I feel that with the amount of work challenges require, especially ones like yours, and the fact you’re running them non stop, you might burn yourself out.
Happens with me every time, so my suggestion is to push through with this one and give youself a time out. Nothing wrong with a bit if a delay though, it’s good you keep an open attitude and update us about it. Keep up the good work
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Glad you guys are appreciating this. This will be my last ever Kee engine challenge and the next stop will be UE4, for which I’m organizing and won’t do minor challenges, but two or so major challenges every year. So yes, the pace will be lowered so I can have breaks between stuff and so I can focus on quality rather than quantity.
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Rain falls as the Montauk is approached by the Canny R, as the Montauk hits a turn, the Canny R rips through the inside overtaking them.
Luigi: Dammit!
Blake: Not to worry, I got this!
Blake: Bitch!
Luigi: (starts a raging torrent of Italian profanities that I cannot type as I do not know any)
Blake: Damn, I forgot how much you foreigners are on a different level of swearing than we are.
Luigi: Here, we’re both foreigners!
Blake: Point.
Luigi: The rain seems to have stopped.
Blake: No it hasn’t, it just froze, look.
(White flakes start to appear on the Montauks windshield)
Luigi: Great, I hate driving in the snow.
Blake: Not to worry. I’m a Michigan born man, driving in snow is second nature to me.
Luigi: Then why do I hear about accidents all the time during the winter?
Blake: Because you hear about those accidents year round. The season has nothing to do about it, idiots just can’t drive.
Luigi: Yet you claim to be a good driver even though you’re from Michigan yourself?
Blake: Because of it. Michigan driving requires complete situational awareness. It’s not my driving I’m worried about, it’s everyone else’s.
Luigi: You really notice everything around you?
Blake: Sure, take that helicopter at 3:00.
Luigi: (looks to the right) Son of a bitch, how did I miss that?
Blake: I recognize that one, I saw it earlier.
Luigi: So that’s their angle, the cops are using air units to track us.
Blake: Doesn’t look like a police shopper though, that means it could be two things.
Luigi: Race officials monitoring events?
Blake: That or government operatives working with the police.
Luigi: I don’t like this.
Blake: Keep a sharp eye, we’re not exactly low profile, but at least we’re not the most eye-catching cars in the race.
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Chapter 6: Keeping your cool.
Pyrenees, South France, 14:20PM. 8th of October 1995. 4462km to Athens.
The google maps route can be seen here.
“Looks like we’re having a serious snow flurry here, huh…” - Said one of the meteorologists, tightly grabbing her seat. The gray helicopter veered left and right, inspecting each and every of the peaks of the Pyrenees, following the roads.
“Indeed. Have you sent the data to the station?” - Replied the other meteorologist, coughing between words. “We should send a notice to the authorities so they can cut traffic through the secondary roads. There’s going to be many ice plates on the pavement.” - Concluded the man.
“Sure thing. The temperature has also dropped a few degrees below zero, so it shouldn’t take long for the humidity to become water and then freeze” - Replied the woman, as she took a look at the roads below them. “Hang on, what the heck was that again?”. - Said as she realized the group racing each other.
The driver of the Chaucer was looking at his rear view mirror. With the Armada chasing him once again, the lime green wagon was trying to be faster and faster each and every turn. Its driver was finding it increasingly difficult to keep the car under control as the wheels spun over the fresh ice; countersteering like he never had before, he started braking and heel toeing through the gears to take the next turn.
All of the drivers noticed a sign placed in the right side of the road: FRANCE.
Musical suggestion by @DeusExMackia!
(Special rule! Freezingly cold: the road is icy and snowy, allowing cars with a drivability higher than 0.5 to reroll their failed drivability checks, as they will be easier to control in said weather.)
The narrow D618 was confining the racers, who kept pushing their cars despite the weather and narrowness of the road; sooner than they would want, the first village appeared. In order to avoid it, all of the racers took the left exit of the roundabout, heading for the mountains once again.
Quickly approaching the first few turns, the Dolphine veered left and right, pressuring the driver of the Fatalita. The pressure started building up in the mind of the driver of the latter, thinking the driver of the Dolphine could try anything in any moment. This pressure kept building up and up, until the driver of the italian car made a mistake: braking too late. Hugging the wall, affortunately not suffering any damage appart from a few scratches, he could recover; Xavier, however, had already taken the inside, overtaking them.
“Gotcha!” - Thought Xavier, as he looked the Fatalita on his rear view mirror. It was time to move on to the next car.
Meanwhile, the Kiito had recovered quite a few lost minutes. Drafting behind the T-25, with Jake barking at the drivers, the Biirch kept trying and trying to overtake Otis, without too much success.
“We’re not gonna overtake him at this rate, Teuvo!” - Said Jorma, looking at the massive truck in front of them. “I got this…I just need…” - Replied Teuvo.
Teuvo placed the car in the inside, braking very late; the car wouldn’t stop itself, but he took advantage of the mass of the truck to use it as a pivot. None suffered damage appart from the obvious paint scratches. Teuvo then floored it, effectively passing the truck, who was forced to either brake or lose control.
As the snow flurry gained strength, more and more cars started to want to spin out. The drivers of the F219+35 accidentally bumped the Cannonero, that spun out and crashed into a sign, with some of the snow entering the engine bay. The car wouldn’t start, forcing its driver to go out and revise it, not without cursing the pink hypercar first.
Another accident was caused by Theodora’s Interval. As she pursued the Conquista, she decided to slightly bump the rear, to make it break loose and spin out. And she managed to do so, and not only that: she managed to get the yellow coupé stuck in the snow, it’s driver punching the steering wheel as he tried to get the car out. The Comet GT-R couldn’t react in time, poorly avoiding the stuck car and spining out into snow as well. The driver of the XR-3 drifted around them, mocking both drivers as he left them behind.
The road became more and more technical as soon as the entered the N116. Going through La Cabanasse, hairpins started appearing again. The cars were getting more and more unstable due to the ice plates, and the Bushranger used this to approach the Chevallier. However, the sliding the Johnny and Elliot were fighting allowed them to block every attempt from the Bogliq to overtake them. But they shouldn’t lower their guard: the muscle car was still not giving up, following them closely.
The last overtake, during the last kilometres of the mountain pass, came from the Bandito minivan. With great control, the driver managed to go around the Erin, overtaking them.
With the last few hairpins being left behind, the driver knew they would soon rejoin the main roads; their next waypoint would the French Riviera.
To be continued.
Times spreadsheet:
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Team Marx
Karl: Wow, talk about a snowstorm up here
Lenin: Pah, this is nothing like Siberia.
Karl: True, but last time you were driving something there, you most likely would have been driving a Model T, not a big V8 sedan.
Lenin: No need to worry, the tactics are largely the same. just sit back and watch, I got this
Karl: I really hope you do.
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Cath and Julia’s Slightly Illegal Grand Tour of Europe - Part 4!
Two middle aged women, a boot full of booze and an Erin Scarlet!
–
Cath and Julia were beginning to accept that they weren’t going to be at the front of the pack. Still, after a pit stop and a driver change, they were certainly switching up their driving style as Julia took the wheel on the twisty Pyreneesian roads.
“Bloody hell, Jules, I don’t think the insurance covers this!” exclaimed Cath, certainly conveying her underlying fear. Julia was actually a perfectly good driver, it’s just that Cath thought she was better.
This being the original, Mk 1 Scarlet, there was only very limited traction control. Certainly not enough for deal with mountain roads covered in snow. Still, that didn’t stop Julia push it.
“Jerry loves coming skiing here you know” - Jerry was Julia’s retired husband. “Gorgeous views, and much fewer student gap-year chalet staff members”.
“I thought you were rather fond of the chalet boys?” questioned Cath.
Julia turned to her, and smirked.
Cath tutted, sarcastically.
Just then, a green van came bouncy round the corner behind them, the sound of a snarly V8 blaring out of it. “What in hells bells is this yank doing?” asked Julia, dismissively.
The van, of course, was the Bandito. It drafted in behind them, then made its move once the road was clear, and speed off past them.
“Bloody green yob!” shouted Julia, though that didn’t seem to do anything.
“We really are the slowcoaches here, aren’t we?” said Cath.
Julia sighed. “Yes” she said. “But then again, these views”
“Ooh I know right!” Cath replied immediately. “And I can’t wait to have some actual croissants and none of those Safeway plastic packaged ones…”
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Marcus threw the car around the twisty winding mountain roads, the snow not phasing him in the slightest. He grew up in Chicago with his dad’s trusty 1970 Storm Commander, a V8 RWD boat that handled poorly in any weather. Snow was something he understood very well. RWD and high power, even more so. So to combine the two, he felt unstoppable.
The windshield wipers clunked quietly across the windshield, barely noticed among the other noises coming from the XR-3. The ragged, staccato patter of the big inline three, the screeching tires, the blower fan on high, the coolant gurgling through the heater core, and the quiet hum of the fuel pump, desperately straining to shove cold gasoline up to the front of the car.
Mark’s confidence was high as he pushed the XR-3 up the road, the back end sliding out in a casual drift as he made his way around a few more corners. Up ahead, he saw an accident, and then another car get stuck in the snow trying to avoid the accident. He laughed, rolled down the window, threw some garbage out at the Comet GT-R, then stomped on the gas and kicked snow over both the Comet GT-R and the Conquista as he fishtailed away. “Losers who can’t handle snow have no place on the road!” he yelled, rolling the window up.
The XR-3 slithered around on the snowy mountain road, skidding on some of the ice, but Marcus kept the car under control and left the mountain pass.
(Out of character here, but yeah, don’t take it personally. The round host says Marcus mocked the drivers, and so he mocked the drivers. Throwing garbage and insults, and then throwing snow all over the cars on the way past, sounds like mockery to me.)
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Our intrepid men in the Petoskey Montauk continue their journey through the icy mountain roads. Blake is currently driving, deeply focused on the task. Between his caution and the Montauk’s DRIVESAFE system, the team weaves through the roads without incident.
Blake: (feels the back end of the car start to slip, he presses the clutch in to keep that from happening)
Luigi: We’re not gonna catch anyone this way.
Blake: We’re not gonna catch anyone period if we’re dead. These roads are slick.
Luigi: Did it even rain in these parts?
Blake: Doesn’t matter. If it’s humid, that’ll freeze.
Luigi: Great.
Blake: Relax, we’ll be fine.
(In keeping with the icy roads)
(Since the year is 1995, I figure only footage of the original Mario Kart would be appropriate.)
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From the sheer amount of snow that had just fallen, Walter knew that the first few miles in France were going to be even more difficult than the entire Spanish leg of the run, and as such, he approached the next section with some trepidation - hence his decision to back off and drive more cautiously in the mountains.
In the frigid conditions that had set in throughout the Pyrenees, the Guardsman’s drivability - no doubt helped by its modest power output and linear normally aspirated engine - became more and more of a handy asset. It had counted for nothing up until now, though, which explains why it had fallen farther and farther behind since the start. Still, after having heard that some of his rivals up ahead had crashed into the scenery or, worse yet, each other, Walter was somewhat fortunate to have avoided any incidents. And as he headed downhill towards the Riviera, his confidence returned, prompting him to revert to a more aggressive strategy for the next leg.
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quick question before writing: what is meant by this? Drivability of greater than 50? Drivability more than half the sportiness? The degree to which they fail a drivability check?
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“…That’s bad, isn’t it Zocca?” Christoforo replied.
Pasquale thought back to his days as a conscript with the Aeronautica Militare and exhaled slowly, puffing his cheeks out as he shrugged; “I mean it could just be an avalanche patrol, but that just means they’ll have a set of eyes on the ground instead of just where they’re going…”
Christoforo clapped his partner on the shoulder and smiled, “Well, they’re up there and we’re down here; about the only thing they’ll be able to say is that we are red! C’mon, your turn to drive!” Both men hopped back in the car and set off toward the Pyrenees, the peaks shrouded by cloud in what appeared to be a late-season storm. As the car climbed up the pass, the drizzle gave way to a few big, white snowflakes, the temperature dropping steadily. Christoforo turned on the blower and set it to defrost, though after a few minutes he silently cursed the pathetic fan and complete lack of heat…this car was designed for sunny days on the Amalfi Coast, not this miserable shitty weather!
Meanwhile in the driver’s seat, Pasquale was finding the old car becoming more and more unruly as the road surface slowly started to turn white; hazardous conditions in a nice, modern car, and even more dangerous in an old Italian roadster with a peaky engine, no traction control and summer tires. Each corner suddenly became an exercise in careful driving; trying to find grip with the front and the rear axles, feathering the throttle to try and mitigate the emormous wheelspin that nearly four hundred horsepower can produce on a slippery surface, the car drifting luridly at low speed around the hairpin turns of the mountain pass. Suddenly, the team comes across a bright yellow coupe, apparently struggling in the conditions just as much as the Scagliati. Pasquale throws the 330 down a gear and finds a bit of less slippery tarmac, and overtakes the Perenne under braking, getting the car turned quicker and slingshotting to the next switchback.
“Yeah man, that’s how it’s done!” Christoforo whooped from the passenger seat, rubbing the fog off the inside window to catch the Perenne disappear into the snowstorm in the side mirror. Pasquale’s mood fed on the bold overtake, pushing the car just a little harder as his confidence in the machine started to build. Mile after mile he slid the 330 through tight bends, up and down steep inclines as they wound their way down the pass. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were enjoying yourself!” Christoforo said as the car slowed for another hairpin. In that moment, a Peugeot entered the corner from the opposite direction, cutting the corner a little too much. Pasquale shouted a string of profanities in Italian, blowing the horn as the car fishtailed under braking, sliding off the road and into a snowbank, accompanied by a THUMP as the car came to a halt. Both men climbed out of the car, fearing the mangled metal they might find as the approached the beached front end of the 330; to their amazement, the lower valence was only slightly bent, without even so much as a scratch in the paint!
“We’re probably going to need to push out of the bank…” Pasquale said with a wry smile, eyeing his co-driver, twenty years his junior.
"Christoforo sighed; “you know, these Santonis are a million lire a pair, right?” he said, looking down at his shoes.
“Yeah, but my suit is eight million…” Pasquale replied cheekily as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. Christoforo braced against the snow as Pasquale eased the car backward, inching off the snowbank and back onto the pavement after more than a little struggle. Christoforo climbed back in and sighed, catching his breath as they set off down the pass once again.
“New rule; whomever gets the car stuck has to push it out…deal?”
“Deal!” Pasquale said as both men laughed, proceeding along their way with a little less exuberance than before.
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Taking a guess based on what is written as the drivability on the spreadsheet, my car had a 56 drivability, so on the spreadsheet he wrote it as 0.558. I’m guessing he made it a factor of 0-100 and then compressed it down to 0-1 for purposes of math, so by 0.5 he means 50 drivability. just a guess tho
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Yeah I agree. I thought this might be the case but it’s always worth clarifying!
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Cindy gradually started to shiver more and more as the roads gained in altitude. “Shit, I wish I had time to stop and grab my jacket.” Her shorts and tank top weren’t suited for this altitude at all. But luckily, the Thunderbolt’s heater was more than strong enough to preserve the feeling in her extremities.
She decided to limit herself to 4,000 RPM until the ice cleared. The 3.3’s high revving nature meant it could easily be kept in line if she didn’t give it the chance to hit peak torque. She went about scuttling through the mountains, occasionally allowing the tail to kick out, but reeling it back in before it turned into a tankslapper. “I just had to go through my coffee on the highway,” she barked at herself.
Luckily, the road did straighten out soon enough, allowing the pack, and by extension, the 3.3, to rev out once more. However, there was still a problem occasionally rearing it’s ugly face over the horizon. That mystery helicopter. “I still don’t know who’s in there, but I have a feeling something’s gonna happen soon. That thing has to be monitoring us. Maybe we should scatter.”
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The weather was getting worse, Otis was familiar with driving in snow… deep snow… on a dirt road… in the mountains… with a 4x4… but trying to maintain 100+ mph on a paved icy mountian road… not so much.
Jake had been watching the car approaching for some time, barking left… right… right behind depending on which side of the seat he was standing on while looking out the back. This left Otis not really needing to look back too often and focus on the now tretcherous road ahead.
Otis knew the kiito was gaining even without looking, Jake was telling him in his own way what side they were coming up on. With the two being so closly matched it took several miles pass with the Kiito flitting back and fourth trying to find a gap past the truck before one finally opened up that was almost big enough as Otis had over committed to a turn sliding wide. The Kiito had also over committed to the turn, but on purpose using the side of the truck to help them make the turn and get by.
“Rubbing is Racing” Otis commented as the Kiito made it by proudly wearing black streaks down its side. Of couse there are surely blue streaks up the side of the truck. Watching the Road cat slid off the road into a snow bank, Otis was reminded to take it a bit cautiously followed by seeing the cannonerro burried deep in the snow with its hood up.
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Team Angus - Chapter Six
Team Angus - Chapter Five
GAR - Chapter 6
8Th of October, 2:20PM, The Pyrenees, South France
As we rocketed across the border it became clear that the snow was here to stay. Visibility was poor and the road was very slippery, ice was everywhere and large snowbanks had formed at the sides of the tight, twisty roads. I couldn’t believe just how sketchy the Bushrangers handling had become, every prod of the throttle elicited bulk oversteer and braking started massive understeer which was almost terminal at times!
Then it clicked. I had to find the rhythym just like on Dirt Rally… I replicated the easy slide, catch, slide of the ice racer and found myself able to increase my speed substantially. This meant that we caught up to the Chevallier a number of times through the pass but I was unable to translate my new found driving skills into a successful passing manoeuvre. We sliced and diced through the tight, technical roads with the Chev an ever present, yet tantalisingly out of reach, target to keep me focussed. My only regret was that we were unable to stop at that little village near the border, I bet they made delicious croissants and coffee…
Both Valeria and Ben woke up near the end of the stage. Ben was initially startled to have a grey cat in his lap but Sooty licked his nose, purred loudly then settled on his shoulder. Ben decided that, since Sooty was such a nice cat, Valeria could stay as well. Ben and I discussed how well the Bushranger was handling and Ben began to prep himself for taking over driving duties somewhere near the Riviera towns and villages. At this point Valeria pointed out that she had friends in the area and therefore we’d have somewhere we could lay low if required. Having agreed to a plan of action, I mentally steeled myself for action then planted the hammer down, determined to beat that damn Chev, once and for all…
TO BE CONTINUED
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cough 1995 cough, Team Angus are time travellers confirmed 
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It’s indeed 50 drivability! I divide the drivabilites by 100 to be able to keep the data in an easier to control format.
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Ah, Dirt Rally - didn’t even notice that one.
Anyone else thinks that @HighOctaneLove should place one timeline mess-up in every Chapter post as an easter egg of sorts?
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