[Ooc] When you said empty bottles, Molotov’s was the first thing that came to mind!
[ooc] well, it’s better than nothing!!
Okay, I’m going to start writing things up in the coming 2 days. Just to reiterate, this is what I have so far:
- 8bs gets caught first at the end of the first lap (this is fine, 8bs’ car is considerably slower on a second lap than the first due to not being suited to racing for too long
). Tries to hold car up with Molotovs. Then Roland decides to open fire on Hasira. This is interpreted as open season on the BSLL, and pretty soon everybody gets to deal with live ammo whizzing around their ears. - Jack in the Felicia draws fire away by hacking into the comms system and trolling the Agents. He will eventually get his comms shut down. On the plus size he craps out their speakers by throwing the mic at it, so they’re flying solo.
- Kristina and co. are working on shutting Hasira’s engine down. However since they’ve accessed via the same port as Jack, and Jack has the more powerful transmitter, Aixa can’t get past. They try to raise Jack to tell him, but Jack’s too busy busting rhymes. It’s only after Jack’s comms get shut down that they have a chance to break in.
- Rayyan calls a couple of his loose cannon buddies for ‘air support’. I get the feeling this is going to cause a multi-way battle between the helicopters of uncertain origin, them, and possibly Vos’ Fiona.
- Reece has been quiet for a while, but I guarantee you, he’s going to go bezerk. He doesn’t want to go to jail again, no matter which country it is.
- Tom uses his James Bond special tricked out ride to escape to safety… at least, to avoid getting into trouble on the track. Getting out of the venue itself is a much harder proposition.
- Comparatively speaking, many (but not all) of the other drivers are going to keep their heads down and try and do their laps while dodging the cops, bullets, caltrops and spike strips.
). Tries to hold car up with Molotovs. Then Roland decides to open fire on Hasira. This is interpreted as open season on the BSLL, and pretty soon everybody gets to deal with live ammo whizzing around their ears.As for how it all unfolds and what happens next, you’ll see!
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(ooc) I wonder if the X90 will come close to Hasira, since it apparently reached Tom in the second lap…
[Ooc] I’m pretty sure my Kodiak will be more less bullet proof, considering its made of 1960’s steel. More than that, however, i think its the heavier If not heaviest of the race, so it can definitely throw its weight around.
[ooc] Sounds nice!! And i ensure to you guys that not one single drop of precious Gin was wasted on the molotov’s!!
[Ooc] EGT has a big advantage on the track, being AWD hatch and consistently performs pretty strongly. In normal race conditions, it will never be caught by Hasira but these are not normal race conditions! (More like ultra death race destruction derby conditions). It seems that Tom was trying to warm the car up for a hot lap and may have hung back on the first lap.
Which is fine, because a) even if these cars are ultra tuned, its fairly unwise to attempt more than one or two hot laps on Nordschleife consecutively, and b) by lap 3, cars and trucks are all over the damn road, all throughout the course. Everybody is fair game, depending on if they want to keep their nose out of trouble.
Most of the cars here are at least resistant to damage due to their construction (unless somebody stuck a plastic car in here, you’d be in huge trouble LOL).
I do plan to write people in according to their character and actions so far. Leo, Matt (HighOctaneLove), Riley, Jason (Necronia), Lothoren, Absution, Duratec, Sturt Decker Jr, Harizvet and Georgi haven’t written anything specific throughout so for these purposes I will assume they are mainly here to drive and will just focus on nailing that hot lap, then try to stay out of trouble. The rest depends on the madness scores and what has specifically been said.
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[ooc]
Dear fiberglass body… it’s been a nice run, you and I. As you are shed about the track I shall miss our good times.
Dear steel ladder frame chassis, PROTECT MEEEEE!!! cries
[ooc] yeah niall you gonna be Swiss cheese LOL. At least you shouldn’t get shot too much, if you aren’t shooting like a few of the others…
(ooc) Enry’s going to do anything for saving himself and his company from those psycho’s, but he won’t kill anyone, just avoid regular cops and team up with other racers to destroy Hasira, if that fails… he’ll try to run as fast as possible while avoiding damage
[OOC] I have a feeling it’s about to get as hot and heavy as the backseat of Grandma’s sedan on Prom Night at the Nurburgring!
[Ooc] Cen and I have now finished mapping out the action plans for everyone this round (because cen is better at story consistency and we need that when factoring 25+ things into one). It’s largely a matter of sorting out what happens when and where, and then I write it!
Hi guys. Very sorry for the delay. Like many others, I have travel plans over Christmas (except I only get one day off), but unlike many others, I also chose this time to get sinusitis. Man my face hurts. And they want me back on call in 2 days? Not feeling too optimistic about that.
Anyway, obviously, this next chapter is… very long. And action packed. And lots of things going on with lots of development and it’s just going to spiral into complete and utter chaos. I will post it in sections, just in case you happen to be looking for the updates, and will post as I finish next sections, over the next few days.
**[size=200]F[/size]**leeing the sirens and the waiting Hasira, the two dozen cars of the Barely Street Legal League piled into the descending sharp left hander of Nordkehre. Locking up and sliding around on the slippery surface, in their haste the pack piled up and started bumping each other in the middle, pushing several cars wide.
“Let’s get this ON!” Sam, seemingly oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, whooped as he nosed the car in hard, encroaching on Kai’s line. Kai’s eyes narrowed, and he refused to give way, even with the rubber from the sidewalls of his fronts shaving the skirting of Sleipnir. “Ooh, kid’s ready to play with the big boys now huh?”
“Less talky, more drivey!” Kai radioed back, but with a twisted grin plastered on his face, hands unwinding the lock coming out of the corner and nailing the throttle. In a scarlet blur, Mephisto shot down the hill towards Hatzenbach, Sleipnir and Thanatos in hot pursuit.
Behind them, the pack writhed and interchanged, as some cars hung back, trying to find traction, others having to wait until the wet grass and debris fouling up their contact patch was shorn off the tyres. Forty seconds left for them to find that fine line between speed and sliding into the barriers, and cling to it for their lives. The all-wheel drive coupes, with more traction in the treacherous conditions, took the initiative, the SD-01R rocketing fearlessly past the first of the slight right handed kinks, chased by the Archernar and Mutant. But the middle pack was still a confusing mess of weaving cars and flashing brakelights as they approached the hard right kink. Desperately, tail ends bobbled as they tried to sort themselves into some kind of working order without trading any more paint, and into a single file they crammed themselves, bumper to bumper while scrabbling and sliding around Hatzenbach. The Debrauna with its superior grip won the early right to lead, followed by Strop in the Peapod, ridiculous amounts of downforce keeping the front glued to the road as it swung around with face warping speed. Behind them, the Gemina, Infernalis, Emperion and Brimstone were still figuring it out, almost crossing paths even into the following straight.
“Spread it out! Give each other some room to pick up the pace!” Der Bayer was heard barking over the radio, from the van right up the back, particularly interested to be as far away from the start as possible before Hasira started giving chase, and the cops closed in.
“Hey, guys!” the excitable Enry radioed as they negotiated the winding esses, sticking to the center road so as not to suddenly cross traction zones and spin out before they even began properly. “How do we know the cops aren’t going to be coming from the other direction?”
“Track etiquette,” Der Bayer explained. “The law of Nordschleife is sacred.” And then, after a pause, “To the Germans anyway.”
“I sure bloody hope so,” Strop muttered. “Over three quarters of this track is blind corner. You’d never see anything coming the other way.”
There was an audible gulp through the pack, but fearlessly, they front forged on, spearing out onto the straight of Hocheichen, picking up speed towards the gut-churning crest of Quiddelbacher-Höhe. Two hundred, two hundred and fifty, and the throttle was pinned. The first cars, with their ridiculous levels of downforce, screamed over the crest without so much as a skip, before braking hard and hugging the inside kerb around the fast double apex right hander of Flugplatz. Many of the cars, with their aggressive aero setup, similarly stayed planted, but some of them had a somewhat different setup. The mystery Italian driver of the Mutant, along with Rubik and Mister Greasepaws, all yelped as the front of their car lifted off, bouncing back into the tarmac with a slight thump before nosing in under brakes. Further back, the front wheel drive cars Ruby and HFF went fully airborne, launching off the ramp and crashing back to earth before wrestling around the corner. Worse was the Cottam Inelegance, the behemoth’s frame visibly flexing under the impact of its four wheels hitting the ground all at different times, almost wobbling right off the track and picking up a lot of grass before somehow managing to steer clear of the barriers and get back on the fast section of Schwedenkreuz.
“I hope nobody saw that,” Pleb said to himself, wiping his brow. Fortunately for him, even if they had, their attention was wholly fixed on keeping their car on the road, as the seconds ticked down.
“TIME’S UP!” Roland, in the Testis, yelled. “Hasira is on the move!” He prodded the perennially drunk driver with his hammer, who groaned incoherently in response. “Come on, drive faster!” But Testis wasn’t the only one having trouble on the track. Behind them, slipping and sliding all over the place, was the frankenmonster E30. Inside, Aixa was struggling to hold onto her laptop as it tried to latch onto the signal coming from Hasira, while being thrown each and every way by the nearly uncontrollable car. Kristina was the picture of concentration, throwing the car this way, the brakes, still not up to optimal temperatures, squealing more than they bit. Finally, on Flugplatz, the car hit its stride, and once she slammed the stick into fourth, she nailed it and the car surged forward, breaking the three hundred mark and sliding past Testis, sputtering along in Die Sooner.
“IT’S GO TIME,” Niall, in his ailing Vindicator, hit PLAY on his tape deck, and the strains of Iron Maiden’s shredding guitars and headbanging rock blasted through the cabin, masking all the squeaks and rattles his car had managed to pick up over the last several thousand miles of hard driving.
Another Prophet of Disaster
Who says the ship is lost,
Another Prophet of Disaster
Leaving you to count the cost.
Taunting us with Visions,
Afflicting us with fear,
Predicting War for millions,
In the hope that one appears.
With adrenalin overtaking nerves, the line of cars sped down into the Fuchsröhre, skipping over the kerbs of the slight S going perfectly straight, bottoming out at the dip, lifting off and feathering the brakes so as not to lose it over the blindingly fast left handed crest. In most other cars, there would be a period of acceleration before taking the sweeping right, slowing into the deceptively fast uphill into a sharp left of Adenauer Forst, but the cars of the Barely Street Legal League were something else entirely, and they all had to continue braking well into the uphill, completely lifting off and nosing around, lines weaving awkwardly as only the course veterans knew exactly where to turn in to string the S together.
“Wow, this is incredible!” Sam gasped, drinking in all the scenery as it rushed by, feeling his insides squirm through each and every dip and crest, overwhelmed by the sheer steepness of the gradients. “It’s just like Mount Panorama, except completely different!”
Yet, he noted he was struggling to keep up with the track veteran, Kai, which was hardly surprising, as Kai was in fact the unofficial outright record holder on the track, having driven Nightfury Turbo X, a car approaching one horsepower per pound, if such a thing could even be called a car anymore, around the track faster than any other human, including the late Stephen Bellof, had ever done. Driving the comparatively tame Mephisto was almost a walk in the park for him, and he knew it, swinging wide before throwing the car around the fast left hander of Metzgesfeld sideways, all four wheels spinning as the engine bounced off the rev limiter. Tempted by equal parts lunacy, and equal parts ego, Sam attempted to do the same, only to realise that mid-engined cars with open differentials did not particularly lend themselves to drifting in the same way, and barely caught the tail end as it whipped out, heaping on the throttle. A thousand horses stampeded the wheels and Sleipnir roared, smoking through the corner with full opposite lock, before snapping back into line just in time to brake hard and avoid plowing into the hillside beyond.
After catching his breath, he remarked “Shame the traction’s so shit.”
“Bad workman blames his tools, Sam,” Kai quipped over the radio, leading the pack into the forest once more, with the tightening downhill right of Kallenhard.
In the background, the sounds of sirens faintly echoed through the trees, painting a disorienting soundscape of wails, and the drivers did their best to ignore it and focus on nailing the corners. Miss-hit-miss, go wide on the first kerb, go close for the next ones, then exit wide before braking hard into Wehrseifen…
…it was when the engines dipped back into the low revs and the volume dropped, that everybody realised not only were the sirens getting louder, but also the chopping of the helicopters.
“The fuck?” Vos struggled to peer upwards through the long sloping windshield of his Kodiak, and was treated to an underside view of a dual cockpit attack helicopter, hovering several hundred feet above, but unable to descend further due to the forest.
“Blimey, it’s an Mi-24. What are the Russians doing here!” Rayyan, running just behind the Kodiak near the tail of the pack, wondered out loud.
“I tell you what they’re doing,” Vos snarled, “They’re getting blown the fuck outta the sky.” Without even waiting for a response, he switched channels. “Fiona? Come in Fiona, damn you to hell!”
“Now hold on a blimmin’ minute mate!” Rayyan protested, but his British accent was lost on the airwaves, for Vos was already barking orders to his air support. Gritting his teeth, struggling to hold the wheel with one hand, with his other he pulled out an emergency phone from a secret pocket in his flight jacket, complete with red and black stripes. “Rogue squadron, this is Wingnut, do you read?”
“Loud and clear, Wingnut,” came the static-infused reply. “Rogue squadron is standing by.”
“It’s on,” Rayyan said simply. “Your marks are any and all Mi-24s, and an unidentified flying object. Engage only if hostile or targeting surface objects.”
“An unidentified flying object? Please clarify.”
“Clarify?” Rayyan spluttered, nearly losing the car to torque steer coming out of the sharp left of Ex-Mühle. “You’ll know what I mean when you see it! Now get moving on the double!”
“Copy that Wingnut, we are inbound, ETA ten minutes.”
Ten minutes, was that soon enough? The cars had now reached the very bottom of the course, the drivers feeling they had descended into the very pits of the earth, the impenetrable forest surroundings casting a gloom. But the hairpin of Bergwerk marked the sharp uphill climb of the Kesselchen run, the steep gradient a strain on many engines, but light work for these overpowered machines. Speedos climbing rapidly past two hundred, two hundred and fifty, while the forest blurred by, the lead cars had to brake hard, squeezing into the tricky left kink of Mutkurve. Hearts leapt through mouths as the early apex deceived the eye, and the tarmac ran out on the right, the barriers leering at drivers from the bare strip of grass beyond the kerb. A few seconds later, a dab on the brakes again for Klostertal to nose the front in around the right kink, and then harder on the brakes for a much tighter right. Up the unrelenting slope, towards the breaking sun they raced, until they broke into open air for the first time in two minutes, and onto the legendary Karussell. The roar and thump of the concrete drain paving stones under their wheels was echoed by the distant helicopters, then as the cars climbed the rest of the mountain towards Hohe Acht, they appeared, like hovering black beetles in the distance.
“It’s too crowded still!” Tom, in the Brimstone, fought for room with the other cars in the pack, unable to find a good rhythm or line through the deceptively tricky left right, and then the cresting peak that faded right, but punctuated with plenty of bumps and uneven surface. In front of him, the Emperion and Mutant, inherently different cars, wove all over the road, the latter carving through the middle of the road with the tempered understeer of the all-wheel drive, and the former hogging the inside line, snatching up the apex before the rear wheels spun and the tail end snapped out, pushing the car wide as it skidded down the hill. There was no room to move, let alone pass, and if he was even a quarter of a second later on the brakes, he’d bowl them all straight off the track. “I’m going to hang back,” he declared, easing off the throttle and indicating right, promptly letting the Yacare, Griffin and Annihilator through.
“Are you sure Tom?” a wide-eyed Elena asked him, fidgeting nervously with the restraint. “After all, the cops are up the back…” Ignoring the flashing lights of an irate Reece in the Hulk, the giant Cadillac simply too wide to pass cleanly through the snaking treachery of Hedwigshöhe, Tom gazed at Elena and once again he felt a fluttering in his chest akin to, yet far different from the adrenalin laced energy of the confrontation. That a random encounter on this trip would bring a love for adventure and more, a certain hunger to take things to extremes… to stare fear straight in the face and not waver… if she had been any different, she would have already left long ago, but despite everything, here she was, and what an adventure this was turning out to be! Her questions were not doubts, they were tests. Tests to see how far he could take them both, and right now, he would take her through Hell and back. He flashed her a reassuring smile.
“Don’t worry dear, I’ve made a few extra preparations just for this.” He reached over and flicked a switch on the new device clipped to the Brimstone’s dashboard, and it flickered to life, showing on the screen an overlay of the immediate surroundings, the cars marked in highlights. “Anything nasty on track, and we’ll know it.”
The palpable nervous energy intensified as the perceived gap between the League and its pursuers closed, speed limited to between a hundred and a hundred and fifty, poking their way through the winding third segment. Opening up the taps down Brünnchen, they passed the hill where spectators would often stand and take pictures of cars carrying too much speed and wiping out on the exit. But now, instead of spectators, they saw special police vans screeching to a halt, armored officers pouring out from the rear doors. Definitely, all the exits were being sealed. But the road was still the most formidable enemy to all of them, and they poked their way out, careful not to lose traction on the corner lest they find themselves an early appointment with Armco and then later on the cops, or worse. After that difficult corner was something even more daunting, the sharply rising slope of Eiskurve, shrouded in shadows, looming up between the taller trees that reached for the skies, obscuring their view of most of the corner and the apex. Kai, still leading, plunged confidently through the corner, not even heeding the ice that hung thickest on this part of the road. Pulling extra lock, Mephisto nosed in, then the throttle opened, bouncing hard off the limiter in second as he pulled another four wheel drift, the rears scraping against the kerb before snapping back to neutral balance, and keeping it pinned all the way, threading the eye of the needle through to Pflanzgarten.
In clearer air now, the frost on the track faded away and the cars sped up considerably, but as they emerged into the sunlight, the helicopters picked them back up on visual and started closing in once more. Jack, staying on the flank of the Testis, radioed to the Testis. “Roland! What do you make of the choppers?”
Speakers crackling with each bump, Roland responded: “They don’t seem to know the course, which gives us some time, but once they realise we’re on a circuit, we might have trouble.”
“How much trouble? I thought you said the other Mods were already negotiating with them.”
“That would be to explain that it wasn’t actually the Americans trying to start a nuclear war,” Roland said testily. “As far as the Russians are concerned, one of the cars on this track has a terrorist in it, and that’s still a problem to them.”
“You don’t think they’re going to, you know. Fire at us? I’m not sure how much we can do against missiles…”
“Well, let’s hope they don’t want to start any more trouble with the EU than they already have.” There was a pause, and then a burst of derisive laughter. “One can dream, right?”
“I can see the headlines now,” Jack muttered to himself as he flicked his trusty Combi around Schwalbenschwanz, the slight negative camber throwing the car off balance, which he countered with liberal application of throttle, powering into oversteer. Rear wheels smoking, he held opposite lock with one hand while the other primed his banhammer, for what it was worth. “Carnage at Nordschleife. Putin blames Ukranian terrorists trying to frame Russia.”
The field bunched up once more, teetering across the other set of paved stones in the much smaller Kleine Karussel, and yet another steep hill and long, blind corner with late apex awaited them. Aptly named Galgenkoph, it left them hanging until suddenly, the road opened up and it was the long long straight of Dottinger-Höhe.
“This is where it gets messy,” Strop said to himself from near the front of the pack, immediately signalling right to let the faster cars, which was to say, just about every one of them, past. But Der Bayer came on the radio with another command. “Stay in your running order! Limit your speed to three hundred, and do not overtake, we can’t afford to have traffic this lap!”
“Screw that,” Reece, disturbingly quiet through the last round, finally spoke. “I’m not going back to no jail no matter what country it is.” And with that, he floored it, three thousand horses breaking out all at once. A mighty gust buffeted the cars as it blew by them as if they were standing still, topping an incredible four hundred and eighty, and in the space of a few seconds, it had dipped around Antoniusbusche and out of sight. Likewise, Vos had no intention of hanging around, and gave it the beans, but his ageing Kodiak, nowhere near as quick, struggled to pass anyone. In the end, Der Bayer’s command fell on largely deaf ears as many of them were overcome by the temptation of the long straight, and it ended up in an all-out drag race fuelled by pride, excitement, anxiety, fury… By the time they were hard on the brakes for the delicate hook of Hohenrain, the field had been completely rearranged, with the Hulk and the Yacare up the front, followed by the high speed all-wheel drives, the Moldovian Lunatic and the ridiculous Ruby. Even the Vindicator and the Elegance had found themselves well into the first half, relegating the slower cars to the back, and therefore, closer to the clutches of Hasira and the pursuing police, who, with their less powerful but generally far better balanced 911s, R8s and M5s, were actually capable of keeping up with, if not catching up to several of the League cars. For her part, Kristina, knowing her car was not capable of keeping it together for much longer, had pushed hard all lap to make the first one count, and found herself well up the order for once, but knew that was all about to change.
Curiously, Mephisto and Sleipnir had followed the instruction, keeping almost nose to tail as they rounded the final corner onto T13, and the start line. “Hey, Crash,” Sam radioed. “Remember that bet we had going?”
“How could I forget,” Kai replied. “I’m winning, after all.”
“Not if I win this round!” Sam taunted. “And then loser tattoo for youuuu!”
“Bullshit,” Kai shot back, “I’d have to finish third or worse for you to even catch up. It’s you who’s going to have LOSER stamped on your forehead!”
“Just try not to crash, Crash, now READYSETGO!” On cue, the cars crossed the start line side by side, and they came to life again, battling for track position to take Nordkehre once more.
Stay tuned for lap 2, where things get explosive! Will try to post in the coming hours.
Otherwise, have a Merry Christmas!
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good lord… more than anyone bargained for
where are them results? 
They are coming, in fact, just as I am about to finish this post! (i.e. about 10 minutes away)
EDIT: Hi guys, sorry about that delay. Well, actually, thanks to the story getting all kinds of crazy, I have been delaying the results well past the intended date. I think in terms of story the day is actually 29th November, but we are now about a month behind schedule. For that, I apologise to the people who simply wanted to see how their cars ran.
For this reason, today’s installment includes the recording of the fastest lap time, therefore I’m in a position to be able to post the result itself! Therefore, after this, you will be able to tell where your car stands in the TRUE RACER category. However, I still haven’t released all the information regarding the build type and age, therefore you won’t yet know what the final results of CRAZY RACER and ULTIMATE BSLL RIDER are just yet. But I will have those up in a couple of days.
As usual, the results are at the end of the action. For those of you who ARE reading the story, it’s getting heated up!
[size=200]I[/size]n the E30, Aixa pumped her fist. “Yes! I have signal!”
Struggling to keep all four wheels on the tarmac, Kristina tightened her grip on the wheel. The laptop had proven capable at least for the first part of their plan, but being in range also meant that Hasira was closing the gap. Two kilometres, on this track, that was less than a minute behind. Muttering a bastardised prayer she coaxed the car around Hatzenbach, battling simultaneous under and oversteer. Could they hold off Hasira long enough? “Okay Aixa, let’s start with the comms network. Then probe it for device IDs and hope to God their central module runs the drive systems too.”
“You got it!” Aixa’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she murmured, completely focused on her work despite being jostled against the restraints. “Setting up remote server, check, DOS primed, check, and, oh, rats, a network key. Where’s my decrypter… stupid progress bar, hurry up!”
Further back, Der Bayer laboured over the wheel of the GG Transit van, dwarfing the tiny Testis as it puttered around the track. Aside from a particularly twitchy throttle, the van was surprisingly responsive and pliant, almost easy to drive with the aids on (with the aids off, however, would be an entirely different prospect). This assessment, he was not sure was shared by his passengers, Hannah, hands bunched tight over the harness as she experienced the most tense ride of her entire life, and Tesla, too, eyes screwed shut, paws over face, whimpering a prayer to Dog. He could only imagine what Noah, relegated to the cargo hold, was thinking. Worse, he was sure he had seen the Brimstone deliberately hang back, but he had priorities, and just had to trust that Tom knew what he was doing.
“I trust you know what you’re doing Tom!” Elena said, glancing behind her, face reflecting the glow of the police lights. “Because the cop car is right behind us!”
Already? Tom looked at the speedo, then frowned to himself. Maybe he had taken it a little too easy, after all, this was barely the start of the lap and it was a little early to have to start stalling. Knowing Hasira had more straight line speed, he was confident he could hold it off through Hocheichen, but it would definitely close the distance at Schwedenkreuz. Flugplatz came up, and his gut lurched as the car rose over the crest, then braked to hug the inside of the fast corner. His finger automatically went to the console under the dash in preparation. This time, he knew what was coming, and this time, he was ready.
“Look out!” In the mirrors, Tom saw vents on Hasira open. Instinctively, he tapped the brake, mashing his finger into the button on the console. Tom and Elena were crushed into their seats as the jump jets fired, and the car lifted up, and over, with Hasira overshooting and the grappling hook firing off harmlessly into the trees. Caught by surprise, Hasira then went on to overshoot the cresting left kink approaching Aremberg, and bounced off into the grass, sliding this way and that as it struggled to avoid the barriers.
“That should buy us enough time,” Tom said, satisfied. Next to him, Elena let out a sigh of relief, and the Brimstone picked up the pace again, screeching around Aremberg, and accelerating down the Fuchsröhre, already closing in fast on Testis and the van.
At the apex of Adenauer Forst, the front tyres protested as Vos seesawed in the Kodiak, understeer in one direction pushed into understeer in the other. Straightening out for Metzgesfeld, he looked up, and his blood ran cold. Hovering over the track in the conveniently placed field, hardpoints pointed directly at him, were two Mi-24s. If there was any doubt over what their intentions were before, there was sure a hell of a lot less now.
“Fiona!” he barked into the comms. “Unless you want to be out of a job because your boss got vaporized, now would be a good time!” Gritting his teeth, he planted his foot down anyway, charging at the helicopters.
Suddenly, a large black mass screamed past, the trees swaying with the gust. The wind buffeted the steel body of the Kodiak, but better yet, sent the helicopters wheeling around. One managed to rise up and away from the treeline, but the other went too close, the tail clipping some branches. Smoke pouring out of the fuselage, the helicopter kept spinning, dropping further and further until the rotor also clipped the tree trunks. A series of metallic clanks rung through the forest, followed by a bone jarring crash, and, as Vos left the field behind him and made the turn into Kallenhard, the bright flaming cloud of an exploding helicopter blossomed into the sky.
“I hope the fuckers burn in hell,” Vos muttered to himself, the glimmer of satisfaction enough that he did not even mind when the tiny front wheel drive hatch RB-02 buzzed past him on the outside of Miss-Hit-Miss.
Barely a bend further ahead, but far enough that he had sunk into the forest to be blinded to the events that had just transpired, Rayyan frowned as his radio went wild. “There’s a sudden spike in chatter!” he radioed, a plethora of panicked messages in German, English and Russian overlapping and becoming a garbled stream of noise. Flicking a switch, he cut of all but the English speaking channel, which was populated by American twang. “There’s been an explosion in Metzges Field!” “Can you get a visual?” “Looks like one of the helicopters, near the sighting of Black Box.”
Black Box? Rayyan almost lost himself in his thoughts and overshot the slow tightening left hander of Wehrseifen, front wheels spinning as the HFF pushed uncomfortably close to the grass. Scrambling at the wheel, he put one ear back onto the radio. “Is that thing ours?” “I thought it was, but I have no idea what it’s doing here.” “Same, I don’t have clearance to know anything more about it.”
“Heads up, we’ve reports of three new marks inbound!”
Instantly, he picked up his hotline phone. “Come in Rogue Squadron.” But he was approaching Bergwerk, and the trees lining both sides thickly obscured the signal, and all he got was static. Seconds later, starting the uphill Kesselchen run, he saw the familiar silhouette of the Harrier jets flash by, followed by a thunderous roar. “Ready and waiting for further orders, Wingnut! And by golly you’re right, what on earth is that thing?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s one of ours.” Rayyan shouted into the hotline. “At any rate, if they’re engaging each other, keep your nose out of it. But if they’re targeting anything on the ground, take them out!”
“Roger that, we’ll run the perimeter, over and out,” came the reply, and the jets pulled up, wheeling away and looping back towards the fray.
“New problem, people!” Der Bayer radioed from the back. “The police are moving in! And it looks like they’re going to try and shut the race down- ow!” he was cut off abruptly as one of the police cars shunted into his rear quarterpanel. Fortunately, the van was too heavy and sturdy to be perturbed by a mere PIT.
“Watch the paint!” Hannah gasped in indignation.
“I’ll give them something to think about!” pushing hard through Kesselchen, Der Bayer deliberately stuck to the left approaching Mutkurve, and as the cop in the 911 drew alongside, sirens blaring, he let the van run wide, bumping the front of the 911 (accompanied by another admonishment from Hannah and a whimper from Tesla) and forcing it onto the shoulder, where it bounced off the barriers. But even as he disposed of one of them, another cop car took its place, wailing away on his tailgate. “Kubby! A little help over here!”
“Sorry!” Jack radioed back, barely a curve ahead. “I got my hands full too. It looks as if the cops have set up all around the course!”
“Guys,” Tom interrupted, “They’re setting up spike strips all over the place, I just jumped one at Karussell. I’ll get my guys to clear them away, but you have to draw the cops off first.”
Jack, in the Felicia Combi, looked up just in time to see the spike strip, partially covering the inside lane to Karussell. “Drift wagon, yo!” he shouted, veering to the right before applying the brakes hard and swinging left. The moment he let the brakes go, the back slid out and he banged the engine right against the limiter, carving a perfect circle with the tailgate almost scraping the barriers. No sooner had he exited Karussell, than three cop cars set up on his tail, lights flashing. He pulled away on the straight but on the tricky left kink, which, as always, seemed to come over a crest, he had to slow and the cop cars, with their lower power to weight ratio, attacked the corner hard, threatening to box him in as they approached the tight bumpy complex at the top of Hohe Acht. “This won’t do!” Jack said to himself, hogging the inside line and allowing the tail to step out just a little bit, but reeling it in before the cop could accelerate to bump and throw him off balance. “Come on then, bring it!”
Streaking through the back sector of the course, Kai and Sam, their cars so fast the cops posed no threat when coming from behind, continued their heated battle, weaving past the slower cars. Sleipnir held the advantage with superior downforce and balance. Carving the lines like a surfer through the barrel of a wave, Sam whooped as despite the conditions, Sleipnir ran swiftly and surely, piling on grip and more grip, and with each undulation of the road, each blind corner, he was getting faster and faster, leaving the brutish Mephisto further and further behind. “Soon you won’t even be able to suck my exhaaaauuuuust!”
“Just you wait, I’ll catch you on the straight, then you can suck MY exhaust.” Feeling a surge of adrenalin, Kai pushed the pedal just that bit harder coming out of Brünnchen, and the Mephisto resisted, straightening up prematurely from the corner and forcing him to lift off and nose in again. Argh, rookie error. “Just you wait.” Somewhere ahead of them, the Thanatos Estate was still running well ahead, but hopefully, he was ahead on time, though of course the best sign of that would be if he actually passed it on the straight too.
Behind them, the order was starting to re-establish itself. The strongest coupe, the Debrauna, had hit its stride and remained glued to the road, gliding over it smoothly. The driver naturally felt all the apices and accelerated out of the curves smoothly, despite the monstrous power and lack of driving aids, and had overtaken nearly every other car, and was content in its own rhythm as it thrummed along the straight towards Pflanzgarten. Just a few seconds behind, strangely enough, was Strop in the Peapod, evidently, when in ninja form, providing more than one extra horsepower. With ridiculous downforce at the front, his car too was glued to the road, the steering brisk and direct.
Further afield, Yuri in the Gemina had broken away from the pack too with a certain sense of satisfaction, the car’s mixture of power and balance serving him well, though still he fumed with the understeer and a certain vagueness in the steering going over the crests. Then, the two all-wheel drives, Enry in the Achernar and Matt in the SD-01R were locked in tense battle, the Achernar’s shorter wheelbase and lightness affording it just that extra bit of cornering to snap the inside line of the deceptively tight right hander of Pflanzgarten, but Matt, his competitive spirit burning as brightly as ever, stayed locked so close to the rear of Enry, that he could read the Achernar’s #ilovetractioncontrol sticker.
Next through the narrow corner was the Infernalis, the higher speed sections serving it well. It was starting to draw away from the Mutant, which lead a very tight pack of cars with, as usual, the Emperion, and also the Yacare, much improved after its brake and wheel readjustment. It was after this, however, that things started to get complicated, because the other cars, for all their power, started to struggle in the corners, and became vulnerable to the police cars swarming seemingly all over the road now. Fortunately, with their excessive engines and drivetrains, many of the cars were weighty beasts, and no amount of nudging and bumping from a police car could dislodge them from their path. In this fashion, the Griffin and Annihilator, powered by all-wheel drive traction, stayed planted to the road, pushing the Porsches to the outside of the corner, particularly effective going around the Schwalbenschwanz, then pulling away in the straights, hoping and praying to hold on until Dottinger Höhe, where the road would be theirs again.
The struggle only became more difficult for the Lunatic, and the response was to apply even more sideways, banging off the rev limiter, one wheel dipping into the drain way of Kline Karussell, the rear tyres smoking, and suddenly the car was twice as wide and the cops had no way past. Further back in the field, a contrasting battle was evolving, between the ultra-lightweight RB-02, darting nimbly into the corners, then struggling to find traction coming out of it, and the big heavy Vindicator, drawing the punishment away by virtue of its sheer bulk. With the stereo cranked up to the maximum, Niall kept his throttle and mouth wide open as he belted out apocalyptic line after line, drowning out the cracking and scraping as bits of the Vindicator’s fiberglass bodywork chipped off with each bump.
If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on,
If you’re gonna try, well stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die.
Stomachs churned through the dip and the rise, then feet twitched, resisting the temptation to overcook the throttle over the long, yawning corner of Galgenkopf, and then it was the straight! This time, in the distance but rapidly closing, formations of cop cars were lining up all over Dottinger Höhe, scrambling to block the road in single file.
“Oh, now that’s just not fair!” Strop protested, hesitating with the throttle. But with reckless abandon, the other drivers pushed forward. Seeing a gap closing, the Thanatos in the lead risked death unnatural and violent, relentlessly accelerating towards the unfinished road block. The cops panicked, scrambling out of the way just before the Thanatos screamed through, Sleipnir hanging onto its tail, and not far behind, the Mephisto in excess of three hundred, the wind almost blowing the cops who weren’t in cars over.
Deciding that a road block was too dangerous a tactic to shut the race down after all, unless they wanted to end it in a fiery thirty car pileup the German police department would never hear the end of, the cops decided to abandon that strategy. Unfortunately, there was simply no time for them to move the cars out of the way, as the line of cars was upon them, all trying to thread the eye of the needle while the faster cars angled up to overtake. The cops could only scramble for cover while the cars appeared, one moment a tiny dot in the distance, the next a blur and a roar as they squeezed through the gap, or veered around the side, kicking up grass and dew as wheels skirted the runoff. First, the orange blur of the Debrauna, then the topaz yellow blur of Peapod. A few seconds later, it was a white blur, the Gemini, and then two blurs almost joined together, the Achernar and the SD-01R playing a dangerous drafting game, almost clipping the cop car as it took a look up the side. The red blur of the Infernalis, then the blue streak of the Mutant came next, and hot on the tail of the Mutant was the Emperion, and the Yacare, the Yacare having lost out in the corners, but making up for it in spades with its incredible speed. Seba Machado stared down the proverbial bull, eyes narrowed and foot planted firmly on the accelerator, while the speedo climbed to over three hundred and fifty, the police cars almost not even registering in his vision before he blew by. Five seconds was not enough for the cops to recover before the next batch of cars came through, the Griffin, Annihilator and the Lunatic, all flashing through the gap and into the distance, brake lights flashing briefly before vanishing through the Bilstein arch, and over the crest.
It was at this point that things went even more pear shaped. The wrathful beast, the Hulk, came charging through, but being the widest car of the competition, Reece immediately knew it wouldn’t fit through the gap.
“I’m not going back to jail!” he roared, attempting to veer onto the grassy runoff and around. Alas, the lumbering beast was not nimble enough, and clipped the front end of the Porsche police car on the right. A thunderous crack resounded over the straight and the police car was sent spinning towards the middle of the road, front wheel flying off and wobbling down the road, chassis buckled under the sheer overwhelming force. The Hulk shimmied dangerously, its stability control working overtime to keep it straight. Thankfully, it prevailed, and once again minus half a bumper and bits of carbon fiber trim now flapping in the breeze, it powered up the straight, the bloodlust of its driver and it no more sated.
With debris and a car now well and truly cluttering up the road, the remaining cars had an even trickier task. Finally shaking off the police that had been harrassing them through the corners with superior speed, the Centauri picked up momentum, trying to reel in the RB-02. The RB-02, with a much lower top speed, had time to maneuver around the debris, the car, and avoid the wheel still trundling down the road. The Centauri, however, being bulkier and boasting a top speed of 400, did not, and while barely avoiding the wreck, ran over most of the debris with a series of spine-chilling crunches and shrieks.
“GODDAMNIT,” Niall yelled over the soundtrack, as he heard and felt his car fall apart even more.
“Rogue Squardon, what’s your status?” Distracted by the aerial action, Rayyan almost didn’t notice what was going on the ground until it was almost too late. An unplanned two hundred meter excursion through the grass and a narrowly averted disaster later, he risked scanning the skies once more, where he could see the large black box of Fiona, trying to circle around, being chased by streams of tracer fire. “Come in, Rogue Squadron!”
“It’s a Charlie Foxtrot up here!” came the response slightly obscured by static. “One black box, four Mi-24s, all exchanging fire. They’re directly above Quiddelbach, if anybody goes down, there’s going to be civilian casualties.”
“Shit,” Rayyan clenched his teeth. “Understood. Use any means necessary to draw them away from built up areas, then take them down. By the authority of my rank as an honorary marshal of the RAF, you are cleared to engage at will.”
“Yes sir!” Even the distortion of the static did not fully mask the glee in the pilot’s voice. In the distance, the Harrier jets broke formation, speeding up and towards the fray. Seconds later, more streams of fire lit up the sky. Rayyan could only pray that the decision was the right one. Oh what he would have given to be able to smoke a blunt right about now, but maybe that might be too dangerous for even him, driving the legendary Nordschleife while being chased by at least three different law enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, the pilots aboard Fiona, the black box, were furiously radioing Vos, who was just making his way past the road block. “Boss! We’ve picked up three more hostiles! I’m not sure how much more we can take!”
“Well, you better fucking hold on and give back as good as you’re getting it!” Vos growled into his radio. “I don’t care if it’s raining Ruskies, but we’re going to have a real fucking problem if they fire a missile up my ass.”
“Can you give us clearance to use-”
“I don’t care what you use!” Vos roared. “Use all of it, if you have to! Missiles, nukes, classified shit, whatever!”
“Roger that,” the line went dead. A moment later, Fiona activated thrusters, burning the hell out of location, the helicopters left behind. The jets curiously disengaged, also drawing their distance from the helicopters, who moved as one to follow. Then, two things happened in very quick succession. First, a plume of smoke erupted from the lead Mi-24, a missile lighting up and burning a trail through the air towards Fiona. Then, the missile buckled and exploded in mid-air, and before the pilots could react, their helicopter shared the same fate. The cockpits crumpled up, then the armor panels warped, and the helicopter seemingly folded in upon itself before exploding in a plume of rich black gasoline laden smoke.
“Woohoo!” came the jubilation over the radio. “I can’t believe this baby works!”
“Very good, now shut up and get rid of the rest of them,” Vos radioed back.
Putting his all into it, Tom did not hesitate when he encountered the roadblock on the straight. Once again, the Brimstone flew through the air, more plane than car, Elena clutching the edges of the seat, before bouncing off the straight and speeding along, blowing past the Testis, Felicia, Ruby, and out braking Kristina’s M3 through Tiergarten. Just a little more, and they would be finished. But in reality, while the race was done, the true hell was just beginning. For the rest of the tail group, they glanced in their mirrors as the inevitable confrontation with Hasira loomed.
“Is that all you got?” Roland asked of the hobo driving the aged Testis for the umpteenth time, as he laboured through the uphill corners, the flashing lights of Hasira clearly visible and growing clearer by the second. Alas, the generations old frame was not designed for prolonged racing, and having reached its peak, the brakes could only fade, the tread wear, and the engine overheat. Not even an abundance of new fuses would be enough to save them from Hasira’s clutches. “Kubby! Where are you?”
“Just about done!” Jack radioed back, interrupted by a loud bang and the sound of a siren wobbling off key. “And now I’m done! Can you make it to the finish? I’m cruising past Nordkehre.”
Only a sharp left and then a right to get onto T13 and the starting line. It was close. Behind them, Hasira filled the mirrors, that menace with twice the weight and twice the power, ready to squash Testis like a bug. Roland went wide-eyed as the vents on Hasira opened, hardpoints arming. They weren’t going to make it.
“Not good,” Roland grunted, winding down the window. As Testis bucked, tail end stepping out around the right-handed crest onto T13, Roland got a good view of the front of Hasira, so he hefted out his banhammer shotgun, pointed it squarely at Hasira, and pulled the trigger.
And on that bombshell…
With the completion of lap 2, the GPS relayed times have come through and are now technically available, though the rest of the story is yet to follow. The final classification, which took the faster of the lap times from a standing start or flying, is as follows:
Nordschleife is one of those circuits that has a lot of everything, so it is difficult to predict exactly what performance best suits it. In this case though, Sleipnir’s extreme cornering ability bested even that of the Thanatos Estate, and Mephisto barely squeezed it out in the straights. The performance, elsewhere, showed a grand conclusion to some of the great rivalries that developed during this contest.
With that, I can now reveal to you the final standings for TRUE RACER:
Baltazar Thanatos Estate 84.5
Gemina XIII GTX 68.5
Banks Debrauna Gumball Ed. 58.5
AR.MA. SD-01R 58
EGT Achernar X90 53.5
YCB Yacare ULTRA X 44
Raggari Mutant 39
AED Griffin 34.5
Dalora Infernalis 26.5
Necronia Emperion 25
AMW Brimstone 22
Decker Annihilator 19.5
Leeroy Lunatic 19
Centauri Vindicator 11
Ruby 11
Cottam Elegance DA 9
RB-02 6
HFF 4
E30 LS7 M 2
Testis 0.5
Normandy Kodiak 0
I found a worrying anomaly in my spreadsheet, so I had to double check it and as far as I can tell, this is the true result. I apologise if anybody notices the numbers didn’t quite add up from previous tallies, but those running counts were done with mental arithmetic, so I may have tracked them wrong! The spreadsheet, I’m hoping, doesn’t lie!
With the next update will be the conclusion to this chapter of craziness, and the reveal of the rest of the results!
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(OOC) there’s a bull?
(OOC) Yay! Fifth place! Never expected such a result from a dang Achernar with a V8 crammed in it 
(Ooc)Haha! Just enough to squeak by with a half point, I’m loving how you’re incorporating my tape deck lyrics into my scenes, great job so far! I am also quickly becoming thankful for adding some safety features to the car.
[OOC] Giggity-Giggity. Oh, yeah! We both knew I’d be last place on this track. That was the start lap not the flying lap, right? LOL