are you flying manually or using the f2/goto function? from what i understand. if you fly manually using shift-w to engage your cruise engines and cut as close to the corners as you can (think gran turismo) then you can beat it with relative ease.

hrm... so use shift+W instead of F2? aint they the same? I mean both are cruise engines right? SO u mean Shift+W will activate the cruise engines without having to charge up? I dont have a problem with the race... its just that my cruise engine shutdowns and it takes awhile to power up again and that's why I'm losing my lead on Hovis... thanks for the tip anyways, I'll go try it later...

F2 and Cruise are different. F2 take you to the waypoint and stop at the waypoint. Cruise using free flight only shut down when you tell the engines to stop.

F2 means goto waypoint. so you start criuse engines and fly to the waypoint, but also the autopilot starts and zje autopilot steers too ( for example to not not bump in in asteroids blanets or others). with shift+w you only start your cruise engines without the autopilot. now the computer steers not. in the race you have to steer alöone so you don't have to use the autopilot. i think if you are to close to an asteroid or something the autopilot shuts the cruise engines down to steer alone a sharp turn. so don't use the autopilot with cruise engines (F2) instead of cruise engines alone (shift+F2)

... with the words of the vulcans
live long and prosper

M-A-V-T-O-O

coolness.. i now see whts the problem.. dat stupid auto stopping and starting up again.. so u guys think its the autopilot eh? hrm ok... I'll try the sHIFT+w frm now on! Many Thanks!

Yup - that's the problem. Shift+W works, or If you prefer the mouse interface, instead of you can also click the >>> under the free flight icon to engage cruise mode without autopilot.

I really dont understand why everyone is having a hard time with the race.

Press shift+w AT THE VERY BEGINNING and use freeflight to race . Near the end the guy will miss a waypoint and you will win. It is normal that he goes faster than you at the beginning...