The complete list of Race Challenge types in Angry Birds Go!, what they mean, and how you can easily beat them

Race Challenges are your ticket to Crystals and perhaps even Internet celebrity on the global leaderboards.

To be clear, Race Challenges are the additional objectives unlocked when you complete all the stages in a set of races, within a series. They're there to provide a little more longevity to an already fairly long game.

Complete all three of the Race Challenges and you'll receive some Crystals, plus an additional 1000 points added to your final score for each round of Race Challenges you've completed. So complete three sets of nine Challenges and you'll have an additional 3000 points added to your final score.

However, these extras don't come easy, and many Race Challenges are deceptively tricky in spots, with some proving significant bottlenecks for progress.

You can always spend Crystals to skip the harder Challenges, but why fritter away premium currency when you can read the guide below, absorb the information within, and have the satisfaction of completing them yourself?

This one's easy. All you need to do is nudge your kart into another racer's. You'll probably do this naturally through the course of the race, unless you're a lot faster than the other characters competing. If that's the case, refrain from firing out the slingshot too quickly.

A variation on the above, but easy to do when you know how. On races with a lot of jumps you'll probably complete this without trying, but on the flatter courses, try pinging the slingshot into the paths of your opponents.

Those offensive powers you have, such as Bomb's blast? You'll want to use these here. Simple.

Again, this one's a no-brainer. Career into something and you'll have completed the objective. Sometimes you're asked to hit a specific type of obstacle, and this is simply a case of hitting the right one. Easy.

This one can be a pain on the later tracks. You need to turn enough to be drifting (sliding) for a fraction of a second. You'll see the counter tick up each time you perform one successfully. I find it's best to do these around coins on straights using a snaking technique, so you can maximise the amount of currency you collect.

Of course you can also perform these around long track corners, and you should try and straighten out occasionally to keep that counter ticking up with "new" drifts. Avoid performing them just before a jump though, as you may well lose control of the vehicle.

These objectives aren't too tough usually. You should focus on collecting rather than fulfilling other objectives, but other than that you just need to make sure you keep your eyes open for the correct route to hurtle down the track.

Where this becomes trickier is when you're asked to do this without steering, during a drift, or in the air.

When you drift, the width of the area of your vehicle splatting fruit (or collecting coins) becomes wider, meaning that you hit more objects. You can easily hit a width of three fruit, and doing so will quickly rack up the points, so you should practise this technique anyway for the main game.

Collecting without steering just means that you can't be turning while collecting. You'll want to grab these on straights, or just before corners.

Doing this in the air is another kettle of fish entirely. You need to have all wheels off the ground to do this, so concentrate on getting as much lift as possible across ramps, hills, and anything else you can think of.

Another easy one: achieve a final race position of the one given, or better. The best way to do this is race in a highly powered vehicle. These are often completable while finishing other objectives.

These objectives are all about going skyward for as long as possible, as often as possible. Most of these objectives are met fairly easily, but occasionally you'll run up against one with a seemingly impossible metre distance.

This is where the Special Moves come in, most notably King Pig's, but to a lesser extent the characters with speed boosts too. I found that boosting off a ramp helped increase the distance I would cover, but for the best results I used King Pig's balloon technique to float longer and further, activating it just before I hit the ground for maximum effect.

This one's different to the above, because you have to do this from the slingshot. Obviously you'll want to have mastered your slingshot skills before attempting these, but after you have, look for areas to land that are lower than others. Fire into a lower area and you'll have stayed in the air for longer, and therefore will have flown further. Alternatively you can use the King Sling.

Should be no problems here for a seasoned Angry Birds Go! player. Just perform a good shot and you'll usually be fine. Try to aim for the inner corner of the first turn too, or use a King Sling, just to be safe.

The challenge with these objectives is that you don't have a brake, so you need to smoothly manoeuvre your way into, or out of the way of the items in question. The layout of the tracks and items don't change, so if you're having problems with doing things one after the other, practise, practise, practise.

You'll be given a target number to beat in these objectives, or you'll just need to beat the score of one of your friends that is also playing the game.

The main ways of increasing your score are spending time in the air, drifting, battling with other racers, and collecting coins. So take your time, fight with your enemies, and build up that score.

As easy as the title of the objective makes out, just ensure that you're sliding sideways when you pass the line at the end of the race.

Power ups are the items you choose at the beginning of a race, and not the special moves each character has. If you can avoid getting these confused, you can complete this objective easily.

Roll over finishing line without kart

Ugh, this one's almost always a nightmare. When your kart is destroyed your character will roll forward a short distance. You need to roll like this over the line to win, and as you can imagine timing this event happening isn't easy.

There are three options. First is to play endlessly in a zippy but weak kart, hoping you get trashed just before the end. Second is to collide with as much stuff as possible on the way down and hit a wall a few metres from the finish line. Third is the easiest of all these: take the financial hit and skip the challenge with Crystals.

Easy as pie this one. Turn too far and you'll start rolling backwards, if only for a few feet. Do it right at the end of the course and you'll be fine.

In these missions, you want to very quickly overtake opponents. The easiest way of doing this is by driving over Boosts (it's a pre-requisite for some challenges) or by using Red's special move.

I found the easiest way of doing this was by hanging back with the Slingshot and firing into last, before catching up with a speed boost in a fast kart.

Using the Slingshot, you must land in first place. This is easy: simply follow our special guide on launch techniques.

You should have more than enough characters to complete these kinds of challenges: just swap out which character is racing and complete the stage again.

The grind comes into play with the kart element, as you'll need a suped up machine to compete in the race that is different to your main. I recommend getting a bunch of Coins from later levels, coming back, upgrading a brand new kart, and winning the race that way. Just make sure to chuck all the points into speed rather than anything else.