NORMAL: Quite easy you have loads of time to pick up the pods that are scattered around the track. You probably won't need a strategy, just get round the track well on the first lap while picking up as many as possible. Then on the final two laps, keep hitting the boost, and mop up the stragglers, as it were.
HARD: This next one is much harder, but again you should be able to crack it soon enough. In this there are sets of the pods in groups of three. Make sure you get one of these each lap or your screwed. Although you can not afford to lay off the boost at all, just keep boosting all the way and you should just make it.
VERY HARD: This is tough. much, much harder than the previous two. There are sets of pods in kind of like a diamond shape, so you need to hit the front pod, airbrake to the left and then VERY quickly right again to pick up the back one. There are other formations on the track but they don't vary too far away from this one. At the end of the track there are about ten pods and make no mistake this bit is down to luck. Not whether you're in the right position or not (although that does help) just whether you can airbrake quick enough, considering the speed you need to be going at. Also, boosting all the way is essential. Good Luck, That is to say, you are going to need it.
NORMAL: This is pretty simple. Just avoid the boulders and you shouldn't have a problem. The best thing to do is save your boost for last half of the race so you'll have boosts near the end. Even if you hit one rock, you can still a good chance you can win, because Goroh doesn't actually go that fast.
HARD: A tactic you could employ here if you can't do this one the right way is to try to knock Goroh of the cliff. It will make life much easier, but it's hard to do. Otherwise its a case of justboosting steadilly toward the end of the race.
VERY HARD: You should set your Acceleration - Speed ratio all the way to the left here. A good idea is to do all three one after the other, so you don't forget where certain rocks will fall. If you hit anything here, you may as well retry, because Goroh is fast, and you probably won't catch him. Also drive on the outer side of the track near the edge, it will give you precious more split second to decide how to avoid it. Only boost when Goroh messes up and drives into the rocks, and leave half of your boost for the last bit and then continuously boost to the end, and victory will be yours.
The strategy here is the same for all three difficulties, except on VERY HARD you need to get round the corners as tightly as possible and make sure you stock up on boost well. The most important elemant of this race are the jumps. If you want to win you'll need to get the directions perfectly, because manoeuvring in the air takes to much time and speed. Hit any pads dead on and you'll lose speed, pull back to much and you'll find yourself floating in the air for a while. When you hit the pad, the analogue stick needs to be in it's neutral position - this will give you good speed and lenght on the jumps. On this chapter, the best thing to do is do HARD as soon as you finish NORMAL, and after that, VERY HARD. One last thing: even though there are loads of right angled bends, stick the acceleration - speed ratio all the way right.
Chapters 7, 8 & 9