Sun Dec 28, 2014 3:19 am
The Gauntlet (lap 2 + RESULTS OF FINAL RACE)
They are coming, in fact, just as I am about to finish this post! (i.e. about 10 minutes away)
EDIT: Hi guys, sorry about that delay. Well, actually, thanks to the story getting all kinds of crazy, I have been delaying the results well past the intended date. I think in terms of story the day is actually 29th November, but we are now about a month behind schedule. For that, I apologise to the people who simply wanted to see how their cars ran.
For this reason, today's installment includes the recording of the fastest lap time, therefore I'm in a position to be able to post the result itself! Therefore, after this, you will be able to tell where your car stands in the TRUE RACER category. However, I still haven't released all the information regarding the build type and age, therefore you won't yet know what the final results of CRAZY RACER and ULTIMATE BSLL RIDER are just yet. But I will have those up in a couple of days.
As usual, the results are at the end of the action. For those of you who ARE reading the story, it's getting heated up!
_____________________________________________________
In the E30, Aixa pumped her fist. “Yes! I have signal!”
Struggling to keep all four wheels on the tarmac, Kristina tightened her grip on the wheel. The laptop had proven capable at least for the first part of their plan, but being in range also meant that Hasira was closing the gap. Two kilometres, on this track, that was less than a minute behind. Muttering a bastardised prayer she coaxed the car around Hatzenbach, battling simultaneous under and oversteer. Could they hold off Hasira long enough? “Okay Aixa, let’s start with the comms network. Then probe it for device IDs and hope to God their central module runs the drive systems too.”
“You got it!” Aixa’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she murmured, completely focused on her work despite being jostled against the restraints. “Setting up remote server, check, DOS primed, check, and, oh, rats, a network key. Where’s my decrypter… stupid progress bar, hurry up!”
Further back, Der Bayer laboured over the wheel of the GG Transit van, dwarfing the tiny Testis as it puttered around the track. Aside from a particularly twitchy throttle, the van was surprisingly responsive and pliant, almost easy to drive with the aids on (with the aids off, however, would be an entirely different prospect). This assessment, he was not sure was shared by his passengers, Hannah, hands bunched tight over the harness as she experienced the most tense ride of her entire life, and Tesla, too, eyes screwed shut, paws over face, whimpering a prayer to Dog. He could only imagine what Noah, relegated to the cargo hold, was thinking. Worse, he was sure he had seen the Brimstone deliberately hang back, but he had priorities, and just had to trust that Tom knew what he was doing.
“I trust you know what you’re doing Tom!” Elena said, glancing behind her, face reflecting the glow of the police lights. “Because the cop car is right behind us!”
Already? Tom looked at the speedo, then frowned to himself. Maybe he had taken it a little too easy, after all, this was barely the start of the lap and it was a little early to have to start stalling. Knowing Hasira had more straight line speed, he was confident he could hold it off through Hocheichen, but it would definitely close the distance at Schwedenkreuz. Flugplatz came up, and his gut lurched as the car rose over the crest, then braked to hug the inside of the fast corner. His finger automatically went to the console under the dash in preparation. This time, he knew what was coming, and this time, he was ready.
“Look out!” In the mirrors, Tom saw vents on Hasira open. Instinctively, he tapped the brake, mashing his finger into the button on the console. Tom and Elena were crushed into their seats as the jump jets fired, and the car lifted up, and over, with Hasira overshooting and the grappling hook firing off harmlessly into the trees. Caught by surprise, Hasira then went on to overshoot the cresting left kink approaching Aremberg, and bounced off into the grass, sliding this way and that as it struggled to avoid the barriers.
“That should buy us enough time,” Tom said, satisfied. Next to him, Elena let out a sigh of relief, and the Brimstone picked up the pace again, screeching around Aremberg, and accelerating down the Fuchsröhre, already closing in fast on Testis and the van.
At the apex of Adenauer Forst, the front tyres protested as Vos seesawed in the Kodiak, understeer in one direction pushed into understeer in the other. Straightening out for Metzgesfeld, he looked up, and his blood ran cold. Hovering over the track in the conveniently placed field, hardpoints pointed directly at him, were two Mi-24s. If there was any doubt over what their intentions were before, there was sure a hell of a lot less now.
“Fiona!” he barked into the comms. “Unless you want to be out of a job because your boss got vaporized, now would be a good time!” Gritting his teeth, he planted his foot down anyway, charging at the helicopters.
Suddenly, a large black mass screamed past, the trees swaying with the gust. The wind buffeted the steel body of the Kodiak, but better yet, sent the helicopters wheeling around. One managed to rise up and away from the treeline, but the other went too close, the tail clipping some branches. Smoke pouring out of the fuselage, the helicopter kept spinning, dropping further and further until the rotor also clipped the tree trunks. A series of metallic clanks rung through the forest, followed by a bone jarring crash, and, as Vos left the field behind him and made the turn into Kallenhard, the bright flaming cloud of an exploding helicopter blossomed into the sky.
“I hope the fuckers burn in hell,” Vos muttered to himself, the glimmer of satisfaction enough that he did not even mind when the tiny front wheel drive hatch RB-02 buzzed past him on the outside of Miss-Hit-Miss.
Barely a bend further ahead, but far enough that he had sunk into the forest to be blinded to the events that had just transpired, Rayyan frowned as his radio went wild. “There’s a sudden spike in chatter!” he radioed, a plethora of panicked messages in German, English and Russian overlapping and becoming a garbled stream of noise. Flicking a switch, he cut of all but the English speaking channel, which was populated by American twang. “There’s been an explosion in Metzges Field!” “Can you get a visual?” “Looks like one of the helicopters, near the sighting of Black Box.”
Black Box? Rayyan almost lost himself in his thoughts and overshot the slow tightening left hander of Wehrseifen, front wheels spinning as the HFF pushed uncomfortably close to the grass. Scrambling at the wheel, he put one ear back onto the radio. “Is that thing ours?” “I thought it was, but I have no idea what it’s doing here.” “Same, I don’t have clearance to know anything more about it.”
“Heads up, we’ve reports of three new marks inbound!”
Instantly, he picked up his hotline phone. “Come in Rogue Squadron.” But he was approaching Bergwerk, and the trees lining both sides thickly obscured the signal, and all he got was static. Seconds later, starting the uphill Kesselchen run, he saw the familiar silhouette of the Harrier jets flash by, followed by a thunderous roar. “Ready and waiting for further orders, Wingnut! And by golly you’re right, what on earth is that thing?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s one of ours.” Rayyan shouted into the hotline. “At any rate, if they’re engaging each other, keep your nose out of it. But if they’re targeting anything on the ground, take them out!”
“Roger that, we’ll run the perimeter, over and out,” came the reply, and the jets pulled up, wheeling away and looping back towards the fray.
“New problem, people!” Der Bayer radioed from the back. “The police are moving in! And it looks like they’re going to try and shut the race down- ow!” he was cut off abruptly as one of the police cars shunted into his rear quarterpanel. Fortunately, the van was too heavy and sturdy to be perturbed by a mere PIT.
“Watch the paint!” Hannah gasped in indignation.
“I’ll give them something to think about!” pushing hard through Kesselchen, Der Bayer deliberately stuck to the left approaching Mutkurve, and as the cop in the 911 drew alongside, sirens blaring, he let the van run wide, bumping the front of the 911 (accompanied by another admonishment from Hannah and a whimper from Tesla) and forcing it onto the shoulder, where it bounced off the barriers. But even as he disposed of one of them, another cop car took its place, wailing away on his tailgate. “Kubby! A little help over here!”
“Sorry!” Jack radioed back, barely a curve ahead. “I got my hands full too. It looks as if the cops have set up all around the course!”
“Guys,” Tom interrupted, “They’re setting up spike strips all over the place, I just jumped one at Karussell. I’ll get my guys to clear them away, but you have to draw the cops off first.”
Jack, in the Felicia Combi, looked up just in time to see the spike strip, partially covering the inside lane to Karussell. “Drift wagon, yo!” he shouted, veering to the right before applying the brakes hard and swinging left. The moment he let the brakes go, the back slid out and he banged the engine right against the limiter, carving a perfect circle with the tailgate almost scraping the barriers. No sooner had he exited Karussell, than three cop cars set up on his tail, lights flashing. He pulled away on the straight but on the tricky left kink, which, as always, seemed to come over a crest, he had to slow and the cop cars, with their lower power to weight ratio, attacked the corner hard, threatening to box him in as they approached the tight bumpy complex at the top of Hohe Acht. “This won’t do!” Jack said to himself, hogging the inside line and allowing the tail to step out just a little bit, but reeling it in before the cop could accelerate to bump and throw him off balance. “Come on then, bring it!”
Streaking through the back sector of the course, Kai and Sam, their cars so fast the cops posed no threat when coming from behind, continued their heated battle, weaving past the slower cars. Sleipnir held the advantage with superior downforce and balance. Carving the lines like a surfer through the barrel of a wave, Sam whooped as despite the conditions, Sleipnir ran swiftly and surely, piling on grip and more grip, and with each undulation of the road, each blind corner, he was getting faster and faster, leaving the brutish Mephisto further and further behind. “Soon you won’t even be able to suck my exhaaaauuuuust!”
“Just you wait, I’ll catch you on the straight, then you can suck MY exhaust.” Feeling a surge of adrenalin, Kai pushed the pedal just that bit harder coming out of Brünnchen, and the Mephisto resisted, straightening up prematurely from the corner and forcing him to lift off and nose in again. Argh, rookie error. “Just you wait.” Somewhere ahead of them, the Thanatos Estate was still running well ahead, but hopefully, he was ahead on time, though of course the best sign of that would be if he actually passed it on the straight too.
Behind them, the order was starting to re-establish itself. The strongest coupe, the Debrauna, had hit its stride and remained glued to the road, gliding over it smoothly. The driver naturally felt all the apices and accelerated out of the curves smoothly, despite the monstrous power and lack of driving aids, and had overtaken nearly every other car, and was content in its own rhythm as it thrummed along the straight towards Pflanzgarten. Just a few seconds behind, strangely enough, was Strop in the Peapod, evidently, when in ninja form, providing more than one extra horsepower. With ridiculous downforce at the front, his car too was glued to the road, the steering brisk and direct.
Further afield, Yuri in the Gemina had broken away from the pack too with a certain sense of satisfaction, the car’s mixture of power and balance serving him well, though still he fumed with the understeer and a certain vagueness in the steering going over the crests. Then, the two all-wheel drives, Enry in the Achernar and Matt in the SD-01R were locked in tense battle, the Achernar’s shorter wheelbase and lightness affording it just that extra bit of cornering to snap the inside line of the deceptively tight right hander of Pflanzgarten, but Matt, his competitive spirit burning as brightly as ever, stayed locked so close to the rear of Enry, that he could read the Achernar’s #ilovetractioncontrol sticker.
Next through the narrow corner was the Infernalis, the higher speed sections serving it well. It was starting to draw away from the Mutant, which lead a very tight pack of cars with, as usual, the Emperion, and also the Yacare, much improved after its brake and wheel readjustment. It was after this, however, that things started to get complicated, because the other cars, for all their power, started to struggle in the corners, and became vulnerable to the police cars swarming seemingly all over the road now. Fortunately, with their excessive engines and drivetrains, many of the cars were weighty beasts, and no amount of nudging and bumping from a police car could dislodge them from their path. In this fashion, the Griffin and Annihilator, powered by all-wheel drive traction, stayed planted to the road, pushing the Porsches to the outside of the corner, particularly effective going around the Schwalbenschwanz, then pulling away in the straights, hoping and praying to hold on until Dottinger Höhe, where the road would be theirs again.
The struggle only became more difficult for the Lunatic, and the response was to apply even more sideways, banging off the rev limiter, one wheel dipping into the drain way of Kline Karussell, the rear tyres smoking, and suddenly the car was twice as wide and the cops had no way past. Further back in the field, a contrasting battle was evolving, between the ultra-lightweight RB-02, darting nimbly into the corners, then struggling to find traction coming out of it, and the big heavy Vindicator, drawing the punishment away by virtue of its sheer bulk. With the stereo cranked up to the maximum, Niall kept his throttle and mouth wide open as he belted out apocalyptic line after line, drowning out the cracking and scraping as bits of the Vindicator’s fiberglass bodywork chipped off with each bump.
If you're gonna die, die with your boots on,
If you're gonna try, well stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you're gonna die, you're gonna die.
Stomachs churned through the dip and the rise, then feet twitched, resisting the temptation to overcook the throttle over the long, yawning corner of Galgenkopf, and then it was the straight! This time, in the distance but rapidly closing, formations of cop cars were lining up all over Dottinger Höhe, scrambling to block the road in single file.
“Oh, now that’s just not fair!” Strop protested, hesitating with the throttle. But with reckless abandon, the other drivers pushed forward. Seeing a gap closing, the Thanatos in the lead risked death unnatural and violent, relentlessly accelerating towards the unfinished road block. The cops panicked, scrambling out of the way just before the Thanatos screamed through, Sleipnir hanging onto its tail, and not far behind, the Mephisto in excess of three hundred, the wind almost blowing the cops who weren't in cars over.
Deciding that a road block was too dangerous a tactic to shut the race down after all, unless they wanted to end it in a fiery thirty car pileup the German police department would never hear the end of, the cops decided to abandon that strategy. Unfortunately, there was simply no time for them to move the cars out of the way, as the line of cars was upon them, all trying to thread the eye of the needle while the faster cars angled up to overtake. The cops could only scramble for cover while the cars appeared, one moment a tiny dot in the distance, the next a blur and a roar as they squeezed through the gap, or veered around the side, kicking up grass and dew as wheels skirted the runoff. First, the orange blur of the Debrauna, then the topaz yellow blur of Peapod. A few seconds later, it was a white blur, the Gemini, and then two blurs almost joined together, the Achernar and the SD-01R playing a dangerous drafting game, almost clipping the cop car as it took a look up the side. The red blur of the Infernalis, then the blue streak of the Mutant came next, and hot on the tail of the Mutant was the Emperion, and the Yacare, the Yacare having lost out in the corners, but making up for it in spades with its incredible speed. Seba Machado stared down the proverbial bull, eyes narrowed and foot planted firmly on the accelerator, while the speedo climbed to over three hundred and fifty, the police cars almost not even registering in his vision before he blew by. Five seconds was not enough for the cops to recover before the next batch of cars came through, the Griffin, Annihilator and the Lunatic, all flashing through the gap and into the distance, brake lights flashing briefly before vanishing through the Bilstein arch, and over the crest.
It was at this point that things went even more pear shaped. The wrathful beast, the Hulk, came charging through, but being the widest car of the competition, Reece immediately knew it wouldn't fit through the gap.
"I'm not going back to jail!" he roared, attempting to veer onto the grassy runoff and around. Alas, the lumbering beast was not nimble enough, and clipped the front end of the Porsche police car on the right. A thunderous crack resounded over the straight and the police car was sent spinning towards the middle of the road, front wheel flying off and wobbling down the road, chassis buckled under the sheer overwhelming force. The Hulk shimmied dangerously, its stability control working overtime to keep it straight. Thankfully, it prevailed, and once again minus half a bumper and bits of carbon fiber trim now flapping in the breeze, it powered up the straight, the bloodlust of its driver and it no more sated.
With debris and a car now well and truly cluttering up the road, the remaining cars had an even trickier task. Finally shaking off the police that had been harrassing them through the corners with superior speed, the Centauri picked up momentum, trying to reel in the RB-02. The RB-02, with a much lower top speed, had time to maneuver around the debris, the car, and avoid the wheel still trundling down the road. The Centauri, however, being bulkier and boasting a top speed of 400, did not, and while barely avoiding the wreck, ran over most of the debris with a series of spine-chilling crunches and shrieks.
"GODDAMNIT," Niall yelled over the soundtrack, as he heard and felt his car fall apart even more.
"Rogue Squardon, what's your status?" Distracted by the aerial action, Rayyan almost didn't notice what was going on the ground until it was almost too late. An unplanned two hundred meter excursion through the grass and a narrowly averted disaster later, he risked scanning the skies once more, where he could see the large black box of Fiona, trying to circle around, being chased by streams of tracer fire. "Come in, Rogue Squadron!"
"It's a Charlie Foxtrot up here!" came the response slightly obscured by static. "One black box, four Mi-24s, all exchanging fire. They're directly above Quiddelbach, if anybody goes down, there's going to be civilian casualties."
"Shit," Rayyan clenched his teeth. "Understood. Use any means necessary to draw them away from built up areas, then take them down. By the authority of my rank as an honorary marshal of the RAF, you are cleared to engage at will."
"Yes sir!" Even the distortion of the static did not fully mask the glee in the pilot's voice. In the distance, the Harrier jets broke formation, speeding up and towards the fray. Seconds later, more streams of fire lit up the sky. Rayyan could only pray that the decision was the right one. Oh what he would have given to be able to smoke a blunt right about now, but maybe that might be too dangerous for even him, driving the legendary Nordschleife while being chased by at least three different law enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, the pilots aboard Fiona, the black box, were furiously radioing Vos, who was just making his way past the road block. "Boss! We've picked up three more hostiles! I'm not sure how much more we can take!"
"Well, you better fucking hold on and give back as good as you're getting it!" Vos growled into his radio. "I don't care if it's raining Ruskies, but we're going to have a real fucking problem if they fire a missile up my ass."
"Can you give us clearance to use-"
"I don't care what you use!" Vos roared. "Use all of it, if you have to! Missiles, nukes, classified shit, whatever!"
"Roger that," the line went dead. A moment later, Fiona activated thrusters, burning the hell out of location, the helicopters left behind. The jets curiously disengaged, also drawing their distance from the helicopters, who moved as one to follow. Then, two things happened in very quick succession. First, a plume of smoke erupted from the lead Mi-24, a missile lighting up and burning a trail through the air towards Fiona. Then, the missile buckled and exploded in mid-air, and before the pilots could react, their helicopter shared the same fate. The cockpits crumpled up, then the armor panels warped, and the helicopter seemingly folded in upon itself before exploding in a plume of rich black gasoline laden smoke.
"Woohoo!" came the jubilation over the radio. "I can't believe this baby works!"
"Very good, now shut up and get rid of the rest of them," Vos radioed back.
Putting his all into it, Tom did not hesitate when he encountered the roadblock on the straight. Once again, the Brimstone flew through the air, more plane than car, Elena clutching the edges of the seat, before bouncing off the straight and speeding along, blowing past the Testis, Felicia, Ruby, and out braking Kristina's M3 through Tiergarten. Just a little more, and they would be finished. But in reality, while the race was done, the true hell was just beginning. For the rest of the tail group, they glanced in their mirrors as the inevitable confrontation with Hasira loomed.
"Is that all you got?" Roland asked of the hobo driving the aged Testis for the umpteenth time, as he laboured through the uphill corners, the flashing lights of Hasira clearly visible and growing clearer by the second. Alas, the generations old frame was not designed for prolonged racing, and having reached its peak, the brakes could only fade, the tread wear, and the engine overheat. Not even an abundance of new fuses would be enough to save them from Hasira's clutches. "Kubby! Where are you?"
"Just about done!" Jack radioed back, interrupted by a loud bang and the sound of a siren wobbling off key. "And now I'm done! Can you make it to the finish? I'm cruising past Nordkehre."
Only a sharp left and then a right to get onto T13 and the starting line. It was close. Behind them, Hasira filled the mirrors, that menace with twice the weight and twice the power, ready to squash Testis like a bug. Roland went wide-eyed as the vents on Hasira opened, hardpoints arming. They weren't going to make it.
"Not good," Roland grunted, winding down the window. As Testis bucked, tail end stepping out around the right-handed crest onto T13, Roland got a good view of the front of Hasira, so he hefted out his banhammer shotgun, pointed it squarely at Hasira, and pulled the trigger.
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And on that bombshell...
With the completion of lap 2, the GPS relayed times have come through and are now technically available, though the rest of the story is yet to follow. The final classification, which took the faster of the lap times from a standing start or flying, is as follows:
Nordschleife is one of those circuits that has a lot of everything, so it is difficult to predict exactly what performance best suits it. In this case though, Sleipnir's extreme cornering ability bested even that of the Thanatos Estate, and Mephisto barely squeezed it out in the straights. The performance, elsewhere, showed a grand conclusion to some of the great rivalries that developed during this contest.
With that, I can now reveal to you the final standings for TRUE RACER:
Baltazar Thanatos Estate 84.5
Gemina XIII GTX 68.5
Banks Debrauna Gumball Ed. 58.5
AR.MA. SD-01R 58
EGT Achernar X90 53.5
YCB Yacare ULTRA X 44
Raggari Mutant 39
AED Griffin 34.5
Dalora Infernalis 26.5
Necronia Emperion 25
AMW Brimstone 22
Decker Annihilator 19.5
Leeroy Lunatic 19
Centauri Vindicator 11
Ruby 11
Cottam Elegance DA 9
RB-02 6
HFF 4
E30 LS7 M 2
Testis 0.5
Normandy Kodiak 0
I found a worrying anomaly in my spreadsheet, so I had to double check it and as far as I can tell, this is the true result. I apologise if anybody notices the numbers didn't quite add up from previous tallies, but those running counts were done with mental arithmetic, so I may have tracked them wrong! The spreadsheet, I'm hoping, doesn't lie!
With the next update will be the conclusion to this chapter of craziness, and the reveal of the rest of the results!
EDIT: Hi guys, sorry about that delay. Well, actually, thanks to the story getting all kinds of crazy, I have been delaying the results well past the intended date. I think in terms of story the day is actually 29th November, but we are now about a month behind schedule. For that, I apologise to the people who simply wanted to see how their cars ran.
For this reason, today's installment includes the recording of the fastest lap time, therefore I'm in a position to be able to post the result itself! Therefore, after this, you will be able to tell where your car stands in the TRUE RACER category. However, I still haven't released all the information regarding the build type and age, therefore you won't yet know what the final results of CRAZY RACER and ULTIMATE BSLL RIDER are just yet. But I will have those up in a couple of days.
As usual, the results are at the end of the action. For those of you who ARE reading the story, it's getting heated up!
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In the E30, Aixa pumped her fist. “Yes! I have signal!”
Struggling to keep all four wheels on the tarmac, Kristina tightened her grip on the wheel. The laptop had proven capable at least for the first part of their plan, but being in range also meant that Hasira was closing the gap. Two kilometres, on this track, that was less than a minute behind. Muttering a bastardised prayer she coaxed the car around Hatzenbach, battling simultaneous under and oversteer. Could they hold off Hasira long enough? “Okay Aixa, let’s start with the comms network. Then probe it for device IDs and hope to God their central module runs the drive systems too.”
“You got it!” Aixa’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she murmured, completely focused on her work despite being jostled against the restraints. “Setting up remote server, check, DOS primed, check, and, oh, rats, a network key. Where’s my decrypter… stupid progress bar, hurry up!”
Further back, Der Bayer laboured over the wheel of the GG Transit van, dwarfing the tiny Testis as it puttered around the track. Aside from a particularly twitchy throttle, the van was surprisingly responsive and pliant, almost easy to drive with the aids on (with the aids off, however, would be an entirely different prospect). This assessment, he was not sure was shared by his passengers, Hannah, hands bunched tight over the harness as she experienced the most tense ride of her entire life, and Tesla, too, eyes screwed shut, paws over face, whimpering a prayer to Dog. He could only imagine what Noah, relegated to the cargo hold, was thinking. Worse, he was sure he had seen the Brimstone deliberately hang back, but he had priorities, and just had to trust that Tom knew what he was doing.
“I trust you know what you’re doing Tom!” Elena said, glancing behind her, face reflecting the glow of the police lights. “Because the cop car is right behind us!”
Already? Tom looked at the speedo, then frowned to himself. Maybe he had taken it a little too easy, after all, this was barely the start of the lap and it was a little early to have to start stalling. Knowing Hasira had more straight line speed, he was confident he could hold it off through Hocheichen, but it would definitely close the distance at Schwedenkreuz. Flugplatz came up, and his gut lurched as the car rose over the crest, then braked to hug the inside of the fast corner. His finger automatically went to the console under the dash in preparation. This time, he knew what was coming, and this time, he was ready.
“Look out!” In the mirrors, Tom saw vents on Hasira open. Instinctively, he tapped the brake, mashing his finger into the button on the console. Tom and Elena were crushed into their seats as the jump jets fired, and the car lifted up, and over, with Hasira overshooting and the grappling hook firing off harmlessly into the trees. Caught by surprise, Hasira then went on to overshoot the cresting left kink approaching Aremberg, and bounced off into the grass, sliding this way and that as it struggled to avoid the barriers.
“That should buy us enough time,” Tom said, satisfied. Next to him, Elena let out a sigh of relief, and the Brimstone picked up the pace again, screeching around Aremberg, and accelerating down the Fuchsröhre, already closing in fast on Testis and the van.
At the apex of Adenauer Forst, the front tyres protested as Vos seesawed in the Kodiak, understeer in one direction pushed into understeer in the other. Straightening out for Metzgesfeld, he looked up, and his blood ran cold. Hovering over the track in the conveniently placed field, hardpoints pointed directly at him, were two Mi-24s. If there was any doubt over what their intentions were before, there was sure a hell of a lot less now.
“Fiona!” he barked into the comms. “Unless you want to be out of a job because your boss got vaporized, now would be a good time!” Gritting his teeth, he planted his foot down anyway, charging at the helicopters.
Suddenly, a large black mass screamed past, the trees swaying with the gust. The wind buffeted the steel body of the Kodiak, but better yet, sent the helicopters wheeling around. One managed to rise up and away from the treeline, but the other went too close, the tail clipping some branches. Smoke pouring out of the fuselage, the helicopter kept spinning, dropping further and further until the rotor also clipped the tree trunks. A series of metallic clanks rung through the forest, followed by a bone jarring crash, and, as Vos left the field behind him and made the turn into Kallenhard, the bright flaming cloud of an exploding helicopter blossomed into the sky.
“I hope the fuckers burn in hell,” Vos muttered to himself, the glimmer of satisfaction enough that he did not even mind when the tiny front wheel drive hatch RB-02 buzzed past him on the outside of Miss-Hit-Miss.
Barely a bend further ahead, but far enough that he had sunk into the forest to be blinded to the events that had just transpired, Rayyan frowned as his radio went wild. “There’s a sudden spike in chatter!” he radioed, a plethora of panicked messages in German, English and Russian overlapping and becoming a garbled stream of noise. Flicking a switch, he cut of all but the English speaking channel, which was populated by American twang. “There’s been an explosion in Metzges Field!” “Can you get a visual?” “Looks like one of the helicopters, near the sighting of Black Box.”
Black Box? Rayyan almost lost himself in his thoughts and overshot the slow tightening left hander of Wehrseifen, front wheels spinning as the HFF pushed uncomfortably close to the grass. Scrambling at the wheel, he put one ear back onto the radio. “Is that thing ours?” “I thought it was, but I have no idea what it’s doing here.” “Same, I don’t have clearance to know anything more about it.”
“Heads up, we’ve reports of three new marks inbound!”
Instantly, he picked up his hotline phone. “Come in Rogue Squadron.” But he was approaching Bergwerk, and the trees lining both sides thickly obscured the signal, and all he got was static. Seconds later, starting the uphill Kesselchen run, he saw the familiar silhouette of the Harrier jets flash by, followed by a thunderous roar. “Ready and waiting for further orders, Wingnut! And by golly you’re right, what on earth is that thing?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s one of ours.” Rayyan shouted into the hotline. “At any rate, if they’re engaging each other, keep your nose out of it. But if they’re targeting anything on the ground, take them out!”
“Roger that, we’ll run the perimeter, over and out,” came the reply, and the jets pulled up, wheeling away and looping back towards the fray.
“New problem, people!” Der Bayer radioed from the back. “The police are moving in! And it looks like they’re going to try and shut the race down- ow!” he was cut off abruptly as one of the police cars shunted into his rear quarterpanel. Fortunately, the van was too heavy and sturdy to be perturbed by a mere PIT.
“Watch the paint!” Hannah gasped in indignation.
“I’ll give them something to think about!” pushing hard through Kesselchen, Der Bayer deliberately stuck to the left approaching Mutkurve, and as the cop in the 911 drew alongside, sirens blaring, he let the van run wide, bumping the front of the 911 (accompanied by another admonishment from Hannah and a whimper from Tesla) and forcing it onto the shoulder, where it bounced off the barriers. But even as he disposed of one of them, another cop car took its place, wailing away on his tailgate. “Kubby! A little help over here!”
“Sorry!” Jack radioed back, barely a curve ahead. “I got my hands full too. It looks as if the cops have set up all around the course!”
“Guys,” Tom interrupted, “They’re setting up spike strips all over the place, I just jumped one at Karussell. I’ll get my guys to clear them away, but you have to draw the cops off first.”
Jack, in the Felicia Combi, looked up just in time to see the spike strip, partially covering the inside lane to Karussell. “Drift wagon, yo!” he shouted, veering to the right before applying the brakes hard and swinging left. The moment he let the brakes go, the back slid out and he banged the engine right against the limiter, carving a perfect circle with the tailgate almost scraping the barriers. No sooner had he exited Karussell, than three cop cars set up on his tail, lights flashing. He pulled away on the straight but on the tricky left kink, which, as always, seemed to come over a crest, he had to slow and the cop cars, with their lower power to weight ratio, attacked the corner hard, threatening to box him in as they approached the tight bumpy complex at the top of Hohe Acht. “This won’t do!” Jack said to himself, hogging the inside line and allowing the tail to step out just a little bit, but reeling it in before the cop could accelerate to bump and throw him off balance. “Come on then, bring it!”
Streaking through the back sector of the course, Kai and Sam, their cars so fast the cops posed no threat when coming from behind, continued their heated battle, weaving past the slower cars. Sleipnir held the advantage with superior downforce and balance. Carving the lines like a surfer through the barrel of a wave, Sam whooped as despite the conditions, Sleipnir ran swiftly and surely, piling on grip and more grip, and with each undulation of the road, each blind corner, he was getting faster and faster, leaving the brutish Mephisto further and further behind. “Soon you won’t even be able to suck my exhaaaauuuuust!”
“Just you wait, I’ll catch you on the straight, then you can suck MY exhaust.” Feeling a surge of adrenalin, Kai pushed the pedal just that bit harder coming out of Brünnchen, and the Mephisto resisted, straightening up prematurely from the corner and forcing him to lift off and nose in again. Argh, rookie error. “Just you wait.” Somewhere ahead of them, the Thanatos Estate was still running well ahead, but hopefully, he was ahead on time, though of course the best sign of that would be if he actually passed it on the straight too.
Behind them, the order was starting to re-establish itself. The strongest coupe, the Debrauna, had hit its stride and remained glued to the road, gliding over it smoothly. The driver naturally felt all the apices and accelerated out of the curves smoothly, despite the monstrous power and lack of driving aids, and had overtaken nearly every other car, and was content in its own rhythm as it thrummed along the straight towards Pflanzgarten. Just a few seconds behind, strangely enough, was Strop in the Peapod, evidently, when in ninja form, providing more than one extra horsepower. With ridiculous downforce at the front, his car too was glued to the road, the steering brisk and direct.
Further afield, Yuri in the Gemina had broken away from the pack too with a certain sense of satisfaction, the car’s mixture of power and balance serving him well, though still he fumed with the understeer and a certain vagueness in the steering going over the crests. Then, the two all-wheel drives, Enry in the Achernar and Matt in the SD-01R were locked in tense battle, the Achernar’s shorter wheelbase and lightness affording it just that extra bit of cornering to snap the inside line of the deceptively tight right hander of Pflanzgarten, but Matt, his competitive spirit burning as brightly as ever, stayed locked so close to the rear of Enry, that he could read the Achernar’s #ilovetractioncontrol sticker.
Next through the narrow corner was the Infernalis, the higher speed sections serving it well. It was starting to draw away from the Mutant, which lead a very tight pack of cars with, as usual, the Emperion, and also the Yacare, much improved after its brake and wheel readjustment. It was after this, however, that things started to get complicated, because the other cars, for all their power, started to struggle in the corners, and became vulnerable to the police cars swarming seemingly all over the road now. Fortunately, with their excessive engines and drivetrains, many of the cars were weighty beasts, and no amount of nudging and bumping from a police car could dislodge them from their path. In this fashion, the Griffin and Annihilator, powered by all-wheel drive traction, stayed planted to the road, pushing the Porsches to the outside of the corner, particularly effective going around the Schwalbenschwanz, then pulling away in the straights, hoping and praying to hold on until Dottinger Höhe, where the road would be theirs again.
The struggle only became more difficult for the Lunatic, and the response was to apply even more sideways, banging off the rev limiter, one wheel dipping into the drain way of Kline Karussell, the rear tyres smoking, and suddenly the car was twice as wide and the cops had no way past. Further back in the field, a contrasting battle was evolving, between the ultra-lightweight RB-02, darting nimbly into the corners, then struggling to find traction coming out of it, and the big heavy Vindicator, drawing the punishment away by virtue of its sheer bulk. With the stereo cranked up to the maximum, Niall kept his throttle and mouth wide open as he belted out apocalyptic line after line, drowning out the cracking and scraping as bits of the Vindicator’s fiberglass bodywork chipped off with each bump.
If you're gonna die, die with your boots on,
If you're gonna try, well stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you're gonna die, you're gonna die.
Stomachs churned through the dip and the rise, then feet twitched, resisting the temptation to overcook the throttle over the long, yawning corner of Galgenkopf, and then it was the straight! This time, in the distance but rapidly closing, formations of cop cars were lining up all over Dottinger Höhe, scrambling to block the road in single file.
“Oh, now that’s just not fair!” Strop protested, hesitating with the throttle. But with reckless abandon, the other drivers pushed forward. Seeing a gap closing, the Thanatos in the lead risked death unnatural and violent, relentlessly accelerating towards the unfinished road block. The cops panicked, scrambling out of the way just before the Thanatos screamed through, Sleipnir hanging onto its tail, and not far behind, the Mephisto in excess of three hundred, the wind almost blowing the cops who weren't in cars over.
Deciding that a road block was too dangerous a tactic to shut the race down after all, unless they wanted to end it in a fiery thirty car pileup the German police department would never hear the end of, the cops decided to abandon that strategy. Unfortunately, there was simply no time for them to move the cars out of the way, as the line of cars was upon them, all trying to thread the eye of the needle while the faster cars angled up to overtake. The cops could only scramble for cover while the cars appeared, one moment a tiny dot in the distance, the next a blur and a roar as they squeezed through the gap, or veered around the side, kicking up grass and dew as wheels skirted the runoff. First, the orange blur of the Debrauna, then the topaz yellow blur of Peapod. A few seconds later, it was a white blur, the Gemini, and then two blurs almost joined together, the Achernar and the SD-01R playing a dangerous drafting game, almost clipping the cop car as it took a look up the side. The red blur of the Infernalis, then the blue streak of the Mutant came next, and hot on the tail of the Mutant was the Emperion, and the Yacare, the Yacare having lost out in the corners, but making up for it in spades with its incredible speed. Seba Machado stared down the proverbial bull, eyes narrowed and foot planted firmly on the accelerator, while the speedo climbed to over three hundred and fifty, the police cars almost not even registering in his vision before he blew by. Five seconds was not enough for the cops to recover before the next batch of cars came through, the Griffin, Annihilator and the Lunatic, all flashing through the gap and into the distance, brake lights flashing briefly before vanishing through the Bilstein arch, and over the crest.
It was at this point that things went even more pear shaped. The wrathful beast, the Hulk, came charging through, but being the widest car of the competition, Reece immediately knew it wouldn't fit through the gap.
"I'm not going back to jail!" he roared, attempting to veer onto the grassy runoff and around. Alas, the lumbering beast was not nimble enough, and clipped the front end of the Porsche police car on the right. A thunderous crack resounded over the straight and the police car was sent spinning towards the middle of the road, front wheel flying off and wobbling down the road, chassis buckled under the sheer overwhelming force. The Hulk shimmied dangerously, its stability control working overtime to keep it straight. Thankfully, it prevailed, and once again minus half a bumper and bits of carbon fiber trim now flapping in the breeze, it powered up the straight, the bloodlust of its driver and it no more sated.
With debris and a car now well and truly cluttering up the road, the remaining cars had an even trickier task. Finally shaking off the police that had been harrassing them through the corners with superior speed, the Centauri picked up momentum, trying to reel in the RB-02. The RB-02, with a much lower top speed, had time to maneuver around the debris, the car, and avoid the wheel still trundling down the road. The Centauri, however, being bulkier and boasting a top speed of 400, did not, and while barely avoiding the wreck, ran over most of the debris with a series of spine-chilling crunches and shrieks.
"GODDAMNIT," Niall yelled over the soundtrack, as he heard and felt his car fall apart even more.
"Rogue Squardon, what's your status?" Distracted by the aerial action, Rayyan almost didn't notice what was going on the ground until it was almost too late. An unplanned two hundred meter excursion through the grass and a narrowly averted disaster later, he risked scanning the skies once more, where he could see the large black box of Fiona, trying to circle around, being chased by streams of tracer fire. "Come in, Rogue Squadron!"
"It's a Charlie Foxtrot up here!" came the response slightly obscured by static. "One black box, four Mi-24s, all exchanging fire. They're directly above Quiddelbach, if anybody goes down, there's going to be civilian casualties."
"Shit," Rayyan clenched his teeth. "Understood. Use any means necessary to draw them away from built up areas, then take them down. By the authority of my rank as an honorary marshal of the RAF, you are cleared to engage at will."
"Yes sir!" Even the distortion of the static did not fully mask the glee in the pilot's voice. In the distance, the Harrier jets broke formation, speeding up and towards the fray. Seconds later, more streams of fire lit up the sky. Rayyan could only pray that the decision was the right one. Oh what he would have given to be able to smoke a blunt right about now, but maybe that might be too dangerous for even him, driving the legendary Nordschleife while being chased by at least three different law enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, the pilots aboard Fiona, the black box, were furiously radioing Vos, who was just making his way past the road block. "Boss! We've picked up three more hostiles! I'm not sure how much more we can take!"
"Well, you better fucking hold on and give back as good as you're getting it!" Vos growled into his radio. "I don't care if it's raining Ruskies, but we're going to have a real fucking problem if they fire a missile up my ass."
"Can you give us clearance to use-"
"I don't care what you use!" Vos roared. "Use all of it, if you have to! Missiles, nukes, classified shit, whatever!"
"Roger that," the line went dead. A moment later, Fiona activated thrusters, burning the hell out of location, the helicopters left behind. The jets curiously disengaged, also drawing their distance from the helicopters, who moved as one to follow. Then, two things happened in very quick succession. First, a plume of smoke erupted from the lead Mi-24, a missile lighting up and burning a trail through the air towards Fiona. Then, the missile buckled and exploded in mid-air, and before the pilots could react, their helicopter shared the same fate. The cockpits crumpled up, then the armor panels warped, and the helicopter seemingly folded in upon itself before exploding in a plume of rich black gasoline laden smoke.
"Woohoo!" came the jubilation over the radio. "I can't believe this baby works!"
"Very good, now shut up and get rid of the rest of them," Vos radioed back.
Putting his all into it, Tom did not hesitate when he encountered the roadblock on the straight. Once again, the Brimstone flew through the air, more plane than car, Elena clutching the edges of the seat, before bouncing off the straight and speeding along, blowing past the Testis, Felicia, Ruby, and out braking Kristina's M3 through Tiergarten. Just a little more, and they would be finished. But in reality, while the race was done, the true hell was just beginning. For the rest of the tail group, they glanced in their mirrors as the inevitable confrontation with Hasira loomed.
"Is that all you got?" Roland asked of the hobo driving the aged Testis for the umpteenth time, as he laboured through the uphill corners, the flashing lights of Hasira clearly visible and growing clearer by the second. Alas, the generations old frame was not designed for prolonged racing, and having reached its peak, the brakes could only fade, the tread wear, and the engine overheat. Not even an abundance of new fuses would be enough to save them from Hasira's clutches. "Kubby! Where are you?"
"Just about done!" Jack radioed back, interrupted by a loud bang and the sound of a siren wobbling off key. "And now I'm done! Can you make it to the finish? I'm cruising past Nordkehre."
Only a sharp left and then a right to get onto T13 and the starting line. It was close. Behind them, Hasira filled the mirrors, that menace with twice the weight and twice the power, ready to squash Testis like a bug. Roland went wide-eyed as the vents on Hasira opened, hardpoints arming. They weren't going to make it.
"Not good," Roland grunted, winding down the window. As Testis bucked, tail end stepping out around the right-handed crest onto T13, Roland got a good view of the front of Hasira, so he hefted out his banhammer shotgun, pointed it squarely at Hasira, and pulled the trigger.
_______________________________
And on that bombshell...
With the completion of lap 2, the GPS relayed times have come through and are now technically available, though the rest of the story is yet to follow. The final classification, which took the faster of the lap times from a standing start or flying, is as follows:
Nordschleife is one of those circuits that has a lot of everything, so it is difficult to predict exactly what performance best suits it. In this case though, Sleipnir's extreme cornering ability bested even that of the Thanatos Estate, and Mephisto barely squeezed it out in the straights. The performance, elsewhere, showed a grand conclusion to some of the great rivalries that developed during this contest.
With that, I can now reveal to you the final standings for TRUE RACER:
Baltazar Thanatos Estate 84.5
Gemina XIII GTX 68.5
Banks Debrauna Gumball Ed. 58.5
AR.MA. SD-01R 58
EGT Achernar X90 53.5
YCB Yacare ULTRA X 44
Raggari Mutant 39
AED Griffin 34.5
Dalora Infernalis 26.5
Necronia Emperion 25
AMW Brimstone 22
Decker Annihilator 19.5
Leeroy Lunatic 19
Centauri Vindicator 11
Ruby 11
Cottam Elegance DA 9
RB-02 6
HFF 4
E30 LS7 M 2
Testis 0.5
Normandy Kodiak 0
I found a worrying anomaly in my spreadsheet, so I had to double check it and as far as I can tell, this is the true result. I apologise if anybody notices the numbers didn't quite add up from previous tallies, but those running counts were done with mental arithmetic, so I may have tracked them wrong! The spreadsheet, I'm hoping, doesn't lie!
With the next update will be the conclusion to this chapter of craziness, and the reveal of the rest of the results!
As for my car... welp... it was made with the intetiong of HP, even if this screwed the stats. I can't wait for the next race of the series. I have a better car made for you 
