by JustNCredible » Mon Apr 04, 2016 9:40 pm
What it boils down to is finding a car that is easy to control, because in a straight line, every vehicle should be the exact same speed.
EDIT: The Autopia Cars are the exception; in the Toybox they are significantly slower than everything else, but in the Speedway they are as fast as everything else.
There are differences between all of the vehicles though, for example some vehicles turn faster than others (for example Mike Wazowski's yellow car turns very fast, making it hard to control), and because of ground clearance, some vehicles are more thrown off by obstacles; I've found that vehicles with low ground-clearance (the four Indy-cars for example) negotiate bumps and obstacles more gracefully than cars with large wheels and tires, which will sometimes bounce and be thrown in different directions.
Likewise, I love bikes and they are good at cornering, but they can be knocked off balance easier than cars, especially when coming into contact with edges where there is a drop. Bikes are also harder to land a rail-grind with.
Floating cars/bikes (like the pod-racers, Medusa's Swamp Mobile, Buzz Astro Blaster, Star Wars speeders) Are even worse than bikes when it comes to rails and edges. There are some barriers that you can float clean over where as most cars would be kept on the track.
My favorite car to use in time trials is Francesco. He has one of the lowest ground-clearances of any vehicle and he is small (perfect size to avoid obstacles and other racers).
My personal favorites to use for fun, are Francesco, Cruella Deville's Car (which is also one of the lowest cars in the game), Medusa's Swamp Mobile, Vanellope's Candy Cart, and Grievous' Wheel Bike, and of course the new Ghost Rider's Bike, that thing is sweet.
In contrast, by far the worst vehicles in the game are the pod racers. For one thing they are huge, meaning they can be their own obstacles when negotiating small spaces. They also give little indication to their body roll while drifting, making it hard to tell where you're pointed when coming out of a drift, and their reactions are slower, at least where the model animation is concerned, which also throws off your sense of direction. On top of all that, they can sail clean over the edge of the track and over rails, making it extremely hard to stick a grind and even stay on the track. They are nearly impossible to win a 250cc race with. It doesn't bother me though, since out of all vehicles they should be the hardest to control and they are for sure some of the coolest looking/sounding vehicles in the game.
The real trick to winning in the Speedway is getting good at drifting, because ideally, you should always be in a drift, even when driving in a straight line. Your vehicle should be in a drift 100% of the race if you can help, it because that is the single-fastest way to build boost, and you'll need a lot of it to beat the harder races; the perfect race would consist of constant boost.