RP in here, as always
With either human now having their hand held by Jayde in offering a place to vent if need be, reactions were rather mixed. Both of them freed themselves from Jayde’s grip.
“I’m good, thank you. It’s racing, after all.”, he said while watching Rukari climb out of the Bricksley.
“Uhm… yeah that”, Norse added, intently looking past Jayde to Valentin, knowing full well what happened to him even more so than Val himself did.
“You all take care of Rukari. I shall head out back and see if Robert steams.”, Valentin said, thereby excusing himself from the commotion on the track. He turned around, followed by Norse soon after.
Once there, Valentin unlocked the driver door the old fashioned way via key, after which he just stood there for a few seconds before letting himself fall into the heavily sculpted bucket seat.
Jayde nodded, looking over at Kayden and Rukari, seeing that Rukari was trying his best to get out of Kayden’s reach as Kayden did his best to clean up Rukari’s face. He wandered over and asked, “How serious is it?”
“Given the amount of fight still left in him,” Kayden grumbled, “I’d guess he’s fine. Got an airbag assisted punch in the face, so he’s got a lightly bloody nose and a split lip. Probably a sore hand, too, considering how hard-headed and stubborn he is.”
Jayde chuckled. “Yeah, knowing what I know about the Valraadii, this is normal.”
“How are Val and Norse holding up?” Kayden asked.
“Well, Val’s statement says a lot. “It’s racing, after all.” I’d say they’re doing well, all things considered. Mentioned he was steaming up Robert, though,” Jayde said.
“Wait, he brought the railcar to the track?” Kivenaal asked.
“Didn’t look like the one you described,” Takaraya said. “This one’s more square at the back, not a slope.”
For the second time that day, Kivenaal took off running, though a lot less intensely than before, slowing down as he got closer to the garage.
Kaylie and Malavera watched as Kivenaal bolted past, then sighed. “What’s going on now?” Kaylie asked.
“Val’s steaming up Robert,” Jayde replied, walking in that direction in not much of a hurry.
Kaylie and Malavera soon joined the group walking toward Val and Norse to get a look at what he’d brought.
Takaraya took a few steps in that direction before the tow-truck arrived, carrying the wrecked mess that was the Grand Warden. Kayden looked up and asked, “Sorry to rain on your parade, but, could you possibly try to get that to be roughly shipping-container sized?”
“I could, yes. Would have liked to see what Valentin was up to, but getting this car ready for shipping is the least I can do,” Takaraya replied. He took another look at the mangled front end, looked once more in the direction of the steam car, then sighed and started bashing panels with the hammer, taking his frustration out on the car to straighten it up, or at least mangle it into a suitable shape.
Kaylie, Jayde, Kivenaal, and Malavera walked through the garage to see the bright-orange brick sitting there, with Val sitting in a bucket seat set way back in the cabin.
WIthin the car, Valentin simply took a quick look around, seeing a multitude of people approach and surround the car.
“Looks like we’ve got an audience…”, Valentin mumbles as he reaches for the steering wheel which was stored somewhere on the center console.
Said steering wheel clicks into place on the incredibly long column, followed by him buckling up his harness, not because it was strictly needed now, but more out of habit.
A moment of contemplation in silence follows, after which he realizes that he cannot reach the dash-mounted laptop anymore. AS such, he unbuckles again and leans forwards to flick a switch, thus powering on the laptop. Meanwhile in the back, the boiler also came to life, fans spooling and a fire being lit automatically.
After that, more waiting followed as the boiler built up it’s pressure and the laptop booted to what was the replacement for the analog dashboard array on the Dione.
Kivenaal smiled, hearing the familiar “powerful blowtorch” roar of the boiler in operation. He crouched down and got a glance at the laptop, then gave Valentin four thumbs up. “Nice! Full digital, I like it,” Kivenaal commented, before standing back up. “Analog gauges are nice, but clunky at times. And computer control for the boiler just makes things simpler,” he added, having experienced these benefits in his own project.
“This is the 21st century, not 1887.”, Valentin replied, given that Kivenaal already provided the reasoning for why it was done this way.
A few minutes pass as Valentin is making absolutely sure that the boiler pressure is sufficient and stable, before letting it just sit there while monitoring the display. Occasionally, he cycles through what look like various data display modes, though it seems like the others available are not exactly interesting to Valentin at the moment.
“Now… still have half an hour until i have any chance of getting out there.” Valentin says, making himself reasonably comfortable in the car.
“Why start it now, then?” Norse inquired, mentally flinching at the expense in fuel by keeping it running.
“Figured i’d start it now and see if it works well at idle. Also it takes a bit longer to get going than a normal car does.” Valentin explains.
“Uh… okay then…”, Norse relented, still not understanding the reasoning behind it. Though he also didn’t dare to go deeper as it would probably have to be explained as if he was five for him to actually grasp it.
Kivenaal looked over at Norse, then mentioned, “With the boiler being computer controlled, he’s making sure that all the sensors providing data to the computer are doing what they need to do. A bit like a thermostat and a furnace, just on a much larger scale.”
Malavera looked with one head back toward the other end of the garage, hearing Takaraya swearing quite loudly mixed with heavy crashes of the hammer. “Well, as if we needed more confirmation that he’s military, I guess that is proof enough. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Army, given how frequent he’s swearing. I know sailors are notoriously foul-mouthed, but I didn’t think pilots could be worse,” Malavera grumbled.
Kaylie sighed. “I’ll go help him out. After all, there’s a car that needs to be “adjusted” back into shape enough to fit in the container, and as strong as he is, I’m not sure he’ll be able to do this on his own. Ideally, Malavera would go back to help, he’s of similar strength, but if no one else will, I will.”
Jayde looked at the distance, then held up his hands and admitted, “I’d help, but we both know out of the four of us, I have a long way to go for being strong. I’ve been trying some of Kiva’s workout techniques, but leverage, as they say, is a bitch. How he does half of what he does, being damn-near my match in height, I’ll never know.”
“A lot of hard work,” Kivenaal said to Jayde. “As for beating that car back into shape, we only brought the one big hammer. So unless you want me trying to bend panels back by using blunt-force toolbox again, probably not a good idea. Otherwise, I’m right in the line of fire for Takaraya swinging the big hammer, and if he connects with me, well… I won’t fair a third as well as the car.”
Kaylie nodded. Kivenaal and Jayde had decent reasons to not help, with Kivenaal being less well-suited to hitting things with a giant hammer, and his unspoken interest in everything to do with steam, while Jayde had basically said he’d have to do things the hard way, thanks to being told not to do magic around the humans, and he was very ill-suited to manual labor. “Sorry, Valentin, but I’ve got to help out someone out. Kivenaal’s interest in all things steam gets him a pass here, and the last time Jayde swung a hammer, he nearly kneecapped himself with it. I’d grab Malavera, but I can’t drag his heavy ass, so there’s no point,” Kaylie admitted.
Takaraya looked up as Kaylie returned to the car. “Okay, big guy, hand me the hammer,” Kaylie said, holding her left hand out.
As he passed her the hammer, Kaylie glanced over the front of the car, which had one fender mangled inward courtesy of Takaraya’s hammering, and the other still protruding beyond the mirror line. “Damn. I didn’t think you’d gotten that much done already.”
“Soft as the body might be, this car’s a stubborn, tough old bitch,” Takaraya grumbled. “Any chance she has to fight back, she does, and it’s with a vengeance.”
“Well, I can take over for a bit, but… I need a favor from you. Bring Malavera back here so he can do this side, because I think you’ve done enough to earn a break from beating on this car,” Kaylie said.
Takaraya gave a savage grin, then nodded. “Not a problem,” he said, walking back toward the other side of the garage.
Takaraya came into view moments later, making his way straight toward Malavera. “Right. Kaylie said you’re supposed to help her out on the car, Mal, so this can go one of two ways. You go over there willingly, or I carry you,” Takaraya said.
“We weigh nearly the same. Good luck,” Malavera quipped.
Takaraya chuckled. “I’d hoped you’d challenge me like that,” he said.
Malavera gave a startled yell as Takaraya stepped up close, picking him up and throwing him over his shoulder as if he wasn’t quite that heavy. “How the hell!?” he yelled.
“We come from the same homeworld, Mal. And while I have indeed lost a lot of weight in my core, my limbs are stronger than the ones I was born with. I’ll be sore as hell on the flight home, but this is worth it,” Takaraya replied, before making his way back to Kaylie.
With Malavera dropped off for his turn at hammer duty, Takaraya returned to Kivenaal, Jayde, Norse, and Val. “Sorry about that, Val. Kaylie’s not fond of lazy teammates.” As he crouched down, careful to keep his position more-or-less easily noticed, he glanced through the window at Val’s laptop displaying all sorts of information, then said, “That screen vaguely reminds me of the control panel for… Let’s just say I’ve seen similar on ship-board power plants. Where I’m from, basically the whole world runs on steam. Not generated like this, obviously, but… Well, someone once did call nuclear power “the most complex way to boil water,” and we made good use of it.”
“The boiler largely does it’s own thing, with the ‘dashboard’ controlling everything up front. Engine, Generator, drive motors and all that. It just takes some data from the back so i can see what it’s doing and such.”, Valentin added, thus ruining the somewhat simplified explanation that Kivenaal wanted to provide.
“Right. Massive kettle makes the car go like a very sophisticated locomotive.”, Norse then answered, prompting a mild grin from Val at the obvious discrepancy in tech-savvy-ness between him and Norse.
The discussion surrounding Takaraya being relieved from extensive panel-beating was not immediately acted upon by either human present apart from both trying (and failing) to get a view of what was happening at the car.
Though once Takaraya came over to physically carry Malavera over, Norse could not stop himself from being awestruck at the supernatural strength most of the new friends seemed to have.
His amazement even has him miss the talks about them being from another world.
“You’ll get used to it…” Val blankly comments, breaking Norse out of his awestruck freeze.
“You lot sure are unusual in every metric.”, Norse mumbles as he watches Takaraya haul Malavera through the garage door and over to Kaylie.
As Takaraya returned and excused himself for having to carry Malavera over, Valentin just smiled and nodded.
“Well steam power is still what we do here on larger scales. Have a fire -or nuclear reactor- boil steam to spin a turbine to create electricity. This is a research thing on applying that on the smaller end.”, he then replied.
Kivenaal smiled as Valentin somewhat ruined his simplified explanation. “To be fair, I took a guess at how it worked based on my own experimentations. I went for full computer control, so the boiler feedwater pump, the fuel pump, and blower fan, all of that is controlled electronically. And then so is the steam engine. Making fuel injectors that are rated for 600 degrees isn’t fun, nor easy. Building an engine computer out of 1980’s technology kinda was, though. Rukari helped me out with the boiler control system, so there’s 1960’s tech in there, too. Boiler’s undersized for the engine, but I’ve got a couple of mode switches that let me optimize on the fly, for a simple steam engine. I can either fire all of the cylinders, or to optimize it, I can fire half of the cylinders, fire the active cylinders every-other-rotation like a typical 4-stroke engine, or do both,” Kivenaal said, a little proud and definitely pleased that he could talk with another steam enthusiast. “I don’t drive it much, though. It’s registered and insured, but the way people drive doesn’t make me feel all that comfortable rolling around with a giant pressure vessel in the back.”
Kivenaal looked over to Norse and grinned. “Yeah, in the simplest terms, any steam locomotive really is just a giant kettle with wheels,” he said.
Takaraya nodded. “Smaller applications for steam are tricky, but certainly doable. It’s… Probably more reasonable to use a fuel-burning boiler like this one, at least until someone figures out how to shrink a reactor around here. Even then, shielding is the biggest issue. So, on this vehicle, we’ve established it has a fuel-burning boiler, but how exactly does it work?”
Takaraya looked over his shoulder as he heard the fender-bashing start back up again, then back to Val. “One moment. I may be heavily augmented, but crouching like this is hell on my hips,” he said, before settling down on the ground instead. “There. Now I’m not straining anything mechanical, replaced, or natural. Still going to be sore later on, but that’s on me for lifting Malavera.”
Valentin’s eyes lit up in excitement as Kivenaal was the first one who obviously knew enough so as to understand the actual explanation of how Robert II actually works.
“I had to get this thing done quickly, so most of the major components are either off-the-shelf or contracted to other companies. The boiler, for example is a custom-fabricated water-tube unit without the shell around it since the rear half as a whole is the boiler barrel now. It will happily chug on anything that is liquid, flammable and about as viscous than diesel. Thinner fuels should work as well. The engine itself…” Valentin explained, reaching forward to pull the hood release with a muted plonk, “… is actually still the same three liter V6 block and head that was in the car when it still combusted fuel internally. Apart from the bottom end, the block and heads, not much of that is stock, though. Went for a reciprocating engine as a turbine would be noisy, inefficient and lacking in torque to get the 200KW generator going. The rest is the same as in a diesel locomotive. Spin a generator to drive electric motors at the rear axle and off you go.”
Having done the latter half of the exposition slumped over the extended steering column, he finally fell back into the bucket seat, checking the dashboard screen to see if anything was off, which it wasn’t.
It was obvious that most of their talks are going faaar beyond Norse’s head, though he simply let it happen to not get in the way of two people talking about things they like.
“Imma go and check out the local ceramics. Be right back.”, Norse said before heading off to take a wee.
Kivenaal carefully lifted the hood once Valentin released it, seeing the rather-densely-packed engine bay, with a V6 sitting in the middle of all the chaos, happily spinning away. He gently closed the hood, placing his hands so that he’d minimize the stress on the metalwork, then looked to Valentin.
“So it’s steam-electric, then,” Kivenaal said. “Damn, that’s cool. You made a hybrid that’s way cooler than anything out there, ironically by running way hotter out back than they do,” Kivenaal quipped. “I’m assuming the decision to use electrics was purely to make the most of the steam engine’s efficiency? Pick a stable RPM, let it sit there and puff away, and avoid the obnoxious mess that trying to gear a steam engine tends to be. I know, my Bricksley Scout is… I had to do some serious re-gearing just to make it reasonable, thanks to the engine pretty much falling on its face at 2400 RPM. Shitloads of torque, but no RPM.”
Takaraya smiled. “Reusing the base engine is an interesting, though smart concept. Engineering a design from scratch is difficult, expensive, and time consuming. Considering re-engineering a design is often considered those three things, it makes sense.”
Kivenaal gave a light nod. “I’m curious, though. Valentin, was I seeing the pipes correctly, or did I get the wrong idea because the engine is backwards in there, but is that engine running in dual-expansion mode?”
Jayde, however, had a different question, born more from a lack of general technical understanding. “You said the engine is turning a generator, and that drives the rear axle, right? Could that generator, for an example, run lights and a toaster?”
Takaraya winced. “I’d guess that’s a maybe at best, Jayde. Probably not without some serious conversion, though.”
“Going through a generator is better than hooking a mechanical CVT to it, since it would just be blown to pieces immediately. This is also why the engine is backwards. I can use the clutch plate spline to drive the generator and it’s gearbox. And yes, that thing is dual expansion. Feeding all six pots directly would require a boiler that is towed on a separate trailer. According to my calculations this turns about 100 boiler horsepower into 220 or so mechanical, before losses. And that is at 1000RPM or thereabouts, so there’s all the torque that a turbine would never even come close to generating.” Valentin explained to Kivenaal before turning his head to address Jayde.
“If you have a device that won’t blow up if fed with 400 Volts direct current, then yes. Common household items, though, not without some modification to the electrical system. I’d need to turn the 400 volts DC into 230 volts AC. though going through 400 volts three-phase might be a good intermediate step since all the motors and such are running on that already.”, he added.
“Yeah, I know that one,” Kivenaal said, chuckling. “My Scout uses the original Bricksley 427 cubic-inch V8. The boiler’s good for maybe half of that. On one hand, it’s fun as hell to whoosh past traffic, on the other hand, not as fun when said traffic catches back up because you’ve run out of puff, and it’s terrifying to know that one texting twit could create a disaster. So, I basically only drive it when there’s steam festivals. Though, I will admit that I particularly enjoyed getting revenge on a diesel truck driver who rolled coal on me. I passed him and opened the drain valve, left him mired in a cloud of steam and scalding hot water. Don’t roll coal on people who might be running on it, after all.”
“He’s been experimenting with renewable biofuels,” Takaraya pointed out. “Once he discovered it’ll run on anything that’ll burn, as long as it’s a liquid no worse than the viscosity of diesel, he’s been trying things. Homemade biodiesel, waste vegetable oil after filtering, homemade ethanol, if you can name an “eco-friendly fuel alternative,” he’s probably tried it.”
Jayde nodded. “So, it would have to be converted, then, but it could be used that way?”
Takaraya chuckled. “A three-phase DC brushless motor has a lot in common with a three-phase AC motor. In theory, if you had the right circuitry, you could take 400 volts DC pulsed-three-phase and convert that to 400 volts AC three-phase. Between the legs of your three-phase system, you’ll find 230 volts. From that, a bit of clever engineering could split a 230 volt leg in half with a “common neutral” and you’d get 115. Probably not the right frequency for a lot of things, but it could be done. Whether it could be packaged small enough to fit in what is essentially a sedan, however, I’m not sure.”
Kivenaal looked over at Takaraya, then back to Val. “I have no clue where he learned this kind of stuff, but… Damn. Goes to show not all soldier stereotypes are true.”
“Before I was in our air force, I was in our army. I was, specifically, a wing-trooper. Closest equivalent your people would have are paratroopers. When I became… Disinterested in the army and was waiting on my transition to the air force, I spent a couple of months onboard a navy ship, where I learned a surprising amount about nuclear reactors, electricity, and steam turbines. I’d continue, but I don’t wish to bore anyone with the details of my past,” Takaraya said.
“Yeah there’s a reason why the boiler has no stock enclosure. The entire area behind the second row seat is the boiler barrel, right up to thus steel plate here.”, Valentin comments, reaching back to tap the steel bulkhead plate behind him.
“If the boiler goes tits up for whatever reason, the window covers act as blowout panels. Not ideal for surrounding people, but better than literally setting the occupants alight with the steam trapped in there. The generator and both motors are running on three-phase AC, set to 400 Volts because it’s a common standard for three phase mains power in the EU. I suppose i could use another inverter to generate that same 400 Volts, though i’d have to look around for just the inverter, as i am not planning on having to control a motor off of it. Though i do want to know why you are asking to begin with.” he added.
“Well…” Jayde started, looking a bit embarrassed that his curiosity had gotten him called out specifically, “Kaylie was somewhat discussing ideas with the crew regarding our plans for 2023, and we were trying to figure out a way to generate power without, well… keeping the whole camp awake with cheap diesel or gasoline generators.”
“Initial plan was to build one,” Kivenaal said, “but I’ve had no luck finding anything small enough to be considered “man portable”. Even by our standards. Well… Can’t quite say that, I did find one that Takaraya might be able to move, but, it’s big, it’s bulky, and would probably end up on a trailer anyway. And his RV has a generator, but…”
“It’s loud, obnoxious, and the person who sold the RV to me told me the generator ran the last time they used it, but usually they hook it up to shore power and it’s not an issue. I had Kivenaal take a look, and he wasn’t happy.”
“Fairly decent little generator, but that engine is shot. Supposed to have 130 PSI of compression, it has 50. Also, fuel-injector’s clogged up, so by the time we’d rip the damn thing apart and fix it up, we’re looking at a fairly decent bill. “It ran the last time we used it.” Yeah, that’s because the time after that, it didn’t run, so you found a campsite with power and ignored the problem for 5 years,” Kivenaal grumbled.
“I told you I could fix it, I just need some help taking it apart,” Jayde said.
“We’d still have to order parts, Jayde. I’m not taking the fuel injector apart so you can clean it and put it back together again. It’s seriously fiddly, tedious work,” Kivenaal replied.
“Regardless,” Takaraya said, “we do need to find a solution to that generator before it becomes an actual issue.”
“It needs a new engine, that’s what it needs,” Kivenaal said. “Just not sure where to find one that’s cheap, reliable, and air cooled.”
“Like a 1.6 liter AMP Terra?” Jayde mentioned.
Kivenaal did an epic four-handed face-palm, then groaned. “That’s liquid cooled, Jayde. That’s a huge amount of work to make that work as a gen-set engine.”
“If there’s enough airflow in there to cool an air-cooled engine, surely there’s enough to cool a small engine with a radiator,” Takaraya said."
“We’re talking going from 200cc to 1600cc worth of engine. I’m not sure that’s viable for cooling,” Kivenaal replied.
“The load is different. I’m assuming that’s an automotive engine, so it’s built for hauling, say, 2 metric tons of car around at worst. We’d be asking it to spin a few thousand watts worth of generator instead. Compared to hauling a car up a hill, it should be a lighter load. Though finding space for the radiator, hoses, routing the exhaust and intake to the outside, that could be problematic,” Takaraya said.
“About the only good thing about that plan is the generator would out-live the RV it’s in,” Kivenaal said. “That is a ton of fabrication. I mean, I’d do it, but fucking hell, that’s a lot of work.”
“So is this,” Jayde said, motioning to Robert II, “but Val managed to do this while injured.”
“Most of the work i did was done on the PC in engineering the thing with all it’s packaging and such. Had a mate at uni who wrote the control program and a slew of people actually building the thing, among which a very memorable Scottish or Irish guy. Memorable because he had absolutely no profanity filter…”, Valentin explained, pausing to think for a moment.
“For your generator thing, they also make engines smaller than that. Granted, none of them are as readily available as the Terra, so they might be pricey, but they go down as far as 900cc. If i remember correctly, the company as a whole is known for making engines fit for the apocalypse, so you might be in luck there.” he added.
Kivenaal nodded. “Knowing they’re reliable, I might go through the trouble of trying that out. At least I know it’ll run smoother and quieter than the old 200cc rattle-box,” he said, though he grimaced as Val mentioned the engines were fit for the apocalypse.
Takaraya chuckled. “Some people just don’t know when they shouldn’t swear. Or don’t care. In all fairness, I’ve been in the military, soldiers swear all the time. An old joke in my unit, back when I was a wing-trooper, was, “If they’re not swearing, there’s a problem.” Quite truthful, too. Only times people weren’t dropping an “F-this” or “F-that” or “I just stepped in shit” was when we were waiting for evacuation. Hell, even being shot at, you knew who was alive by listening for the foul language. If someone went quiet for a few minutes, you found time between outbursts of language to pray. Even those, like myself, who have no religion. It all helps in a time of war.”
“Lucky for me that i didn’t get drafted then… i wouldn’t fit in at all, both physically and mentally, i think.”, he commented.
They kept talking for quite a while until about 12:40 or so, at which point a glance at the display reveals to Valentin that the time slot for his post-race track running is nearing.
“It’s about time i see if this thing moves further than 20 meters.”, Valentin said, gently reaching over and closing the driver door, followed by him rolling the window down to still be able to talk to everyone surrounding the car.
“Don’t expect anything exciting to happen. Best case is me trundling round the track at jogging pace, worst is me not moving at all.”, he said while in the process of doing the harness back up.
Kivenaal gave Valentin four thumbs up and stepped out of the way, while Takaraya and Jayde also made space, with Jayde having the advantage of not having to stand up first.
By this time, the heavy banging of hammers in the pit lane had slowed down to just the occasional handful of heavy sounding thuds as Malavera nearly had the other fender straightened up enough to where the car would fit back in the container. Kaylie, Kayden, and Rukari, as a result, were busy gathering up tools, spare parts, bits of broken bodywork, and their military cot, stuffing them back into the interior where they’d come from, and getting creative with where to put things like the torn-off front bumper. Then it was a matter of fitting the toolboxes and the now-empty welding cart back into the car, draining the rest of the oil into a catch pan and pouring that into a used sports-drink bottle, and tossing that into the car’s trunk to minimize the mess they’d have to deal with in the container.
All of them looked up as Jayde and Kivenaal returned to the pit lane to help in the clean up. “Where’s Takaraya?” Kaylie asked.
“He volunteered to shadow Val until he makes it to the track, just in case the car doesn’t make it under its own power,” Kivenaal said. “That way, if Val can’t get the car to go, all Takaraya has to do is run back and grab the chains, then get him somewhere safer.”
It took quite a while for Valentin to be truly ready to roll out onto the track, largely due to the fact that a 5 point harness takes longer to fasten than a traditional three-point belt.
Once that was done, he looked ahead through the windshield, slowly making his way towards the track entry point, which, as customary for a rallycross track, had ample space available in and around the starting booths.
After arriving there, Valentin took a small break to once again check the ‘gauges’, mentally collect himself a bit as well as charter a path on the partially unpaved road.
Eventually, he floors it, at which point nothing happens. For the next three seconds, the car is simply sat there before taking off with a burst of acceleration that one could say rivals a (budget) sports car.
Not having expected the immense delay in throttle response, Valentin somewhat panics, stomping the brake, safely bringing the car to a stop.
A second attempt, done substantially more cautiously, repeats the immense delay, though only puts Robert into a crawl, slowly rolling along the track. The offroad sections and especially the transitions onto and off of the asphalt made for decent suspension testing, with the twisty corners providing some information about the handling characteristics.
Eventually, the steam-powered wagon picks up some pace, still not going faster than school-zone-speed at any point of the track.
At this speed, a few more laps are done, none of which can be described as ‘spirited’ or even ‘race-y’, after which Valentin pulls into the pits, missing the pit box by about three car lengths and thus ending up in front of the adjacent garage.
Eventually, the orange Brick reverses, slowly, aligning itself with the actual Shift Happens garage.
I’m happy I got such a high score! My focus on reliability really paid off.