It seems like sometime during the past year, the ETK's vehicle configuration for the Downhill Rally run was changed from having the "Stage 2 Turbocharger" in earlier versions of the game to only having the "Stage 1 Turbocharger" in the current version. It's a difference in 10psi of boost and nearly halves the power of the ETK Rally(Gravel) setup from what I'm able to tell changing configurations around in freeroam(400+bhp vs 220bhp), at least with the current version of BeamNG. The real difference is that it pulls through corners at speed since it doesn't bog when you try for a higher wheel speed in a higher gear.

I really hate to be "that" guy, and the new 1st place run is incredibly solid otherwise, but I don't see a way for anyone to get a time faster than that with the newest version of the game. I'd honestly rather the devs changed it back to the previous configuration since the stage certainly feels a lot better with the bump in power, but that's neither here nor there.

Regardless, thanks for the consideration and your time in reading this.

So the run was removed for a little while and then got verified again. I've been running this scenario in particular since before I knew of the Speedrunning community the game has. I only try for speedruns because it's all friendly competition and gives me a good reason to get better at driving in the game.

But I digress, let me better demonstrate what I mean when I say that the ETK doesn't have the same amount of power to pull through corners like how it used to be able to in earlier versions of BeamNG.

So here's two versions of the same corner:

The "older" version of the game:

The "current" version of the game:

Notice the wheel speed when entering the corner, both right at around 51-52mph. See where I have to downshift to 3rd to stop the ETK from bogging while WOT in 4th whereas in the old version of the game the ETK is able to just pull through the entire corner in 4th without any issues. Notice how the boost pressure is also varies in each version, 10.1PSI in my run and 21PSI in the run from a prior update of the game. It's pretty clear to tell that it's two different configurations of the same car, one from the old version of the game and one from the updated version of the game.

Now I'm really feeling like "that" guy....

I just replayed some of the scenario tonight. Car is down on power. With my agressive driving style I also got a turbo overheat warning I have never seen in earlier runs. Something has changed. I'll be back for that 1st though ;)

Judging from the other run, you definitely have the skill to take back the 1st.