The Speed Star sidequest...

[VenomousSocks]

was designed by a sadomasochist. It needs to be patched to be more forgiving. It's not fun, it's borderline torture. I wanna play the rest of the game, but my completionist senses won't let me unless I beat it. I've got the max amount of speed chips and I use the speed boosts, but nothing works!

[Bombast]

Which one are you on?

[Disco Litchi]

Try dodging instead of running. Maybe some of those dodge chips can help, aswell. I had a lot of those equipped and moved through all the tracks dodging pretty much all the time and got them within a few tries.

[Hued]

It's doable, not meant to be a breeze. Races 2 & 3 require some trial & error with learning the optimal air mobility. One person several days back even explained that he managed to do race 3 by air diving with the spear to land more quickly.

[ShepardUA]

movement chips and items, m8

[Luna]

I think you can cheat with gravity pod program.
I didn't want to cheat, so I don't know for sure if it works, but I didn't have much trouble with either the first or third one as 2b. The second one is tricky though. Took me 3 tries. I only had 2x movement speed chips equipped for the max bonus, nothing else.

[lpnlizard27]

Pro tip

Use the pod program Slow to stop the little bastard for a few seconds.

Also use the movment speed item that boosts run speed for 30 seconds.
I beat all 3 without any modifications to my chips. AKA no move speed chips or evade range chips.

[VenomousSocks]

I'm on the second course, and I can't count how many times I've done it. I tried for an hour and nothing I did seemed to help.

[Null_User]

Watch youtube guide videos for the shortest paths if push comes to shove.

[Akutenchi]

Needed for 3 Tracks 10 tries in total and that without any speedboost chips. Just train and get the right way ;)

[VenomousSocks]

Okay. I'm gonna try again and see if dodging is better than running. Wish me luck!

[Hoshi]

Yoko Taro hates completionism and achievements.

There were deliberately garbage parts of the original Nier (gardening, for example) implemented specifically to frustrate and stifle potential completionists and achievement hunters.

Frustrating side content is almost certainly there for that very reason.

[VenomousSocks]

Well, ♥♥♥ Yoko Taro 'cause I beat his stupidly-implimented racing bullcarp.