amusedKuma proceeded to qualify for pole, while my two cars rolled a 1 and a 3 and were stuck at the back of the five-car field. One of my cars got a great start, however, and threaded the needle between Lisa and Kuma's cars heading in to the first curve. After a couple of corners, Lisa stopped and took some photos.
Here I am considering Kuma Bear's performance. Kuma is performing remarkably well for a stuffed bear.
It's anyone's race at Casino corner (the basic game as shipped includes the Monaco track), with all five cars contending. My cars are the green team; Lisa's are blue, and Kuma's lone racer is in yellow.
As the end of the first lap approached, Lisa and I each pitted one of our two vehicles, leaving the other out, while Kuma, having raced conservatively and taken little damage, also skipped the pits.
It looked like just about anyone could win, but Lisa's lead car got a perfect die-roll, with Kuma not far behind. Kuma's conservative style earlier in the race preserved enough points to be able to blow the last corner without braking. In a desperate play to make the podium, both of my vehicles up-shifted and rolled much too high a speed, ending up crashing into the tire wall on the final corner. Kuma scored a respectable second place, while Lisa's two cars took first and third.
This is a fun game, and I reckon it would be really entertaining for the full compliment of ten people, although it would probably take quite a while to play, even for a one-lap race. Once we've grown comfortable with the basic rules, we'll see about moving to the more realistic advanced rules, which give separate damage points to different parts of the car rather than lumping 18 damage points together for the whole vehicle.