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The race for gold (Fast/Episode Race) is just you playing against a record of how quickly other players completed the levels you are now playing. Because it is a record then that player could very well have completed the level years ago when the level might have looked different, or had more moves.
Also players that bought booster packages and gold bars to complete your levels will also be included in your Race.
Yes @Hereonlytoplay the Episode Race is a strange event because only one person wins the gold for all the positions of the Race.
The amount of gold you win is determined purely by how quickly you can complete the fifteen levels compared to how quickly someone else completed the levels months/years ago.
Based on this the lack of differentiation between the rewards for third to fifth is appalling behaviour from King.
Considering Activision is still in charge I suppose none of us should be surprised though. If you search online you will see that Activision has a poor reputation when it comes to microtransactions in their games.
Let's hope that things improve when/if Microsoft takes over.