In life of every parking lot rally racer there comes a moment where you want to not just go, but go FAST.

Luckily, the game accomodates for this basic need via two core gameplay mechanics: Rocket starting, and drifting.

Terminology taking from Mario Kart.

Rocket starting occurs when you start holding Up arrow when the word "Set" appears at the start of the race. Any earlier - You lose the ability to rocket start, any later - You missed the window and gain nothing.

Upon a successful rocket start however, you gain a burst of speed which unfortunately disappears after a bit. Understandably, you might be disappointed, but fear not, as the next method of gaining speed will allow you to not only gain speed, but keep it.

Keep in mind - You should ALWAYS rocket start. Every map in the game has nothing in your way for the first few seconds of driving and not rocket starting is just putting you at a disadvantage.

By pressing SPACE, while holding a directional key, and having enough speed (around 40 km/h is enough) you can start a drift.

From there you can control how sharp or wide you are going by holding direction keys.

Drifts are not only useful to make turns faster, but also because they provide Drift Boosts.

Once you drift for long enough small sparks will appear near you, first yellow, and after a bit - Blue. Upon finishing your drift depending on the color you will get either a small boost, or a bigger one. Now, that is beautiful on it's own, it allows you to go fast for a small period of time.

But what if you wanted to go faster and for longer?

Luckily, the game got you covered there as well, as if you are in a boost state, and you start another drift, which also manages to get you a drift boost, you will not only extend the duration of your last boost, but get an even bigger boost. Drift chaining allows you to get tons of speed, more speed than you may ever need.

An important thing to mention is that while in air, your drift boost doesn't go away, meaning that it will still be there once you touch the ground no matter the distance travelled (I think).

Oftentimes if going to fast you may want to start either releasing acceleration and tapping break, which allows you to make sharper turns, and if you still have a drift boost by the end - regain all of your speed once you hold acceleration again.

But with great speed come great troubles. So, you should probably learn what to do once you achieve your dream.

So, you are going 80 km/h in a parking lot, what now?

Well, first, let's assess what your biggest enemies are while going fast.

In order of least to most important I would say it's:

• Walls
  
• Ramps
  
• Props

Surprisingly enough, walls are the least of your worries, and you will soon find out why. While drift boosting, even if you bump into a wall, you maintain your speed. It would mean that most of the time you may either waste your boost, or become a victim of the other two.

Or, the third sinister thing.

A lot of the times going fast against a wall will cause you to lose control of your direction, potentially making you drive offroad, or sometimes even flip you upside down. That sounds bad right? Well, imagine what the other 2 have in store considering they are worse than this.

Tip:
In Chicago particularly going too fast during the jumps may cause you to bump into the ceiling of the next level, and most likely lost a ton of time as a consequence.

How to deal with walls you may ask? Well, it might just be better to sacrifice a bit of your speed if you know there is no way you can either drift or turn fast enough to avoid one. If you can however - Do that instead.

So, ramps. The biggest issue with them is that going too fast while going up them will make you fly, which can cause you to either crash into walls, fly off the stage, or any combination of the two.

There are actually 2 ways to deal with ramps.

First off there is the boring option of 🤢slo- 🤮sorry, slow- 🤮. SORRY. slo...wing down.

🤮

But as an alternative:

Drifting up a ramp with LESS THAN 70 KM/H will cause you to not only not get flung across the map whatsoever, but will also allow you to keep your chain going.

A prop is basically everything that isn't a wall or a slope - Cars, concrete barriers, stuff like this.

Large speed and props are a combination for disaster. Interactions may range from having to push the prop, to stuff like this:

Basically, bumping into a prop at a high speed can yield you a result ranging from a good wall day to a bad slope day. You can flip, get launched, lose control, or worse... your speed.

Dealing with props most of the time involves just plain avoiding them. If you can drift around them - Go for it. Driving around? Go for it. Slowing down? If necessary - Go for it. There is no price high enough to pay to avoid having to be flung across the map due to a goofy physics interaction.

So, now you know how to go fast, and maybe you read long enough to get some tips as to how keep that speed.

Now, go out there, and break speed limits!