Chapter 51 - Route X
The next day, TJ brought Dave to a recently opened test track, near the Tokyo bay harbour. Despite being in plain view, news of this new test track had only become public a couple of days ago. Many of the track’s designers, builders and investors kept quiet about the track during it’s design and build phases. One of those investors was actually TJ.
Dave: What’s this place?
TJ: Route X, only just finished being built. They’ve been working on this place for a while.
Dave: It’s massive…
TJ: It’s a thirty kilometre oval. The straights are arrow straight and are twelve kilometres long. There’s not a single car you can’t max out here.
Dave: Holy… Wait, if this place is brand new, how come we’re here and the motor journalists aren’t?
TJ: Because I have priority access and the journalists aren’t allowed in for another few days.
Dave: Oh. Nice.
TJ: Come on, let’s do a run or two. Get some official figures for your Atenza.
Dave: Seriously?
TJ: Yeah. Let’s break this girl in.
Dave hopped into the Atenza, not knowing what to expect from Route X. He fired the car up and lined up at the start line. He gulped and braced himself for the run.
Dave: Alright, Route… X…
The lights flashed red, signalling Dave to get ready. He started revving the Atenza, building up the boost for the launch.
Dave: I’m ready…
The lights went green. Dave launched the Atenza as hard as he could. The front wheels screeched off the line, as the Atenza struggled to spin it’s front tyres and bogged down.
Dave: Crap launch!
The Atenza quickly regained momentum and started accelerating pass the 100 meter mark. He wasn’t paying attention to the speedometer at all to guess his acceleration times. His entire focus was now on getting the Atenza down to the 1000 meter mark as fast as possible.
He rapidly passed the 200 meter mark, then the 300 meter mark.
The Atenza was rock steady down the straight, refusing to move away from its chosen line. Dave quickly passed the 400 meter mark, then 500, passing each marker quicker than the one before it. In no time at all, he flew by the 1,000 meter mark, finishing his run.
Dave let off the accelerator and checked the speedometer. The had buried itself at the 180km/h mark. A few seconds later, the needle left its buried position and started winding back down to 50, before Dave did a U turn and headed back to base.
Dave made his way back to TJ, holding a steady speed to admire the scenery. Despite being a simple test oval, Route X’s scenery looked gorgeous. Before long, Dave arrived back, TJ waved him into the pits, pointing at an empty bay. Dave pulled in and lowered his window.
Dave: So, how’d I do?
TJ: Let’s see…
TJ grabbed the time slip from the printer.
Results – Mazda Atenza
0-400m : 13.783 seconds
0-1000m : 24.122 seconds
0-100km/h : 5.918 seconds
0-200km/h : 16.931 seconds
G-Force at Launch: 0.68G
Dave: Wow. I guess that’s kind of impressive. The car bogged pretty badly on launch though.
TJ: Bogged you say? We’ll have to sort that out. As for the results, yeah, not bad. Let’s go for a top speed run now.
Dave: Okay.
Once again, Dave made his way to the start line. He prepared himself like before, waiting for the green light. Dave built up the boost, the Atenza was ready to make its way down the ten kilometre top speed section. The lights finally went green. Dave launched, once again the Atenza bogged down, but this wasn’t an issue for the top speed test. Dave floored it, the Atenza rapidly accelerated back up to speed. This time Dave could keep an eye on the speedometer. Within a few hundred meters, the needle buried itself at 180km/h again. Dave now had no idea how fast he was going. He shifted up into 6th gear and begun his top speed attempt.
Dave passed the 3,000 meter mark, gripping the wheel tight as the speed begun shaking the car.
Dave: I’ve never been this fast before… My hands are sweating, damn it. I’ve never been this nervous in a car before.
Dave passed the 5,000 meter mark. The Atenza was near enough maxed out, but Dave couldn’t bring himself to let off the throttle just yet. He was only half way to the finish and he was determined to do the entire 10,000 meter stretch.
Dave: Oooh, a tunnel. Fancy…
Dave emerged from the tunnel, passing the 8,500 meter mark.
Dave: I can see the finish!
Dave: 9,000, 9,200, 9,500, 9,900… Finish! Damn this is one hell of a track!
Dave slowed down and stopped by the side of the road. He got out and looked out to the sea front.
Dave: Beautiful…
TJ: Yo Dave, you okay out there?
Dave: Huh? TJ? Oh the walkie-talkie!
Dave grabbed the walkie-talkie from the Atenza’s door pocket.
Dave: Hey! Yeah I just finished my run. I’m admiring the view right now. I need a break after that ten kilometre run…
TJ: Understood. Take your time coming back.
Dave: Will do.
Dave got back into the car, turned around and begun his journey back to base once again.
Dave: That felt like driving on the highway just now, but man, just now my palms were soaking wet with sweat!
TJ: Haha. First time eh?
Dave: Yeah. It’s one thing doing 200km/h when racing, but whatever speed I was doing just now… It felt insane.
TJ: Let’s see the result then…
TJ grabbed another slip from the printer.
Results – Mazda Atenza
Max. Speed : 278.2km/h
Dave: That’s fast! Wow!
TJ: Yeah. You’d embarrass a lot of sports cars with that speed.
Dave: Really? That’s insane. To think my Atenza could do that…
TJ: Let’s put the slicks on, see how much of a difference they make.
Dave: You brought them along?
TJ: … Damn it. I knew we forgot something. Alright, we’ll leave that for another time. Let’s go back home and fiddle with the gearbox.
Dave: Can we stop by Autobacs on the way home? I really need a seatbelt pad…
TJ: Yeah, sure.