- @pcmoreno - Team Winthorpe / Winthorpe Badger - lap # 1338
- @Jaimz - Team Jaimz / Franklin Marshall Street Sport - lap # 1330
- @AndiD - Team White Star / Mara Zvezda - lap # 1314
- @BannedByAndroid - Team Chinese Dragons / Xianfeng K2 - lap # 1264
- @Interior - Team Slow / Hakumai CS-2 - lap # 1222
- @Petakabras - Team Collarada / Cabrera Fulgor - lap # 1212
- @Serperior98 - Team Double Dip / Akira Metro - lap # 1185
- @Madrias - Team Racing Stripes / Sinistra Traville - lap # 1185
- @kobacrashi - Team Totally Not a Reduit Factory Team / Reduit Piti - lap # 1125
- @DuceTheTruth100 - Team X / Wells i6 - lap # 992
- @O.O - Team Whatever Goes / Tempest 154 - lap # 1191 (DNF)
- @HighOctaneLove - Team Mountain Pass / Ardent Olympic - lap # 1004 (DNF)
- @Knugcab - Team Trafikjournalen / IP Urbana - lap # 996 (DNF)
- @stm316 - Team Hang Ten / Puttzalong Shai Hulud - lap # 906 (DNF)
- @Maverick74 - Team Yacht Rockers / Dover Andromeda - lap # 700 (DNF)
7 Likes
IN THE PITS
Mats: Well, the brakes are good to go now, I guess that we will do a change of drivers so it is my turn now.
Erik: Yeah, it is about time.
IN CAR
M: “Oh great, the oil pressure light, I hope that I manage to get it inside the pits, damn, the engine doesn’t sound good…”
CRUNK!
IN THE PITS
Filip: So, who damaged this car in the end?
M: Don’t say a word, just don’t.
E: Well, as usual the host is a loser, it is almost if we always choose crappy cars to not be accused of cheating.
M: Seems like driving an 80s 1 litre turbo for hours on max revs isn’t the recipe for reliable transportation after all. Who could have thought of that?
F: Oh, just some hours of waiting left now. Probably an interesting fight between the Winthorpe, FM and Mara left now, I have kind of quit counting on someone else now…
(OOC conclusion: IP Urbana 1000 GTT is a sucky POS)
6 Likes
Pits Part 2: The Seconds.
Lap 1222! We have to go to the pits to replace our front brake pads. The team’s enginner heads to the SUV they used to tow it over and bring out spare brake pads and replaces them. The driver refuels the car. While they’re at it. They rotate drivers.
Dialogue
John: Suprising it’s been reliable for a sports car.
Matt: Yeah, We are on Lap 1222 now.
John: We’re switching drivers again
Matt: Can you go get me a pair of brake pads.
2 Likes
In car:
Sean: Damn this car is getting worse by the second. The brakes are failing to do their job and the guardrail is getting closer each tur-OOOH SHIT!
In the pits:
Sean: Well… that’s the end of the race for us.
Carl: Yup. Pretty sure we can’t get this thing working again before the race.
Sean: Can we get this thing working again at all?
Carl: I doubt it. Let’s put this car where it belongs, the scrapyard.
Sean: No, wait! I want to see what i can still do with this thing. If it doesn’t work i can always just scrap it myself.
Carl: Uhhh… okay. Good luck with that then. For now let’s watch the rest of the drivers go at it.
3 Likes
ahem, correction. You mean it was a badass looking, sucky POS, hahaha!
2 Likes
I’m sure team Mountain pass say that only to make their friends on the Awesome Automobile Customizing youtube channel happy, they might have one. 
2 Likes
Team Racing Stripes
Part 5:
Kaylie could hear the raspy roar of the Sinistra’s V6 from the pits, no matter where it was on the track. She kept an eye on Rukari with the binoculars, concerned that the most aggressive driver on the track might just decide to eliminate his competition instead of racing fair.
Rukari was laser-focused, his twin hearts racing almost as fast as the V6, swerving around the IP which shuddered to a halt just before the pit lane. Near him, the Hakumai and the Tempest also dodged the downed IP, nearly bumping into each other and into Rukari’s Sinistra. Unfortunately, the only car that didn’t have oil on the tires was the tail-happy Hakumai, which dodged out of danger while the Tempest and Rukari in the Sinistra went for a wild spin. After spinning the tires in the dirt (and getting more than a fair share inside the car through the broken window), Rukari was back on the track and back up to speed.
He looked as he heard the Akira screech across the track and bang into the guardrail, then shook his head. As Rukari approached the pit exit from the track side, he saw the Reduit dart out, only to get hit by the Winthorpe, and not long after, the Reduit got clipped again, this time by the Mara.
“Rukari, how are you doing out there?” Jaden asked over the radio, while watching the Hakumai come in for brake pads and gas, followed by the Tempest, which only needed fuel. Kaylie watched the Xianfeng skidding and sliding around for a while, before she saw the Wells getting towed into the pits. Kaylie then watched the Mara violently lose control.
“They did three revolutions,” Kaylie said, pointing out the Mara.
“Impressive that they didn’t crash it,” Kayden replied.
Over the radio, Rukari’s answer to Jaden’s question was less than polite. “I am doing well. The car is not. It pulls hard to the left when I hit the brakes, everything in here is making whining, buzzing noises, and the handling is like getting laid in a wash tub. It’s terrible.”
Jaden grimaced. “I didn’t need that image in my head, Rukari.”
“Not my problem that I am blessed by Xelth, little one,” Rukari quipped back.
Much later on, Kaylie watched as the Tempest dashed into the pits, locking up the rear wheels to stop. As she watched them replace a brake hose, she quickly figured out that they used the handbrake to stop the car. Then she looked out at the track after hearing a loud bang and screeching tires, watching as the Winthorpe drove out of the grass, having left paint on the guardrail, while the Mara and the Xianfeng both were driving out of a few good tank-slappers. Through all of it, the Cabrera narrowly avoided the chaos.
Rukari put his foot down and was able to witness the Reduit and the Cabrera taking the corner ahead of him with a little too much speed, watching them both nearly leaving the track tail first. Rukari pressed on the screeching, well-worn brakes, then swooped past them, knowing that he had a great many laps to go before he could claim to have passed the Cabrera, though he was fairly sure he was just ahead of the Reduit.
Kaylie watched the Akira come in, smelling the reek of a hot clutch, followed by the Cabrera coming in after becoming the next casualty of the guardrails, being checked over, and topped up with fuel after nothing was found to be broken.
Kayden, this time, had the binoculars and got to see the Tempest sliding sideways around a corner. “If this was a drift race, that would almost be considered good,” Kayden said.
Kaylie looked, shrugged, then said, “I’ve seen better at a go-kart track.” She watched as the Mara came in for a tank of fuel, then looked out at the ongoing chaos on the track.
Rukari watched as the Tempest entered a corner way too fast for their brakes again, seeing the Tempest slam into the guardrail. Then the Akira did much the same behind the Traville, the engine again sputtering to a stop.
Jaden watched as the Tempest, Akira, Wells, and Xianfeng made it back to the pit lane, with two cars on a tow truck and two cars under their own power. As the Tempest was pulled behind the wall, he knew that the race was done for them. The Akira’s team started playing with wires under the dash again, and the engine roared to life once more. The Wells and the Xianfeng both were just taking on fuel.
With the Akira darting out of the pits in front of him, Rukari got to see the Akira and the FM come way-too-close together for comfort. The Akira straightened up and kept going, the FM spun around wildly, the Reduit, close to Rukari’s tail, dodged the spinning FM and brushed up against the guardrail, and the Winthorpe, coming around to lap them all again, had to dodge and weave between all of the chaotic bumper cars scattered about the track, doing nothing to hurt the car, but chewing up valuable time.
“If it is all the same to you, I would like to finish this,” Rukari called over the radio.
“Fang it, Rukari! Rev it up and give them hell!” Kaylie yelled back.
(OOC: Just for reference, the phrase “Blessed by Xelth,” when spoken by a Valraadi, has two possible meanings. The first, and this is the one Rukari implied, is that he is well-endowed. The second is that to be ‘blessed by Xelth’ is to have many children. Xelth is one of many Valraadi deities, known by them as “the father of us all.” Just some information for those left trying to understand Rukari’s little radio chat with Jaden. And yes, it means that Rukari did in fact insult Jaden at the end of the chat.)
7 Likes
PART 6
2.00 AM - 6.00 AM
There is now only four hours left of the race and maybe it shows on some of the drivers that they are getting tired, since the Wells comes into a slide and both the FM and Cabrera hits the guardrail. The Cabrera is able to continue while the FM goes into the pits because of a scraping sound when steering, that however only needed removal of some loose, wrinkled sheetmetal touching the wheels.
The next car to hit the rail is the Xianfeng but with no major damage. The Akira is overheating like crazy and goes into the pits, they find out that the relay for the electric fan is dead so they are bypassing it with some hotwiring now.
The next car with cooling problems is the Xianfeng that goes into the pits with a broken radiator hose. The Reduit is also overheating but just needs to cool down for a while. The Winthorpe is spinning loose.
Maybe the drivers of the Akira, Reduit and Cabrera is experiencing some fatigue at the moment since much of the driving seems a bit erratic. The Winthorpe is going in for refuelling. The Reduit has its brake warning light lit, it needs a new brake hose but problems with bleeding means that it stays in the pits for a while.
The Sinistra is also overheating at the moment but it seems like the only repair needed was a new fuse for the electrical fan, however, when leaving the pits it has some problems to gain traction. The Hakumai is touching the guardrail followed by the Akira, though both cars is able to continue. The Xianfeng barely misses the rail though. The Reduit is running rough at the moment and at the fuel stop they take some time and change the spark plugs too. The Winthorpe has its brake warning light lit and goes into the pits but it seems like it is only low on brake fluid and can leave quickly. The clutch in the Mara has started to slip and needs some adjustment in the pits.
There is a rattle from the Sinistra rear suspension that is located to the rear sway bar being loose, but the team can improvize fabrication of a new bracket and continue the race. The Hakumai hits the guardrail and needs to go into the pits to break loose some wrinkled sheetmetal around the wheel. The Wells is taking the corners very wide. The gearbox in the Reduit is very noisy so the team has decided to try an oil change to see if it can survive the race. In an attempt to avoid a spinning Winthorpe, the driver of the Mara doesn’t notice the Cabrera and they crash into each other. The Mara can keep on driving, but the crash has damaged the fuel pump brackets on the Cabrera so the team has to fabricate some temporary ones to not lose the fuel pump. The Xianfeng is going in for refuelling.
There is a rattle from the Sinistra front suspension again and in the pits they notice that there once again is a lot of loose bolts there. The Hakumai hits the Cabrera but with no major damage to the cars. The Akira nudges the guardrail slightly, though with no significant damage. The Wells has lots of play in the steering but in the pits they notice that it is only the bolts on the steering column flexdisc that needs some tensioning.
The Akira does not charge anymore and goes into the pits for a change of voltage regulator. The Winthorpe comes into a skid that the driver in the Wells is trying to dodge. The Mara hits the guardrail as some symbolical ending of the race, because soon after it have started moving again, the 24 hours of racing are over.
The final results are coming in soon…
(OOC: I will give you some time before the final results, to give some space for RPing between the final laps and post race RP)
@pcmoreno @Jaimz @AndiD @BannedByAndroid @interior @Petakabras @Serperior98 @Madrias @kobacrashi @DuceTheTruth100 @O.O @HighOctaneLove @stm316 @Maverick74
6 Likes
Team Jaimz
Lara - OK doofus where are we?
Jaimz - Sweden…
L - Haha dickhead, what position?
J - Erm, we could be 1st, 2nd or 3rd…unsure at the moment.
L - Unsure…WTF?
J - The timing screens have been down for a while and I’m too tired to keep count.
L - I think I want a divorce…
J - WHAT???
L - Oops…was that my outside voice? Don’t worry about it…
J - Huh???
7 Likes
Pits: Part 3: The epilogue.
We hit a guardrail, The sheet metal is loose. And we hit another vehicle. This is not good for Team Slow. But theyre guaranteed to continue. The iconic tailights of the CS-2 have been destroyed beyond recognition along with the front end, which Hakumai lazily took from another model of theirs.
Dialogue
Matt: Shit! I hit a guardrail again and a Cabrera.
John: Did anything mechanical break?
Matt, I don’t think so but one day we might get a DNF.
John: laughs DNF??? Pfft. This things reliable.
4 Likes
Team Racing Stripes
Part 6:
Rukari took Kaylie’s words seriously, pushing the poor little Sinistra to the extreme edges of what it could handle. He came from a world where the days were almost 36 Earth Hours long, an 8 hour segment of driving was nothing compared to what he was used to. However, he could see that fatigue was getting the better of some drivers, as the Wells did a mighty slide and the FM and Cabrera pinged off of the guardrail. Ironically, the older, crappier car shrugged it off, while the newer one had to limp off to the pits for a date with the cutting torch and the big hammer.
Then the Xianfeng bounced off the guardrail, while the Akira’s radiator unleashed a mighty plume of steam before disappearing up the pit lane, where Kaylie overheard that the relay was gone on the electric fan, followed by a plan to bypass the relay and just run it wide open.
Kayden watched the Xianfeng darting up the pit lane, also overheating and this time requiring a radiator hose.
Out on the track, Rukari passed the Reduit as it slowed down to cool down, just able to see the Winthorpe take a mighty spin in the corner ahead of him. Then the Akira, Reduit, and Cabrera all seemed to take a few corners wide, or short, driving through the chewed-up dirt and weaving on the track.
Jaden saw the Winthorpe come up the pit lane for gas, followed by the Reduit, using the parking brake to stop before a brake line repair. Then bleeding the brakes seemed to take forever.
Kaylie was glad to see the Sinistra driving into the pits for once, though had to grimace as Rukari told her, “Engine is overheating.”
“Of course it is. Everyone’s pushing extra hard in the final hours,” Kaylie said, finding the culprit to be a burned out fuse. “I’ll pop a new one of these in and,” Kaylie shoved the fuse into the holder and was greeted by the electric fan suddenly roaring, “it’ll be as good as new.” She moved out of the way and grimaced again as Rukari peeled the tires the whole way down the pit lane.
Rukari nearly became a casualty of the pit lane re-entry as the Hakumai and the Akira clipped the guardrail in front of him, and the Xianfeng narrowly avoided it behind him. He dodged around a rough-running Reduit, and eventually saw the Reduit, Winthorpe, and the Mara disappear up the pit road in his rear view mirror.
A few laps later, there was an obnoxious rattling from the rear of the car, and a bit more body lean than Rukari was used to feeling from the Sinistra, so he brought it to the pits.
Kaylie growled as she realized the rear sway bar was loose. “Jaden, Kayden, we need to make a bracket.” Between the three of them using everything from plasma cutters to sledgehammers, Kaylie’s mechanical left hand and a cheap tap-and-die set with some used motor oil as cutting fluid, they knocked together a bracket and installed it on the car. “Rukari,” Kaylie said, “be careful not to hit anything with the rear of the car, or you might break that new bracket. Still, give them hell.”
As Rukari was leaving, the Hakumai came in with some wrinkled sheet metal around the wheel. He heard the screech of tires from the Wells taking every corner wide, followed by a very loud buzzing, rattling sound from the Reduit’s gearbox. A crash from behind him made him look in the rear view mirror, seeing the Winthorpe recovering from a spin, while the Mara and the Cabrera were wearing bits of each other’s paint. The Mara seemed completely unaffected by the crash, but the Cabrera vanished up the pit lane, being chased by the Xianfeng.
Rukari pushed the Sinistra hard, clipping the rumble strips at the apex of every corner, only to look over at the pit lane to see Jaden getting slapped on the back of the head by both Kaylie and Kayden.
“See, guys, he’s a real apex predator,” Jaden said, before yowling as Kaylie slapped him with her natural right hand, and again, this time with more feeling, when Kayden slapped him with his left hand. “Okay, I get it, that was a bad one.”
Rukari turned a couple of his fastest laps in the Sinistra, before the rattle started to return in the front suspension. He brought the car back to Kaylie, who grimaced, cranked the bolts down tight again, and sent him back out on track with the warning, “Don’t you dare bring it back in here unless the wheels fall off or the tank is low.”
As the Sinistra lunged back onto the track, V6 growling in tune with the driver behind the wheel, the Hakumai was forced to get out of the way, and bumped into the Cabrera, doing no major damage to either car, just more crumpled sheet metal. The Akira scraped along the guardrail with a shrill shriek of metal, but was relatively unscathed, while the Wells disappeared into the pits for some steering problems.
Then it was the Akira disappearing up the pit lane, where Kaylie overheard it being charging problems, offering to help in changing their voltage regulator for one of their spare Sinistra ones, a trick which would only involve changing the plug on the end, something she could do with ease.
Out on the track, Rukari watched as the Winthorpe got into a nasty skid, forcing the Wells to go way wide to avoid it. The Mara, built like a Russian tank, bounced off of the guardrail as the checkered flag was waved, signifying the end of the race. Rukari put his foot down, trying to pass as many cars as he could to the finish line, hoping to put himself, and by extension, the rest of the team, at least one lap further ahead than they were.
The Sinistra, having survived the 24 Hours of Clunkers, looked like hell. The paint all down both sides was scratched and scraped up. All but the driver’s left hubcap had come off, occasionally causing tire troubles for other teams as they ran over the aluminum-wire discs. The driver’s window had been shattered early in the race by Rukari’s head after a collision. The front bumper was wrinkled from playing bumper-tag with the Mara, and the passenger-side headlight lens was cracked from the same incident. The only panel on the car without a scrape, wrinkle, or dent in it was the roof.
Yet, somehow, the V6 still survived, despite 24 hours of hard driving, despite hard corners and mild oil starvation, despite overheating in the last six hours, and despite all the impacts with the wall. The automatic transmission, whining and threatening all the signs of failure from the very start, had held up, even though this wasn’t the nice comfortable cruise to the grocery store, the drive to the 9-to-5 office job, or the family road trip. People often claimed that the Traville, first to carry the Sidewinder series of engines, was the most unreliable batch of Sinistra cars ever made, and yet this one had outlasted several other vehicles. This one, just like the last one, had faced a trial of certain death… And survived.
7 Likes
I WISH I could see a video of all this!!..so cool!!!
3 Likes
“Ok, let’s get this over with!”, Marina shouted, more to herself than to anyone else when she took over the Zvezda for the final stint of the race.
The past hours had brought a few changes to the overall standings, none lasting though, not even Team White Star topping the timesheets for a short while when the Franklin Marshall had to go into the pits for lengthy repairs and the Winthorpes had been standing in their own (and the others’) ways a bit too much for their own good. Due to these ups and downs, she had been too hyped up on an unhealthy mix of adrenaline and caffeine to catch some proper rest, but she was sure she could make it through the darkness and the beginning dawn to the finish line.
Despite the Team Jaimz’ lengthy mishap, the FM was still too fast to be kept behind in 3rd for too long. For a while it looked like whether her own team or the Winthorpes were effectively in 2nd was mainly dependent on the fuel strategy. Who’d make the final pitstop would most probably end up on the final podium spot. Unfortunately, it looked like it was her own team, when they had to service the brake fluid and the clutch in two unplanned stops over a couple of hours and found out that the necessary arrangements to do either were not designed to be done in a cramped, rudimentary and sparsely lit pitlane in the middle of the night. A few excursions by both Jurij and Jeff did not help matters either, although this merely put them on a level playing field with the Winthorpes.
A loud crunch brought Marina back to the reality as she found her car wedged into the Cabrera’s sides as she tried to avoid the Winthorpes spinning in front of her once again with the reflexes honed in years of rallycrossing, albeit slowed by the effects of being awake for almost a full day straight. “K**wa!”, she muttered. “Saved by the bumper plastic again!”
She reversed away from the Cabrera, shrugged apologetically and continued her laps. She wondered whether Jurij and Jeff were actually watching or had fallen asleep in the pits. On the distant sky, she could see the first traces of dawn breaking on the long Swedish days. It was harder and harder for her to stay focused despite track layout now well ingrained on her neural pathways. Her sole goal became to keep the Zvezda away from the unhealthy gray guardrails and on the gray bits of tarmac instead.
With a curse she noted that she did not have a precise clock or timer in the car (the normal rudimentary digital clock in the dash was of course ripped out when the car was turned into a rallycross machine) so she had no clear idea when the final checkered flag would be waved. While she wore a watch, it was safely tucked away under the fireproof overall and the gloves, and she did not want to fiddle with either in her current state.
Finally, she saw the checkered flag waved in the rear view mirror (which had fallen off during the last crash but luckily stuck back on right away) and rejoiced. Unfortunately she had kept the gaze into the rear view mirror on for too long and only another of her shot reflexes managed to keep the Zvezda away from a race-ending entanglement with guardrail steel.
The engine had stalled, and her only focus was to frantically try to get going again, while exhausting her rich repertoire of curses. The state of the rest of the car didn’t matter, as long as the two front wheels were still on she could make it to the finish line. This was certainly not the way she wanted to end the race, but would she get the Zvezda fired up again in time to make it round once more and stay on the rostrum…?
I just wanted to write something sort and sweet lmao
5 Likes
The final results are in.
- @Jaimz - Team Jaimz / Franklin Marshall Street Sport - lap # 1606
- @pcmoreno - Team Winthorpe / Winthorpe Badger - lap # 1591
- @AndiD - Team White Star / Mara Zvezda - lap # 1585
- @BannedByAndroid - Team Chinese Dragons / Xianfeng K2 - lap # 1501
- @Interior - Team Slow / Hakumai CS-2 - lap # 1475
- @Petakabras - Team Collarada / Cabrera Fulgor - lap # 1438
- @Madrias - Team Racing Stripes / Sinistra Traville - lap # 1403
- @Serperior98 - Team Double Dip / Akira Metro - lap # 1401
- @kobacrashi - Team Totally Not a Reduit Factory Team / Reduit Piti - lap # 1290
- @DuceTheTruth100 - Team X / Wells i6 - lap # 1215
- @O.O - Team Whatever Goes / Tempest 154 - lap # 1191 (DNF)
- @HighOctaneLove - Team Mountain Pass / Ardent Olympic - lap # 1004 (DNF)
- @Knugcab - Team Trafikjournalen / IP Urbana - lap # 996 (DNF)
- @stm316 - Team Hang Ten / Puttzalong Shai Hulud - lap # 906 (DNF)
- @Maverick74 - Team Yacht Rockers / Dover Andromeda - lap # 700 (DNF)
(OOC: This is not completely the end of everything, prepare for a surprise within a few days)
8 Likes
Early in the night
Markus: “I’ve hit the guardrail, it seems the alignment is way too far off to be drivable, we need to fix this…”
Eva: “Cool, We’ll get ready for you”
Lars: “It was bound to happen, we’ve been living on borrowed time since the morning.”
Later in the night
Markus was wearing out, it was time to switch drivers again. But some reliability issues struck…
Markus: “The car is dead, I don’t know why… we need a tow…”
Later in the pits…
Lars: “Everything seems fine… I can’t tell why the stupid thing isn’t starting…”
Eva: “I don’t want to go out like this, we need to finish the night…”
M: “Hey Lars… remember when we decided not to remove that shitty aftermarket alarm system?”
L: “I highly doubt that it would be the issue…”
M: “Well, we’ve been here for a long time trying to figure it out, that immobiliser is the only thing we haven’t checked.”
L: “Well, honestly I think it’s a waste of time, but we can try to bypass it…”
After some time messing with wiring and bypassing the alarm…
Eva: “I’ve done some bypassing with the wiring, Lars, give it a crank”
Lars, as he is about to turn the key: “Sure, but I’m telling you this is a waste of time the shitbox won’t…”
The car starts…
L: “Oh wow… I did not expect that…”
E: “Clearly, I’m getting in now, Markus is too tired to continue.”
Eva takes off immediately, but a few laps later returns as the car’s clutch seems to be slipping. The team spent some time fixing that issue, but a few laps later, the car stalls again. Turns out that it was no big deal and a quick fix later, the car was screaming around the track again.
The final leg
Eva: “The car seems to be losing power, I think we have a problem… I’m coning in…”
L: “It’s electrical, one of the things we planned for because of just how notorious this car is for issues like that. You should be out there in no time.”
M: “Good thing we did our research. Good luck Eva, we’re almost to the end of the run, both you and the car are going to make it.”
As the sun rises on the horizon, Eva continues to push towards the finish line. The Akira, even with all its flaws, managed to make it through this event, just over 1400 laps… No one expected this. But she’s here, she’s still breathing, and she’s still running.
Markus: “I know we didn’t win, but for our first event, I’m impressed at how well we’ve done…”
Lars: “Honestly, I was expecting the Metro to explode by hour 2… I can’t believe we managed to keep her running for 24 hours.”
Eva: "I’ve always had faith in our shitbox. She didn’t win, but we’ve learned a lot, and the fact that we survived the entire 24 hours is an achievement on its own.
Markus: “That’s true… Although the one thing I also learned is that… For the next clunker run… I’m getting a Franklin Marshall…”
The team inspected the Metro, awaiting the final announcements from the organizers…
6 Likes
Team Jaimz
Lara - Shit, I’m knackered…so what’s the news on the race?
Jaimz - Not long to go now…time’s ticking down.
L - Arse!
J - What’s up?
L - Just had the checquered flag…what position are we in?
J - Looks like we took it.
L - …are you shitting me???
J - What?
L - Are you shitting me??? We WON???
J - Yup, we did!!!
L - I don’t think I’ve EVER loved this piece of shit as much as I do now…certainly not when you gave it to me!!
J - Love you too. Now I’ve heard a rumour of another shitbox run in the future. How do you…
L - F&*KING RIGHT I DO!!!
The End…thanks for reading this benign drivel.
5 Likes
AFTERMATH IN THE TRAFIKJOURNALEN PODCAST
Mats Hansen: Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of car talk with Hansen and Carlén…
Erik Carlén: …yes, and today it will be a very special episode, as you can hear, an international one since we’re taking this in english, and there is a very good reason for that…
M: …yes. As you probably know, we were running the 24 hour clunker challenge, which we have done since 1982, so next year it will be its 40th anniversary, not bad.
E: Exactly. And we would like to thank our sponsors this year, which were…
M:…Lizard wax, Häkka driving lights and Boomtastic car audio.
E: Right, and the winner will probably get a surprise from them delivered to his door soon, but what about the race itself, we got ourselves a car this year too as usual, right?
M: Yes, a 1987 IP Urbana 1000 GTT. Yes they still do exist. Almost deleted from our collective conciousness until the crazy australians at Awesome Automobile Customizing made the model a youtube celebrity. For some reason it was ordered in one of the ugliest colours IP offered in 1987, “Caramel Tan”, or as I like to call it, “Granny stocking beige” or “Early IBM PC beige”.
E: And I know that you love your IPs, but the 1000 GTT, was it really any good?
M: It was a result of the asians wanting to slap a turbo on absolutely anything in the 80s. 82 horsepowers weren’t really that impressive in what pretended to be a hot hatch. Sure, you could probably making it come alive with some more boost, but at an expense of reliability. Also, the chassis with the same structural integrity as gingerbread dough could not really match any performance ambitions.
E: Some of us are old enough to remember the rage in the 80s when the first generation Urbana was ranked as one of the cars that was most likely to kill you in a fender bender by a well known insurance company…
M: Indeed. They did almost fall apart by closing the door too hard. Not the best base for a performance vehicle. But how about the actual race then? Should we start with the ones that didn’t make it?
E: Right. We can start with team Yacht Rockers, a team really worthy of their name.
( @Maverick74)
M: Yeah, they wrestled a Dover Andromeda around the track, which in itself is a challenge that should be respected.
E: Indeed. It looked pretty sad, but for a while it seemed like if it was mechanically sound, which it probably was too, but thirsty and a beast to wrestle around the track, as you said. It started quite early with a crash where it came a bit close to team X in their Wells taxi.
M: But it was like if they got a hold of it after some hours, learned how the big beast behaved on the track, even if there was a close encounter with the Sinistra later. Unfortunately…
E: Yes. Very sad to say but it caught on fire and it may be unclear if it will ever become a driveable car again.
M: Team Yacht Rockers, if you ever show some progress with the Dover again, hit us up. Meanwhile, we dedicate you this song from a famous Swedish artist, enjoy!
M: Right, let’s start from where we ended, another car that did not make it was a Puttzalong Shai Hulud driven by Team Hang Ten.
(@stm316)
E: They were a bit confident in their somewhat modern-ish SUV, was even going to use it for their vacation trip, I think that their dreams got kind of crushed there though.
M: Yeah, the first four hours went on quite undramatic, but then Filip Andersson managed to hit them with our IP. Team Hang Ten, we apologize so much, thank you.
E: And some unexpected errors like shock absorbers coming loose, and then yet another crash with Team Totally Not a Reduit Factory Team (phew…) in their Reduit, and then a guardrail crash…
M: Yeah, and maybe some of the crashes might have put the steering column in some unfortunate angle because it was a faulty U-joint there that made them quit the race.
E: Well, cars surviving this undamaged hardly does exist at all. And our IP really didn’t survive.
M: Oh, please, god…no it didn’t. It started with Filip believing that it was some drifting event…in an 80s front wheel drive hatch.
E: And finally he hit Team Mountain Pass in their Ardent. Again, to Team Mountain Pass, we apologize so much for his driving.
M: He really couldn’t keep it on track it seems like. As we said, he hit the Puttzalong too. He literally tried to drive the wheels off the thing.
E: Literally. He came back with no threads on the lug nuts, and we want to thank Team Double Dip for borrowing us some lug nuts, we send you an one year subscription and Trafikjournalen T-shirts for the whole team as a favour in return.
M: Then he hit the Ardent one more time, and a fairly modern large Ardent is certainly a tough match for a flimsy 80s crackerbox.
E: Indeed. It required lots of work with the BFH to get it straight again. But then it was my turn to take over.
M: So, driving a non-italian car on the track for once?
E: Yes, but I am by no means only a fanatic of them. In fact, my first car was a Volvo 144. 1967 model.
M: 1967? That means that it was the first model year. You should have kept that one.
E: I really should have done that. But the IP was behaving nicely actually. At least until I lost the brakes. And I get that Team Mountain Pass probably wanted to take some revenge on us. But in the end, the car simply wanted to die.
M: Yes, a total engine failure, so the Urbana is heading for the scrapyard at the moment. If not someone of you wants to save it, there is still that opportunity for someone out there.
E: Speaking of Team Mountain Pass, it did not go very well for them either.
(@HighOctaneLove)
M: Certainly not the best comeback they could make. The choice of car was a bit unusual this time, an Ardent Olympic. Yes, you heard right, not a Bogliq. And for some reason it did not catch on fire this time. And unfortunately, it seems like it worked as a magned for both the IP, the Reduit and the guardrail.
E: Yes, it’s a shame, since their driving was very nice. And until the rear wheel bearing seized, it was kind of reliable too.
M: Absolutely, almost no time in the pits so it was really an unfortunate mishap. But anything can happen in the 24h clunker races.
E: And then it was Team Whatever Goes with their Tempest…
(@O.O)
M: Oh, god. Yes their choice of car did really catch the spirit of the race, it was a clunker to say the least. We thought that it should die already when it came into the pits sounding like it had a rod knock, but it was only a loose pulley. Also, hopeless to keep on the track and gulping fuel like a whale. Not to mention oil.
E: And then all the brake troubles…
M: Yes. They changed a brake hose, only to kill the master cylinder then. Probably had been rusting inside and got its seals shots when bleeding the brakes. Would not surprise me as the car looked. But to Team Whatever Goes, well done to succeed as far as you did with that rusty beast.
E: We will soon be back, and then we will be talking about…
M:…the ones that actually made it! Stay tuned.
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Pretty good race. Atleast the Dover Andromeda made a lot of laps before it gone on fire.
Too nice weather lately to write long essays on the computer but the next part will be up sooner or later (at least you have seen the results now, so I guess everything else is just a bonus)
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