Team Highway Hooligans
(Another collab with @Elizipeazie, as expected.)
Highway Hooligans, 4 PM to 8 PM
Jake yawns as he aims the car around the track, surprised at how tiring the whole process could be. It’d only been 4 hours behind the wheel, but with the added drag on the steering and watching out for “high speed” traffic, he was starting to get physically and mentally exhausted. The end result was that Jake, after fighting off another yawn and watching out for two actively crashing cars, ended up drifting wide in a sweeping turn and scraping up the side of the limousine by using the guardrail to turn, like a wall-rider in a video game.
“Guys, I’m coming into the pits before I fuck up the car.”
In the pit lane, chaos ensued. “Val’s still asleep!” Cody yells.
“So wake him up, Cody, while Jake brings the limo in,” Trevor responds.
As Jake approaches in the great-lumbering-shit-barge, Cody runs over to the truck where Val’s sleeping. He tries knocking on the window first, and yelling “Val! Jake came in early, we need you behind the wheel!”
The end result was no response. Cody sighs and yells to Trevor, “He sleeps like the dead!”
“Hey, Jake, hit the horns,” Trevor says.
Jake shrugs, then hits the horn button three times, amused by the old-school and surprisingly loud horns attached to the bumper.
Sound Reference
“Well, I suppose that’s the first proper test of those since we installed them for Shitbox 23,” Jake admits.
A proper test which turned out surprisingly successful as Valentin actually returns from his almost-comatose state to being somewhat awake.
“Huh… what is going on here?” Valentin inquires, taking a moment to reorient himself in the Moover truck, “It isn’t even time yet…”
“Jake came in early after scuffing the whole side of the car up on a guard-rail,” Cody admits.
Jake climbs out of the car and groans, taking a few unsteady steps toward a lawn chair and practically falling in it. “It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t fuckin’ 50 other cars crowding around the barge at all times,” Jake grumbles, “but between the steering and the lack of power, I’m getting road fatigue.”
Trevor shrugs. “Well, either Val can hop in, if he’s ready, or one of us can take over for a while.” He looks over toward Cody and Val, then yells, “Hey, Val, you up for an early take-over, or should one of us draw straws to see who takes over?”
While the others discussed further actions, Valentin took the opportunity to cease nanite-induced sedation, instead, they are now used to speed up Valentin’s would-be hour-long process of mentally getting going to acceptable levels.
“Three, maybe five minutes and i can go.” he eventually responds, already digging around for his helmet.
A couple of minutes later, Valentin is about as ready as can be, ‘gracefully’ climbing into the car and buckling up.
“I’m just gonna try and not break it, right?” he inquires, now realizing that getting the car in drive is… a challenge.
Trevor nods. “From what Jake has said, the thing’s a bit of a beast, so taking it slow for a bit might be a good idea. After all, it’s an endurance event, not a sprint - Any laps you can make are good ones.”
“Put the hammer down and give 'em all hell!” Cody yells. “We’ve got the bash bar in case you have to bump someone out of your way.”
“Good luck out there, Val,” Jake adds, giving Val a thumbs up as Trevor snaps a picture of the driver in the right hand seat of the car.
“Sorry, just, first time the dual-control-system’s getting used, so I’m making a note in case this works really well for some… Wacky races. A thought I’ve had forever has been to have one guy operating the pedals, and their co-pilot gets the steering wheel,” Trevor admits.
Valentin just nods before starting a yoga session to shift the car to ‘drive’ with his left knee.
“Off I go then…” he mutters, tentatively making his way out onto the track, unfamiliar with racing, the track, the car and it’s non-standard control scheme.
As Valentin sets out onto the track, the remaining crew in the pit area settle in to watch some of the racing.
Sure, their own car was now trundling around the track at “granny goes out for groceries” pace, but there was still plenty of excitement, like the tippy Tarquini forcing the IP and the Velocity to munch on the guardrail, or the Hakumai plowing into the rail.
“That’ll be a setback,” Trevor blurts out, watching as the Hakumai crawls into the pits for fuel and to fix the car.
“Yeah, they’ll have to unfuckify the whole front end,” Cody adds.
A squirming Kahzron wiggling down the track gets a chuckle out of Jake. “Well, it’d be a good martini mixer - “Shaken, not stirred,” after all.”
“Might be strategic,” Trevor admits. “It slowed down that Ferdon.”
The rolling commentary continued for some time as the race progressed, though the one thing that remained constant was the casual pace of Val in the Bricksley.
“Wonder if the throttle cable needs adjustment…” Trevor says, watching as the Bricksley gets passed by just about everything again, though this time, the Velocity goes to pass, gets into a skid, nearly hits the already-badly-beaten Hakumai, and forces the Seongu wide to avoid a four car tangle with the Bricksley being the only one likely to survive such an encounter. He watches with gleeful amusement as the SED and the McNamara have to pile on their brakes to avoid the chaos.
Then, as Valentin brings the car in for fuel, Cody grabs the fuel cans and Trevor looks through the window.
“Is there something wrong with the accelerator?” Trevor asks.
“Cannot tell. Honestly, I have been going cautious so as to not fuck things up…” Valentin somewhat sheepishly admits, his foot firmly on the brake pedal so as to prevent the car from crawling into the pit box ahead of him.
“Vague steering, the biggest car in the field and an upturned bucket covered in a blanket for a seat makes for suboptimal conditions.” He adds, “I can try to get a semblance of speed going…”
Jake chuckles. “Glad to hear that our impressions of the car are quite similar despite different seating positions,” he admits.
“Full tank!” Cody yells.
Trevor shrugs. “Only one way to know if the gas pedal works properly. I think we got the transmission kickdown cable hooked up for both of them, so if it’s in top gear and doesn’t want to go, just stomp on the throttle - It’ll make the automatic downshift. Anyway, good luck out there.”
Trevor steps back, making sure everyone’s clear of the car before tapping twice on the roof to let Val know he’s clear to go.
“Good to know.” Valentin quickly responds before actually flooring it this time.
The burst of enthusiasm lasted all the way to the first corner at the exit of pit road, where he promptly missed the braking point by an entire postcode, thus understeering into the dirt behind that turn.
“Right… More speed equals earlier brakes,” Valentin reminded himself once he maneuvered his way back onto the track, eventually finding what loosely could be called a rhythm.
Trevor grimaces as he watches the Bricksley take off like a rocket and then skid way into the dirt at the first turn. “Probably should have warned him that the cross-ply tires are a little bit shit, but at least he learned without putting the car in the wall,” Trevor mutters to himself.
As the Velocity tries to overtake the Bricksley with even more speed this time, they learn the lesson about braking distances as well, firing their car into the guardrail with a solid sounding crunch. A little bumper tag between the TDF and the Hakumai gets a chuckle out of Cody, and Jake witnesses the aftermath of the Crown Vic kissing a guardrail and popping the radiator. Then the Kahzron punts the Wartburg, which doesn’t go over too well for the Soviet breadbox as it returns to the pits for some panel beating. Jake watches with curiosity as the various, and varied, crew members try to straighten out the van enough to keep going.
The remaining hour goes by quite quickly, with just a few more bangs and scuffs from other cars, another trip to the pits for the Kahzron, and a bit more bumper tag from the Hakumai, this time with the Ferdon.
“Made it. I want out…”, Valentin sighs, already unbuckling but keeping the foot firmly on the brake until he can put it in park via the gear lever. He falls back into the seat, grimacing slightly at the harsh impact into it, then takes a few deep breaths.
