NASCAR 14

Update 7/13/14: It appears that the most recent patch has fixed the 'Logano to the Lead' challenge and this achievement, along with it's two counterparts, are now possible! I glanced over the patch notes and didn't find any other fixes worth mentioning, so if any of this information is no longer correct, don't hesitate to give me a shout.

So here we are again, arguably the worst achievements in every Nascar game since the dawn of time, and they got worse. Instead of "Easy, Medium, Hard" challenges, you have to beat a certain time to score a medal. Each time is very specific and will require some dedication on your part to nab all 11 gold medals.

General Tips and Hints:

* These Challenges are unfair: You must first understand that the AI in each Highlight Challenge are literally built like a tank. They also travel in a predetermined path around the track and will be in same place every single time during that particular lap. Use this knowledge to run lines to help you achieve success. You must realize that you cannot touch any cars or you will quickly find yourself going for a spin and failing the challenge.

* Master the track: Each one of these events requires near-perfect lap times and little margin of error. If you need to, run 10-15 practice laps without the annoying tank cars. I admit, I needed a few laps of Watkins Glen because I rarely race on there. Although it glitched on me, it certainly would have helped.

* Margin of Error: The gold times leave you with little to no margin of error. I ran three perfect races during the "Closing In" Challenge and found myself coming up just a few thousandths of a second off. Not a single one of my non-glitched sucessful runs have been more than half a second better than the gold time, so that should give you some indication on how perfect you need to be.

* Glitches: As of right now, I have encountered glitches on 5 different challenges. I can't seem to place why they have occurred, nor can I get them to trigger consecutively. I am not 100% sure everything that has been patched from the update, so if you have any information, please add!

* Below you will find each challenge, the target times, and the exact number of attempts I made before passing the challenge. You can also find my notes on what happened and hopefully they will help you on your journey.


1. Stealing Jimmies Thunder (#88)
- Bronze Target: 1:33:95
- Silver Target: 1:33:69
- Gold Target: 1:33:42
- My attempts before passing with gold: 3

This challenge isn’t bad at all. Draft at all times, and run the preferred line around the track (next to the wall on the back stretch, down on the yellow line in corners, blocking the front stretch) and this should come easily.

2. Cutting Corners (#11)
- Bronze Target: 0:44:70
- Silver Target: 0:44:35
- Gold Target: 0:44:05
- My attempts before passing with gold: 17

To have any chance at hitting gold, you must get around Jimmie in the very first corner of the challenge. Otherwise, you’ll hit silver if you manage to survive the ridiculously stupid mechanics of these Highlight Challenges. Remember, the AI are tanks, and you are basically a ping pong ball. Your handling also sucks so don’t overdrive a corner or you’ll spin out.


Second note: I hit silver four times. My best time was 44:20, and I couldn’t do any better even getting by him during the first corner. During one of my attempts, I got spun out across the line on the first lap by Jimmie. It gave me the challenge success screen, and I officially have a time of 17 seconds for the challenge! I tried for another 10 minutes to get it to register the same exact way, but with no luck. I guess I got REALLY lucky

3. The Icing on the Cake (#20)
- Bronze Target: 1:02:12
- Silver Target: 1:01:55
- Gold Target: 1:00:95
- My attempts before passing with gold: 2

I may have just gotten lucky, but this challenge came off as very easy. Make sure to learn your corners well, as both corners at Las Vegas are very different. Hit two really good laps and avoid the lapped cars and this one will come much easier than the last one.

4. Taking Advantage (#18)
- Bronze Target: 3:26:22
- Silver Target: 3:25:13
- Gold Target: 3:23:29
- My attempts before passing with gold: 21

Here’s another one that requires you to focus on perfecting corners. Unfortunately for me, the karma fairy hit me from the previous glitch and FAILED me on a successful gold run. I don’t know what caused that glitch either, but it was pretty frustrating. Only other advice I can give is do not pass either car until the second lap. The AI are scripted and will go where the game tells them whether you are there or not (and if you are there, they will plow you over with their tank car).

5. Caning Kahne (#24)
- Bronze Target: 1:46:48
- Silver Target: 1:45:74
- Gold Target: 1:45:01
- My attempts before passing with gold: 3

Take a breather here, as this one is fairly simple. You do not even have to worry about passing anyone, but instead focus on hitting your corners perfectly and you’ll nab it.

6. Beat Around the Busch (#2)
- Bronze Target: 2:23:25
- Silver Target: 2:21:12
- Gold Target: 2:19:21
- My attempts before passing with gold: 6

Once again, I’m receiving glitches. On my 6th attempt, I crossed the finish line on lap 1 of 2 and it gave me the gold medal with a whopping time of 1:10:94. You’ll need some patience for this one, as Watkins Glen will take much more practice than the oval tracks. Once you get passed the first turn (which I subsequently failed to do the first five times) you can focus on hitting corners. There was no way I could have attempted this challenge without some practice, so I advise you do the same.

7. Closing In (#88)
- Bronze Target: 1:36:55
- Silver Target: 1:36:29
- Gold Target: 1:35:99
- My attempts before passing with gold: 13

This one has the lowest possible margin of error I’ve ever seen. In the first corner, you can abuse the turn a bit and pass the first driver. Then, as you approach turn one of the second lap, you need to dive super low to avoid Logano and a scripted slow car. Once you get around them (you must do this exactly as I say or you won’t make gold) focus on spitting out picture perfect turns, and you’ll need a lot of luck on this one. It isn’t particularly hard, but I kept getting 0:10 away from gold each time until I finally nailed it.

8. A Perfect Weekend (#48)
- Bronze Target: 2:30:20
- Silver Target: 2:29:65
- Gold Target: 2:29:04
- My attempts before passing with gold: 62 (before) 2 (after)

This challenge is the hardest one by far. You have 8.5 laps to throw down perfect laps and stay ahead of Clint Bowyer. The track sucks, your car sucks, and if Clint catches you, he’s going to dump you because he is scripted to do the same exact thing each time. The math says you need 17 second laps (not possible) and odds are you aren’t going to put up 34 consecutive perfect corners.

Luckily, I spent an hour of my time breaking this challenge for you. What you are going to do, is never let go of while driving. As you approach a corner, you need to ease yourself into the wall at a parallel angle. If you hit it too hard, you will lose speed and the game knows you are trying to break it so it fails you. After you get the approach down, make sure to hold left on your stick as you go full throttle through the corners. After I discovered that easing into the corner worked, it only took 2 attempts. So about that 17 second lap problem? The game registers your win as you cross the finish line on lap 499. I’m presuming that was the plan all along, as my time was only 2 seconds better than the gold time doing this trick. Just another glitch to look out for, and hopefully my method helps you get through this awful challenge.

EDIT: I've done this three times now. The challenge seems to register on 499 rather than 500, and my method works like a charm.

9. Front Row Finish (#34)
- Bronze Target: 0:59:80
- Silver Target: 0:59:65
- Gold Target: 0:59:50
- My attempts before passing with gold: 23

This one is 100% luck. What you’ve gotta do is draft the 43 car until he dives high. Now you are going to get a shove from the 38 (your teammate). You must use this shove on the backstretch to dive from 5th to 1st place, and then you must block for the win. The biggest issue is getting past the broken mechanics of this game because 9/10 times you are going to get tossed around like a salad trying to pull this off.


It also helps to watch the replay of the final lap in this race, because you are going to be doing exactly what happened. I’ve included a link because it helped me out a bit. The video starts at 0:49 and keep your eye on the #34 and you will have an exact replica of what you need to do!


10. Logano to the Lead (#22)
- Bronze Target: 2:52:01
- Silver Target: 2:51:26
- Gold Target: 2:50:53
- My attempts before passing with gold: 5

As of 7/13/14, this challenge is now fixed. The margin of error in this challenge is probably the largest of any challenge and I ended up hitting 2:48 on my perfect run. You can overshoot the first corner a little bit more than normal and get around Hamlin coming out of the second turn. From then out, be patient with your passes as the AI follow the same pathing and will dump you if you're in the way. I seemed to have a lot of trouble with passing the 1st place car, it blocks more of the track than the others did. Use the exit of any corner with a large head of steam to pass him in one clean go.

11. Johnson Takes Two Tires (#48)
- Bronze Target: 1:59:65
- Silver Target: 1:58:15
- Gold Target: 1:56:82
- My attempts before passing with gold: 9

On pit road, keep you speed at 58-59 miles an hour the whole way (yes, manditory). If you touch 60, you fail. Floor it once you pass the yellow line, and stay on the apron until you get on the backstretch (you fail for coming up to early). Now, focus on some really good turns and you'll get it. This one is more forgiving than the others, as I almost spun out but still had a time of 1:56:08. You must have perfect pit road speed like I mentioned and you must pick a good time to merge after turn 2 so you don't get run over by the tank AI.

Thats it! Feel free to contact me with questions. Please comment on how I can change the solution rather than downvoting... I check TA every day and will respond quickly.

The solution above applies to the following achievements as well:

Before attempting ANY of the highlight challenges, be aware of a glitch I ran into that may affect you. The workaround I devised requires you to start a new game, and thus you will lose progress on these challenges.

As x1001x Puppys stated in her solution, sometimes the game will fail you in the Taking Advantage (#18) highlight, despite winning the race. This is correct, but for me, it occurred about 6 or 7 times in a row after posting a Bronze time. I tried completing the challenge by deleting the title update but no luck. The game kept failing me.

So I went into my hard drive and moved the saves to a new storage device while deleting the title update and the game itself (I own the digital version). Then re-downloaded the game and started it WITHOUT updating it. I then redid Taking Advantage and managed to complete the scenario without getting failed (and with Gold). This leads me to believe that the TU glitches the challenge into failing you AFTER you've completed it once.

If this happened to you as well, or you want to a avoid this, then go into your HDD and delete the TU. Now, either delete OR move your Game Data and Progress files to a new device (You can delete them if you have no use for them, but it's not necessary). Then go into the game and decline the update.

Now you'll have a clean file with no medals on it (hence the warning to not attempt any highlights). Complete Taking Advantage first and shoot for a Gold. I found this scenario actually easier without the TU. The cars seemed to be slower and I managed to get around them on the 2nd lap, making Gold a bit easier.

Other Highlights you can take advantage of while having the TU uninstalled are Beating Around the Busch (#2) on Watkins Glen and A Perfect Weekend (#48) on Martinsville. The Glen scenario will end after one lap, giving you a time of about 1:10.xxx and a Gold medal if you're ahead of the #18. For the Martinsville scenario, you can use x1001x Puppys method of riding the wall to get a good time. The scenario ends at lap 499. Having the TU installed makes these scenarios end when they're supposed to, making the Watkins Glen challenge harder. The Martinsville challenge, however, can still be completed using the wall trick.

I didn't notice any difference in difficulty in the other Highlights, so after you complete those 3, re-download the TU and earn gold medals normally.

If this glitch happened to you and this solution helped you, please comment below so I know it at least happened to more than one person and is not an isolated incident.