Court of Lord Zoltan v2

I like my driving games; always have done since the original Mario Kart on the SNES way back when. So the other day I bought Dirt 2 on Steam as I needed some driving action (my previous driving squeeze was Grid – and I can highly recommend that too).  Very cool, especially with XBox 360 wireless controllers. After clocking up 20 hours or so on the solo missions I decided to give the online game a go.  Whilst in the trailer I navigated to the Multiplayer ‘board’ and hit ‘online’. The instant I hit the button on the pad, the sound started to crackle & stutter; then I lost everything except the menu sound effects (only later for them to return for about 10 seconds). I’ve had this before (during the videos on Streetfighter 4, for example) and I just thought ‘well if the game still plays, I’ll put up with it for now’. Only it didn’t play – not exactly anyway.  The first race went okay (apart from getting battered by the opposition!), and then I went back to the menu...