Only the highest quality superlight seats in my car, gotta have those recaro bolsters.
Warning, even more bad words ahead. Where do you think “Pardon my French” comes from? 
The cameras stopped rolling, and the hosts relaxed a little, yet only slightly, still behaving as usual, joshing amongst themselves as they walked away from the set to take a break. Outside, the cold of the British evening started closing in, and the experience of sharing something so much larger started to fade already, as minds switched to the journey across the Channel, and into France.
Strop stretched his limbs, still tingling a little at the turn of events. He made a mental note to be sure to thank his mastermind colleagues, and trotted over to his Peapod. It had served him well, but maybe… just maybe after this tournament he really should find out wherever Boden might have put the old R18A2 and really see what they could do with it…
“Strooooooop,” a whiny voice whined. Strop froze, not sure if he should turn around and listen, but too late, an insistent hand tugged at his shoulder. “Look over there!”
“What is it Sam.”
“It’s them. Them!” Sam hissed, pointing a furious finger in the distance. “That’s just improper mate! A shame on the British sensibility!”
Strop peered into the distance, and saw nothing. “I see nothing.”
“What’s wrong with your eyes? Such vulgarity!” After a while, Strop finally realised that he was not referring to the cars, but rather, the fact that Kai and Bianca were enjoying a quiet walk trackside.
“No really, Sam. Are you actually referring to Kai and Bianca? Help me out here bro.”
Sam spluttered, turning a few shades darker in the process. “It’s PDA! Haven’t you ever heard of PDA? It’s impolite and they’re shoving it in our faces! Make them stop!”
Strop’s face twisted as he contemplated, then remembering, that his girlfriend was the affectionate sort who would make Kai and Bianca’s so-called PDAs seem like a stroll in the park, decided to go with: “Sam, what the hell is wrong with you? They’re a couple. It’s perfectly natural to want to spend some time together before they say goodbye.”
Sam’s face fell, and he was about to launch into another diatribe when Strop shoved a candy bar in his face, quipping: “Here, have a Snickers. You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
Sam glowered, then snatched the bar away, tearing the wrapper off and taking a vicious bite. “Mmph mmf mmmf mph.” He mouthed, before stumping back to Sleipnir, the wrapper joining the multitude of other candy bar wrappers in the footwell.
“And clean out the goddamn car sometime!” Strop called after him. “It’s the company prototype!”
**[size=200]T[/size]**hey went into the Channel Tunnel, the last of the light pursuing them. An hour later, they emerged, into the moonlight, into the land of passion, the land of eccentric, unabashed, France.
The northern countryside rolled past as they drove on through the night, in convoy. Conversing over radio to pass the time, talking about what kind of cheese grew where, how many hunters accidentally got shot while hunting wild boar, and from Tesla and Hannah, a rollicking assessment of the new Transit van, which was in short, just as mad as the rest of them without reason or rhyme, and a ridiculous amount of power. They joked at how the van might even be a match for the Mephisto, and Sam heartily agreed, the reply to which was a stony silence.
That was when they noticed, the silence coming from the Mephisto was palpable. More so than the visceral vibrations of the rough, jerky rumble of the V8, struggling against the vacuum of the turbo in its lag phase while cruising, just before the cusp of the power surge. It was felt through the receiver of the speakers, like a lump of lead, a black cloud. Gradually, under its weight, the conversation dragged, then slowed to a stop, even as the cars kept barrelling down the highway.
Finally, Sam figured he should attempt to pick things up again before the drive got real boring. “Cheer up, Kai,” he piped down the line. “Think of all the racing we have ahead of us!”
Silence.
“If you don’t pick up your game, you’re going to have a big fat LOSER tattoo on your forehead for your girlfriend to look at, remember?”
More silence.
“I mean, it’s going to happen anyway, but it’ll be no fun if you don’t put up a fight.”
If Kai was saying anything, he was humming something at exactly the same pitch of the Mephisto’s growly V8. Otherwise, he still wasn’t saying anything.
“Oh come on!” A tinge of irritation crept into Sam’s cajoling. “What’s she to you anyway? It’s not like she’s some kind of, I don’t know, Swedish supermodel with a fine ass and big perky boobs and legs up to yay high or anything close.” The line was slightly interrupted by a trio of gagging sounds presumably originating from the Gryphon Gear Van. “Actually, I’m pretty sure she’s kind of the opposite. And she’s shorter than you are, which is kind of sad in itself-“
“Shut up.” Kai’s first words for the evening were short and sharp, and warning.
“No, really, somebody has to tell you this!” Sam was never one to take a hint when he was on a roll. “You are a professional racing driver! You are supposed to be able to score with whoever the fuck you want by rolling up alongside in your fancy car and telling them your name. And if that fails, all you need to do is show them your trophy cabinet. And I know you don’t have a lot of trophies, but the fact you’ve won a championship is serious pulling power even for a short guy like you.”
“You need to stop talking.”
“Kai, my man, you need to get laid more. That is the root of all man’s problems, excuse the pun. After this race let’s head to Paris, I’ll hook you up in the red light district, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate my point of view.”
Kai growled. “If you stopped thinking with your dick, you might actually get into a real relationship.”
There was a bit of chattering in the background, as Tesla ribbed Hannah. “Hey, pass the popcorn, this oughta be good.”
The joviality started to slip from Sam’s voice as he went on the defensive: “Hey fuck you. I don’t need a ‘real relationship’, I’m free. I can hook up with anyone I like. I don’t have to think of anyone but myself!”
“Because this is the way you’re going to live when you’re fat, forty and failing at life?” (This one was met with a muffled “OH SNAP” from Noah).
“Don’t be a dick! I’m still young. You’re younger, you shouldn’t chain yourself to someone yet, not to mention someone living on the other side of the world, when there are plenty of hot chicks around if you just bothered to look outside your door!”
Kai hesitated a little, before snapping back: “I… I love Bianca, okay? What’s so hard about that?”
Sam laughed, a laugh fraying around the edges into despair and incomprehension. “You are an idiot! What do you know of love at twenty three or whatever it is? I bet you just haven’t had any really good sex. Have you even done it bareback yet? I could show you worlds of pleasure beyond anything your puny mind might have imagined. All it takes is some extra cash, a wink and some words and some establishments are willing to look the other way, I guarantee you. Mind. Blowing. You’ll never be pining over some chubby chick you see twice a year again.”
Between the rumbling of the car tyres and the engines, there was a long, awkward silence. Then, “I take it back.” Kai’s voice, low and steady, dripped with venom. “It won’t take you two years to get AIDS.”
Over the radio, there was a sudden sharp intake of breath, which came across as a crackle. Two seconds later, Strop’s eyes bolted open as Sam blipped the throttle, pulling alongside Kai in the Mephisto, then jinked the car at him.
There was a squeal, and then the Mephisto pitched sharply across, rolling onto the shoulder of the road, before snapping back, wobbling violently as it steered with a suddenness ill-advised in a car of its stature. The brake lights flickered on as it braked, hard, and then it pulled over to the side of the road. Shortly after that, Sam slammed on the brakes and Sleipnir also screeched to a halt on the other side of the road.
“Should we…?” Hannah started, but Strop, swearing, was already slowing down, pulling over ahead of them, fiddling with his harness. In his mirrors, he could already see the wing doors of the Mephisto and Sleipnir swing open, and Kai and Sam haul themselves out to face each other.
Sam spread his arms wide as he walked towards Kai. “You gotta lighten up man, you’re so tense you almost lived up to your callsign over a little argy-bargy. Like I said, if you just listened to me for once and had a really good hook-up, you’d-“
Kai, the picture of cold fury, responded by punching Sam in the face.
Sam reeled, flailing as his feet stumbled back several paces. Straightening, one hand covering his left eye, he stared at Kai in shock.
“Why don’t you shut the fuck up once in a while, asshole!” Kai shouted, rubbing his right hand.
“So… I guess that evens things out from three years ago,” Sam murmured, before suddenly hunching forward and launching himself wholly into Kai’s midsection.
For a brief, dizzying moment, they were airborne, and then Kai crashed to the ground on his back, the heavier Sam landing on top of him. The air was crushed out of his lungs with an “oof”, but he rolled over, powered by rage, mounting Sam and indiscriminately raining fists and elbows upon the body below. Sam covered up at first, then got a leg free, and planting it squarely on Kai’s chest, launched him off. Scrambling on all fours, he charged again, collecting Kai and dragging him along the ground as they rolled, entangled in chaotic, incoherent battle.
“Break it up, break it up!” Hooves clopped as Strop sprinted towards the pugnacious duo, then jumped, diving straight into the path of fire. Attempting to lever his limbs to separate Kai and Sam, he ate several fists and elbows before he was successful, shoving them apart, where they lay spreadeagled, on the dirt and ashphalt, panting.
“Put that away!” Closer to the van, Hannah slapped Noah’s hand, wrapped around his handycam.
Strop was the first to rise, and he regarded Kai and Sam with a baleful glare. “Pull your shit together! We can’t afford this kind of stuff, not when we’re racing and running the tournament!”
As he lectured Kai and Sam, who were scuffing their toes and twiddling their thumbs, faces flushed and gazes averted, Hannah, Tesla and Noah formed on his wing. “We should be working together and enjoying ourselves but also looking out for each other, who knows when we might run into trouble? Don’t go around creating more among yourselves okay?”
“Yeah, or we’ll have to call Dan.” Noah snarked.
“Oh no, not Dan, anything but Dan.” Kai muttered sarcastically, though he did go a few shades paler.
“Now apologise to each other.” Strop grabbed both of them by the scruff of the neck and turned them to face each other. Kai tried to give Strop a head slip, mumbling something about needing a smoke, but Strop tweaked his ear and he turned back with a yelp.
“I’m sorry.” Sam said.
“Good man,” Strop nodded.
“I’m sorry I didn’t actually hit Mephisto,” Sam clarified, with a wicked grin.
Strop doffed him upside the head.
The light of dawn was peeking over the skyline as the convoy pulled into Rouen, ancient river town, home, like much of France, to some of the finest relics and remnants of the rebirth of the arts throughout Europe. After refuelling, they took some time to stretch their legs and soak up the sights in silence. While Kai and Sam, still ignoring each other, went their separate ways to gnaw on their solitude, Strop, Noah, Hannah and Tesla stuck around to sample the magnificence of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the treasures of the Musée des Beaux Arts, packing a quick picnic to take to the Jardin des Plantes de Rouen.
Fatigue eventually took over, and they booked into a budget motel, keeping low key to rest. It was another two hours to Sarthe, and the site of the legendary Le Mans, and another midnight, another race approached.
1 Like
[quote=“strop”]Okay, so I was kind of enjoying the little spat until I read this:
dafuq? What are you doing in the BSLL then??? 
But really, consider that the qualifying prerequisite for this competition is a 1:1 power ratio or 1000hp minimum. Given we aren’t working with fancy trick diffs etc., the very premise of this contest are cars that are by and large so impractical that while technically streetable, you really wouldn’t want to do it. And then I force people to drive halfway around the world in street conditions while driving them. It’s fun if you’re a masochist, and I presumed that everybody who rocked up to this contest in cars with no entertainment, basic seats -15 quality with no sound insulation and rock hard carbon fiber chassis with ride heights so low that every time you run over a pebble you hear a horrible scraping noise on top of the din of your barely muffled exhaust… and so forth, which, I add, covers most of us, would have understood that this ‘fun’ is a different brand of fun. It’s fun in the way that the Baja 1000, or the Paris-Dakar rally is fun. Making the cars in real life would be *&^%ing hard work, and as you correctly point out you’d have to overhaul most of the components after this (most of the cars here wouldn’t even be serviceable once the BSLL is over. I know the Peapod’s old F1 block is going to have thoroughly had it by then). Yeah, that’s hard work. It’s also, given the size of the engine blocks in most of these cars, going to be really frustrating work, so strictly it’s not ‘fun’, but the ‘fun’ in that is in the labour of love, knowing you’re doing something utterly mad and celebrating death-defying, death-inviting madness.
So that’s the kind of perspective Kristina is presumably talking from, and hamming it up. As the host, I welcome all cars that make the cut. Even the relatively well-balanced ones (the MX-5 NA being a dream car of my own in real life)… though for the purposes if you want to bring a car like that to the contest, it better be slammed and blown but good 
[/quote]
[OOC] This is directly on point, Strop. This entire league is madness with completely impractical cars. 1000hp cars are built all of the time, but they are not generally driving around on the streets because they are insanely impractical. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are still impractical cars. They are also sought after cars due to their impractical nature. They are not about automotive nirvana, although if it were truly possible, it would be desired. They are about balls-to-the-wall power at the command of your fingertips (and feet), with generally death-defying and sometimes deadly results when successful (think the last 100 years of F1 racing).
Where my driver aid point was coming from is i only have 4 points, yet others have 5 due to chassis year. I have 0 driver aids. No ABS brakes, no power steering, no traction control. Those are the available options for a 1986 chassis. I am not complaining. It was a suggestion only. There are actually quite a few serious limitations to the body/chassis I chose. For example, I can only do 305 rear and 275 front due to body limitations. I chose them anyway. /rant
Once rayyan reaches france he downs many many bottles of Chardonnay(25 to be exact) as he is feeling oddly embracing of french culture and he feels slightly lonely without Tesla do the unspeakable whilst he’s driving.
(OOC) someone like dating fuzzy ones eh?
(IC) By ferry he arrived to Calais and what he recieved is a cold 7ºC Drizzlling Day that started affecting the stickers he applied back then in japan to cover the scratches on the nose and sides, the skyblue Paint-job took quite a beating that night and so did Seba’s ego
“Ugh French… like any good looking, skilled or rich person, their arrogance knows no limits I can get good cheeses at least”
[quote=“strop”]Okay, so I was kind of enjoying the little spat until I read this:
dafuq? What are you doing in the BSLL then???
But really, consider that the qualifying prerequisite for this competition is a 1:1 power ratio or 1000hp minimum. Given we aren’t working with fancy trick diffs etc., the very premise of this contest are cars that are by and large so impractical that while technically streetable, you really wouldn’t want to do it. And then I force people to drive halfway around the world in street conditions while driving them. It’s fun if you’re a masochist, and I presumed that everybody who rocked up to this contest in cars with no entertainment, basic seats -15 quality with no sound insulation and rock hard carbon fiber chassis with ride heights so low that every time you run over a pebble you hear a horrible scraping noise on top of the din of your barely muffled exhaust… and so forth, which, I add, covers most of us, would have understood that this ‘fun’ is a different brand of fun. It’s fun in the way that the Baja 1000, or the Paris-Dakar rally is fun. Making the cars in real life would be *&^%ing hard work, and as you correctly point out you’d have to overhaul most of the components after this (most of the cars here wouldn’t even be serviceable once the BSLL is over. I know the Peapod’s old F1 block is going to have thoroughly had it by then). Yeah, that’s hard work. It’s also, given the size of the engine blocks in most of these cars, going to be really frustrating work, so strictly it’s not ‘fun’, but the ‘fun’ in that is in the labour of love, knowing you’re doing something utterly mad and celebrating death-defying, death-inviting madness.
So that’s the kind of perspective Kristina is presumably talking from, and hamming it up. As the host, I welcome all cars that make the cut. Even the relatively well-balanced ones (the MX-5 NA being a dream car of my own in real life)… though for the purposes if you want to bring a car like that to the contest, it better be slammed and blown but good [/quote]
I’m in the BSLL because I rose to the challenge of making something insane then seeing where it ended up in competition with other insane cars. I did it to improve my engine building skills and see what an insane build would result in. My definition of insane isn’t exactly the same as everyone else but I did my best! I also wasn’t expecting all this roleplay so I apologise for my replies if the comments were made “in-character”. I wasn’t trying to derail the fun, I was just pointing out that complaining about one insane car somehow being less insane than another makes no sense when all the cars in this competition are undriveable monsters anyway…
BTW, when someone wants to be read as hamming it up, would it hurt to use smileys to help convey this? A simple 
or 
instantly makes a comment less about the statement and more about having fun.
Next league I’ll try to make a car that’s actually theoretically useable while being as badass as my Lunatic so that I can put my money where my mouth is! (plus I’ll attempt some roleplay too, )
dafuq? What are you doing in the BSLL then???
But really, consider that the qualifying prerequisite for this competition is a 1:1 power ratio or 1000hp minimum. Given we aren’t working with fancy trick diffs etc., the very premise of this contest are cars that are by and large so impractical that while technically streetable, you really wouldn’t want to do it. And then I force people to drive halfway around the world in street conditions while driving them. It’s fun if you’re a masochist, and I presumed that everybody who rocked up to this contest in cars with no entertainment, basic seats -15 quality with no sound insulation and rock hard carbon fiber chassis with ride heights so low that every time you run over a pebble you hear a horrible scraping noise on top of the din of your barely muffled exhaust… and so forth, which, I add, covers most of us, would have understood that this ‘fun’ is a different brand of fun. It’s fun in the way that the Baja 1000, or the Paris-Dakar rally is fun. Making the cars in real life would be *&^%ing hard work, and as you correctly point out you’d have to overhaul most of the components after this (most of the cars here wouldn’t even be serviceable once the BSLL is over. I know the Peapod’s old F1 block is going to have thoroughly had it by then). Yeah, that’s hard work. It’s also, given the size of the engine blocks in most of these cars, going to be really frustrating work, so strictly it’s not ‘fun’, but the ‘fun’ in that is in the labour of love, knowing you’re doing something utterly mad and celebrating death-defying, death-inviting madness.
So that’s the kind of perspective Kristina is presumably talking from, and hamming it up. As the host, I welcome all cars that make the cut. Even the relatively well-balanced ones (the MX-5 NA being a dream car of my own in real life)… though for the purposes if you want to bring a car like that to the contest, it better be slammed and blown but good
I’m in the BSLL because I rose to the challenge of making something insane then seeing where it ended up in competition with other insane cars. I did it to improve my engine building skills and see what an insane build would result in. My definition of insane isn’t exactly the same as everyone else but I did my best! I also wasn’t expecting all this roleplay so I apologise for my replies if the comments were made “in-character”. I wasn’t trying to derail the fun, I was just pointing out that complaining about one insane car somehow being less insane than another makes no sense when all the cars in this competition are undriveable monsters anyway…
BTW, when someone wants to be read as hamming it up, would it hurt to use smileys to help convey this? A simple or instantly makes a comment less about the statement and more about having fun.
Next league I’ll try to make a car that’s actually theoretically useable while being as badass as my Lunatic so that I can put my money where my mouth is! (plus I’ll attempt some roleplay too, )[/quote]
[quote=“07CobaltGirl”]Bah! The BSLL is nearly perfect as is. It’s a forum game, and should be more about the forum than what you actually built. This is by far the most entertaining challenge to date. It’s entertaining to participate, and it is also entertaining for casual bystanders!
I would make a suggestion, however. Driver Aids available should be for current tech year and not chassis year. It makes it harder for older chassis to compete with newer, stiffer chassis who already have an advantage based on chassis year alone. They shouldn’t get extra points for using brand new chassis/materials which gives them new aids to ignore. They should be penalized for not having enough guts to run old shit which was way more fun anyway! 
[/quote]
You mean like the twisted smiley at the end of my post?
I misinterpreted that as angry 
I retract all my statements re: your OP and humbly withdraw from this conversation! 
[OOC] Oh I see, it’s hard sometimes to tell between the twisted smileys: There is 
but there is also 
Technically speaking, supercars with fancy whizzbangs like a Koenigsegg Agera R (far cry from the CCX and CCX-R that WOULD kill you if you so much as looked at it sideways), are welcome in the tournament. We don’t have all the tech available to us but we will soon, and I suspect by the time I run a BSLL 2, we’ll have active aero, active suspensions and different kinds of diffs available to us, which will require rebalancing of the scoring system anyway.
On the note of driver aids, I did think in one sense it was inequitable to award less points if you had less aids to take off in the first place. However, it was simpler that way and I hoped to offset it by awarding more points to the older bodies. The bottom line is, unless the older cars are fast enough to pick up race points, it would definitely be very strange to pick up both “Crazy Wheels” and the overall “Ultimate BSLL Rider”, though on that same token, I hoped that the top overall car had some crazy points under its belt too. However there’s such a wide range in the competition that it would be difficult to find a good point as I also can’t tell who’s doing what in the tournament. That is also the beauty of this tournament, even if the scoring turns out skewed, the notion of the scoring has produced a huge variety of cars with all kinds of approaches that we’d not commonly see in an all out race.
[quote=“strop”][OOC] Oh I see, it’s hard sometimes to tell between the twisted smileys: There is but there is also
Technically speaking, supercars with fancy whizzbangs like a Koenigsegg Agera R (far cry from the CCX and CCX-R that WOULD kill you if you so much as looked at it sideways), are welcome in the tournament. We don’t have all the tech available to us but we will soon, and I suspect by the time I run a BSLL 2, we’ll have active aero, active suspensions and different kinds of diffs available to us, which will require rebalancing of the scoring system anyway.
On the note of driver aids, I did think in one sense it was inequitable to award less points if you had less aids to take off in the first place. However, it was simpler that way and I hoped to offset it by awarding more points to the older bodies. The bottom line is, unless the older cars are fast enough to pick up race points, it would definitely be very strange to pick up both “Crazy Wheels” and the overall “Ultimate BSLL Rider”, though on that same token, I hoped that the top overall car had some crazy points under its belt too. However there’s such a wide range in the competition that it would be difficult to find a good point as I also can’t tell who’s doing what in the tournament. That is also the beauty of this tournament, even if the scoring turns out skewed, the notion of the scoring has produced a huge variety of cars with all kinds of approaches that we’d not commonly see in an all out race.[/quote]
{OOC} This is what I liked about the rules; the unique scoring system meant there was no single perfect setup! I found it refreshing to be in a competition that didn’t require the usual approach to making entries. Another comp that ran along these lines is the Comrade cup; lots of differing viewpoints lead to many unique entries that reflected the designer better than the usual “time attack for X dollars in Y year without using Z tech”.
I’ll be at BSLL2 with bells on!
[size=200]T[/size]he rustic charm of Le Mans, one of the most ancient preserved cities of France, hailing from the era of war between the Gaulish tribes and the Roman empire, was shrouded in darkness as the racers assembled. Turning off the freeway and heading down the D338, they slipped into le Chemin aux Boeufs just after the deadly Tetre Rouge, settling into the parking lot.
Alighting from the van somewhere behind, the Gryphon Gear team immediately pulled out several boxes of tools, fishing out what looked like an assortment of pneumatic and orthopaedic tools. “Alright, let’s move quickly, before anybody notices what we’re doing,” Hannah ordered, and immediately, Tesla and Noah got to work on the barriers blocking the turnoff from Dunlop onto the main straight, undoing the bolts that kept them anchored into the ground.
“I didn’t realise that this stage was going to be this illegal,” a bemused and slightly concerned Jack Cossack said, fiddling with his hammer.
“What do you expect,” Hannah replied, bustling past with a drill in hand. “It’s part street part circuit. We can’t just order the council to close the roads for two hours on a whim like that, hell, we can’t even speak French.”
“Hmm.” Jack scratched his chin in thought, weighing up the ethics of trespass and illegal street racing versus the benefits of the joy of two dozen idiots driving lunatic machines down a public highway at speeds exceeding two hundred miles an hour. To him, there was a clear winner.
“I’ll go scope out the roads,” he said, climbing back into his Combi and screeching off, mod lights flashing.
In a straggling line, the cars of the Barely Street Legal League proceeded around the lap of the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe, warming up their tyres with side to side weaving as they traversed down the highway. Seeded in order of overall standings, the benchmark Gryphon Gear cars Mephisto and Sleipnir locked out the front row, followed by the Baltazar Thanatos Estate and the supercar racer, the Gemina XIII GTX. In the Peapod, Strop sat way back in the seventh row, quietly fretting to himself. He was pretty sure Kai and Sam were still going to be pissed at each other, and after Sam’s little jinking stunt, he wasn’t sure they weren’t going to run each other off the road right from the get go. And being in much much faster cars than his, he could do nothing to stop them.
“Okay lady and gentlemen,” Tesla had control of the public radio channel. “Remember this is half circuit, half street. Watch out for traffic. There are no barriers to tell you which turns to take, but we trust you know the course. If you get lost, that’s your problem! If you crash, nobody knows what you were doing. Jack Cossack will have flashing lights on his car. We will also have flashing lights on our van. If you see a third set, get the hell out of here.”
The cars formed into single file as they swung through the double chicanes that marked the entry into the finishing straight. They slowed to a stop on the marked lines, and waited, engines rumbling, feet poised on the loud pedals. Less than a minute until Le Mans came alive with the sound and thunder of midnight racing.
Noah, now dressed in the uniform of the Police Nationale, complete with pointy bonnet de police, marched out to the starting line and stood in front, baton in hand. He raised his arms, waiting a few seconds as the pitch of the engines rose in a buzzing chorus, to fever pitch.
Then he flung his hands down and they were off!
Straight away, the wheels of the cars of the front rows bit and they shot into the darkness. With hundred times only a shade over two seconds, the Mephisto, Sleipnir, Thanatos Estate and the Gemina launched almost in unison, with the SD-01R hanging on. Enry’s Achernar, with its all-wheel drive, latched onto the tail of the SD-01R, while further behind, the retuned and even faster ULTRA X driven by a slightly over-caffeinated Seba Machado III blitzed past the rear wheel drive coupes and older AWDs in the middle of the pack to close in on the little hatch.
Up front, even before the first rightward kink leading into Dunlop, the Thanatos Estate replicated its stunning quarter mile performance, passing Sam’s Sleipnir before closing in on Kai’s Mephisto, gaining the advantage with superior downforce through the first turn. Yuri, in the Gemina, also tried to follow suit, but Sam, sights set on Kai, ignored him and as they braked hard into the Chicane, they ended up side by side, with Yuri on the left and Sam on the right. Yuri got the jump on Sam in the first part, but Sam, with superior cornering, had the advantage on the follow through and slipped ahead once more.
In the middle of the pack, the chicane became very crowded, and Strop found himself in the thick of it, struggling to make any headway as every coupe had crammed itself two and three abreast. The Hulk had shot ahead initially but it had to negotiate Dunlop, and kept braking there, and so was also passed by the Debrauna, Griffin, Mutant, Brimstone, Infernalis, Lunatic , Emperion and Annihilator as they all squeezed into the chicanes together. The wheels of the Civic lifted off the inside corner as Strop almost cut into the gravel, plunging extra wide into the entry to set up an extra tight line coming out and slipping ahead, only to be surrounded again by the more powerful models as they sped towards the Esses.
With the combination of speed and technical corners, already the field was being divided into two packs on the basis of overall race ability. Behind, the other front wheel drive cars, with no driving aids and oodles of power, struggled to get it all on the ground, teetering around and kicking up smoke, alongside the collection of heavier sedans, and historical cars, all rounded up by the mod car of Jack, lights flashing and siren blaring. But even with this gap as it was now, it would all change the moment they entered the Musanne Straight.
First, Tetre Rouge. With reckless abandon, the first of the cars screamed through the corner at a hundred miles an hour, joining the highway, the wailing notes of their turbocharged engines echoing into the surrounding countryside as they sped up. Even with high beams on, reaching speeds in excess of three hundred, three hundred and fifty, the night was a jangled blur of road lines and the faint black impressions of trees. With a lower top speed, Sleipnir and the Thanatos Estate were easily overtaken by every car with a top speed of four hundred or more. Already ahead, the Mephisto disappeared into the distance, and even while Sam gripped the steering wheel and mashed his foot harder on the pedal, there was nothing he could do about it.
There were no barriers or kerbs in place to denote the two chicanes interrupting the Mulsanne Straight. But honour dictated that every racer braked hard, eyeballs bulging out of their sockets as the field bunched up. Now Mephisto was tailed by the Gemina, and the SD-01R, with the Yacare’s extreme top speed nestling itself right in the mix of things, in front of the Mutant. The Hulk had blown by most of the slower coupes on the straight, but was passed again and now held at bay by the hatchback Archernar and Brimstone. However, the start of the race had segregated the cars out so thoroughly that even with insane top speed, the Ruby was not able to catch up to the tail of the main pack, instead leading the rear pack, followed by the Vindicator, the Elegance DA, the E30 LS7 M, the Combi, alongside the Kodiak, slowly but surely outstripping the second slowest car of the tournament, the RB-02. But already, the ancient hobomobile, the Testis, had already fallen behind, being watched over by the unusually fast Gryphon Gear Transit van, complete with a ‘borrowed’ flashing light.
“Hooooo-eeee!” Hannah squeaked, feeling the scary boost at the top of the rev range and alternately surging forward and backing away she experienced seventeen hundred newton meters of torque rushing to the wheels for the first time in several months. “How the hell is this so fast!?” Even terrified of the throttle as she was, the all-wheel drive van was easily keeping up with the Testis, racing down the back straights in excess of three hundred as beside her, Tesla clutched the sides of the seat in whimpering terror.
Back up the front, and the front pack was already bearing down upon the second chicane of the Mulsanne Straight. Behind them, the faster cars had broken away from the second pack, trying to bridge the gap, but even the insane speed of the Hulk, smashing the four hundred kilometres per hour the old Peugeot prototypes used to do when the straight was referred to as Les Hunaudinaires, was only barely able to catch up to Sleipnir before the second chicane, wobbling around on its thin tyres as it struggled to slow down, nearly collecting the MR prototype as they edged into the left kink. With superior grip, Sleipnir gave The Hulk the slip on the exit, giving it the advantage it needed to hold it off again through the Mulsanne Kink and finally the ninety degrees of Mulsanne corner.
The blue and yellow kerbs, lit up incandescent under the headlights, were the only clue of the corner to be taken, deviating from the main highway, and the braking point, and the road became a sea of tail-lights. The noise of screeching tyres echoed through the roundabout as wheels locked up and cars bounced over kerbs, the sand trap, nearly bowling over the signposts at the side of the road as they wove all over the intersection. After the Mephisto, Thanatos Estate, Gemini, and AR.MA SD-01 R were on their way to Indianapolis, Sleipnir followed close behind, battling the corner with the Yacare. But the Hulk snuck past them both, braking almost suicidally late, plowing into the sand trap and taking an ultra-wide line well off the course, kicking sand all over the road as it fishtailed back onto the course, intent on maximum speed.
The second pack was still tightly bunched, a swarm of angry hornets weaving in and out and jostling for track position. The Achernar led the charge, alongside the Brimstone, and side by side they swung around the corner, trying to hold back the larger and more powerful Griffin, Mutant, Lunatic and Annihilator. The Emperion and Infernallis, with much lower top speeds had dropped back slightly, just keeping in sight. Hot on their heels was paradoxically the slowest of the FF cars, Peapod, followed by the other three FF cars. The rest of the cars straggled through in single file, first the Elegance DA, then the Vindicator, E30 LS7 M, Felicia Combi, and Kodiak. The Gryphon Gear van was still babysitting Testis, another three seconds back.
The next long back straight to Indianapolis was an even narrower road, with only grass for a shoulder. The broken white lines rushed by underneath as the cars picked up speed again, going blind around the gentle right handed kinks of Pierre Baude, hoping and praying that they wouldn’t run into any traffic. With the advantageous balance of speed and handling, Mephisto surged ahead, tail lights flicking around the bend and out of sight, working up nearly two seconds of advantage over the Thanatos Estate by the time it screeched around Indianapolis, and then shortly after, the tight right hander of Arnage.
The high speed sections of the circuit had served the top speed cars well, but now that the Porsche curves were upon them, it was those who could maintain high cornering speeds that benefited the most. The pace setter, Mephisto, breezed through at speeds of nearly two hundred, zipping through the fields, over the bridge, and past the tree lined parade as it plunged deeper back into the race estate. Frustratingly, the Gemina, with less downforce, started slipping behind progressively, and in the distance, Sleipnir started hauling them back in, re-passing The Hulk, as did the SD-01R and, a few seconds later, the Yacare. From the middle pack, the superior cornering of the Debrauna once again led to it working its way out and into the front, and the newer AWD competitors, with their superior grip, managed to sort themselves into the front of the pack. From the back of this pack, Strop, having driven many laps around the course himself, could almost navigate the curves with his eyes closed, and so fearlessly pushed Peapod to the limit, straining against the harness as the car pulled over two lateral G, blowing by the Lunatic, Infernalis, Brimstone and then Mutant with ease. Further back, the gap opened up, as the ultra-powerful front wheel drives struggled to keep their way on the road, and of all things, the little hatchback of the RB-02 was back on the scene, josting with the big wagon Ruby for track position!
Hard on the brakes into the double chicane, the traffic sorted themselves out single file, spitting out the Mephisto, still unchallenged all the way across the finish line. The Thanatos Estate was next, just over a second later. Then it was a huge five second gap to the next car, the Gemini, whose higher speed advantage held off a resurgent Sleipnir to the line by under a second, and in turn, the super-fast AWD coupe, the SD-01R. Then there was a three second gap, and into the chicanes, the Yacare and Debrauna battled, the Debrauna looking for a way past, but unable to overtake as coming out of the chicanes at the same speed, the Yacare sped away to claim the next spot by four tenths of a second.
A most unlikely battle ensued, for on the last straight, the lumbering mass of The Hulk had picked up a bit of an advantage over the other all-wheel drive cars, but then was caught up by the Archernar as it braked early to negotiate the chicanes. The Achernar somehow managed to squeeze by on the shoulder, getting out in front on the exit, but Reece would have none of it, putting his foot down. Three thousand horsepower was mercifully tapered down to the wheels, and both the Achernar and Hulk sped to the finish, side by side. It was the Hulk that put its nose barely in front, tipping the laser timer a mere three hundredths of a second before the little hatchback that could, followed a second and a half later by the Griffin. Just behind that, Strop viciously threw his Peapod through the chicanes, almost cutting the kerb as the front struggled with understeer, but still blasting across the line well clear of the next pack in eleventh.
The next four cars came bunched in tightly too, two battles unfolding simultaneously. The Brimstone, with its shorter wheel base, pushed through the corners a little better, holding the Mutant off through the chicanes, but the wheels spun as thirteen hundred horses overwhelmed the rears, giving the Mutant just that little bit of a headstart, edging in front by four hundredths of a second. Right behind them, the Infernalis and Lunatic battled, side by side, and the Lunatic’s tendency to slide betrayed it at the last moment, wheels smoking as it accelerated up the stretch with the tail out, slipping behind to hand the win to the Infernalis, its ultra-long first gear allowing it to take off more smoothly.
Having slipped behind for lacking both the utter speed of some, and the cornering of others, the Necronia Emperion was next, leading on the Annihilator by a second. Then there was a long silence as it wasn’t until seven seconds later that Rayyan screamed through, bonkers FF coupe burning out up the straight. The RB-02 was shortly behind, nipping through the final chicane ahead of the lumbering Ruby, and getting off the mark a little better, as the Ruby’s front wheels completely let go, shredding its front tyres all the way to the finish.
It wasn’t until five seconds later that the rest of the cars started coming through, now increasingly spread out. The Elegance DA, Vindicator and E30 LS7 M had all formed an orderly line of disorderly driving, the older and cheaper cars with parts fatigued and fading from the sustained abuse of all out speed and fast corners. Even more disorderly were the Felicia Combi, leading on the Kodiak, whose saving grace was the retuned brakes, now with ventilation that saved it from melting down entirely. By some mercy, the terrifying ride of the two speed in the rattling old junker, the Testis, did not end in a wreck, and despite almost taking a wrong turn several times from drinking far too much gin, it rattled across the line to round off the race.
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The final classification for Race 6: Circuit de la Sarthe, is as follows:
Which goes to show that thanks to all the super fast segments, the most important factor is a combination of power, and the traction to put it down.
The bonus points this round are the single points awarded for Road Rocket, and Megacar. Since the only true megacar among the scoring competitors is the Thanatos Estate, that gets one point. In addition, single points are also awarded to:
AR.MA. SD-01R
Centauri Vindicator
Decker Annihilator
Gemina XIII GTX
Leeroy Lunatic
Raggari Mutant
Ruby
YCB Yacare ULTRA X
Heads up! The next rounds will start seeing the MAJOR bonus crazy points being thrown into the mix. These are the points for format and years, so expect the standings to change quite a lot.
[size=200]B[/size]reath came out as fog in the excitement and the chatter of the race, the cars ticking over back in the lot. The classifications showed a certain established order, but there were some fierce battles within the order with lots of positions set to swap, and little rivalries and alliances had formed along the way.
Wishing to make haste, the Gryphon Gear van had sped off along with Jack Cossack in the Combi, to replace the several barriers they had uprooted to make way for the race. But as they approached Tetre Rouge, the first site, Jack’s mod radar started going crazy. Immediately, he radioed in.
“We have company. Looks like the locals don’t appreciate racing after bedtime.”
Sure enough, in the background, the wail of sirens was faintly heard, growing louder by the second. Instantly, Noah was on the public channel. “Everybody disperse! The police are coming!”
Hannah dropped the barrier she was wrestling with and scrambled back into the van. “Evidence is one thing, getting caught red-handed is another!” She declared as she gunned the engine and shot off, fear of the turbo on steroids forgotten.
In the car lot, chatter turned to chaos as everybody jumped back into their cars, firing up engines again, leaving tyre treads as they all piled out two and three abreast, pouring out onto the public roads again as the Peugeots, blue lights flashing, closed in on the scene. But the little city runabouts were no match for the madmobiles of the Barely Street Legal League, and in a matter of minutes, they had been left far behind without so much as a good visual, as the contestants scattered to the winds, and onwards to Belgium.
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[quote=“HighOctaneLove”]
I misinterpreted that as angry I retract all my statements re: your OP and humbly withdraw from this conversation! [/quote]
[OOC] No worries. They are similar looking. And again, as for the driver aids comment, it was not a complaint, but a suggestion. I’m not mad about getting fewer points, but I thought it might be good to make it an even playing field. Newer aids could certainly be added to older cars IRL as aftermarket items, but of course, not in game as it is hard coded this way. I do like older cars for their danger factor, but newer cars certainly have their merits for safety and stiffness with newer materials. I’m also old school on engines, as I adore and revere the OHV monsters produced by American companies over the DOHC beasts produced by everybody else in the world. That’s just me though. I will definitely be competing in the next and all subsequent BSLL challenges, as these really are my kind of cars. Lightweight cars (except for the Hulk) with screaming nightmarish engines, ready to kill anyone brave enough to sit in the cockpit. 
[quote=“nialloftara”]It would need to be a very high cap100k+, or just award more bonus points to the cheap and nasty winner as incentive.
As for old cars, my 86 ladder frame with a 74 engine and a 60’s 70’s style body has been doing fairly respectably, after all it was faster then yours on the downhill. Some people like cars that try to kill them, I suspect miss cobalt is one of them, though for the kind of power she’s making I’d guess that as long as you keep it probably below3-4k rpms and out of boost her car would be pretty tame to drive. Mine would be less so what with a 9.7 liter v8, but it still has the highest tameness to sport ratio in the group andby that measure is the easiest to drive. So when you see the old school m3 lighting up the tires at every turn and on every straight just remember Jeremy clarkson’s face driving the viper or the corvette or the first Koenigsegg, all cars that consistently try to kill you but look like great fun to drive.[/quote]
I pretty much just confirmed what you said about me. As for tameness, you are absolutely correct. The turbos fully spool at 3600 RPM and below this threshold the car is quite tame for a large (7.0L:427ci) V8! Without the turbos on the car it was tuned to about 600bhp.
Decisions, decisions: Gin, die, jail, die soon or die sooner… tough tough tough tough…
Ah hell with it, it’s Gin decision!!!
For now … it’s getting the hell out of here…
The soundtrack of the vindicatior has stopped being music and started being a litany of supportive comments from Niall to his car, the most common being Han Solo’s favorite "Come on baby, hold together. " Not since the first circuit at Bathurst has the car been pushed flatout so hard, and hundreds of miles of driving and racing have come between, the engine badly needs a rebuild, the cluch and gearbox have each developed their own unique vibration and and the chassis mounts are starting to squeek and groan. The next two high speed circuits will be punishing on the old girl and the fiberglass shell is already showing the scars of high speed racing, chips and cracks on the broad flat front from rocks and insects hit at speeds over 200mph, the growing layer of rubber coating the rear quarterpanels from over indulging in throttle on corner exits. Rubbing a hand on the smooth but spartan composite dash thats become like a second home over the last few weeks, he knows that this partnership will be over soon. “Just two more, give me just two more and you can rest. You’ve been a good girl, showing these fancy racers a thing or two and it’s the final strech now.” Seeing the flashing lights way back in the rear view he smiled grimly and dropped her down a gear, opened the taps again and winding the Vindicatior back up shooting for the border and the next circuit.
Seeing the cops in his rear view mirror, Tom decided to keep flooring it until they were out of sight because he had secretly installed another gadget to make his life easier. The police’s Clios disappeared quite quickly but he kept going a bit longer just to be able to execute his maneuver safely. Feeling really confident, he braked hard, pulled the handbrake, did a perfect U-Turn leaving massive black lines and smoke clouds, and floored it. Quickly approaching the police, he knew he had to be doing at least 100mph to perform the stunt successfully. The speedo climbed rapidly and as he got closer and closer to the oncoming police vehicles, his adrenaline grew higher and higher. Just in time, he pressed the hidden button in the center console and the Brimstone leapt into the air, with small flaps deploying on either side of the body to keep the car stable. The car simply jumped over the police cars, leaving the officers speechless and Elena breathless because she was so scared of this maneuver. After the successful landing, Tom went the quickest way possible to the next airport because of course, a helicopter would be waiting for them and take them to Belgium. The journey to the airport was not too long and flew by in what felt like two minutes. On the airfield, the helicopter was already waiting in the perfect position for Tom to simply park underneath it, and within a minute, the car was loaded and they were off. The first thing Tom had to do at this point was calm Elena…
[ooc] holy crap Tom, what the hell did you do to the car? I think it’s going to turn into a secret agent car at this rate… maybe it’ll come in handy later…
Also, Rayyan (and everybody else who was curious), just so you know, Tesla looks like this:
(No, she doesn’t wear short shorts in winter. This would be when she gets back to Australia, where it is currently summer. Anyway. Drawn by Cen. Posted with permission. I don’t know why he wouldn’t post it himself.)
Also, I was ill today so did not get any writing done. I’m aware that it is actually the 5th of December now, but in reality, it’s still more like the 28th of November within the world of the story xD Oh well. We are very nearly there!
- …drool
[OOC] I now understand the antics back in Utah.*
drooling over a dog niall? that kind of ironic xD
[ooc]Am I missing something? How come it takes a pic of Tesla to understand the antics back in Utah? Also, I totally forgot to put in this hilarious bit of story involving Tesla while they were sitting in the all you can eat buffets in Vegas, which went something like this:
At long last, Tesla raised her head from the one inch above the table that it had been for the last fifteen minutes solid, buried face down in a plate of the biggest rack of ribs in smoky Texan sauce she had ever seen in her life. Patting her belly, she let out a monstrous burp, before grabbing the stubby of beer and sculling the lot.
“Right,” she said, slamming the bottle down and wiping her mouth with the other. “It’s time to get laid.”
“Keeping classy I see,” Hannah and Noah fixed her with a tired stare.
“Oh, right, I almost forgot!” Tesla exclaimed, ducking under the table and rummaging around, before producing a giant Uncle Sam felt hat, and donning it. “Now it’s time to get laid.” And with that, she hauled herself up out of the booth, and lurched towards the bar.
“You think she’ll forget to turn up for the trip to the Salt Flats?” Hannah asked nobody in particular.
Head still buried in the depths of a double facepalm, Noah mumbled: “I wouldn’t mind if she did.”