This might be the most fun I’ve had on a forum EVER!! haha
Agreed! And i couldn’t care less about the final results of the tournament, not only because there’s no way i’m gonna be anywhere near the top but also because all this storywriting and all the crazy cars are awesome! Strop, you’re an awesome host and i hope there will be another season 
Same here! I just want to read the next story/action regardless what happened… Go go Strop! 
Yep. this is the best forum experience i ever had, made even better by the X90’s astonishing performance 
, and Strop’s fantastic hosting, but the best thing is my return to writing RP/Fiction, as i always liked
Wow, I leave this thread for one day and all this has happened, and even though this is the only forum I’ve been actively a part of, this is still by far the best time I’ve had.
Although I’m still confused as to what exactly is going on, but I’ll just roll with it, whatever will be will be 
.
I’m really glad you guys are enjoying yourself, because so am I 
This race technically doesn’t take place for another 17 hours or so, but I’m presenting it in two parts so you can digest it easier (read: get stuck on the cliffhanger lololol), and also, well, quite keen to move on!
[size=200]E[/size]leven o’clock and the night air hung heavy, laden with moisture uncharacteristic of the barren expanse of salt that stretched out far further than the eye could see. It clung to the skin, soaking the flesh, chilling to the bone.
All the way through the evening, Strop regretted not packing his long johns, normally reserved for such destinations as the UK in December (wait, wasn’t he going to the UK in like five days? Shit.) It was even worse, that he had neglected to realise that since his wonderful colleagues at Gryphon Gear had completely stripped his Peapod out and replaced all the panels with carbon fiber (without his permission), he, of course, had no air conditioner. So sure enough, it was literally icy in the car, to the point Strop could see frost forming on his fur coat, which, of course, he had just trimmed in preparation for the comparatively hellish Australian Summer. His puffy duck down trucker jacket just wasn’t cutting it.
Clutching his arms to his body, he gingerly stepped out of the car, alongside where the Mephisto, Sleipnir and the Gryphon Gear truck (all equipped with air conditioning), were parked at the end of the Bonneville Speedway road, where it gave way to the salt. The rest of the crew was there, all dressed in their winter gear, Tesla in her ski suit (that she never used), Hannah in her polar fleece, Noah in his overcoat, and… Kai wearing a t-shirt and shorts. Where was Sam? Swaddled in just about every item he could find in his suitcase, he nonetheless staunchly refused to leave the relative comfort of Sleipnir, eyes bugging out in disbelief at Kai’s lack of winterwear, or apparently, hypothermia.
“Come on, Sam,” Kai gloated, “It’s not that bad, it’s only minus eight out here!”
“Don’t you dare open my window you freak!” Sam gasped, voice slightly muffled by the Lexan.
“Kai, if you’re not going to wear your jacket, could I borrow it?” Strop asked, looking hopeful.
Kai promptly went to his car, fetched his jacket, and slipped it on with a cheeky grin. “Oh, I am cold, but it was fun seeing Sam flip out.”
Strop glared at Kai. “Give me that jacket.”
Kai shrank back, feigning horror. “Why!? It’s MY jacket.”
“I let you hog the entire bed when you were moping over-“
“Okay okay already!” Kai hastily shrugged off his jacket before Strop could finish his sentence and, more importantly, let Sam overhear. Strop didn’t even bother adjusting his own clothes, just crammed it on over, and breathed a sigh of relief. A little too short, but only a little because it was a bit too large for Kai.
“Better. Now you have fun with Sanka-mon over there,” Strop grinned, drawing a “Hey! It’s actually cold!” of recognition from inside Sleipnir, and stalked off to join Noah, Hannah and Tesla. Tesla prodded the salt with her foot, shaking her head.
“Still too wet and icy.”
“But reason enough to stop us from racing on it?”
Everybody looked at Strop with that are-you-serious look he recognised even in the dark.
“It’s not good to cancel an entire event because of this though,” he moaned, grinding his palm into his head. “So we won’t cancel it.”
“Hey numbnuts,” Hannah poked Strop in the hip (because she was too short to conveniently poke him in the head), “Is it so cold your brain froze too? You want the Barely Street Legal League to turn into the Formerly Street Legal League?”
“Yeah but…” Strop scratched his chin, a smile slowly spreading on his face. “We don’t have to run on the Salt Flats.”
“Don’t you dare.” Noah snapped pre-emptively.
A strange atmosphere accompanied the throng that gathered in dribs and drabs on the otherwise deserted roads leading to the Bonneville Salt Flats. Niall arrived by himself from god-knows-where, looking content in his own little headspace. Rayyan and Riley arrived together from the east, as did Matt, Enry, and Seba Machado from the West. 8bs, Kristina, Pleb, and Tom all turned up at the same time from the same place, but not together, and while Pleb seemed perfectly normal, Kristina and Tom clearly exuded some healthy glow about them. But 8bs, man he looked like shit. And the multinational multispecies trio of the Raggari Mutant had somehow managed to collect a lot of dust on their way up. Clearly it had been an interesting three days for many of them, but here they were, and ready to race. All except Normandy nutjob, Vos. He’d sent notice withdrawing from this round so he could fix his car for the remaining rounds, and probably for the better at that, given just what happened to the brakes in Japan.
Explaining to the gathered participants, arms all folded in front of them in various poses, that wet salty sand at sub-zero temperatures makes for a huge reservoir of mud with patches of ice on top did not seem to convince many. Explaining that the only racing they would do were two hundred mile an hour tank slappers or getting bogged and leaving lots of lovely evidence for the cops to examine come the morning was only marginally better. But the suggestion that the forty-three mile stretch of Lincoln Highway that lay just beyond the onramp from the Bonneville Speedway road was in fact, perfectly straight, deserted at this time of the night and much much longer than the measly seven miles of wet sand they could have condemned their cars to rust in for eternity was a far stronger argument.
“Only, of course, this does cross the line from Barely Street Legal to Rather Illegal,” Strop hastened to mention. “Not that some of you seem too bothered by this, or so I’m told,” he added as he imagined Hannah shooting him a meaningful glare from their truck some twenty miles up the road.
“So we’re going to do this quickly, and blast on out of here, and I expect everybody to be discreet until you reach Tulsa and we finish renegotiating the track hire.”
This was arguably the simplest stage. All they needed to do was floor it, in an all-out race. They weren’t even going to bother with a staggered start, it was come as you please and go as you please, though of course, please, no bumping. Any and every means to keep the engine cool or to eke out that bit of extra speed by drafting was permitted. The only reference point was the laser guided timers that Noah had been (reluctantly) tasked with planting exactly one mile apart, in the middle of the highway. Just like the way the Bonneville Land Speed Record runs were timed.
One by one they lined up on the road, ready to set off, engines all revving as they started the warmup. “Alright guys,” Strop shouted, “Keep it clean!” He tapped each car on the bonnet, and they set off, slowly at first, easing their joints and stretching their limbs in the frigid Autumn air. Strop took his place at the back of the pack, knowing full well his car had the lowest top speed, but he didn’t care. It was back in the wheel and back in the race and it sent a thrill through his body to anticipate the roaring and thunder and the road passing by in a blur, trading places bumper to bumper amidst the night lights, where one wrong move was death.
The megacar convoy snaked its way onto the on-ramp and onto the highway in single file, where they proceeded at precisely on the speed limit, each and every one of them, daring each other to pull the trigger first. It was a matter of calculation, of thinking of the condition of the tyres, of fuel, of engine temperatures and a million shifting operations was going through each of the minds of every racer, while trying to predict the move of the others.
Everything changed in a single moment. Maybe it was the Annihilator, maybe it was the Debrauna. Or maybe Tom was the one who snapped first, nobody could tell. A burble turned into full throated roaring and baying and the cars leapt forward, slithering around on the damp road as they jockeyed for position. But top speed was king, and as the road thundered by beneath them, the surrounding expanse of darkness seemingly in suspended animation, the order was established. As the odometer flicked by, the hundred meters ticking by almost every second, the Hulk had muscled its way to the front, almost barging the cars it passed off the road, before squatting and blasting away. The Ultra X was next, its lack of downforce and drag allowing it to soar higher than even the superlative company it kept. An eclectic pack of cars followed close behind, a mix of the hyper-powered all wheel drives and coupes, chased by the bumper to bumper pack of the Vindicator, the oversized Elegance, the hatchbacks Brimstone and Achernar, and parked right on the tailgate of the Achernar, Kristina’s E30. While Sam insisted on flooring it early, the track spec of Sleipnir left his top speed lacking, and he was passed first by the other front wheel drive cars, then the other aggressive track tuned cars, and finally, even the ancient Testis. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he snuck in onto the tail of the next car, the Debrauna, and sped off. The two dozen pairs of headlights all progressively vanished into the distance as they left Strop in his Peapod, not even yet doing a measly three hundred, far far behind. Last place indeed.
This was when Strop noticed something very wrong. There was a pair of headlights in his rear mirrors. Flashing red, white and blue. And, unless he was hallucinating, they were growing larger.
1 Like
Deepite her height, Elena was overseen by strop. Apparently she was slim enough for that to happen. Tom had told her to eat a little bit more today at lunch as he was a little bit concerned about her health and well-being, but she refused. Anyway, she was sitting in the back row again (behaving like a normal person, and wearing a winter coat, blue jeans and fuzzy boots, unlike the first time they met) to add what little weight she had to the rear axle, slightly improving the overpowered RWD hatchback’s traction. Having been driven around in the Brimstone a couple of times, though, she was quiter than the last few times, getting kind of used to the performance of the crazy little car, but a flatout race against twenty other cars of similar or even better performance was still a terrifying experience, especially considering the bad weather conditions. The Brimstone was not tuned for top speed, but even so it was capable of reaching 382km/h but because of the very limited grip in cold weather conditions like this, it was no match for the AWD and mid-engined cars off the line, though the high-end power once the car had stabilized helped with making up some lost positions. At the very front, a big and heavy Cadillac just disappeared into the dark of night. But what Tom was more concerned about was what happened behind him, namely the Peapod getting smaller and smaller in his rear view mirror and some flashing lights behind it…
Uh oh, it’s the fezz…
But I was hoping the loss of grip on the salts would help me get up the field a little?
[Ooc]
Crikey it’s the rozzers. http://image.motortrend.com/f/roadtests/sedans/1210_chevrolet_9c3_detective_caprice_vs_dodge_charger_pursuit_vs_ford_police_interceptor/38978633/cop-car-shootout-group-shot.jpgKeep it pinned boys and girls! http://static.zerochan.net/REDLINE.full.715966.jpg
Anastasia was but a memory now. It was unlikely she would ever have contact with her again, but it was certainly an exhilarating 2 days and nights! The fair complexion and freckles complimented the bright auburn hair to form a lasting impression. She had stopped in briefly at the casino to say her goodbyes before getting into the E30 and driving over to the meeting place at 10:30pm.
Kristina stood in the group with the others as she listened to Strop lay out the plans for the night. It was quite cold here. The high desert mountains in the winter are not what most people think about when they hear “desert”. She thought to herself, “it’s not like I will get traction in any conditions, so lets just do this!” Then the bomb dropped. They were going to hold the race on Interstate 80? Shit just got real up in here! They were about to make the jump from “Barely” Legal Street League to “Completely Illegal” Street League. She supposed, with this gathering of miscreants, it had only been a matter of time. Of course, she was right there with them all, as much of a miscreant as any.
As they all got back into their cars and began entering the onramp for I-80, an ominous feeling overtook her, shaking her very being to it’s core. How will cops be dealt with on this dark stretch of highway. It’s not like there were exits and towns to get lost in. She smirked, as she said out loud, “As if the cops have anything able to keep up with this crew!” The slowest car among the group was capable of exceeding 190 mph, and most of them were capable of 240+. This was going to be her saving grace. She hadn’t tuned for insane top speeds, but she was definitely in the 240+ crowd. She was almost guaranteed points in this event!
Suddenly, it all began. The cars went from grumbling low RPM’s to screaming banshees as they punched the accelerator to vie for spots. This was not where she would excel. She would be another 20 seconds or so before she would arrive in 4th gear where traction was more attainable at WOT. Nearly everyone passed by her as the speedometer slowly began to creep up. 120 mph, 135 mph, 150 mph, 160 mph…top end of 3rd was nearly full throttle. Boom. The shift had been made into 4th at 180 mph and the car was home free from power-induced wheel-spin. It was time to catch up with the others.
In her rear view mirror she saw something odd. A second set of headlights behind her. The only BSLL competitor who hadn’t passed her was Strop. Who was in the other car? Then she noticed the red and blue flashing lights. Well, that didn’t take long at all! At least it was unlikely for the law to have any supercars on hand to give a real chase…
Oh Blimey, It’s the rozzers
Tom realized what kind of trouble was about to begin, but Elena and him were prepared. They had worked out a plan for this exact situation. So Tom longed for his walkie talkie and called strop “Tell everyone else to keep going flatout, i’ll sort this out!” But first, he needed to get some more distance between himself and the cops, so he kept pushing the pedal to the metal. Meanwhile, Elena tried to move to the front passenger seat. Not an easy task when you’re doing 300km/h and quickly movving towards 350, but she succeeded. Then, she took off her coat and her jeans, leaving her in just the underwear, and she also slipped out of her shoes, just in case the officer had a foot fetish. Now that she was ready and Tom had pulled out a big lead, he slowed down. When he saw the flashing lights again, he started indicating, slowing down some more. Immediately, he drew attention from the cops.
He then pulled over, leaving all other competitors far away, and the police stopped right behind him. When an officer walked over to Tom’s car, he wound down the window and said “I’m awfully sorry, officer. Wouldn’t you rather spend a wonderful night with her pointing towards Elena and forget about all this?” Blown away by her looks, he fell for it. He walked over to the other side of the car, but before he could open the door, Tom floored it, left the Officer i a cloud of smoke, and knew he was gonna be fine. There was no way the Rozzers would keep up with a hatchback from hell that does 0-60mph in just 3.8 seconds and about 240mph top speed. He knew he was safe. And so was everyone else.
Niall had his doubts when he learned about the updated race. With only 235mm front wheels and a scary amount of lift, a multi car free for all down a narrow band of asphalt with goopy partially frozen salt flat to each side waiting to snag a wheel and send the 350kph plus car pinwheeling across the desert sounded more suicidal than exciting. White knuckled he kept his eyes glued to the tail lights in front of him, the launch wasn’t what he had hoped for feathering the throttle, fighting the skittering and cold rear tires, as he battled with the antique chassis several cars shot past him. gritting his teeth through first, grabbing second and again the back tried stepping out but the speedo’s needle was shooting up now as he got it into third where he was able to bury the gas and really start picking up steam, reeling in several of the far more aggressively tuned track cars. But it was still a fight to keep the old girl on the road and he kept his focus totally on the next car to pass not daring to take the time to worry what was behind him.
Matt watches the time, almost 11:30 pm, he’s standing there, a leather jacked to cover his shoulders, definitely not an adequate vestiary, taking in account that the temperature wasn’t very high, to be honest it’s freezing. He rubs his hands to gain some sensitivity again on his fingers.
Strop and the others were here, waiting for the last ones to come. The air is clear and a three-quarter moon is visible up in the sky, some sparse clouds can be seen on the South-East part of the sky, puffs of vapor creates at every breath.
All the guests have arrived. Matt is really exited to run on the salt flats, even if the conditions of the ground were far from ideal, he’s confident of his four-wheel drive SD-01R. Then, all of a sudden Strop proposes an alternative, they won’t be running on this stretch of muddy salt. The Interstate will be their hunting grounds, the traction there will be way better and additionally there won’t be the chance to get stuck in a flat of cement-dense mud and salt. The faces of the others were shocked too, some were even sorta happy, knowing that the low traction of the salt may let’em behind.
After 10 minutes the cars were all ready to rumble, proceeding slowly up the ramp leading to the stretch of road designed for the all-out shoot-out stage. Matt is right in the middle of the pack, tens of thousand horses kept (sorta) calm and ready to wreak havoc just by flooring the right foot. They’re almost at the end of the ramp, the revs still constant, he can see the Hulk right behind him, he know that that thing it’s gonna obliterate all the field, he only hopes that his driver moves himself and the car slightly to the side before flooring it.
Surely they will get a lot of attention by doing this stage on the Interstate, but that added another bit of adrenaline rush, even if going 400+ kph side to side with a number of cars wasn’t enough.
All of a sudden it began, Matt don’t know who started it but suddenly he can’t hear his thoughts no more. A thousand thunders clashing all around him, and his natural reflex it’s to rev the hell out of his car, it’s a mayhem of cars passing cars, the Hulk just left some of his green on the side panels of his SD-01R.
“Holy crap, that’s fast!!” Matt is screaming and barely hearing himself speaking, he’s gaining steadily and passing some cars, then something snaps him out of his racing-focus. Someone on his mirror flashes with high-beams, behind him cop-lightbars are flashing. His heart stops for a bit, how can they know that they were about to come here? That’s definitely a impossibly short time of response even for the Highway fuzz…the only way to lose the cops is to nail it until they are no longer in view.
The cops huh … hell no, they won’t get my Gin… it’s time to squeeze Testis in die sooner mode… c’mon!!! 
Ha Tom, I think you spoke too soon 
This is what you get for being gung-ho thinking you can solve these problems with those kinds of methods 
This is another big update, but an important one. Watch for clues and directions, because shit gets real and what starts out like a Gumball Rally is starting to become a bit more like Fast and Furious.
Due to time constraints I’m initially posting text only, but will update with images later, plus the results, once the dust settles.
[size=200]T[/size]his was when Strop noticed something very wrong. There was a pair of headlights in his rear mirrors. Flashing red, white and blue. And, unless he was hallucinating, they were growing larger.
In an instant Strop was on the radio to the truck, still ten miles up the road but at these speeds, that was barely more than two, three minutes away.
“Come in Big Bertha, I have lights on my six.”
There was a pause, and then Hannah crackled back, “Come again Strop? And what’s with the gibberish?”
Strop resisted the temptation to take his hands off the wheel to facepalm, and merely tried again. “Come in Big Bertha, I have flashing lights on my six. Repeat, flashing lights.”
There was an involuntary, “OH” on the other end, followed by, “Copy that PeaPod.” And then after a pause, “Do you have a quantity?”
Strop peered in the mirror, “Big Bertha, I count a single set at present.”
“Then stay on target. We’ll send out a bulletin, then stay on the dark side of the moon, over and out.”
Tom realized what kind of trouble was about to begin, but Elena and him were prepared. They had worked out a plan for this exact situation. So Tom longed for his walkie talkie and called strop “Tell everyone else to keep going flatout, i’ll sort this out!” But first, he needed to get some more distance between himself and the cops, so he kept pushing the pedal to the metal. Meanwhile, Elena tried to move to the front passenger seat. Not an easy task when you’re doing 300km/h and quickly movving towards 350, but she succeeded. Then, she took off her coat and her jeans, leaving her in just the underwear, and she also slipped out of her shoes, just in case the officer had a foot fetish. Now that she was ready and Tom had pulled out a big lead, he slowed down. When he saw the flashing lights again, he started indicating, slowing down some more. Immediately, he drew attention from the cops.
He then pulled over, leaving all other competitors far away, and the police stopped right behind him. When an officer walked over to Tom’s car, he wound down the window and said “I’m awfully sorry, officer. Wouldn’t you rather spend a wonderful night with her pointing towards Elena and forget about all this?” Blown away by her looks, he fell for it. He walked over to the other side of the car, but before he could open the door, Tom floored it, left the Officer in a cloud of smoke, and knew he was gonna be fine. There was no way the Rozzers would keep up with a hatchback from hell that does 0-60mph in just 3.8 seconds and about 240mph top speed. He knew he was safe. And so was everyone else.
About ten seconds later, several things happened, one after another.
First, Tom picking up on the public channel and saying something about handling it on his own. Second, the Road Angel sensor in the Gryphon Gear truck going absolutely bonkers. Third, Strop in the Peapod blurring by Tom and his nearly-naked passenger Elena, standing by the roadside, prompting a brief flash of When did she get here? Followed immediately after by What the hell do they think they’re doing?
Fourth, and most worrying, was Hannah radioing in on the public channel. “Breaker breaker we have a code red, repeat, code red, we’re picking up multiple signals, repeat multiple signals. Flock inbound.”
Strop was on the radio again, yelling for Tom to stop fooling around and get back on the road before the other cops caught up, but of course, Tom and Elena were occupied.
From the Gryphon Gear truck now about halfway between the speeding competitors and the approaching cops, Noah sprinted out, cursing their luck and risk taking habits, yanking the laser guided timer and tripod from the ground, the ageing F-350 spinning the wheels as it lunged back onto the road towards the second marker. “Come on, we have to hide the evidence!”
Now well behind everybody except the truck, Tom and Elena were laughing as the Brimstone powered through the gears. “If only we could have seen that cop’s face!” Elena gasped. Now all that needed to happen was for the tyres to hold out until the next turnoff and everything would be just fine.
Back in the truck, the trio had broken out in a sweat as they saw a multitude of lights growing brighter and brighter, the sounds of over a dozen wailings overlapping. Hannah yanked the wheel hard and pulled the truck off the road.
“What are you doing!? You’ll wreck the truck!” Noah shouted.
“Better rust later than get arrested now!” Hannah shouted back.
Lumbering to a stop, tyres sinking into the wet salt, Hannah killed the engine and Tesla killed the electrics, the only sound left in the cabin the ticking of the hot engine starting to cool in the frigid air. The three waited, barely peeking over the windows just in case, even this far from the road in the darkness, they were spotted.
Expecting to see a dozen squad cars tearing up the road at the same time, they were confused to see just one car with flashing lights, with a ridiculously elongated, low profile, wheels the size of Godzilla, screaming by much much faster than any squad car possibly could. It was a good minute later that the squad cars, hopelessly outclassed, pottered past with their sirens blaring.
“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Hannah wondered out loud.
Tom stopped laughing when he realised that despite not having caught up to any of his fellow contestants, a set of lights were growing larger in his rear view mirror. And they were flashing. And there were sirens.
“What’s wrong?” Elena immediately sat up, sensing the sudden change before she saw the lights. “Are those cops?”
“They can’t be,” Tom said, his confidence faltering slightly. “There’s no way they could be as fast as us. I’m doing three eighty!”
“But they’re getting closer!” Elena said, worry creeping into her voice. “Can’t you go any faster?”
“I told you Elena, this is as fast as the car goes!” Triumph gave way to confusion as the lights grew steadily brighter, the sirens growing steadily louder. “There’s no way that thing is a cop.” But still Tom grabbed the walkie talkie and radioed.
“Guys, we have trouble, one of the lights are-“
That was as far as he got, before a massive jolt and accompanying thump passed through the car. All the LCD displays in the car flickered, before going blank. The steering wheel instantly fell dead, heavy as lead, and the engine whined and lost drive. Tom mashed the loud pedal repeatedly, but nothing happened. He switched the neutral and tried the ignition, but nothing happened.
“I’ve lost drive!” He thumbed the switch on the walkie talkie, but that too was dead. As his car slowed down more and more, he fell further into the clutches of the mystery super cop car. It would have been awesome, if the super cop car hadn’t just somehow killed his Brimstone and now seemed about to arrest him. He jiggled in his seat, desperate to try and keep the car rolling as best as he could, but after that, the game looked to be up.
Strop saw the flash in his mirrors and instinctively, knew what it meant.
“Mayday mayday,” he called over the radio public channel. “Brimstone down, I repeat, Brimstone down.”
And I’m next, he thought, with the slowest car in the competition, there was no doubt that if the Brimstone could be caught, then so could he, and pretty much nearly half of the other cars there too.
“I advise, one of the lights is BSLL certified. Top speed estimated greater than three eighty. Check your speed, and break off target ASAP.”
How many more miles to Salt Lake City? They were nearly at the end of the long forty mile straight, about to ascend and cross the rocky ridge beyond which it was another fifty miles to Salt Lake city. No turnoffs before then. Surely they would all know that if there were multiple cops behind and some crazy super cop with them, that there would be cops swarming out of Salt Lake City to meet them too. Hell, there might even be a statewide search for them at this point.
Surprisingly, the gravelly voice of Reece “The Jaws” Parsons crackled on over the radio. “Nobody’s going to jail tonight, not on the croc’s watch. Now keep left kiddies, unless you want to die.”
Up ahead in the lengthening line of mega-cars, everybody kept the throttle pinned, hoping and praying that the tyres held together, the engines didn’t blow and they didn’t run out of gas. Slowly, none questioned, and all drifted to the left of the road, threading the eye of the needle as they went from doing four hundred plus on a two lane carriageway, to a single lane in the dark. Well in the lead, the giant Cadillac pitched forward as it slowed down, swinging around as Reece yanked the handbrake, then taking off down the same road… in the opposite direction.
A mighty gust of wind buffeted each car, first the ULTRA X and Ruby, still locked together, then the SD-01R, Gemina, the Mutant, Lunatic, Annihilator, Mephisto and Vindicator, all in quick succession, all rocking and rolling as they struggled not to be pushed off the road. The Elegance and the Achernar were next, with the E30 still right on the tail of the Achernar. Slightly more spread out were the HFF, the AED Griffin, the Thanatos Estate and Infernalis. The Hulk picked up speed going the wrong way, headlights flashing into view and out even more quickly, and barely a second after it passed the Infernalis, it blew past the tiny Testis, which rattled and shook and almost swung off the road at three hundred and thirty kilometres an hour. With a combined speed of nearly seven hundred, Sam “Missed the Memo” Neil in the Sleipnir was lucky not to become a launching pad for the Hulk, jinking hard left just in time, the car’s ridiculously strong aerodynamics keeping it pinned to the road. Barely a blur to the Emperior and the RB-02, they didn’t know what just happened, but Strop, feeling the sheer speed of The Hulk as it went by, knew Reece’s madness knew no bounds and could only brace for impact.
“Let me out!” Elena cried, balling her fists and banging on the Brimstone’s window in impotent fear. “I don’t want to get arrested!”
“Calm down, we’re still rolling!” Tom reassured her, although with the engine still dead no matter what he did, there was little else he could do. The way the road markings were passing by underneath his wheels, he estimated he was still doing a good three hundred or so, certainly still too fast for the cop to try and forcibly stop him. “We have to think of the next plan, okay Elena?” he shot Elena his best winning grin, and Elena, trails of mascara stained tears tracking down her face, nodded slightly. “Okay. Please.”
Tom turned back to the controls, popping the ignition compartment and feeling blinding among the wires, knowing all the while it wouldn’t help, since even if he could hotwire the car, the transmission was an electronically controlled sequential, and if the computer was overloaded then the software would have to be rebooted. In his mirrors, he saw the flashing lights of the super cop car pull out from behind him, accelerating to draw alongside on the right. Tom bit his lip, wondering if the cop would force him off the road at this speed or leave him be to chase down the others, and subject him to the tender mercies of the rest of the highway patrol. Briefly, he debated trying to delay the cop by hogging the road, but his little hatchback wasn’t imposing enough, and it would only lose him more speed.
He didn’t have time to think any more. A pair of narrow high beams flashed at him. Mind in hyperdrive, he immediately realised that headlights on this road could only mean one thing. He planted both feet on the brake pedal, coaxing the car the left, struggling against the weight with no aids or power assists. The super cop car was crucially a split second slower on the uptake, and as the lights enlarged at an exponential rate, it slammed on the brakes and swung right. But unlike Tom’s controlled stop, it swung wide, right tyres hitting the salt and losing traction, causing the car to careen back onto the road, directly into the path of the Hulk.
It all went so fast that nobody ever found out exactly happened next. Reece, blinding charging in, felt a shock pass through the car, and saw the right half of his front bumper fly over the cabin, flipping off into the distance. The Hulk, two ton beast doing some four hundred kilometres an hour, barely clipped the super cop car in the rear quarter panel, sending it into a violent spin. Traction lost, it hit the salt, wheels digging in, pitching the car up and over, siren sound distorting and dying out as the lights smashed into a million pieces, the rack ripped from the car’s roof while the car dug up salt, flipping end over end. Meanwhile, the Hulk continued on with barely a wobble, roaring off into the distance.
Five seconds later, the gravelly voice of Reece, tinged with a satisfied smugness crackled over the radio. “Play chicken with the croc, you get eaten.”
A sea of flashing lights rose to greet the illegal race convoy as it wound its way out of the mountains, approaching Salt Lake City. Screaming down the highway, cops moved to intercept, set up road blocks, scrambling to cover the exits. Approaching at least three times as fast, the Barely Street Legal crew split, peeling off the highway and onto the side roads, scattering to the winds and disappearing into the night. Some of the foolhardy cops followed them down the exits, but were left far behind, as the choir of sirens roused sleepy towns from Grantsville to Tooele, hunting down shadows in the mist.
Several miles back up the Lincoln Highway, Tom and Elena, in the Brimstone, sat in stunned silence, trying to figure out what just happened. One second, there was some crazy cop in a supercar that had just taken out their car. The next second, what looked a lot like the Hulk in full flight blew it off the road and now, it was somewhere out in the dark expanse of the Salt Flats blown to smithereens. And to think that he had just strolled up and chatted to the crazy croc at Haruna. Holy smoking balls.
Just then, there was a rumbling to the side, and Tom almost jumped when he saw the massive silhouette of The Hulk pull up alongside him and roll its windows down to reveal the perpetually toothy grin of The Jaws. Automatically, Tom also wound down his windows.
“Thanks man, you really saved our asses back there.”
Reece stared at them for a moment, then flashed his teeth at the pair. “I’ll be back to claim it later!” Then he added, “The girl too.” And with that, he drove off, leaving Tom and Elena to exchange glances and wonder whether they wanted to know what The Jaws meant or whether to spend the rest of this insane adventure avoiding him.
Not long after The Hulk had departed, the Gryphon Gear truck rattled into view, looking rather the worse for wear after its last minute excursion into the salt. The Goldie head of Tesla poked out the window.
“Hi kids!” she barked. “Need a tow?”
Kids? Tom thought to himself with indignation. However, he was in no position to refuse any help, not unless he wanted to wait until the cops picked him up (and why weren’t the rest of the cops here yet anyway?)
“Yes, thank you,” was all he said.
Shards of glass and plastic, and twisted metal littered the Salt Flats. In a small crater, lay the remains of a low slung sports coupé, smoke and a hissing emanating from its radiator. Oil slowly dripped and into the salt where it was soaked up.
With a grunt and a creak, a heavy boot kicked the door open. More groaning ensued, and a tall, burly man in full body armour swung his legs out, then rose, grasping the door frame. Turning his neck with an ominous crack, he reached up, dabbing at his forehead, seeing the blood that was dripping down his face and into his handlebar moustache. The lenses of his aviators were cracked, so he whipped them off and tossed them away, then spat a wad of phlegm and blood into the salt. He exhaled, then turned around to look at his wrecked car.
“Oh, my poor Hasira, my baby, what have those motherfuckers done to you.”
Another heavy boot kicked open the passenger door, and with a much higher pitched grunt, an armored female officer, hair tied back in a severe bun clambered out, surveying the wreck. “Status report, Agent Decker?”
Agent Decker flexed his fingers, then shifted around, feeling every joint and muscle creak. “I’m all good, Agent Black. My poor Hasira, though…” he gazed at the car mournfully.
Agent Black walked around the front and patted Agent Decker on the shoulder. “There there, we just have to take her back to the shop.” Agent Decker nodded, but clenched his fists. “I swear, I will hunt every last one of them down and bring them to justice. No hoon gets away from Agent Black and Decker.”
Agent Black merely nodded. “Roger that, Agent Decker. I’m going to call the tow truck.”
What started off as a poorly planned trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats had turned into a right debacle. After that tangle with the cops, Salt Lake City was off limits. They had to assume a state wide search for the ultra-dangerous illegal road racers was underway, which kept each and every one of them on full alert. After nearly an entire night of hard driving, everybody was low on fuel, tyres scrubbed raw, with various parts starting to show the strain of operating at the limit under the varying weather conditions.
Limping into the first diner he saw somewhere in a city called Grand Junction, just across the border, Strop plonked himself into a chair and ordered a black coffee without batting an eyelid. The naturalistic charm of Colorado wine country was a far cry from the salty plains of Utah, and, at this time a welcome change. He jerked upright in his chair as the waitress handed him his first coffee in about five years.
Overhead, the TV morning bulletin ran a story about some high speed chase in Utah. Strop resisted the temptation to cover his head with Kai’s jacket, then looked on as the shots from the news helicopter beamed through. A newswoman droned on about how the police engaged in a high speed chase but lost the suspects doing in excess of two hundred miles an hour and driving ‘extremely dangerously’, but had to call off the chase due to a mysterious fire on the road. Strop bet that somehow, in the blur of events of last night, Reece lit the fire.
Downing the coffee, he paid up and trudged out. Sleep beckoned, but he had a couple of things to do first.
“Whatup Foxy.”
“I told you not to call me Foxy, Waxjob.”
“But is it inaccurate?”
“I’m a wolf.”
Standing in a quiet garage somewhere across state lines, Noah had patched a video call through to the Gryphon Gear software specialist (and expert in all things underground and conspiracy), Waxwell, who had remained at the factory in Australia. Or, as Waxwell liked to say, the top end to Noah’s bottom end. Noah set down his phone and held up a strange grappling device with a long cable trailing from it.
“Anyway. Do you have any idea what this is?”
Through the video screen, Waxwell peered over his glasses. “Obviously that’s a grappling hook. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
In the background, Tom was working on the Brimstone, trying to patch the holes in the rear bumper that the grappling hook had left.
“Maybe I thought you could tell me what kind of grappling hook can punch through a carbon fibre panel and kill a car’s electronics at the same time.”
Waxwell sucked in air through his cheeks. “Hoo boy. An NNEMP in a grappling hook? Who the hell did you guys piss off? That’s some serious heat.”
Noah involuntarily cast a furtive glance out the window. “Yeah? How serious?”
“Let’s put it this way,” Waxwell stroked his chin. “The use of NNEMPs by any sector of the US armed forces is supposed to be experimental. And classified. It’s like rail guns, only much more secret.” He then took his glasses off and looked down the camera seriously. “Should I call Dan?”
“No.” Noah scoffed. “What Dan doesn’t know, won’t hurt us. And, as you know, what she does know, hurts a lot.”
“Suit yourself Foxy,” Waxwell shrugged. “But watch your step.” Then the call was terminated.
Noah was shaking his head as Tesla and Hannah came back in from patching up their own truck. Thanks to the salt, several of the parts were starting to corrode, and given its age, replacing the parts was getting to be more trouble than it was worth, unless they wanted to draw attention to themselves by rocking up to a proper dealer. In the meantime they had to pull it together with duct tape and hope it held together through the rest of the trip. No matter what, the ball had been set in motion, so they only had to hang on.
As for the matter of Tom’s Brimstone, Noah had some capacitors and actuators to replace.
Encrypted message received:
Watch your backs. Involvement of federal agencies cannot be ruled out. Keep a low profile, and maintain radio silence.
Aim to be at the next preordained location in three days. Will keep you advised.
The final classification for Round 3: Need for Speed, is as follows:
With over 3000hp, no surprises that the Hulk is so bloody fast in a straight line! But the spoils of this round go to the Yacare ULTRA X.
In addition, this round’s bonus points belong to the category Houston, We have Liftoff:
It’s a tight finish, but the Cottam Elegance DA just barely squeaks out by 0.1kg of extra lift! So the points for that round go to the Cottam Elegance DA.
Also note that the deadline for new tunes will be the end of TOMORROW (that is to say, 23:59.59 Nov 20, EST). Tom, don’t worry, your car isn’t penalised in any way as a result of the plot, but you stepped up to the plate so I pitched you a curveball
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(OOC)YAAAAAAAAAY!!! Finally a good result…
to be honest when I put my my car to this steroid charged dogfight i was never expecting it to be among the more powerful… and fast
Upon escaping Utah and the strange police car Rayyan gets into contact with his legal team and orders them to prepare a defense for the BSLL and it’s contestants just incase shit goes south. After the call to his legal team Rayyan gets into contact with his private security team which has affiliation to several governments (including the US) to try and found any information on the weapon used to stop Tom’s Brimstone and obtain all the info they can on the mysterious cop car.
Through Rayyans legal team he sends out a recommended route to Tulsa speedway that avoid’s the use of highways and tolls to avoid as much detection from the fuzz as possible.
With the Brimstone repaired, Tom and Elena (who had put on all her clothes again after their maneuver because it was bloody clod) had to figure out a plan of how not to draw too much attention where they went. So they decided to repaint the car matte black, making it harder to see in the dark. Also, Tom fiddled with the ECU to disable the turbos and lower the rev limit a little bit, in order to make the car quieter. All he had to do to turn the madness back on was push a button hidden behind the steering wheel. He thanked Hannah and Tesla again because without them, he would be somewhere in the salt flats around Bonneville, or, most likely, in prison.
With all the work on the Brimstone completed, he changed the rear tyres. The fronts were still okay for going to Tulsa and blasting down the 1/4 once. That is, in case nothing unexpected happened whoch seemed kind of unlikely so he replaced the fronts too and put a spare set of tyres(front and rear) into the boot.
After that, he went to an italian hotel closeby and had not only a dinner but also a nice conversation together with Elena. Of course, they had ordered a bowl of Spaghetti for two. It turned out she was from Paraguay but fed up with people and the government there so she had decided to travel the world, looking for a.new home somewhere she liked, and for a partner. “Well…”, Tom said “that’s a very nice idea! You know, i also travel the world, but for other reasons.” - “So, let’s do it together”, she said. “I sure would love to be together with you for the end of time, Elena. But why the hell would you stay with someone like me?” - “I like adventures”, she replied, looking deep into his eyes. “Honey, we almost died tonight, just in case you missed it.” - “We didn’t, and thanks to your engineering skills, nobody will recognize your car as the small yellow rocket from last night. At least not that easily.” - “Until i push the button again and floor it…” - “Yes, you’re right. So let’s avoid that for the time being, at least until the race at Tulsa.”
The rest of the night went by quietly, with Elena and Tom sleeping side by side, not on top of each other because they didn’t want to draw amy attention to them. The next morning, after a decent breakfast and two cups of coffee for each of them, they seeked out the longest and least busy road towards Tulsa. They planned in one more stop for the night because there really was no reason to hurry unless the Police spotted them. With the car in “quiet mode”, they set off. Elena was wearing a blue pullover, some leggings and leather boots, because wearing the same coat and boots as yesterday (even though she had taken those off before they pulled over) would make it easier for the cops to spot her.
“Tom, can i ask you a very silly question? You know, i don’t know much about cars…” - “Sure, ask me anything.” - “What make is your car?” Amazed by this simple question, he replied “It’s a car i developed myself. I am the CEO of my own car company, AMW.” After a quick explenation about what AMW means and the idea behind the company, he said “have we really not talked about this before?” - “Maybe we have, but with all the stress last night, i might have forgotten about some things, i’m sorry.” - “Don’t worry, hun. Everything’s fine as long as you don’t forget about me.” - “How could i?!”, she responded, “you are th man i’ve always been looking for. Handsome and clever with skilled hands and a dream he is currently making real.” The kindness of these words made Tom blush and he said “Well, you could live with me in Austria once we get there. As long we don’t get killed or arrested in the process of this tournament…”
Counting on his car’s unassuming exterior and the far more flamboyant attitudes of the other racers to keep the cops off him, niall keeps the desert dust on to help hide the shiny paint and kept his fingers crossed that he could get out of his home country without attracting unwants legal attention. Already devoid of all computer systems niall didn’t care much about that mystery hook, though he did worry for his trusty old am/fm cassette…