I feel like I'm missing something here. What we have is a regular chocobo race where you have to place higher than a specific NPC to win the challenge. But for some reason I am getting my butt kicked in the very first one. I have tried it a dozen times now and I haven't even come close! Is this NPC supercharged? Is there a trick I'm missing?

I thought these would be like the Verminion challenges where they got progressively harder. If that's the case, I don't stand a chance of getting through them all!