Today I finished racing (for a while..)
10:37:57 - 06/07/26 You were awarded the honor: Leaderboard
I started looking at the Leaderboard merit in '24, realised the only way would be through racing when a friend Kenergy [2804837] was going for it.
I had finished my flying for flushies in Jan '25 so started testing what does and doesn't work in racing for pure wins.
My racing skill was not very high at 12 points at this time.
By April '25 I was running custom races, all one lap (apart from overnight) flicking between Docks and Speedway, both Stock and Upgraded - mostly to shake off a few reliable persistent top racers with far more RS than I had who liked to run my races for the easy wins.
For a year I managed to mostly keep my monthly rise over 300 places a month then it dropped as I hit 1k places to go, the wins needed between positions started to space out, 10, 20 wins for one place. It was getting harder!

Instead of a casual 20 - 30 wins a day I needed more, I had the script racenco to be able to one click the race start, I checked my pad every few minutes in the evening to start a race, I didn't check logs or care if I won or lost, its was a numbers game.
I was addicted, not to racing - I hated racing but I NEEDED the merit now..
It got harder still, newer players started to avoid my races, top players still racing me, friends noticed me glancing at my phone when out at dinner, it was getting out of hand.
So I took the decision 28 days ago to speed it up and offer cash for loses to a few faction mates and a company employee, the race wins went from 30 a day up to 102, this could work before I get served for divorce.. (honourable mentions to HolyCattus [3544570] vonManteuffel [3573238] and VK_6 [3821541] who helped me so much this last month)
The weekends were tough, racing stops - my people had stuff to do, no-one joining. Painful to see numbers stop, to see faction teams racing each other in private races gaining wins and past me.
I got within 50 places, just 500 wins to go, this week... Friday so close, everyone stopped racing again, some american day apparently, so my excitement was cut short, back to 20 wins a day.
This morning I put my back out, no work - spamming racing instead, joining races, backing out when I see its certain players, try another, no, one more, spam one with random name, a player joined - yess. one more - the hours past for the last few wins, they are mine...
I feel rewarded for my long effort - it has to be one of the most painful merits to get when your not able to be sat at a pc all day casually able to hit a button.
The cars I owe it too -



I ran a lot of stock races as I crashed 39 times, wasn't earning points and repairs were running my stock down.
I had narrowed it to 'E' class being best as it attracted new players most of the time.
I didn't want private races as I wanted the skill points for it - gained 29 points.
Now I recuperate and actually face the wife when I speak to her :)