Shift Work is a Strangers and Freaks Mission (Side Quest) in GTA V (Grand Theft Auto 5). This walkthrough shows how to get all Gold Medals in Shift Work for 100% completion.
Gold Medal Requirements:
- Fastest Lap: Complete a lap within 1:20
- Underdog: Finish the race within 02:50
- Clean Race: Finish the race with less than 5 collisions
Walkthrough Video
Starting Location: Shift Work
- Location: Strawberry / Power Street
- Quest Giver: Hao
- Requirement: Complete “Pulling Favors“
- Can Be Started By: Franklin
Get a Car
Meet Hao in an alley and he’ll taunt/invite you to a street race, while dunking on Lamar Davis. Gotta love Hao.
While you can complete the race with Franklin’s buffalo, it is far easier if you steal a fast car instead, like the Dinka Jester or the Coil Voltic. You shouldn’t need to modify them, but if you have the extra money to do so it will also make your job simpler. In particular, the best engine tuning, race suspension and brakes, turbo tuning, and spoilers to assist with traction.
Go to the Race
When you’ve got the right car and any modifications you think you’ll want, drive to the objective marker to immediately start the race. There are six racers, and your starting position will be at the back of the pack. All Gold Medal requirements are tied to your performance in the race:
- Fastest Lap: Complete a lap within 1:20
- Underdog: Finish the race within 02:50
- Clean Race: Finish the race with less than 5 collisions
Regardless of the vehicle you have and how much money you’ve spent on mods, Franklin’s best and most effective weapon in the race is always going to be his driving special ability. Use it wherever you are in danger of a collision or to make sharp turns that defy physics. Seriously, while Franklin is concentrating you do not have to brake before any turn, you can maintain your acceleration through the turn, and it will completely negate any linear inertia you’d have had in the original direction. It saves the time of braking, accelerating to get back to top speed, and literally causes time to run at half speed. It’s quite useful right at the beginning of the race where all drivers are jockeying for position off the line, and likely clumped up around the first corner.
With a halfway decent car and Franklin’s special ability, you can safely pull into first place before the third checkpoint. After that, all you’ll have to do is trigger Franklin’s special ability for any sharp corners or obstacle avoidance, especially in the case of oncoming traffic. It’s very easy to be about to make a sharp left and have a car making a right turn suddenly pop up in your way. Make sure to turn off Franklin’s special ability as soon as the turn has been completed and/or when the obstacle has been dodged in order to conserve your ability meter. All told, you don’t even have to race that aggressively to meet the time requirements. A stock Dinka Jester can complete the first lap in just over a minute racing conservatively. The second lap is even faster since you won’t have to deal with a glut of cars through the first couple checkpoints, finishing almost a minute under the 02:50 requirement.
Franklin’s special ability makes all sharp turns trivial, but there is one point on Little Bighorn Drive just after you go through the Innocence Boulevard underpass, where coming back up the slope on the other side you can accidentally get excessive air and potentially hit oncoming traffic. Aside from being aware of that possible complication, the remainder of the race is straightforward, and you’ll always have the next two checkpoints indicated on the minimap so you can be prepared for upcoming turns. Even if you crash and lose some time, you should be able to recover as long as you don’t collide five times, but if not the race is short and can be retried from the options menu if you want to come back later when Franklin’s special ability and driving stats are much higher, for example.
This finishes Shift Work in GTA V.
For all other Missions refer to GTA V Walkthrough.
This walkthrough has been updated for the Enhanced Version on PC / PS5 / PS4 / Xbox Series S/X and is also still applicable to the Legacy version.
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