Team V6 Vandals
1:30 PM
“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” Jake said, looking at what had been done to the Swift. “Thankfully, it’s a hatchback, I can clear the shaving-cream cock-up off of the rear window with the wiper and washer fluid.”
The team climbed into their car, where Jake took the hot-seat for the first time, and the 3.9 liter V6 strained to start. After several minutes of cranking, it finally lit up, exploding banana all over an unfortunate elderly lady who happened to be directly behind their car. Jake cleared the rear window, or at least smeared the cream around enough to not be recognizable, then rattled and clanked his way out of the parking lot.
They hit the road hard, the gravel no longer making a racket as long as they kept the speed up, though it threw the wheels slightly out of balance at high speeds. When Jake saw the Hillbilly Rollers pulling off to get food, he pointed them out, and it was Amy who rolled the window down and hurled one of the team’s piss-bottles at their car. She missed, but the intent was crystal clear.
After stopping for gas around 2:00-ish, give or take a few minutes, the Vandals raced out of the parking lot, having finally dislodged the gravel from their hub-caps.
Around 4 PM, a burning question was rattling around Jake’s mind, and after a few tense minutes of trying to keep their speeding Sinistra on the road, he finally got around to saying something.
“Hey, Luke, mind checking and finding out how far back we are?” Jake asked.
Luke quickly popped up one of his communications arrays, then started a broad search of social media and radio chatter, any information passed back to the race administrators, and GPS beacons for any cars dramatically exceeding the speed limits. After a couple minutes, he responded with, “Best guess, we’re in the leading 10. I’d say 8th car back, but I could very easily be wrong. Don’t have the best data to work with, though it sounds like Mountain Pass is out of the race.”
“How’d it happen?” Amy asked.
“Fire. Don’t know much more than that. Heard they’re okay, but the car’s a total write-off.”
“What is it with Bogliq and their cars being surprisingly flammable?” Cody said. “Then again, could be worse, they could be made of pure explodium and just go kaboom every time someone looks at one funny.”
“I’d guess whenever the country they’re in banned asbestos, all flame-proofing went right out the window.” Amy said, giving a light shrug. “That, and they do tend to find the most abused cars in general, and we know from experience what that can lead to.”
“Yes, we know, Lady Leadfoot. After all, you killed our little Ishu Truckling by rev-tapping it when we knew it had an oil leak.” Luke replied, causing Cody to laugh. Jake, however, cringed because he remembered the huge cloud of smoke inside the cab, making it hard to see and harder to breathe.
“Well, Luke, get on a radio or something and let Mountain Pass know that it was good to run with them, and we’ll see them in the next big thing.” Jake said.
’ Mandy slowed her speed and picked up the phone catching a quick glare from Connor. Mandy’s dad quickly cut to the chase.
