Motorstorm Apocalypse : Supermini pro race impossible to complete

I've completed both previous games and I've never encountered a race this difficult. I can't see where I'm going, the map is falling appart, the car will die instantly on the tiniest of impacts and it's ridiculously slow without boost. I'm on my sixth attempt and best i can manage is 5th while sweating my balls off. 1st AI is 13 seconds faster. In previous games if I was really struggling on a race i could simply skip it, but here I'm stuck. Any tips ?