History ThatOneLevel / RacingGame

[[folder:Other Nintendo Games]]
* The ''VideoGame/FZero'' series:
** ''F-Zero'':
*** The original ''F-Zero'' has the Death Wind courses, in which powerful gusts blow your machine to the side, making for an odd angle to drive at. Death Wind I is not so bad - as it's just an oval, but Death Wind II has extra corners that make the wind much worse. ''90-degree corners'' combined with dash pads which give you an instant boost to 999kph. Hello, wall!
*** '''FIRE FIELD.''' It is the final track in the original game for ''very'' good reasons: it is the longest track in the game (most races here will go on for over 5 minutes), and features nearly ''everything'' you have seen so far in the game[[note]]it lacks any ramps, boost pads, Red Canyon's high-gravity fields, and Death Wind's constant gusts[[/note]]: mines, U-turns in quick succession, roads covered in slippery terrain, and magnetic strips that will try to slam you against the wall. Not only that, at the end of the lap you are forced to take a split road, of which the longer road features the (small) obligatory healing strip. That's right, if you need to heal you are forced to take the longer route and potentially lose your position[[note]]in a game where finishing a lap with a position that's too low is an automatic loss, and the position requirement only gets more strict with each lap[[/note]], and even then that's for little if any shield energy, making this track a textbook example of the DroughtLevelOfDoom. And to add insult to injury, this (alongside Death Wind II) is one of several tracks that aren't available in Practice mode!
** ''F-Zero X'':
*** '''Big Hand.''' The final track, this is a rather long course in the shape of, well, a hand, and many parts of it have no guardrails, and there are some patches of ice in these rail-less portions. And it has some brutally difficult turns.
*** The Japan-only [[ExpansionPack Expansion Kit]] for ''X'' has the even harder [[Main/ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Big Foot]], with even tighter turns in much quicker succession.
** ''F-Zero GX'':
*** Story Mode chapter 7. It's a pretty bog-standard race with no gimmicks... except it takes place on the most sadistically designed course in the game, which every type of obstacle imaginable, several extremely difficult turns, and much, ''much'' better AI for the enemy racers than you're used to. Oh, and the number of laps it lasts increases upon increasing the difficulty. Fortunately, you only need to beat it for OneHundredPercentCompletion and to unlock an average ''F-Zero AX'' machine.
*** For regular races in ''GX'', Cosmo Terminal: Trident is an interesting case. It has a lot of very narrow roads without guardrails, and one careless move can easily result in losing your machine. After learning it well though, it becomes DifficultButAwesome, as you knock out other racers left and right. Destroying 10 or more machines here can become par for the course.
*** ''GX'' also has Mute City: Serial Gaps, the final course of the Sapphire Cup series. The Sapphire Cup is bookended by two rather unwieldy courses: Drift Highway at Big Blue and this course. Drift Highway is decent but difficult to actually win in due to the short track length and the tight turns. You make this up by racing steadily through the next three courses (none of which are particularly bad). Then you hit Serial Gaps. Large jumps and a high chance of missing your landing result in burning through all your machines on the ''last race'' of the series.
*** Most ''GX'' players also get tripped up at Lightning: Half Pipe, the fourth track of the Emerald Cup. While it isn't hard at all to traverse in the first lap - as you have no boost, it suddenly becomes extremely tough to stay on it while you're having your boost engaged. And considering that in the harder difficulties you have to spam the boost like crazy if you even think about placing first...
*** Five words that will make any ''GX'' player cower in fear: ''Phantom Road: Slim-Line Slits''. The final track of the original 20, this track has several sections where the track becomes extremely narrow, and while there are guardrails there, it means you're likely to lose a lot of speed on them (and good luck passing any enemy racers there either). It also pulls a nasty design decision where all the health restoration strips end in a drop-off, meaning you have to get out of them much earlier than normal. On top of this, the way the course looks makes it appear that you're going a lot faster than you actually are, which will psyche you out.
** ''F-Zero GP Legend'' has Illusion: Abyss Drop, a technical course with no guardrails. It really says something when [[EasyModeMockery the game spares you this track when you play on Novice difficulty...]]
** ''F-Zero Climax'' has the pre-made custom course [[SlippySlideyIceWorld White Land]] - Catharsis, which is more or less a test of how good you are at hairpin turns after being boosted to ludicrous speed. And many of said hairpin turns are over ice so that makes it ''even easier'' to hit a wall.
* ''VideoGame/DiddyKongRacing'' has Greenwood Village, particularly under the Silver Coin Challenge. In the game, the Silver Coin Challenges are unlocked after you win all the races in a world and beat the level's boss. To win a SCC you have to collect 8 silver coins throughout the stage AND get first place. This would be fine if not for the fact that (A) they are REQUIRED to beat a world (which is required for story completion); (B) the coins have ridiculous placements often requiring you to hit all the shortcuts (and some "longcuts") in order to get them all; and (C) the computer racers ''[[MyRulesAreNotYourRules are not bound by the coin collection requirement]]'' and are simply out to win the race. Greenwood Village is ''the worst'' level for this, as it has many shortcuts (all housing at least one coin), and the sheer number of them requires that you use all three laps to get them all -- on most stages, you can spend the first and second laps getting coins and use the last one to get back into the lead, but GWV has so many coins in non mutual locations you WILL need all three laps to collect. Your only hope is that you do freakishly well while you get all the coins, because the game will not show you any mercy. And for your efforts... you get to race a harder boss! Adding salt to the wound are [[{{Speedrun}} TASses]] of the game that don't necessarily use a lot of (obvious) glitches but still ''lap'' the AI while collecting all of the silver coins! Oh sure, make it look easy.
[[/folder]]

* Wario Stadium is a very simple course, consisting mainly of simple turns. What makes it fall into That One Level territory, however, is the jump near the end of the lap. It's very easy to do, but if you happen to get hit by something during it (which is pretty likely considering [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the AI is in this particular installment]], you'll fall down below without Lakitu's mercy, in which case you'll have to redo ''well over half the course'' and probably be put in dead last.[[note]]Mario Circuit 2 from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioKart'' had a similar issue.[[/note]] This infamous bit may be the reason why Wario Stadium is the only course from ''Mario Kart 64'' that has yet to return as a retro track in a future game.

* ''Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed'''s World Tour is a single-player mode with one near-universally frustrating mission type: Traffic Attack. All of them involve navigating dense traffic and hitting checkpoints at the end of each wave. However, in the higher difficulty levels, which are required to unlock all of the characters, Traffic Attacks require you to pass through 15 of these checkpoints with a time limit so strict that, even if you hit every checkpoint and time bonus, each mission would still give you barely enough time to finish even if you didn't hit any cars in the whole mission. These higher difficulty levels also include cars that will try to block your way, meaning you can't just look in front of you and charge a path ahead. It is not uncommon to hear people complaining that they spent hours each time a Traffic Attack came up going through the World Tour.

** [[VideoGame/NeedFoeSpeedMostWanted2012 The 2012 game]], set in an open world with random traffic, has the nerve to include "Speed Runs" which, contrary to everything else in the game, require precision driving. You have to maintain a certain average speed over the length of the course, meaning any crashes will ruin your run. The Speed Run courses "Downgraded" (two tight, twisty, blind roads with lots of traffic - and you have to average 120 MPH to beat it) and "Downtown Run" (which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - you're asked to average 150 MPH ''through downtown rush hour'') are particularly chock-full of Classic Video Game Fun Units.

* ''VideoGame/Shift'':

[[folder:Other Video Games]]
* Monaco is the That One Level of every ''UsefulNotes/FormulaOne'' game (and in real life, see below). A thin race track where it needs almost inhuman braking and driving skills to not hit a wall, and with at least 20 something cars on the track, this makes for an incredibly difficult track to win, especially for getting first place.
* The SNES game ''Top Gear'':
** There's Bordeaux; nothing but winding S-curves lined with grapevines that will take your speed from 200 MPH to a dead stop in .1 seconds, and it's 6 laps long as well, so even the fuel-efficient white car can expect to use the pits at least once.
** Rio is the site of the game's first major DifficultySpike. It's one of the longer tracks in the game distance-wise, there are very tight corners all over the place, and you have to drive 6 laps around.
** The final race at Stonehenge can be this if you're using the gas-guzzling red car. Even if you race perfectly, you will still have just barely enough fuel to get to the finish line, and there are no pitstops anywhere.
* The SNES, Genesis & Amiga game ''Top Gear 2''. It's not necessarily as difficult as the original, but it still has its moments:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=5293&v=aHatg2MXAKE&feature=youtu.be Athens, Greece]]. Don't let the vaguely oval layout fool you, this track is actually a major step up up in challenge from earlier tracks, despite not having any adverse weather conditions (besides being a night race). The first and third turns need to be taken extra early or your car will be crashing into the obstacles. Also, your car won't necessarily be highly upgraded yet, which can lessen the margin for errors.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=9159&v=aHatg2MXAKE&feature=youtu.be Helsinki, Finland]] takes racing in snowy conditions to new heights with harsh turns that don't allow much room for error due to the slippery road. Get used to holding off on your nitro boosts or you'll likely go flying right into the obstacles on the corners. Thankfully, if you've made it this far into the game, your car will most likely be fully upgraded, softening the learning curve.
* If you haven't mastered powersliding in ''VideoGame/DaytonaUSA'', its Expert course is gonna give you hell. It seems even harder when you take into account the [[TimedMission strict time limits]] that the game imposes.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr0kQlGYcH0 It can be done, though. You just need to practice, practice, practice.]]
** ''2001'' has Rin Rin Rink. This course has a long, sharp turn at the bottom of the track that is just really hard to slide around properly. Your car never seems to achieve enough drift to stay on the tarmac here and going to the grass is costly. The only way to really take this turn properly is to simply slow down and grip through it. You might lose some standing but it's better than trying to drift through it and ending up on the losing end.
* In ''VideoGame/ProjectGothamRacing 4'', you get to race on ''multiple'' Nürburgring tracks. And unless you're in a custom race where you can control the weather, it's ''always snowing!'' Add in that you can't always rely on watching the walls to know when a turn's coming (there can be loads of space between the track and the railing sometimes) and you can see why Nürby is [=PGR4=]'s That One SET Of Tracks.
* The factory driver challenges in ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed Porsche Unleashed''. Particularly the ones involving ''several 360 degree turns in a row.'' ''God.''

** The 2012 game, set in an open world with random traffic, has the nerve to include "Speed Runs" which, contrary to everything else in the game, require precision driving. You have to maintain a certain average speed over the length of the course, meaning any crashes will ruin your run. The Speed Run courses "Downgraded" (two tight, twisty, blind roads with lots of traffic - and you have to average 120 MPH to beat it) and "Downtown Run" (which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - you're asked to average 150 MPH ''through downtown rush hour'') are particularly chock-full of Classic Video Game Fun Units.
* ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed: Hot Pursuit'' 2010 has "Rapid Response" Cop events. Tasked with responding to an emergency call, you have to race from point A to B in a set amount of time. However, thanks to the twisty roads and the random traffic, this becomes more difficult than it sounds. Furthermore, touching any walls or traffic vehicles will incur a time penalty, making those Distinction ratings a bitch to get. To top it off, if the game decides to give you ATasteOfPower by letting you loose in, say, a Veyron (in the rain, too!), this ''will'' be what you'll do with it. Good luck, rookie!
* ''Need for Speed: Carbon'' for Game Boy Advance has a bad case of this in ''The Gauntlet''. The track ''Southside'' appears not only once or twice, but THREE TIMES in this final set of 6 races. As if being 50% of the final area is not bad enough, the track is full of curves, easily missable and nearly useless shortcut, and has two circuit races of 4 and 5 laps!

* 3DS DK Pass. It's already a difficult track in the DS game, but it seems like there at least the snow didn't slow you down as much. In ''Mario Kart 7'' on the other hand... The snow to the side slows you down drastically, the icy road makes it difficult to even charge mini turbos/drift properly and the lack of edges mean that one mistake near the start has you fly off the road to your doom.

[[AC:''VideoGame/MarioKartDS'']]
* DK Pass. It's already a difficult track in the DS game, but it seems like there at least the snow didn't slow you down as much. In ''Mario Kart 7'' on the other hand... The snow to the side slows you down drastically, the icy road makes it difficult to even charge mini turbos/drift properly and the lack of edges mean that one mistake near the start has you fly off the road to your doom.

** While the original ''Wipeout'' is challenging in general, the first three courses can be manageable even for relative newbies to the series. Then you have the other three courses [[note]](which, incidentally, are all covered in the above-mentioned [=HellfireWZ=] video)[[/note]]: Korodera, Arridos IV, and [=SilverStream=]. They're each technical and difficult in their own right, but it's [=SilverStream=] that is the most infamous, rivaling Temtesh Bay as the franchise's hardest track. It is ''Wipeout 1'''s longest track by length, and with a rare hairpin turn [[note]]the sharpest in the game[[/note]], sharp ''and'' blind corners, and some inconveniently-placed speed pads, hitting the walls will be a constant threat [[note]]in a game whose physics system will have your craft instantly halt if you touch anything[[/note]], meaning your braking skills better be up to par. And then you have two major splits in the track, the second of which earns [=SilverStream=] its infamy. Said second split is about halfway through, and it essentially decides whether or not you have a chance to win. The right branch is the simpler path, but it's also longer and ultimately slower, adding as much as five seconds to your lap time - an eternity in a game like this - which can set you behind to the point where you won't see another craft for the rest of the race. The left branch, while shorter and quicker, is much less forgiving, featuring a brutal sequence of a sharp left turn followed by an equally-sharp left-right chicane. And you ''must'' take the harder path to remain competitive. The kicker? In ''Wipeout 1'', you can't advance if you finish a race outside the top three, and your continues are limited; meaning that you could be winning every other race consistently with a comfortable points lead only to repeatedly fail on [=SilverStream=] and get a game over, forcing you to restart from the beginning. And you have to clear the tournament on Venom class if you want to start playing on Rapier class, followed by clearing it on Rapier class [[note]]meaning you must get through this already-difficult track at a ''faster'' speed[[/note]] to unlock the bonus level. It all adds up to a track that [=HellfireWZ=] describes as "rightly considered 'number one bastard' in the entire series."

** While the original ''Wipeout'' is challenging in general, the first three courses can be manageable even for relative newbies to the series. Then you have the other three courses [[note]](which, incidentally, are all covered in the above-mentioned [=HellfireWZ=] video)[[/note]]: Korodera, Arridos IV, and [=SilverStream=]. They're each technical and difficult in their own right, but it's [=SilverStream=] that is the most infamous, rivaling Temtesh Bay as the franchise's hardest track. It is ''Wipeout 1'''s longest track by length, and with a rare hairpin turn [[note]]the sharpest in the game[[/note]], sharp chicanes, and some inconveniently-placed speed pads, hitting the walls will be a constant threat [[note]]in a game whose physics system will have your craft instantly halt if you touch anything[[/note]], meaning your braking skills better be up to par. And then you have two major splits in the track, the second of which earns [=SilverStream=] its infamy. Said second split is about halfway through, and it essentially decides whether or not you have a chance to win. The right branch is the simpler path, but it's also longer and ultimately slower, adding as much as five seconds to your lap time - an eternity in a game like this - which can set you behind to the point where you won't see another craft for the rest of the race. The left branch, while shorter and quicker, is much less forgiving, featuring a brutal sequence of a sharp left turn followed by an equally-sharp left-right chicane. And you ''must'' take the harder path to remain competitive. The kicker? In ''Wipeout 1'', you can't advance if you finish a race outside the top three, and your continues are limited; meaning that you could be winning every other race consistently with a comfortable points lead only to repeatedly fail on [=SilverStream=] and get a game over, forcing you to restart from the beginning. And you have to clear the tournament on Venom class if you want to start playing on Rapier class, followed by clearing it on Rapier class [[note]]meaning you must get through this already-difficult track at a ''faster'' speed[[/note]] to unlock the bonus level. It all adds up to a track that [=HellfireWZ=] describes as "rightly considered 'number one bastard' in the entire series."

** While the original ''Wipeout'' is challenging in general, the first three courses can be manageable even for relative newbies to the series. Then you have the other three courses [[note]](which, incidentally, are all covered in the above-mentioned [=HellfireWZ=] video)[[/note]]: Korodera, Arridos IV, and [=SilverStream=]. They're each technical and difficult in their own right, but it's [=SilverStream=] that is the most infamous, rivaling Temtesh Bay as the franchise's hardest track. It is ''Wipeout 1'''s longest track by length, and with a rare hairpin turn [[note]]the sharpest in the game[[/note]], sharp chicanes, and some inconveniently-placed speed pads, hitting the walls will be a constant threat (in a game whose physics system will have your craft instantly halt if you touch anything), meaning your braking skills better be up to par. And then you have two major splits in the track, the second of which earns [=SilverStream=] its infamy. Said second split is about halfway through, and it essentially decides whether or not you have a chance to win. The right branch is the simpler path, but it's also longer and ultimately slower, adding as much as five seconds to your lap time - an eternity in a game like this - which can set you behind to the point where you won't see another craft for the rest of the race. The left branch, while shorter and quicker, is much less forgiving, featuring a brutal sequence of a sharp left turn followed by an equally-sharp left-right chicane. And you ''must'' take the harder path to remain competitive. The kicker? In ''Wipeout 1'', you can't advance if you finish a race outside the top three, and your continues are limited; meaning that you could be winning every other race consistently with a comfortable points lead only to repeatedly fail on [=SilverStream=] and get a game over, forcing you to restart from the beginning. And you have to clear the tournament on Venom class if you want to start playing on Rapier class, followed by clearing it on Rapier class [[note]]meaning you must get through this already-difficult track at a ''faster'' speed[[/note]] to unlock the bonus level. It all adds up to a track that [=HellfireWZ=] describes as "rightly considered 'number one bastard' in the entire series."

** While the original ''Wipeout'' is challenging in general, the first three courses can be manageable even for relative newbies to the series. Then you have the other three courses [[note]](which, incidentally, are all covered in the above-mentioned [=HellfireWZ=] video)[[/note]]: Korodera, Arridos IV, and [=SilverStream=]. They're each technical and difficult in their own right, but it's [=SilverStream=] that is the most infamous, rivaling Temtesh Bay as the franchise's hardest track. It is ''Wipeout 1'''s longest track by length, between a hairpin turn [[note]]the sharpest in the game[[/note]], sharp chicanes [[note]]hope you've brushed up on your braking skills[[/note]], and some inconveniently-placed speed pads, hitting the walls will be a constant threat (in a game whose physics system will have your craft instantly halt if you touch anything), and there are two major splits in the track, the second of which earns [=SilverStream=] its infamy. Said second split is about halfway through, and it essentially decides whether or not you have a chance to win. The right branch is the simpler path, but it's also longer and ultimately slower, adding as much as five seconds to your lap time - an eternity in a game like this - which can set you behind to the point where you won't see another craft for the rest of the race. The left branch, while shorter and quicker, is much less forgiving, featuring a brutal sequence of a sharp left turn followed by an equally-sharp left-right chicane. And you ''must'' take the harder path to remain competitive. The kicker? In ''Wipeout 1'', you can't advance if you finish a race outside the top three, and your continues are limited; meaning that you could be winning every other race consistently with a comfortable points lead only to repeatedly fail on [=SilverStream=] and get a game over, forcing you to restart from the beginning. And you have to clear the tournament on Venom class if you want to start playing on Rapier class, followed by clearing it on Rapier class [[note]]meaning you must get through this already-difficult track at a ''faster'' speed[[/note]] to unlock the bonus level. It all adds up to a track that [=HellfireWZ=] describes as "rightly considered 'number one bastard' in the entire series."

** While the original ''Wipeout'' is challenging in general, the first three courses can be manageable even for relative newbies to the series. Then you have the other three courses [[note]](which, incidentally, are all covered in the above-mentioned [=HellfireWZ=] video)[[/note]]: Korodera, Arridos IV, and [=SilverStream=]. They're each technical and difficult in their own right, but it's [=SilverStream=] that is the most infamous, rivaling Temtesh Bay as the franchise's hardest track. ''Wipeout 1'''s longest track by length, you'll face a hairpin turn [[note]]the sharpest in the game[[/note]], sharp chicanes [[note]]hope you've brushed up on your braking skills[[/note]], speed pads that will send you into a wall if you're not oriented right [[note]]in a game whose physics system will have your craft instantly halt if you touch anything[[/note]], and two major splits in the track, the second of which earns [=SilverStream=] its infamy. Said second split is about halfway through, and it essentially decides whether or not you have a chance to win. The right branch is the simpler path, but it's also longer and ultimately slower, adding as much as five seconds to your lap time - an eternity in a game like this - which can set you behind to the point where you won't see another craft for the rest of the race. The left branch, while shorter and quicker, is much less forgiving, featuring a brutal sequence of a sharp left turn followed by an equally-sharp left-right chicane. And you ''must'' take the harder path to remain competitive. The kicker? In ''Wipeout 1'', you can't advance if you finish a race outside the top three, and your continues are limited; meaning that you could be winning every other race consistently with a comfortable points lead only to repeatedly fail on [=SilverStream=] and get a game over, forcing you to restart from the beginning. And you have to clear the tournament on Venom class if you want to start playing on Rapier class, followed by clearing it on Rapier class [[note]]meaning you must get through this already-difficult track at a ''faster'' speed[[/note]] to unlock the bonus level. It all adds up to a track that [=HellfireWZ=] describes as "rightly considered 'number one bastard' in the entire series."

** While the original ''Wipeout'' is challenging in general, the first three courses can be manageable even for relative newbies to the series. Then you have the other three courses [[note]](which, incidentally, are all covered in the above-mentioned [=HellfireWZ=] video)[[/note]]: Korodera, Arridos IV, and [=SilverStream=]. They're each technical and difficult in their own right, but it's [=SilverStream=] that is the most infamous, rivaling Temtesh Bay as the franchise's hardest track. ''Wipeout 1'''s longest track by length, you'll face a hairpin turn [[note]](the sharpest in the game)[[/note]], sharp chicanes [[note]]hope you've brushed up on your braking skills[[/note]], speed pads that will send you into a wall if you're not oriented right [[note]](in a game whose physics system will have your craft instantly halt if you touch anything)[[/note]], and two major splits in the track, the second of which earns [=SilverStream=] its infamy. Said second split is about halfway through, and it essentially decides whether or not you have a chance to win. The right branch is the simpler path, but it's also longer and ultimately slower, adding as much as five seconds to your lap time - an eternity in a game like this - which can set you behind to the point where you won't see another craft for the rest of the race. The left branch, while shorter and quicker, is much less forgiving, featuring a brutal sequence of a sharp left turn followed by an equally-sharp left-right chicane. And you ''must'' take the harder path to remain competitive. The kicker? In ''Wipeout 1'', you can't advance if you finish a race outside the top three, and your continues are limited; meaning that you could be winning every other race consistently with a comfortable points lead only to repeatedly fail on [=SilverStream=] and get a game over, forcing you to restart from the beginning. And you have to clear the tournament on Venom class if you want to start playing on Rapier class, followed by clearing it on Rapier class [[note]]meaning you must get through this already-difficult track at a ''faster'' speed[[/note]] to unlock the bonus level. It all adds up to a track that [=HellfireWZ=] rightly describes as "number one bastard in the entire series."

* ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedProStreet'' has Nevada, a track with loads and loads of uphill mountains and bumps. The speed challenges in here can be absolutely hell given the fact that you must require both speed and precision driving or risk of being totaled. The races against the Speed King boss Nate Denver takes place in here. Hope you save a lot of money and total tickets. Expect to see the "TOTALED" message a few times.

** The difficulty of the time trials are unbalanced. The offroad rallycross championships like RA Rallycross Championship, 4x4 Monster Truck Series, Off-Road Buggy Nationals, Baja Buggy Kitcar Cup, etc: and the Go-Kart, you can shave a lot of seconds while every onroad championships and rally championships like Historic Group B Rally, RWD Rally Anniversary and MG Rally Shield can get extremely frustrating. And there are [[GuideDangIt no car setup guides even nowadays]] meaning that you must plan yourself your setup according how faster (in terms of gear ratio and downforce), stable and grippy (in terms of downforce, suspension and tires) would do.

** The police chases later on in the heat levels 4 and 5 to be exact get more frustrating then anything else. While not a level they get much harder because you have to deal with spike stripes that if you run over them, it's pretty much means that you get busted. The SUV's don't make matter's worse, but what does is the helicopter. If you happen to get away from the police unless you are in a building or in a tunnel the helicopter will be on your ass until it has to leave because it has to refuel.

* Laserdisc game ''Road Blaster'''s 9th (and final) stage (which is pretty much either [[PressXToNotDie Turn Left to not die, Press this pedal to not die, or both]]). let's summarize: it starts off with a turn that, if you don't know it's coming, you'll lose a life. the turn commands are strung so close together that the checkpoints in the level actually occur in the middle of a turn command (thankfully, you won't be responsible for the turn in progress). If that was the extent of the problem, it'd be bearable, but NOOOOO, it has to have ''TWO [[FakeDifficulty frame-perfect S-turns]] in the last stretch of the level.'' It's one thing to lose a life for getting the command wrong. it's another altogether to lose a life for holding the previous turn just longer than it had to be. oh, and did we mention if you try and cut a turn short, you die?

* ''[=ToCA=] Race Driver 3'' has pretty much for a reason why this game is hard:

** The difficulty of the time trials are unbalanced. The offroad rallycross championships like RA Rallycross Championship, 4x4 Monster Truck Series, Off-Road Buggy Nationals, Baja Buggy Kitcar Cup, etc: and the Go-Kart, you can shave a lot of seconds while pretty much every onroad championships and rally championships like Historic Group B Rally, RWD Rally Anniversary and MG Rally Shield can get extremely frustrating. And there are [[GuideDangIt no car setup guides even nowadays]] meaning that you must plan yourself your setup according how faster (in terms of gear ratio and downforce), stable and grippy (in terms of downforce, suspension and tires) would do.

* Ninja Hideaway from ''Deluxe'' caught many players off guard for its jump in difficulty. Beyond its unique aesthetic lies a course that is filled with 90 degree turns, multiple elevation changes in which getting hit can send you into last place, well-hidden shortcuts, and plenty of obstacles to keep you on your toes.

** Like a Lighting has a huge difficulty spike here. The goal is to draft your opponents to reach 400 KM/H (250 MPH) '''12 TIMES''' in a Mercedes-Benz C11 LMP1 Group C car and then finish first!.

** The Waypoint Races after "The First Impression" are brutally hard to get gold times akin to [[VideoGame/GranTurismo Gran Turismo's license tests]]. Those races can be considered little to room error especially "City Whispers", "Secret Worlds" and "Hardest Test".

* Ford Racing: Off Road

** ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'''s is a downplayed example, since it is entirely guardrailed, and the only obstacles are occasional zigzagging Chain Chomps. It's main problem is that [[MarathonLevel it's the longest track in the game, taking 4 and a half minutes to finish the race at LEAST]] - it's so long that, when it was remade for ''Mario Kart 8'', rather than making you do three full laps, you only have to complete one lap with three checkpoints; though it makes up for this by ''removing the vast majority of the guardrails'', bringing the aforementioned punishing falls back into play.
*** For comparison, you can speedrun three laps of ''F-Zero X'''s version of this course in less time than it takes to complete one lap in this game, even with the track adjusted to account for the much faster speed.

** ''Mario Kart Super Circuit'' for the GBA, on the other hand, unleashed a Rainbow Road that's something to fear. Rather than going without railings everywhere, the level is almost entirely lined with jump pads, which can be even worse than having no rails at all. But if you know how to use [[NitroBoost Mushrooms]] well and get them often, the track offers many shortcuts to take. However, this is still the only Rainbow Road besides the ones in ''Super'' and ''64'' to include on-road hazards in the form of both randomly falling stars to make you spin out, and thunderclouds that will shrink you if you get struck, drastically slowing you down and leaving you open to getting flattened by other racers.

** The track is a little easier in ''Mario Kart Wii'' ("easier" being relative), as it has guardrails in some areas, but it still features numerous sharp turns, and several jumps that land on very narrow areas, such that hitting the jump plate even a small angle off means a long, long fall. Beating the CPU (and especailly ''other players'') on this level usually requires you to have both skill (to run the whole track at speed without falling) and luck (to avoid weapons and sideswipes that would throw you off the side of the road).

** the ''Mario Kart 64'' version due to its many Thwomps which even move strategically to squash as many racers as possible, and for [[MarathonLevel being the longest track in the game]] in its ''Wii'' incarnation;

* The ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' series' [[AstralFinale Rainbow Road]] tracks are infamously difficult. In all versions, sliding off the track at any point results in a plummet into the abyss that costs several seconds to recover from. While other tracks feature similar areas (lava pits, water, etc.), the Rainbow Road is unique in having no solid ground anywhere except the actual road surface. Slipping just a little off on a turn means a punishing fall rather than a minor loss of speed from hitting the offroad. ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'''s is an exception, since it is entirely guardrailed, the only obstacles are occasional zigzagging Chain Chomps, and its only rather big spike is that [[MarathonLevel it's the longest track in the game, taking 4 and a half minutes to finish the race at LEAST]] - it's so long that, when it was remade for ''Mario Kart 8'', rather than making you do three full laps, you only have to complete one lap with three checkpoints; though it makes up for this by ''removing the vast majority of the guardrails'', bringing the aforementioned punishing falls back into play.

* ''Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed'''s World Tour is a single-player mode with one near-universally frustrating mission type: Traffic Attack. All of them involve navigating dense traffic and hitting checkpoints at the end of each wave. However, in the higher difficulty levels, which are required to unlock all of the characters, Traffic Attacks require you to pass through 15 of these checkpoints with a time limit so strict that, even if you hit every checkpoint and time bonus, each mission would still give you barely enough time to finish even if you didn't hit any cars in the whole mission. These higher difficulty levels also include cars that will try to block your way, meaning you can't just look in front of you and charge a path ahead. it is not uncommon to hear people complaining that they spent hours each time a Traffic Attack came up going through the World Tour.

* Baby Park. The layout is very simple; it's seven laps on a simple, small[[note]]the smallest track in the franchise, not counting DK Jungle from ''VideoGame/MarioKartArcadeGP''[[/note]], hazardless oval course. It's so small than an average lap is about 10 seconds. It sounds simple in practice, but due to its tiny size as well as its high abundance of Item Boxes, the entire race essentially becomes a massively chaotic LuckBasedMission. Expect to find yourself commonly caught in the middle of a hectic hailstorm of Shells, Bob-ombs, and everything in between, since it's often you'll lap players in low places and make yourself a target for high-tier items. It gets especially bad if one of the racers is Bowser, Bowser Jr., Petey Piranha or King Boo and they get a Bowser Shell from an item box, as not only does the damn thing have a huge hitbox, but it also bounces off everywhere, meaning that the chance that you get hit by it during the race is ridiculously high. When the course returned in ''VideoGame/MarioKartDS'' as a retro track, the game's introduction of the [[GameBreaker Bullet Bill]] didn't help matters. ''VideoGame/MarioKart8's'' remake takes this UpToEleven by making the whole race in anti-gravity, allowing you to boost off other cars by ramming into them (though they will get boosted as well), and the presence of ''twelve'' players at maximum as well as nigh-useless coins in the item rotation greatly thins the line between a legendary victory and a bitter failure. If you are planning [[ThatOneAchievement on getting 160 points on All-Cup Tour in either 150cc or Mirror Mode in]] ''[[ThatOneAchievement Double Dash]]'', good luck when this track comes up, because you are definitely going to need it.

** The final race series with Indy cars. Long races with infuriating rubber band AI (that can pounce on you after one mistake), and the Indy cars handled as well as boats through molasses. Correction: ''[[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard your]]'' Indy cars handled that well.

* ''VideoGame/DiddyKongRacing'' has Greenwood Village, particularly under the Silver Coin Challenge. In the game, the Silver Coin Challenges are unlocked after you win all the races in a world and beat the level's boss. To win a SCC you have to collect 8 silver coins throughout the stage AND get first place. This would be fine if not for the fact that (A) they are REQUIRED to beat a world (which is required for story completion); (B) the coins have ridiculous placements often requiring you to hit all the shortcuts (and some "longcuts") in order to get them all; and (C) the computer racers ''[[RulesAreForHumans are not bound by the coin collection requirement]]'' and are simply out to win the race. Greenwood Village is ''the worst'' level for this, as it has many shortcuts (all housing at least one coin), and the sheer number of them requires that you use all three laps to get them all -- on most stages, you can spend the first and second laps getting coins and use the last one to get back into the lead, but GWV has so many coins in non mutual locations you WILL need all three laps to collect. Your only hope is that you do freakishly well while you get all the coins, because the game will not show you any mercy. And for your efforts... you get to race a harder boss! Adding salt to the wound are [[{{Speedrun}} TASses]] of the game that don't necessarily use a lot of (obvious) glitches but still ''lap'' the AI while collecting all of the silver coins! Oh sure, make it look easy.