My Day IN the Races

I mentioned yesterday that PCA members could sign up to race Hurley Haywood in Need For Speed Shift online (PCA Members Can Race Against Legendary Hurley Haywood). Today was the big day and even though I posted about it yesterday, I completely forgot to get the game. When the email came through this morning, I raced out and bought it, threw it in the xBox and honed my racing skills through a whoppin 3 quick practice laps. I don’t have have a racing wheel (I’d really like to get one of the Fanatec Porsche 911 GT3 RS racing wheels), so I was stuck with the xBox controller.

The time quickly came to be ready to accept the invite to race the big Double H. I got my invite, jumped into the game and got screwed out of the first race because of an EA Nation sign-up I didn’t know about. CRAP! I finally got in and raced in two 2 lap races. The first race I was all OVER the place. Couldn’t keep the car on the track. I clawed my way to a 7th place finish…out of 8 people.

In the second race, I was much lighter on the controls and ran about half of the first lap in 2nd place, even beating Hurley at that point. I avoided several near misses on a couple of hairpin turns and was starting to think I could take 2nd to the Finish, then WHAM! Some dude side swiped me as we went into a corner. That was game over for me and I was relegated to a 7th place finish again.

Even though I didn’t take down the legend himself, I at least beat one other person in both races.

Let me say one thing about Need For Speed Shift. If you don’t have it…buy it. I was really surprised by how cool the game was. And it’s straight up pure racing. Not all the street speeding and mission crap of other “racing” games. You race on some of the best tracks in the world with some of the best cars in the world.

For the race against Hurley Haywood, I was in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. After only a couple of laps, I was hooked. I’m ready to throw down some coin on a nice wheel setup and have even started looking at racing seats and whatnot. There are some pretty amazing setups out there.

Need for Speed Shift is definitely a game I’ll be playing regularly. It’s worth every bit of the $50 I had to drop last minute to get in on the race. You can even save a bit at Amazon for all platforms (PS3, xBox 360, PSP, PC) here: Need For Speed Shift.

Comments

  1. Did you at least get a little payback?

    • You better believe it. I t-boned him on the next corner, which really only put me farther behind, but still felt good at the moment.

  2. Ryan,

    Good to see you getting into “racing”. Now if we could just get you on the track. My big “Hurley” story is I actually passed him once on a real track! Really, I did. He might have only been a passenger giving lessons to the guy driving, but I still passed him in a corner at Barber Motorsport!! 🙂

    • @993 – SWEET!!! That’s way better than my race! You’ve got some great stories. You need to share them.

      I just gave my wife a choice of a race simulator or real racing. She took the race simulator. Might be as close as I’m ever going to get to racing.

  3. Hey I found you a new car that I think you might really like there. The new 2007 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR is here and it is unbelievably fast.

  4. Ryan, ever been go-karting? there is a great place in Boston called F1 Boston, if you have anything in your area it is lots of fun. They aren’t kiddy karts and you will feel like Mario Andretti when you are done.

  5. @Ryan – good choice of ride. Have you seen the white GT3 RS that roams around our neck of the woods? I saw him cruising down Scholls Ferry about 2 weeks ago. Snapped a couple pics w/ my camera phone that I was going to send in, but they didn’t turn out very well (driving behind him).

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  1. […] stop me from taking my turn racing the legendary Hurley Haywood in Need For Speed: Shift (My Day IN the Races). I felt like I was at a disadvantage having to use the controller. Not that it would have made a […]