Barely Street Legal League [SURVEY ON PAGE 70]

[strop]

[Ooc] When you said empty bottles, Molotov's was the first thing that came to mind!

[8bs]

[ooc] well, it's better than nothing!!

[strop]

Okay, I'm going to start writing things up in the coming 2 days. Just to reiterate, this is what I have so far:

1) 8bs gets caught first at the end of the first lap (this is fine, 8bs' car is considerably slower on a second lap than the first due to not being suited to racing for too long ). Tries to hold car up with Molotovs. Then Roland decides to open fire on Hasira. This is interpreted as open season on the BSLL, and pretty soon everybody gets to deal with live ammo whizzing around their ears.
2) Jack in the Felicia draws fire away by hacking into the comms system and trolling the Agents. He will eventually get his comms shut down. On the plus size he craps out their speakers by throwing the mic at it, so they're flying solo.
3) Kristina and co. are working on shutting Hasira's engine down. However since they've accessed via the same port as Jack, and Jack has the more powerful transmitter, Aixa can't get past. They try to raise Jack to tell him, but Jack's too busy busting rhymes. It's only after Jack's comms get shut down that they have a chance to break in.
4) Rayyan calls a couple of his loose cannon buddies for 'air support'. I get the feeling this is going to cause a multi-way battle between the helicopters of uncertain origin, them, and possibly Vos' Fiona.
5) Reece has been quiet for a while, but I guarantee you, he's going to go bezerk. He doesn't want to go to jail again, no matter which country it is.
6) Tom uses his James Bond special tricked out ride to escape to safety... at least, to avoid getting into trouble on the track. Getting out of the venue itself is a much harder proposition.
7) Comparatively speaking, many (but not all) of the other drivers are going to keep their heads down and try and do their laps while dodging the cops, bullets, caltrops and spike strips.

As for how it all unfolds and what happens next, you'll see!

[EnryGT5]

(ooc) I wonder if the X90 will come close to Hasira, since it apparently reached Tom in the second lap...

[VosNox]

[Ooc] I'm pretty sure my Kodiak will be more less bullet proof, considering its made of 1960's steel. More than that, however, i think its the heavier If not heaviest of the race, so it can definitely throw its weight around.

[8bs]

[ooc] Sounds nice!! And i ensure to you guys that not one single drop of precious Gin was wasted on the molotov's!!

[strop]

[Ooc] EGT has a big advantage on the track, being AWD hatch and consistently performs pretty strongly. In normal race conditions, it will never be caught by Hasira but these are not normal race conditions! (More like ultra death race destruction derby conditions). It seems that Tom was trying to warm the car up for a hot lap and may have hung back on the first lap.

Which is fine, because a) even if these cars are ultra tuned, its fairly unwise to attempt more than one or two hot laps on Nordschleife consecutively, and b) by lap 3, cars and trucks are all over the damn road, all throughout the course. Everybody is fair game, depending on if they want to keep their nose out of trouble.

Most of the cars here are at least resistant to damage due to their construction (unless somebody stuck a plastic car in here, you'd be in huge trouble LOL).

I do plan to write people in according to their character and actions so far. Leo, Matt (HighOctaneLove), Riley, Jason (Necronia), Lothoren, Absution, Duratec, Sturt Decker Jr, Harizvet and Georgi haven't written anything specific throughout so for these purposes I will assume they are mainly here to drive and will just focus on nailing that hot lap, then try to stay out of trouble. The rest depends on the madness scores and what has specifically been said.

[nialloftara]

[ooc]
Dear fiberglass body... it's been a nice run, you and I. As you are shed about the track I shall miss our good times.
Dear steel ladder frame chassis, PROTECT MEEEEE!!! *cries*

[strop]

[ooc] yeah niall you gonna be Swiss cheese LOL. At least you shouldn't get shot too much, if you aren't shooting like a few of the others...

[EnryGT5]

(ooc) Enry's going to do anything for saving himself and his company from those psycho's, but he won't kill anyone, just avoid regular cops and team up with other racers to destroy Hasira, if that fails.... he'll try to run as fast as possible while avoiding damage

[07CobaltGirl]

[OOC] I have a feeling it's about to get as hot and heavy as the backseat of Grandma's sedan on Prom Night at the Nurburgring!

[strop]

[Ooc] Cen and I have now finished mapping out the action plans for everyone this round (because cen is better at story consistency and we need that when factoring 25+ things into one). It's largely a matter of sorting out what happens when and where, and then I write it!

[strop]

Hi guys. Very sorry for the delay. Like many others, I have travel plans over Christmas (except I only get one day off), but unlike many others, I also chose this time to get sinusitis. Man my face hurts. And they want me back on call in 2 days? Not feeling too optimistic about that.

Anyway, obviously, this next chapter is... very long. And action packed. And lots of things going on with lots of development and it's just going to spiral into complete and utter chaos. I will post it in sections, just in case you happen to be looking for the updates, and will post as I finish next sections, over the next few days.

_________________________________________________________

Fleeing the sirens and the waiting Hasira, the two dozen cars of the Barely Street Legal League piled into the descending sharp left hander of Nordkehre. Locking up and sliding around on the slippery surface, in their haste the pack piled up and started bumping each other in the middle, pushing several cars wide.

“Let’s get this ON!” Sam, seemingly oblivious to the seriousness of the situation, whooped as he nosed the car in hard, encroaching on Kai’s line. Kai’s eyes narrowed, and he refused to give way, even with the rubber from the sidewalls of his fronts shaving the skirting of Sleipnir. “Ooh, kid’s ready to play with the big boys now huh?”

“Less talky, more drivey!” Kai radioed back, but with a twisted grin plastered on his face, hands unwinding the lock coming out of the corner and nailing the throttle. In a scarlet blur, Mephisto shot down the hill towards Hatzenbach, Sleipnir and Thanatos in hot pursuit.

Behind them, the pack writhed and interchanged, as some cars hung back, trying to find traction, others having to wait until the wet grass and debris fouling up their contact patch was shorn off the tyres. Forty seconds left for them to find that fine line between speed and sliding into the barriers, and cling to it for their lives. The all-wheel drive coupes, with more traction in the treacherous conditions, took the initiative, the SD-01R rocketing fearlessly past the first of the slight right handed kinks, chased by the Archernar and Mutant. But the middle pack was still a confusing mess of weaving cars and flashing brakelights as they approached the hard right kink. Desperately, tail ends bobbled as they tried to sort themselves into some kind of working order without trading any more paint, and into a single file they crammed themselves, bumper to bumper while scrabbling and sliding around Hatzenbach. The Debrauna with its superior grip won the early right to lead, followed by Strop in the Peapod, ridiculous amounts of downforce keeping the front glued to the road as it swung around with face warping speed. Behind them, the Gemina, Infernalis, Emperion and Brimstone were still figuring it out, almost crossing paths even into the following straight.

“Spread it out! Give each other some room to pick up the pace!” Der Bayer was heard barking over the radio, from the van right up the back, particularly interested to be as far away from the start as possible before Hasira started giving chase, and the cops closed in.

“Hey, guys!” the excitable Enry radioed as they negotiated the winding esses, sticking to the center road so as not to suddenly cross traction zones and spin out before they even began properly. “How do we know the cops aren’t going to be coming from the other direction?”

“Track etiquette,” Der Bayer explained. “The law of Nordschleife is sacred.” And then, after a pause, “To the Germans anyway.”

“I sure bloody hope so,” Strop muttered. “Over three quarters of this track is blind corner. You’d never see anything coming the other way.”

There was an audible gulp through the pack, but fearlessly, they front forged on, spearing out onto the straight of Hocheichen, picking up speed towards the gut-churning crest of Quiddelbacher-Höhe. Two hundred, two hundred and fifty, and the throttle was pinned. The first cars, with their ridiculous levels of downforce, screamed over the crest without so much as a skip, before braking hard and hugging the inside kerb around the fast double apex right hander of Flugplatz. Many of the cars, with their aggressive aero setup, similarly stayed planted, but some of them had a somewhat different setup. The mystery Italian driver of the Mutant, along with Rubik and Mister Greasepaws, all yelped as the front of their car lifted off, bouncing back into the tarmac with a slight thump before nosing in under brakes. Further back, the front wheel drive cars Ruby and HFF went fully airborne, launching off the ramp and crashing back to earth before wrestling around the corner. Worse was the Cottam Inelegance, the behemoth’s frame visibly flexing under the impact of its four wheels hitting the ground all at different times, almost wobbling right off the track and picking up a lot of grass before somehow managing to steer clear of the barriers and get back on the fast section of Schwedenkreuz.

“I hope nobody saw that,” Pleb said to himself, wiping his brow. Fortunately for him, even if they had, their attention was wholly fixed on keeping their car on the road, as the seconds ticked down.

“TIME’S UP!” Roland, in the Testis, yelled. “Hasira is on the move!” He prodded the perennially drunk driver with his hammer, who groaned incoherently in response. “Come on, drive faster!” But Testis wasn’t the only one having trouble on the track. Behind them, slipping and sliding all over the place, was the frankenmonster E30. Inside, Aixa was struggling to hold onto her laptop as it tried to latch onto the signal coming from Hasira, while being thrown each and every way by the nearly uncontrollable car. Kristina was the picture of concentration, throwing the car this way, the brakes, still not up to optimal temperatures, squealing more than they bit. Finally, on Flugplatz, the car hit its stride, and once she slammed the stick into fourth, she nailed it and the car surged forward, breaking the three hundred mark and sliding past Testis, sputtering along in Die Sooner.

“IT’S GO TIME,” Niall, in his ailing Vindicator, hit PLAY on his tape deck, and the strains of Iron Maiden’s shredding guitars and headbanging rock blasted through the cabin, masking all the squeaks and rattles his car had managed to pick up over the last several thousand miles of hard driving.

Another Prophet of Disaster
Who says the ship is lost,
Another Prophet of Disaster
Leaving you to count the cost.
Taunting us with Visions,
Afflicting us with fear,
Predicting War for millions,
In the hope that one appears.

With adrenalin overtaking nerves, the line of cars sped down into the Fuchsröhre, skipping over the kerbs of the slight S going perfectly straight, bottoming out at the dip, lifting off and feathering the brakes so as not to lose it over the blindingly fast left handed crest. In most other cars, there would be a period of acceleration before taking the sweeping right, slowing into the deceptively fast uphill into a sharp left of Adenauer Forst, but the cars of the Barely Street Legal League were something else entirely, and they all had to continue braking well into the uphill, completely lifting off and nosing around, lines weaving awkwardly as only the course veterans knew exactly where to turn in to string the S together.

“Wow, this is incredible!” Sam gasped, drinking in all the scenery as it rushed by, feeling his insides squirm through each and every dip and crest, overwhelmed by the sheer steepness of the gradients. “It’s just like Mount Panorama, except completely different!”

Yet, he noted he was struggling to keep up with the track veteran, Kai, which was hardly surprising, as Kai was in fact the unofficial outright record holder on the track, having driven Nightfury Turbo X, a car approaching one horsepower per pound, if such a thing could even be called a car anymore, around the track faster than any other human, including the late Stephen Bellof, had ever done. Driving the comparatively tame Mephisto was almost a walk in the park for him, and he knew it, swinging wide before throwing the car around the fast left hander of Metzgesfeld sideways, all four wheels spinning as the engine bounced off the rev limiter. Tempted by equal parts lunacy, and equal parts ego, Sam attempted to do the same, only to realise that mid-engined cars with open differentials did not particularly lend themselves to drifting in the same way, and barely caught the tail end as it whipped out, heaping on the throttle. A thousand horses stampeded the wheels and Sleipnir roared, smoking through the corner with full opposite lock, before snapping back into line just in time to brake hard and avoid plowing into the hillside beyond.

After catching his breath, he remarked “Shame the traction’s so shit.”

“Bad workman blames his tools, Sam,” Kai quipped over the radio, leading the pack into the forest once more, with the tightening downhill right of Kallenhard.

In the background, the sounds of sirens faintly echoed through the trees, painting a disorienting soundscape of wails, and the drivers did their best to ignore it and focus on nailing the corners. Miss-hit-miss, go wide on the first kerb, go close for the next ones, then exit wide before braking hard into Wehrseifen…

…it was when the engines dipped back into the low revs and the volume dropped, that everybody realised not only were the sirens getting louder, but also the chopping of the helicopters.

“The fuck?” Vos struggled to peer upwards through the long sloping windshield of his Kodiak, and was treated to an underside view of a dual cockpit attack helicopter, hovering several hundred feet above, but unable to descend further due to the forest.

“Blimey, it’s an Mi-24. What are the Russians doing here!” Rayyan, running just behind the Kodiak near the tail of the pack, wondered out loud.

“I tell you what they’re doing,” Vos snarled, “They’re getting blown the fuck outta the sky.” Without even waiting for a response, he switched channels. “Fiona? Come in Fiona, damn you to hell!”

“Now hold on a blimmin’ minute mate!” Rayyan protested, but his British accent was lost on the airwaves, for Vos was already barking orders to his air support. Gritting his teeth, struggling to hold the wheel with one hand, with his other he pulled out an emergency phone from a secret pocket in his flight jacket, complete with red and black stripes. “Rogue squadron, this is Wingnut, do you read?”

“Loud and clear, Wingnut,” came the static-infused reply. “Rogue squadron is standing by.”

“It’s on,” Rayyan said simply. “Your marks are any and all Mi-24s, and an unidentified flying object. Engage only if hostile or targeting surface objects.”

“An unidentified flying object? Please clarify.”

“Clarify?” Rayyan spluttered, nearly losing the car to torque steer coming out of the sharp left of Ex-Mühle. “You’ll know what I mean when you see it! Now get moving on the double!”

“Copy that Wingnut, we are inbound, ETA ten minutes.”

Ten minutes, was that soon enough? The cars had now reached the very bottom of the course, the drivers feeling they had descended into the very pits of the earth, the impenetrable forest surroundings casting a gloom. But the hairpin of Bergwerk marked the sharp uphill climb of the Kesselchen run, the steep gradient a strain on many engines, but light work for these overpowered machines. Speedos climbing rapidly past two hundred, two hundred and fifty, while the forest blurred by, the lead cars had to brake hard, squeezing into the tricky left kink of Mutkurve. Hearts leapt through mouths as the early apex deceived the eye, and the tarmac ran out on the right, the barriers leering at drivers from the bare strip of grass beyond the kerb. A few seconds later, a dab on the brakes again for Klostertal to nose the front in around the right kink, and then harder on the brakes for a much tighter right. Up the unrelenting slope, towards the breaking sun they raced, until they broke into open air for the first time in two minutes, and onto the legendary Karussell. The roar and thump of the concrete drain paving stones under their wheels was echoed by the distant helicopters, then as the cars climbed the rest of the mountain towards Hohe Acht, they appeared, like hovering black beetles in the distance.

“It’s too crowded still!” Tom, in the Brimstone, fought for room with the other cars in the pack, unable to find a good rhythm or line through the deceptively tricky left right, and then the cresting peak that faded right, but punctuated with plenty of bumps and uneven surface. In front of him, the Emperion and Mutant, inherently different cars, wove all over the road, the latter carving through the middle of the road with the tempered understeer of the all-wheel drive, and the former hogging the inside line, snatching up the apex before the rear wheels spun and the tail end snapped out, pushing the car wide as it skidded down the hill. There was no room to move, let alone pass, and if he was even a quarter of a second later on the brakes, he’d bowl them all straight off the track. “I’m going to hang back,” he declared, easing off the throttle and indicating right, promptly letting the Yacare, Griffin and Annihilator through.

“Are you sure Tom?” a wide-eyed Elena asked him, fidgeting nervously with the restraint. “After all, the cops are up the back…” Ignoring the flashing lights of an irate Reece in the Hulk, the giant Cadillac simply too wide to pass cleanly through the snaking treachery of Hedwigshöhe, Tom gazed at Elena and once again he felt a fluttering in his chest akin to, yet far different from the adrenalin laced energy of the confrontation. That a random encounter on this trip would bring a love for adventure and more, a certain hunger to take things to extremes… to stare fear straight in the face and not waver… if she had been any different, she would have already left long ago, but despite everything, here she was, and what an adventure this was turning out to be! Her questions were not doubts, they were tests. Tests to see how far he could take them both, and right now, he would take her through Hell and back. He flashed her a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry dear, I’ve made a few extra preparations just for this.” He reached over and flicked a switch on the new device clipped to the Brimstone’s dashboard, and it flickered to life, showing on the screen an overlay of the immediate surroundings, the cars marked in highlights. “Anything nasty on track, and we’ll know it.”

The palpable nervous energy intensified as the perceived gap between the League and its pursuers closed, speed limited to between a hundred and a hundred and fifty, poking their way through the winding third segment. Opening up the taps down Brünnchen, they passed the hill where spectators would often stand and take pictures of cars carrying too much speed and wiping out on the exit. But now, instead of spectators, they saw special police vans screeching to a halt, armored officers pouring out from the rear doors. Definitely, all the exits were being sealed. But the road was still the most formidable enemy to all of them, and they poked their way out, careful not to lose traction on the corner lest they find themselves an early appointment with Armco and then later on the cops, or worse. After that difficult corner was something even more daunting, the sharply rising slope of Eiskurve, shrouded in shadows, looming up between the taller trees that reached for the skies, obscuring their view of most of the corner and the apex. Kai, still leading, plunged confidently through the corner, not even heeding the ice that hung thickest on this part of the road. Pulling extra lock, Mephisto nosed in, then the throttle opened, bouncing hard off the limiter in second as he pulled another four wheel drift, the rears scraping against the kerb before snapping back to neutral balance, and keeping it pinned all the way, threading the eye of the needle through to Pflanzgarten.

In clearer air now, the frost on the track faded away and the cars sped up considerably, but as they emerged into the sunlight, the helicopters picked them back up on visual and started closing in once more. Jack, staying on the flank of the Testis, radioed to the Testis. “Roland! What do you make of the choppers?”

Speakers crackling with each bump, Roland responded: “They don’t seem to know the course, which gives us some time, but once they realise we’re on a circuit, we might have trouble.”

“How much trouble? I thought you said the other Mods were already negotiating with them.”

“That would be to explain that it wasn’t actually the Americans trying to start a nuclear war,” Roland said testily. “As far as the Russians are concerned, one of the cars on this track has a terrorist in it, and that’s still a problem to them.”

“You don’t think they’re going to, you know. Fire at us? I’m not sure how much we can do against missiles…”

“Well, let’s hope they don’t want to start any more trouble with the EU than they already have.” There was a pause, and then a burst of derisive laughter. “One can dream, right?”

“I can see the headlines now,” Jack muttered to himself as he flicked his trusty Combi around Schwalbenschwanz, the slight negative camber throwing the car off balance, which he countered with liberal application of throttle, powering into oversteer. Rear wheels smoking, he held opposite lock with one hand while the other primed his banhammer, for what it was worth. “Carnage at Nordschleife. Putin blames Ukranian terrorists trying to frame Russia.”

The field bunched up once more, teetering across the other set of paved stones in the much smaller Kleine Karussel, and yet another steep hill and long, blind corner with late apex awaited them. Aptly named Galgenkoph, it left them hanging until suddenly, the road opened up and it was the long long straight of Dottinger-Höhe.

“This is where it gets messy,” Strop said to himself from near the front of the pack, immediately signalling right to let the faster cars, which was to say, just about every one of them, past. But Der Bayer came on the radio with another command. “Stay in your running order! Limit your speed to three hundred, and do not overtake, we can’t afford to have traffic this lap!”

“Screw that,” Reece, disturbingly quiet through the last round, finally spoke. “I’m not going back to no jail no matter what country it is.” And with that, he floored it, three thousand horses breaking out all at once. A mighty gust buffeted the cars as it blew by them as if they were standing still, topping an incredible four hundred and eighty, and in the space of a few seconds, it had dipped around Antoniusbusche and out of sight. Likewise, Vos had no intention of hanging around, and gave it the beans, but his ageing Kodiak, nowhere near as quick, struggled to pass anyone. In the end, Der Bayer’s command fell on largely deaf ears as many of them were overcome by the temptation of the long straight, and it ended up in an all-out drag race fuelled by pride, excitement, anxiety, fury… By the time they were hard on the brakes for the delicate hook of Hohenrain, the field had been completely rearranged, with the Hulk and the Yacare up the front, followed by the high speed all-wheel drives, the Moldovian Lunatic and the ridiculous Ruby. Even the Vindicator and the Elegance had found themselves well into the first half, relegating the slower cars to the back, and therefore, closer to the clutches of Hasira and the pursuing police, who, with their less powerful but generally far better balanced 911s, R8s and M5s, were actually capable of keeping up with, if not catching up to several of the League cars. For her part, Kristina, knowing her car was not capable of keeping it together for much longer, had pushed hard all lap to make the first one count, and found herself well up the order for once, but knew that was all about to change.

Curiously, Mephisto and Sleipnir had followed the instruction, keeping almost nose to tail as they rounded the final corner onto T13, and the start line. “Hey, Crash,” Sam radioed. “Remember that bet we had going?”

“How could I forget,” Kai replied. “I’m winning, after all.”

“Not if I win this round!” Sam taunted. “And then loser tattoo for youuuu!”

“Bullshit,” Kai shot back, “I’d have to finish third or worse for you to even catch up. It’s you who’s going to have LOSER stamped on your forehead!”

“Just try not to crash, Crash, now READYSETGO!” On cue, the cars crossed the start line side by side, and they came to life again, battling for track position to take Nordkehre once more.

___________________________________________________________________

Stay tuned for lap 2, where things get [i]explosive![/b] Will try to post in the coming hours.

Otherwise, have a Merry Christmas!

[Manche]

good lord... more than anyone bargained for

[xABSOLUTIONx]

where are them results?