWD with three gears, running no TCS. That’s only if you can actually see the other vehicles. Turn 10 thought the five foot visibility element would challenge drivers. It challenges my patience is what it does. It does not make you feel skilled if you miss all the trees in the race, it makes you feel unbelievably lucky. Then you spin your tires, barely hitting 60 mph in about 8 hours. Then you understeer into the treeline, cussing the whole way. Hit restart. Start again, feathering the throttle. 7.529 hours to 60 mph. Make the first corner, get cut off by a drivatar , lose half your speed, cuss some more, try to make the next corner, only to have the truck in front of you try to cut the course, hitting the row of trees. They inevitably bounce back into the roadway, missing all the other drivatars, killing any hopes to even finish better than 11th. Restart. Back to the 8 hours to 60 mph grind. Randomly flip over on the last straight with a 5 second lead. Restart. Accidentally start in reverse. Restart. Pull a run #1, crashing on the first corner. Restart. Make it to the front of the pack, somehow, and start screaming like a little girl who got a sparkling pony for Christmas. Dodge a mobile lighting rig to save speed while your neigbors call in a noise complaint. Suddenly, all hope is sucked from your soul as the “missed checkpoint, 4 seconds to universe implosion” text pops on screen. Put down the controller, go on a long walk contemplating existence, then come back with renewed hopes. Restart. Your newly found confidence and hope leads you to a neck and neck battle for first, with the finish only 200 yards away. Suddenly, the drivatar procures a JATO unit, shooting it up to a gazillion miles per hour, making you look like a deceased tortoise. Collect your jaw form the floor. Restart. Restart. Restart…
Finally, through selling your soul to some evil deity, you win. You feel empty and cold inside (no, it isn’t from the lack of soul).
I restarted twice, but beat the unbeatable robots on 3rd try.
Don’t worry too much about barging A.I.s out da way. We aren’t racing rare classics online here, it’s pickup trucks in a thunderstorm on a backroad at night. We shall be warping the bodywork some, and testing the crash helmet. Don’t worry about rewinding if you get too aggressive and mess it all up.
The truck itself isn’t all that bad, once you:
1). Install a transmission built after 1946
2). Bolt the front wheels on straight
I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t tune cars, but this was more like repair work. I only used a hammer doing the 2nd one. I completed the first task using only some bailing wire, three hairclips, a wooden chair and a block of cheese. Also one 6-speed racing gearbox sourced from TRD.
Hated this race, beat it on attempt 4, not turning any difficulty down but ramping up my rage and directing it towards the drivatars.
Yes it felt low, but I felt I had been brought down to that level and my drivatar hatred had been building for some time now, particularly from Long Beach on FM5.
Drivatars became my brakes on corners (/sigh), overtaking a drivatar was not enough, I wanted to ensure he smashed into a tree or barricade to ensure none of the “JATO” hijinks would occur, particularly on the straight after the last corner.
Even then I only won the race by about a car length.
I’m never running that event again.
No more drivatars will be harmed in this manner again, at least not until the next time I have to complete a race like this.
Boggled that anyone at PG / T10 would think this was a good introduction to Gauntlet events.
Take ot to AWD, get rid of the hideous camber, change and lengthen the gearbox to suit. It isn’t that bad once you’ve done that…
Edit: Nice and cheap though. 90K is really not bad. I actually kinda like it, in a “I’m not going to use it competitively, but as a car to mess around in” type of way. It has character: a sophisticated hillbilly simpleton, lol