Thank you so much for the detailed review and the kind words, we really do appreciate it!!! The reverse mechanism did get some criticism. The thing was that we implemented a brake which was to be pressed first to stop the wheels from rotating and then to press reverse, next time we'll be more careful with that.
The texts at the start were indeed skippable. In the main menu => settings, theres a toggle for "tutorial messages" (but appears as "tutorial" in some builds) which would skip the messages at the start when set to false. The events being completely random and extreme was one of the initial reasons to increase the health of the car but we'll make sure to further balance things out in the next jam.
Once again, we want to thank you for the detailed feedback!! Wishing you best of luck for the rest of the jam as well :D