Shitbox Rally - Stage 5
Stage 5: Mosoto to Lauda
Weather: Low 20’s, a few clouds, dry, with a decent wind.
A very well-maintained road leads us out of Mosoto, flanked by forests, occasional small villages, and small farms. It’s flat, smooth, and wide enough to support all of the vehicles with only minor slowdowns for the larger ones.
An echoing boom announces that Shift Happens has blown a tire. While it’s nowhere near as dramatic, Team Spy Kids also pop a tire, and incur the wrath of the Tire Pressure Monitoring System light that will now refuse to go out for the rest of the rally. Honey I Bought a S#!tbox also manages to let all the wind out of a tire in dramatic fashion. Peak Performance also has a popped tire to replace, and Ramjet loses one of the outer duallies, having to swap it out for another spare tire.
(@SheikhMansour , @Rambow , @HappyHungryHippo, @JCurtiss96, @Leone)
This time, instead of hitting something that popped a tire, Team Firulais drives over the tire shrapnel from the bus and spends an hour fixing the resulting torn brake line and then bleeding the brakes.
(@angelustyle)
Likewise, the Rhino Squad loses an hour after one of Thomas’ little fixes causes a minor catastrophe. A rat had chewed through their original spark plug wires, so Thomas grabbed some spares in camp and swapped them in. They were a bit too long and ended up in the radiator fan, which wrecked the cables, fried the alternator, and killed the battery.
(@HappyHungryHippo)
Team Hillbilly Rollers spends 3.5 hours on the side of the road, some of it spent cursing as they drain out the fuel tank, some of it spent yelling at Marie, and a bit of it spent threatening to pour all the beer out. Why? Because Marie, in her great and mighty wisdom, poured water in the gas tank “because it’s nasty and fish fuck in it.”
(@Knugcab)
The dry-rotted spare that Machinas Con Passione put on in the last stage comes apart and covers the road in rubber chunks, leading to another stop to fix it, only to have to proceed to the next stage at a significantly reduced pace because there isn’t another spare tire.
(@SurrealCereal)
Lauda itself is the capital city, housing 1.8 million people in ornately-decorated houses and densely packed streets. It’s clear that if you want to explore, you’re probably going to want a bicycle or to walk. On the plus side, if you can think of it, it’s probably here. The mystically-inclined can even find some minor magic supplies if they’re needed - and if they look hard enough. There are a few boulevards, with their adjacent areas being a fair bit less dense than the residential areas, containing theaters, bars, early cinemas showing silent films, and other places of business.
While vehicular access to the Support Train is pretty much impossible (unless you brought a motorcycle) with it being parked inside the Holsian State Railways’ most impressive station, it’s unlikely we’ll need many of the train’s supplies. After all, courtesy of Valentin’s contacts within the railway, we’re being lodged in a mid-range hotel near the station. It’s safe to say that toilets, showers, sinks, and food won’t be a problem here.
Spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQriVPEky_B00QiZ6lYrtLVt-u3XWPQW7CvfFNFordo91W4o4LYgWKmW6-SchgIpnTR4wQ6cfSyyQfl/pubhtml