I WISH I could see a video of all this!!..so cool!!!
3 Likes
“Ok, let’s get this over with!”, Marina shouted, more to herself than to anyone else when she took over the Zvezda for the final stint of the race.
The past hours had brought a few changes to the overall standings, none lasting though, not even Team White Star topping the timesheets for a short while when the Franklin Marshall had to go into the pits for lengthy repairs and the Winthorpes had been standing in their own (and the others’) ways a bit too much for their own good. Due to these ups and downs, she had been too hyped up on an unhealthy mix of adrenaline and caffeine to catch some proper rest, but she was sure she could make it through the darkness and the beginning dawn to the finish line.
Despite the Team Jaimz’ lengthy mishap, the FM was still too fast to be kept behind in 3rd for too long. For a while it looked like whether her own team or the Winthorpes were effectively in 2nd was mainly dependent on the fuel strategy. Who’d make the final pitstop would most probably end up on the final podium spot. Unfortunately, it looked like it was her own team, when they had to service the brake fluid and the clutch in two unplanned stops over a couple of hours and found out that the necessary arrangements to do either were not designed to be done in a cramped, rudimentary and sparsely lit pitlane in the middle of the night. A few excursions by both Jurij and Jeff did not help matters either, although this merely put them on a level playing field with the Winthorpes.
A loud crunch brought Marina back to the reality as she found her car wedged into the Cabrera’s sides as she tried to avoid the Winthorpes spinning in front of her once again with the reflexes honed in years of rallycrossing, albeit slowed by the effects of being awake for almost a full day straight. “K**wa!”, she muttered. “Saved by the bumper plastic again!”
She reversed away from the Cabrera, shrugged apologetically and continued her laps. She wondered whether Jurij and Jeff were actually watching or had fallen asleep in the pits. On the distant sky, she could see the first traces of dawn breaking on the long Swedish days. It was harder and harder for her to stay focused despite track layout now well ingrained on her neural pathways. Her sole goal became to keep the Zvezda away from the unhealthy gray guardrails and on the gray bits of tarmac instead.
With a curse she noted that she did not have a precise clock or timer in the car (the normal rudimentary digital clock in the dash was of course ripped out when the car was turned into a rallycross machine) so she had no clear idea when the final checkered flag would be waved. While she wore a watch, it was safely tucked away under the fireproof overall and the gloves, and she did not want to fiddle with either in her current state.
Finally, she saw the checkered flag waved in the rear view mirror (which had fallen off during the last crash but luckily stuck back on right away) and rejoiced. Unfortunately she had kept the gaze into the rear view mirror on for too long and only another of her shot reflexes managed to keep the Zvezda away from a race-ending entanglement with guardrail steel.
The engine had stalled, and her only focus was to frantically try to get going again, while exhausting her rich repertoire of curses. The state of the rest of the car didn’t matter, as long as the two front wheels were still on she could make it to the finish line. This was certainly not the way she wanted to end the race, but would she get the Zvezda fired up again in time to make it round once more and stay on the rostrum…?
I just wanted to write something sort and sweet lmao
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The final results are in.
- @Jaimz - Team Jaimz / Franklin Marshall Street Sport - lap # 1606
- @pcmoreno - Team Winthorpe / Winthorpe Badger - lap # 1591
- @AndiD - Team White Star / Mara Zvezda - lap # 1585
- @BannedByAndroid - Team Chinese Dragons / Xianfeng K2 - lap # 1501
- @Interior - Team Slow / Hakumai CS-2 - lap # 1475
- @Petakabras - Team Collarada / Cabrera Fulgor - lap # 1438
- @Madrias - Team Racing Stripes / Sinistra Traville - lap # 1403
- @Serperior98 - Team Double Dip / Akira Metro - lap # 1401
- @kobacrashi - Team Totally Not a Reduit Factory Team / Reduit Piti - lap # 1290
- @DuceTheTruth100 - Team X / Wells i6 - lap # 1215
- @O.O - Team Whatever Goes / Tempest 154 - lap # 1191 (DNF)
- @HighOctaneLove - Team Mountain Pass / Ardent Olympic - lap # 1004 (DNF)
- @Knugcab - Team Trafikjournalen / IP Urbana - lap # 996 (DNF)
- @stm316 - Team Hang Ten / Puttzalong Shai Hulud - lap # 906 (DNF)
- @Maverick74 - Team Yacht Rockers / Dover Andromeda - lap # 700 (DNF)
(OOC: This is not completely the end of everything, prepare for a surprise within a few days)
8 Likes
Early in the night
Markus: “I’ve hit the guardrail, it seems the alignment is way too far off to be drivable, we need to fix this…”
Eva: “Cool, We’ll get ready for you”
Lars: “It was bound to happen, we’ve been living on borrowed time since the morning.”
Later in the night
Markus was wearing out, it was time to switch drivers again. But some reliability issues struck…
Markus: “The car is dead, I don’t know why… we need a tow…”
Later in the pits…
Lars: “Everything seems fine… I can’t tell why the stupid thing isn’t starting…”
Eva: “I don’t want to go out like this, we need to finish the night…”
M: “Hey Lars… remember when we decided not to remove that shitty aftermarket alarm system?”
L: “I highly doubt that it would be the issue…”
M: “Well, we’ve been here for a long time trying to figure it out, that immobiliser is the only thing we haven’t checked.”
L: “Well, honestly I think it’s a waste of time, but we can try to bypass it…”
After some time messing with wiring and bypassing the alarm…
Eva: “I’ve done some bypassing with the wiring, Lars, give it a crank”
Lars, as he is about to turn the key: “Sure, but I’m telling you this is a waste of time the shitbox won’t…”
The car starts…
L: “Oh wow… I did not expect that…”
E: “Clearly, I’m getting in now, Markus is too tired to continue.”
Eva takes off immediately, but a few laps later returns as the car’s clutch seems to be slipping. The team spent some time fixing that issue, but a few laps later, the car stalls again. Turns out that it was no big deal and a quick fix later, the car was screaming around the track again.
The final leg
Eva: “The car seems to be losing power, I think we have a problem… I’m coning in…”
L: “It’s electrical, one of the things we planned for because of just how notorious this car is for issues like that. You should be out there in no time.”
M: “Good thing we did our research. Good luck Eva, we’re almost to the end of the run, both you and the car are going to make it.”
As the sun rises on the horizon, Eva continues to push towards the finish line. The Akira, even with all its flaws, managed to make it through this event, just over 1400 laps… No one expected this. But she’s here, she’s still breathing, and she’s still running.
Markus: “I know we didn’t win, but for our first event, I’m impressed at how well we’ve done…”
Lars: “Honestly, I was expecting the Metro to explode by hour 2… I can’t believe we managed to keep her running for 24 hours.”
Eva: "I’ve always had faith in our shitbox. She didn’t win, but we’ve learned a lot, and the fact that we survived the entire 24 hours is an achievement on its own.
Markus: “That’s true… Although the one thing I also learned is that… For the next clunker run… I’m getting a Franklin Marshall…”
The team inspected the Metro, awaiting the final announcements from the organizers…
6 Likes
Team Jaimz
Lara - Shit, I’m knackered…so what’s the news on the race?
Jaimz - Not long to go now…time’s ticking down.
L - Arse!
J - What’s up?
L - Just had the checquered flag…what position are we in?
J - Looks like we took it.
L - …are you shitting me???
J - What?
L - Are you shitting me??? We WON???
J - Yup, we did!!!
L - I don’t think I’ve EVER loved this piece of shit as much as I do now…certainly not when you gave it to me!!
J - Love you too. Now I’ve heard a rumour of another shitbox run in the future. How do you…
L - F&*KING RIGHT I DO!!!
The End…thanks for reading this benign drivel.
5 Likes
AFTERMATH IN THE TRAFIKJOURNALEN PODCAST
Mats Hansen: Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of car talk with Hansen and Carlén…
Erik Carlén: …yes, and today it will be a very special episode, as you can hear, an international one since we’re taking this in english, and there is a very good reason for that…
M: …yes. As you probably know, we were running the 24 hour clunker challenge, which we have done since 1982, so next year it will be its 40th anniversary, not bad.
E: Exactly. And we would like to thank our sponsors this year, which were…
M:…Lizard wax, Häkka driving lights and Boomtastic car audio.
E: Right, and the winner will probably get a surprise from them delivered to his door soon, but what about the race itself, we got ourselves a car this year too as usual, right?
M: Yes, a 1987 IP Urbana 1000 GTT. Yes they still do exist. Almost deleted from our collective conciousness until the crazy australians at Awesome Automobile Customizing made the model a youtube celebrity. For some reason it was ordered in one of the ugliest colours IP offered in 1987, “Caramel Tan”, or as I like to call it, “Granny stocking beige” or “Early IBM PC beige”.
E: And I know that you love your IPs, but the 1000 GTT, was it really any good?
M: It was a result of the asians wanting to slap a turbo on absolutely anything in the 80s. 82 horsepowers weren’t really that impressive in what pretended to be a hot hatch. Sure, you could probably making it come alive with some more boost, but at an expense of reliability. Also, the chassis with the same structural integrity as gingerbread dough could not really match any performance ambitions.
E: Some of us are old enough to remember the rage in the 80s when the first generation Urbana was ranked as one of the cars that was most likely to kill you in a fender bender by a well known insurance company…
M: Indeed. They did almost fall apart by closing the door too hard. Not the best base for a performance vehicle. But how about the actual race then? Should we start with the ones that didn’t make it?
E: Right. We can start with team Yacht Rockers, a team really worthy of their name.
( @Maverick74)
M: Yeah, they wrestled a Dover Andromeda around the track, which in itself is a challenge that should be respected.
E: Indeed. It looked pretty sad, but for a while it seemed like if it was mechanically sound, which it probably was too, but thirsty and a beast to wrestle around the track, as you said. It started quite early with a crash where it came a bit close to team X in their Wells taxi.
M: But it was like if they got a hold of it after some hours, learned how the big beast behaved on the track, even if there was a close encounter with the Sinistra later. Unfortunately…
E: Yes. Very sad to say but it caught on fire and it may be unclear if it will ever become a driveable car again.
M: Team Yacht Rockers, if you ever show some progress with the Dover again, hit us up. Meanwhile, we dedicate you this song from a famous Swedish artist, enjoy!
M: Right, let’s start from where we ended, another car that did not make it was a Puttzalong Shai Hulud driven by Team Hang Ten.
(@stm316)
E: They were a bit confident in their somewhat modern-ish SUV, was even going to use it for their vacation trip, I think that their dreams got kind of crushed there though.
M: Yeah, the first four hours went on quite undramatic, but then Filip Andersson managed to hit them with our IP. Team Hang Ten, we apologize so much, thank you.
E: And some unexpected errors like shock absorbers coming loose, and then yet another crash with Team Totally Not a Reduit Factory Team (phew…) in their Reduit, and then a guardrail crash…
M: Yeah, and maybe some of the crashes might have put the steering column in some unfortunate angle because it was a faulty U-joint there that made them quit the race.
E: Well, cars surviving this undamaged hardly does exist at all. And our IP really didn’t survive.
M: Oh, please, god…no it didn’t. It started with Filip believing that it was some drifting event…in an 80s front wheel drive hatch.
E: And finally he hit Team Mountain Pass in their Ardent. Again, to Team Mountain Pass, we apologize so much for his driving.
M: He really couldn’t keep it on track it seems like. As we said, he hit the Puttzalong too. He literally tried to drive the wheels off the thing.
E: Literally. He came back with no threads on the lug nuts, and we want to thank Team Double Dip for borrowing us some lug nuts, we send you an one year subscription and Trafikjournalen T-shirts for the whole team as a favour in return.
M: Then he hit the Ardent one more time, and a fairly modern large Ardent is certainly a tough match for a flimsy 80s crackerbox.
E: Indeed. It required lots of work with the BFH to get it straight again. But then it was my turn to take over.
M: So, driving a non-italian car on the track for once?
E: Yes, but I am by no means only a fanatic of them. In fact, my first car was a Volvo 144. 1967 model.
M: 1967? That means that it was the first model year. You should have kept that one.
E: I really should have done that. But the IP was behaving nicely actually. At least until I lost the brakes. And I get that Team Mountain Pass probably wanted to take some revenge on us. But in the end, the car simply wanted to die.
M: Yes, a total engine failure, so the Urbana is heading for the scrapyard at the moment. If not someone of you wants to save it, there is still that opportunity for someone out there.
E: Speaking of Team Mountain Pass, it did not go very well for them either.
(@HighOctaneLove)
M: Certainly not the best comeback they could make. The choice of car was a bit unusual this time, an Ardent Olympic. Yes, you heard right, not a Bogliq. And for some reason it did not catch on fire this time. And unfortunately, it seems like it worked as a magned for both the IP, the Reduit and the guardrail.
E: Yes, it’s a shame, since their driving was very nice. And until the rear wheel bearing seized, it was kind of reliable too.
M: Absolutely, almost no time in the pits so it was really an unfortunate mishap. But anything can happen in the 24h clunker races.
E: And then it was Team Whatever Goes with their Tempest…
(@O.O)
M: Oh, god. Yes their choice of car did really catch the spirit of the race, it was a clunker to say the least. We thought that it should die already when it came into the pits sounding like it had a rod knock, but it was only a loose pulley. Also, hopeless to keep on the track and gulping fuel like a whale. Not to mention oil.
E: And then all the brake troubles…
M: Yes. They changed a brake hose, only to kill the master cylinder then. Probably had been rusting inside and got its seals shots when bleeding the brakes. Would not surprise me as the car looked. But to Team Whatever Goes, well done to succeed as far as you did with that rusty beast.
E: We will soon be back, and then we will be talking about…
M:…the ones that actually made it! Stay tuned.
12 Likes
Pretty good race. Atleast the Dover Andromeda made a lot of laps before it gone on fire.
Too nice weather lately to write long essays on the computer but the next part will be up sooner or later (at least you have seen the results now, so I guess everything else is just a bonus)
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