Since the Los Santos Tuners updates were released earlier in July this year: sprint races have been an elusive new feature. Apart from regular races, a class might take players a bit more than stock cars to win.
Grand Theft Auto 5 used to have standard races for players to compete on the metrics of speed, but the Sprint races up the ante. There are now six races to compete in. Three of these races are on the test track, but the other three are map races. Here’s everything you need to know on how to join Sprint Races in GTA 5.
What’s Different about Sprint Races?
Sprint races aren’t as organized as the standard races, and these take place on the Los Santos streets without street markers or checkpoints. In true GTA 5 style: you’ve got to maneuver through oncoming traffic and crowds of pedestrians (not that knocking over pedestrians has ever been an issue). There’s also complete freedom in choosing the route: the first to reach the finish line wins, no matter which path you take.
This gives the players a chance to find the shortest route themselves, with those who know the Los Santos map like the back of their hand having a clear advantage.
After you’ve started the race, your vehicle can be spawned at one of the seven chosen Sprint Race locations in Los Santos. Your race route can be as short as 1.46 miles or as long as 3.9 miles, depending on the distance. But the space doesn’t have much of a role in winning sprint races since much of it depends on finding shortcuts.
Some longer-distance locations for sprint races have shortcuts that can make the race the shortest of all sprint races.
Sprint Races have a Prize Ride. At the end of the rainbow, the pot of gold can be achieved by winning five sprint races. To participate in sprint races, you need to purchase an LS Car Meet Membership for $50,000.
How to Join Sprint Races?
Starting a sprint race isn’t tricky, but it may not be obvious to most players. Here’s how to go about it:
- Head to your garage to choose the car you want to race in. Speed and handling are critical for sprint races, and stock cars might be tough to win with. You might want to hold off the sprint racing until you can upgrade your vehicle to max capabilities.
- Once you’ve purchased the Los Santos Car Meet Membership, drive to the Los Santos car meet. This is being held at the Pißwasser warehouse in La Mesa. La Mesa is in the southeast part of the map.
- Once you’ve entered the Pißwasser warehouse building, you can begin the sprint race. Do this by clicking on the interaction menu and finding the ‘Sprint’ option.
- You’re now taken to the Sprint Race lobby. Here, you’ll have to wait for your competitors to be chosen randomly and added to the lobby. A notification is sent to all the currently active players in the Los Santos Car Meet lobby. A 30-second countdown begins when a second player is added to the lobby, but the players can go up to 4. You can have 2, 3, or 4 racers in each sprint race depending on how many players are online and how many decide to accept the Los Santos Car Meet lobby challenge.
- Once the countdown touches zero, you’re taken to the tractor parts warehouse. This is located north of the Los Santos Car Meet.
How to Win a Sprint Race?
Joining a sprint race isn’t enough, and you have to win five races to win the weekly Prize Ride. Winning a sprint race takes some skill and practice, not to mention a great ride that gives you an advantage. But even if you don’t have the previous week’s Prize Ride to bag the next one, you can start with upgrading and boosting vehicles from the Exotic Exports car list.
- Your finish line is randomly generated since the sprint races don’t have a set route. It also appears on your GPS map, the only way to navigate and figure out the shortest path to the finish line.
- This is where your knowledge of the Los Santos map comes in handy. It’s great to know shortcuts: ideally, ones that involve a stunt jump, so you can get way ahead of the competition. The good news is that the map isn’t that big. Even though the finish line is randomly generated, you’ll start discovering shortcuts in the map after playing Sprint Races for a while.
- It wouldn’t be a GTA 5 race if colliding with other vehicles wasn’t an option. Interestingly, you can collide with your competition and watch them crash and burn – but you can’t do this with any other non-playing car on the road. However, the traffic is still a nuisance and acts as an incentive to find that non-traffic shortcut, stat.
- You can only win a prize ride if you’ve won five sprint races. However, a race isn’t wasted if you don’t win it. Each player gets RP for their race, depending on what place you finished in the race and how many players participated.
Player RPs
Here are the different RP scores you get depending on how you finish in a sprint race.
Earning reputation points helps level up, not to mention plenty of practice and time spent getting to know the Los Santos map.
If there are two players in the sprint race:
The player who finishes 1st gets 40 RP, and the player finishing 2nd gets 32 RP.
If there are three players in the sprint race:
The player who finishes 1st gets 50 RP, the player finishing 2nd gets 40 RP. The player who finishes 3rd gets 30 RP.
If there are four players in the sprint race:
The player who finishes 1st gets 60 RP, the player finishing 2nd gets 48 RP, the player finishing 3rd gets 36 RP, and the player finishing 4th gets 30 RP.
How to Claim the Prize Ride
Now that you’ve done the hard work of winning five sprint races: claiming your prize ride is easy enough. Winning five races instantly delivers the week’s prize ride to you. You need to travel back to the Los Santos Car Meet and click on the interactive menu. Here, you’ll see an option to claim the vehicle of your choice.
If you win the prize ride before December 2nd-14th, the Prize Ride is Emperor Vectre, worth $1,785,000. The Trade Price is $1,338,750.
Please note: You won’t be able to claim your prize ride if there’s no space in your garage. This is a small detail that’s easily overlooked, so make sure you’ve cleared space for another vehicle in your garage before you decide to click on ‘claim Prize Ride.’
Once you’ve done this, your Prize Ride should appear in your garage. You can now ride your Prize Ride around Los Santos – but you’re probably going to win next week’s sprint races with it.
What is the Next Prize Ride for December 2nd to December 14th?
Emperor Vectre is the next prize ride for players who complete five rides between December 2nd to December 14th, 2021.
‘Emperor Vectre’ may sound like an unknown vehicle, and that’s because it’s one of the best tuner cars recently added in the latest Los Santos Tuners update.
The Emperor Vectre draws inspiration from the real-life Lexus RC F with a modern, sporty design. There’s a mesh grill on the car’s front with elevated hood lines, long exit vents, and front fenders. For those curious: the Emperor Vectre sports a V8 engine and 8-speed gearbox in a front-engine, four-wheel-drive configuration.
Players report that Emperor Vectre’s strongest suit is momentum, great for gaining a headstart in sprint races. However, it’s not the best at keeping up high speeds and won’t always hit top speed. But what it lacks in top speeds, it makes up for in excellent handling and stability.
The Vectre can be compared to other high-performance heavy cars and will naturally suffer sharp cornering. The learning curve of the Emperor Vectre is relatively short compared to other Tuner cars. However, iy takes some practice to make the most out of its initial acceleration capabilities.
Now that you’ve figured out sprint racing in GTA 5 check out our guide on how to do pursuit races in GTA 5.
