***** This isn't an official COTWGT7 review. But rather, a carry-over, or part 2 of a 3 part review. So like, enjoy. Or whatever.
The 1992 Nissan R92CP
Part 2 of
Part 1
"H-H-Hello?"
"Hey, you up?"
"Wha--, who is this?". My head was pounding. I thought I’d probably been asleep for 2 hours, but upon glancing at the clock next to my bed, I realized only a mere 43 minutes had passed. To be truthful, I couldn't even recall how I got back to my hotel room.
"It's ME"
"What?". I sit up, trying to gather myself. I let out a small belch - that although lacked sound, was rife in volume... and taste. The taste of crappy Sake, Saporo, and weird Japanese street food.
"It's Esther - look, I need you to g--"
"What the
Fork Esther??"
"What?"
"Its 3:30am here! Just because you're having a Scone and Coffee right now in Montana, doesn't mean that we're not trying to get some sleep in Tokyo."
"I thought you were in Inoucho?
"We were", swinging my legs out of bed and rubbing my eyes as I spoke.
"What do you mean? I thought you reserved the track for 2 days?"
"We did. Turns out there were bigger fish with
more money."
"Ok?"
"Midway through my first 90 minute stint, I got black flagged and waved off the track. I thought that... I dunno...maybe something was hanging off of the car. Anyways, I pulled into the pits, and we couldn't find anything wrong. We phoned race control and was told to "Stand By".
"That's weird."
"Yeah. Anyways, after about 10 minutes, a track worker came over to us and said we had to pack up and exit the premises immediately - and that our rental fee had been fully refunded with an additional 30% for the inconvience. I tried my best in broken Japanese to tell him that we didn't care about the money, and just needed another hour and we'll be out of their hair and they can keep their money. All he did was do that weird apologetic back-pedal-bow combination that I'm always seeing people do in this country."
"I see"
"Yeah, I was pissed. So we took our sweet arse time packing up; all the time under the strict supervision of what looked like some of the
suits that run Suzuka. When we finally came out of pit row and got a glimpse of the track entrance, I didn't quite know what to make of what I saw."
"What did you see?"
"Semis. Lots of Semis."
"Semis?"
"Yeah? Semis....Trucks."
"Huh?"
"Oh for
fork's sake E, LORRIES!"
"Oh, gotcha." Suprisingly she didn't bite my head off for calling her 'E' - which meant she needed something - and something I probably wouldn't like. Figures. At any rate, I needed to get Esther back on her heels a bit to claim some soon to be lost leverage.
"...and Groupies. Lots of groupies wearing dental floss, front and back mind you. They were hanging out the windows of the lorries clutching bottles of booze. It looked like a goddamn Kiss concert from 1988."
"Gross."
"Yea, I could see how you would feel that way. Anyways, it looked like there was going to be some sort of race - which is weird, being that it was a Tuesday.'
"I might know something about that."
"Really!? What??"
"Doesn't matter, yet. What are you doing back in Tokyo?"
"Well..", I slid my feet into my slaps and walked to the bathroom to empty my alcohol-filled bladder, shirt-
crockin' it the whole way over, trying to figure out how to tell her a short story willist taking a leak - without making that indistinguishable sound that would give me away. Maybe I could just aim for the side of the bowl, but I didn't particularly trust my aim in my current inebriated state. Screw it, I'll just sit down and aim it at a slightly downward angle towards the front of the bowl. Yeah, that will work.
Shut up, we've all been there.
"Well...", I continued while taking a set. "We contemplated going to Fuji to do some testing with the Nissan, but decided to go back to Tokyo instead. Not only did it get us where we needed to be in order to catch our flight to Bahrain a day earlier than originally planned, but after a couple weeks of testing cars while driving warp speed, figured' I could use a day of low-speed hooning around Taskuba."
"I need you to go back to Suzuka." she said flatly.
"Esther, I'm in no condition to drive ANYWHERE for at least 5-6 more hours, let alone a race car. Besides, the plane is already loaded and we're headed to Bahrain at 4pm. There's no way its going to work. Not to mention, they kicked us out for a reason... whatever that reason was."
"I already talked to Mr. Casual, he's good with it."
"How the fork did you get Casual's contact info??"
"I have my ways."
"Yeah, I bet you do." I say with a slight smirk in my tone.
'What's that supposed to mean?"
'Nothing. Look, Esther. Its 3:30am here, I need to get some sleep. I'm not doing it. Seriously."
"I know its 3:30 Andrew, I'm up too."
"Yeah, I know. Probably having a homemade Blueberry Muffin and a Coffee mixed with Kahlua as you're watching the snow fall. I checked the weather in Montana, Have you ever seen it snow before?" I was honestly curious to this last bit.
"Yes, and, I'm back in Singapore."
'Seriously Esther?? WTF? You really don't sleep do you?"
"No, not really, no."
I gave it a couple shakes, stood up and stammered back to bed, still
Shirt-rocking it the whole way, and sat down.
Rubbing my eyes, out of curiosity I asked, "What's going on at Suzuka Esther?"
"Some kind of World Series event, I'm told."
"Well, whoever told you that must have been more drunk than me right now. The only World Series I know of is played in America by non-athletes wearing tight pants. And it has nothing to do with motorsports. Whores and groupies, sure. But definitely nothing to do with race cars."
"Whatever, it's how the boss said it."
"Boss? Who??"
"Mr. Kassahara."
Kassahara? I thought the guys at Edwards said this dude was Persian or something? Meh, probably is. I still have trouble disiphering words through Esther's Eurasian accent sometimes, not to mention my head was pounding heavier and harder by the second. Probabably j
ust heard her wr...
"ANDREW!!"
"YEAH! Whaaaa?"
"You fell asleep on me!"
"Wouldn't be the first time I've fallen asleep on a woman, sure it won't be the last."
"Figured as much."
"What's this World Series thing you speak of E?" My eyes were starting to get heavy again.
"It's like.... a series for the world's best drivers."
"Yeah? Like who?"
"Igor Fraga, Hizal, Super GT, Daniel Solis, @Tidgney, Miyazono, Galo, Ryota Kokubun - just to name a few."
"Yeah, those are some fast guys. Look, why don't you send Vic or Pickle? They're the fastest guys COTW has. Or OB, he would literally leap at the chance to race on the big stage."
"Vic's on holiday, Rick's on a hunting trip. I tried Lee.."
"Yeah, he's fast too..."
"Yeah, I thought so as well. But he's not picking up his phone. In fact, he hasn't picked up, texted back, or even responded to any emails since yesterday morning."
"Yeeeeeeaaaaaaahh...." I paused, then continued, "About that..."
"What? Lee?? What the fork did you guys do with Lee, Andrew??" I snorted audibly at the sound of hearing Esther actually curse.
"Nothing. We did nothing. Yeah...nothing at all."
"What did you guys do Andrew?"
"Nothing. We just...gave him a call early yesterday morning when we got into Tokyo to see what he was up to"
"Aaannnnd??..."
"It got bad."
'What did you guys do to him!?" Esther was furious now, and a little protective might I add. Something was definitely up.
"Nothing he didn't want to do, I'll just put it that way."
"How bad Andrew?"
"Remember last time he went out with us?"
"Yeah."
"It was that bad, maybe worse."
"Get you FORKIN' ARSE out of bed and straight to Suzuka!"
"Esther, I'm being honest, there's literally no way I can get there right now, and like I said, all of our cars are already at the airp--"
--CLICK--
Lee, outside of one of the "establishments" he dragged us into.
I sat speechless for almost 30 seconds. Not only had I gotten Esther to curse at me, TWICE, but I also managed to get her to rage-quit our conversation. Admittedly, I kind of felt bad. But I also felt like I deserved a trophy too. At any rate, I felt as if I wa--
"Honk, Honk"
"What the fork?" I heard the very distininctive loud wail of an air horn below my room on the street. I cracked the blinds to the window with my fingertips and peered outside. About 100' down, and on the opposite side of the street, I saw a middle aged Chinese man waving at my room. I could barely hear but a slight murmer through the double-paned glass, but I already had a good idea of what he was saying. Just then, my phone lit up on the nightstand followed by the low growl of it vibrating indiscrimately on the polished Oak surface. I already knew who it was from.
"Get you forking' arse on that Lorrie right now!"
Fork.
I'm not sure if it was the incessant adrenaline spikes I got each time Tsai decided to erratically change lanes, or the cociane-infused coffee we got when we stopped in Hamamatsu; but by the time we went got to the gates of Suzuka, I felt as fresh as a daisy in a mid-July Southern California heat wave. As Tsai unloaded the truck, I took one last gulp of Pepto and jogged over to the driver's meeting which had yet to begin. I strategically took an inconspicuous spot in the back, as not to draw attention from the stewards or other drivers. Despite frequent bouts of the Hershey squirts the whole ride to Suzuka, bile-heaves behind the wall I was currently sitting on, and a shiner under my right eye that was throbbing more and more by the minute Some pre-race nerves had begun to creep up from my stomach and into my chest - taking a detour around my roadblocked' liver. Sure, I had been in several big races before, but never had I been in a race surrounded by the
very best. To say I was a little out of my league was a massive understatement. Besides being sick, having diareeah, and going toe to toe with bouts of the
DT's, I was pissed more than anything. While I think it's fair that many have equated my personality more to the likes of
James Hunt rather than
Niki Lauda, I'm smart enough to understand that I was representing the holy grail of automobile publications with Car Of The Week. While these premadonna
"World Tour drivers", might not know me from Adam, ANYONE WHO'S ANYONE will recognize that
COTW logo on a car, or COTW team sponsorship icon next to my name on the live television broadcast. I knew Esther would have wanted any other staff member besides me representing us at this
World Series race. But alas, just as I was out of bile to disgorge from my abdomen, she too, was out of options.
Oh look, here comes these Diva's coming down pit row right n-- "Ummbwaaaaahwuuhm" (followed by indistinguishable gurgles and whimpers)
Through bloodshot eyes with last night's Nikuman running down my chin, I saw a what looked like an ostentation of Peacocks sashaying down pit row for the driver's meeting. Although they were still somewhat far away and I was still somewhat seeing double, I made out what looked like about 20 or so drivers, plus their handlers.... and their dental floss-adorned groupies. Probably about 75 people in all. Forkin' great. Here I am, clearly an outsider, sitting on a wall - looking and smelling like a forkin' hobo. And I'm the only idiot to show up to a Group 1 prototype race in a Group C rust bucket that was not much younger than myself!
The pre-race drivers meeting was much like the previous 100 that I had sat through.
Blah, blah, blah - don't overtake on Yellow's -
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah - if you're waved the black flag, exit the track as soon as it's safe to do so -
blah, blah, blah - after the race, no groping the trophy girls, or each other -
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah -
Thank you all for participating in the inagural round of the GT7 World Series!! Standard stuff really
(record scratches)
Wait!? Hold the phone!
GT7 World Series?? Round One???
What FORK has Esther gotten me into? Here I am planning my exit from the GT series all together in favor of the more lucrative ACC,
iRACE, and
Renn League series, and now I'm getting ready to line up at Suzuka on some random Tuesday, to partake in the inagural round of a series that's last I heard, technically didn't exhist yet? If my nerves were at a 7/10 up until this point, they were surely at a 12/10 now. After a few minutes of questions from the racers that mainly had to do with track limits and mandatory pit stop exemptions, the meeting was adjourned and I was left to stamber back over to my paddock.
"You look like hell" Tsai said, looking me over.
"Worse than 20 minutes ago, actually".
"You have anymore of that cocaine-infused coffee, Tsai?"
"Sure, there's a pot brewing in the rig right now, just left of the fridge." He continued,
"Say, boss?" Tsai, still looking me over as he spoke.
"Yea?"
"You ok?"
"No, I'm not. For some reason Esther's decided to feed me to the wolves, still half-drunk with a subpar eqipment. I'm racing a goddamn relic against the best drivers in the world, ALL in prototypes!!" - raising both my hands in disgust as I walked up the steps into the Truck's living quarters.
"Hey Tsai, you got any cream in here? I don't know how you people drink this crap without a gallon of heavy whip as a chaser.."
"Well, looks like we got another problem Mr. Andrew."
I throw him a head-toss as I rummaged through the cabinets, looking for some
white horse to cut this coffee with. Tsai continued..
"The pit crew, they can't make it."
"What the fork you mean they can't make it? I thought COTW was using your company as our exclusive support service when we're in Japan?"
"We are--th-the-they are.."
"So what's the issue? I know we've been keeping up on our payments. I know this, because I help run the books."
"They made it to the semi finals."
Finally I'd found some powdered milk, and mixed 3 heaping spoonfulls into this quicksand they call coffee. I take a big gulp, wincing and wiping my lower lip with the top of my wrist as I move my mug to my left hand and lean against the counter.
"Semi finals for what?"
Tsai took off his hat and looked at the floor.
"Takeshi's Castle, sir."
"
Forkin' MXC! You're friggin' kidding me right??"
"Sir, you don't understand. The COTW pit crew is going against the Cheaters. If we win, we play the Jilted Wives for the title."
"You're absolutely-forkin' right, I don't understand Tsai!"
I storm past him, murmering to myself as I briskly walk down the steps of the truck, and through the corridor that led to the back entrance of our paddock. I walk past the R92, running my fingertips along the bonnet as I pass, and look up at the various monitors displaying the satellite feed of the weather system that's supposed to be headed our way, taking small sips of coffee as I examine the
doppler feed.
"TSAI!!!"
"yessir", I startle and spill coffee on my race suit - somehow Tsai had snuck up behind me as I bounced between the satellite images.
"Look, that high pressure ridge is gunna' move in here shortly and stave that system off for at least a few more hours."
Tsai just looked at me with a blank look on his face, blinking occasionally. Clearly he had no clue what the fork I was talking about.
"Right, yeah. So I need you to set the car up with Racing Hard's and a high downforce setup. Copy?"
"Copy"
"Also..." I looked over my left shoulder back at the car as I pondered, with Tsai, studiously awaiting further direction.
"This isn't my personal R92, I need you to make sure that some fuel mapping software is installed in the black box. And gas it up to the top of the neck. I don't want but a single millimeter of unused space in that cell."
"Sir?" Tsai inquired, as if making sure he understood completely the strategy direction I was looking to go.
"We're gonna fuel-save and no-stop this race, Tsai."
"Andrew..." he said a bit more candidly. "Its a 3 hour race, even if the rain doesn't come, you're going to have to lift and coast at every straight, while using the leanest map."
I turn back towards him, with arms spread wide open, looking around the room in a mocking fashion, insinuating the absence of a pit crew that
should be here, but
isn't.
"Well, you got a better forking plan Tsai?". He once again looked down at the floor while simutaneously removing his hat. "Yeah, didn't think so. I'll be in the truck eating breakfast, let me know if you need any help."
The rain started to fall on lap 17.
Team COTW lost in the semi's, setting up for a COTW-less death match between
The Cheaters and The Jilted Wives in the MXC finals.
We had to retire the car after I put it into the wall at Casio Triangle on lap 28.
Tsai owed me a big friggin' favor.
"How'd it go?"
"What kind of stupid-arse question is that Esther? I know you already
know how it went."
"Sounds like you were the talk of the town this afternoon Andrew. How you feeling?"
"Good, I'm getting discharged from the ER as we speak. Precautionary measures - they said they were suprised I wasn't injured, based on the video footage they saw on the television."
"Oh yeah, did you tell them to 'pound sand?' I'm sure the head-strong fireman in you came out pretty quick", Esther said in a somewhat mocking tone.
"Na, I didn't say that", I briefly paused - "mainly because of what I was said to them next.."
"Which was?", she asked, with a hint of nervousness from the prospect of the possible damage control she might have to do.
"Thank god I'm still way over the legal alcohol limit, or else I definitely would have been injured."
"Pssst. Of course you would say something idiotic like that." I could hear her eyes rolling through the phone.
"Whatever. Its the forking truth. There's a reason why the
drunk driver never gets injured in the accident." She started to say something almost immediately, but I cut her off. "--besides, I blame you. You know I was in no condition to race Esther. Especially with rain in the forecast. In a Group C car. Against the world's best drivers. All whom were driving prototypes. You really forked' me on this one."
To this she didn't have much to say, and the phone went silent for a few seconds.
Then finally,
"I heard you were on slicks, trying to no-stop it. Even I know that's a stupid-arse strategy."
I nearly decided to dime out Tsai and his missing pit crew, but snitching wasn't exactly my style, and besides, I had other plans for Tsai. Instead, I decided to try and gain some leverage over the situation.
"Well, being's that you sent me out there in an R92, my options for winning against a field of protypes was very limited to say the least."
"Who said anything about winning Andrew? I just told you to be there."
Fork.
"Yeah...well......well...I have to try to win in order to represent COTW on the world stage". I'll admit it, I was reaching a little on that last comment.
- Silence -
"You know Andrew, sometimes you're both smarter, and dumber than you get credit for..."
Fork.
"Yeah, but Esth--" she cut me off.
"You were already going to be representing us well, by the very fact
that you were racing a Group C car against the best drivers in the world, racing prototypes. How well you did, or didn't finish,
was going to be completely irrelevant. A COTW driver in a 30 year old race car, IS THE STORY the racing world wants to hear. Not some black-eyed, half drunk playboy, crashing a classic car because he was too stupid to come up with a viable race strategy that even a crackhead without a driver's license could complete!"
Verbally silent, I walked down the hall and out the doors of the hospital, albeit with a slight limp that had snuck up on me. Looking up at the sun through a break in the clouds, I realized that although my hangover was officially gone, my eye was throbbing more than ever now, and my right knee was tweaked, presumably from the wreck.
"Yeah but still, you shouldn't have sent me Esther. You should have either sent a different driver, or pulled COTW out of the race, and out of this so-called
GT7 series, entirely". She was quiet. About 5 seconds passed.
"It wasn't my call"
"Wasn't
you're call? What do you mean 'it wasn't you're call?' You run COTW Esther. Of course its you're call."
"Look... it wasn't my decision, ok?"
"Then who's was it? Mr. Casual would have told me if he wanted me to race. Hell, he even would have shown up himself to help with the PITS". I glared at Tsai who was also walking besides me, looking down once again as he removed his cap. He then double-timed it to the truck to get the door and unfold the steps, leading into the cabin.
Geezus, whats with the hat thing?
"Tsai, what the fork dude? I can get the goddamn door myself. It's not like I'm hurt or anything". Tsai just continued to look down as I grasped the railing and walked up the stairs, making sure I put most of my weight on my good, left knee. I'll admit that Tsai was starting to rub off on me. Something about his old school politeness, mixed with an eagerness to please. I think I'll start to go easier on him from here on out.
"You're going to Spa in a week, right?'
"Yeah, so?" I wasn't about to start going easy on Esther, however.
"I need you to race while you're there."
"Let me guess, in that same
forkin' hoopty against these world tour drivers again? Yeah, not a forking chance in hell Esther."
"Then I need you to go to Italy"
"
ITALY? My iteniarary never called me to be anywhere near Italy. Besides Sergeant Lombardo doesn't have enough leave approved to take unnecessary detours, Esther."
"It's already been handled."
This chick. Who does she think she is, going over my head on something like getting millitary time-off, approved.
"...and you're not going to be racing that 'relic' at Spa. At least, not until you get back state-side and race Daytona."
"DAYTONA??"
"YeahDaytona. Listen, it looks like everybody is going to be racing Group 3 cars at the next two races. But I guess you're allowed some modifications in this series. They don't use the Balance of Performance standard like they did in the GTS series..."
"I don't care what rule book they follow because I'm not doing it Esth--"
"They use some kind of 'Performance Point' system in this GT7 series--"
"I don't care Es--"
"I forwarded you the rulebook, it should be in your email now. Look it over and tell us what car you want delivered to Spa. And then you and Tsai come' up with a part list, we'll get those out to you as well."
"You mean I'm stuck with this guy?" - Ok,
I promise, that I'll be nice now.
- Forkin' Hell, why is Tsai removing his hat and looking at the ground again?? What's with this guy???
"So you agree? Perfect!!"
"No Esther, I didn't say that! I'm not doing th--"
-- CLICK --
"Where-to boss?" Tsai asked, with his cap magically back on his head again.
"What?? Fork. Gimme a minute - I need to make a call. Say Tsai? You got anymore of that coffee pal?"
"Sure thing boss. I'll make you a cup."
"The name's Andrew, Tsai."
He smiled and nodded as he adjusted his cap, and hurried passed me to the coffee maker - with the air of someone who's happy to have a purpose again....and knows, he's about to embark upon a great adventure. Yea, I guess you could say I liked the guy.
//////////
"Hello?"
"
Hey its me, Es--"
"Hello?"
"ITS ME, ESTHER!!"
"Just joking, this is Andrew, I'm busy right now, leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible, BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"
"Hey its Esther -----, look, we have some questions about the vehicle and parts request you sent us. Please call the office at your earliest convince, or you can reach me at --,---,----1919. Or you can email me at EstherM--------@gmail.com, thanks and have a great day!"
--- "hehehehehehehehe" ---
"What the? HELLO??"
--"HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH"--
"On a Sunday morning sidewalk, I'm wishing lord that I was stoned...cuz there's something in a Sunday, that makes the body feel alone"
"HELLO?!?! Andrew? TSAI?? WHAT THE FRACK!!!"
-"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"-
"Seriously you guys? Are you guys g five years old!!?? What the is the matter with you Andrew, you *****G DIP *?!!"
"Geezus Esther, we were just messing -- I mean....No big deal man. We do it because we like yo--?"
"SERIOUSLY ANDREW?? What the frock is the matter with you??"
"It was my idea Estah.."
"See.. Tsai admitted it was his idea Es---"
"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHO'S IDEA IT WAS!!! You're the one I'm calling And--"
"of the sleeping city siiiiide-waauulk, and Sunday Morning coming' douuwn..."
"Hey Tsai! Turn it down man!
-- yeah, I know the best part is comin' -- jus.... YEAH, THAT KNOB RIGHT THERE. YEAH, TURN IT TO THE LEFT---. ESTHER?? YOU THERE??"
- SILENCE
"ESTHER??"
- SILENCE-
"HEY! ESTHE--"
"Yeah, I'm here-"
"Ok.. what's up?"
"You done?"
"I don't know, you called me."
- SILENCE -
"We got your email here at headquarters, and,...umm....we..we..don't understand."
"What's not to understand?"
"Uhhhhhh, well... you're requesting your personal R92, a trailer full of racing hards and intermediates..... and that's yeah..(sound of pages flipping) yeah, that's it?"
"Yeah..yeah, that sounds about right. We're just glad you got it. We were in a limited-service area and were worried."
"Andrew, the Nissan R92CP isn't a Group 3 car??"
"Yea, we know."
"Theeeeennnnn...whats up? What are you guys up to?"
"Nothing. We read the rule book and ran some numbers. We're well within the rules. We actually need a couple other parts, but I think we're going to make them ourselves, if we can't aquire them."
"Make parts-a-a-aquire parts? What are you talking about???"
"YEAH!! Turns out Tsai is quite the mechanic! He still has some contacts from working with Nissan in the early 90's. He's good on a lathe too!! Whatever we can't get, we'll build --- Jus'...jus', make sure you get my car to Spa by next week. Hey! Gotta go, getting ready to go through a tu----"
It turns out, Tsai
WAS quite the mechanic. And engineer. And racer.
Tsai, whom I thought was a middle-aged man, was actually well into 60's. Not quite what modern society would consider
old age, but definitely on the cusp. Regardless, he was a bit of a wild man in his younger years. A Rocker who liked
The Beatles and
Johnny Cash, Tsai took to the rag-tag European motorsport of
Rally, opposed to the more sexy motorsports of the time, namely Formula 1. A shooting star on the rally scene through the early-mid 70's, he was smart enough to recognize that the steadily increasing horsepower combined with the plummeting chassis weight of the modern cars, meant that his career was going to have trajectory which mirrored more that of a Kamikazee pilot rather than a
red giant. By 1978 he had moved himself from Driver to Co-Pilot. By 1980, he had retired from racing altogether, and Audi, always in search of talent, hired him on to be the lead test driver for the
car that was going to change Rally forever. By 81', his engineering talents were obvious enough for Audi to change his title
officially to 'Lead Engineer", hiring test drivers behind him. Unofficially, Tsai was the Lead Engineer, Lead Test Driver, and first to fill in, if
Hannu Mikkola fell ill. It remained this way until January of 1984 when Lancia drafted him to help finish their flagship race car, the
Delta S4 . After the fatal crash involving Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto in 1986, he became a recluse and regulated himself to owning and operating a small tuning shop in Yokohama. That is, until MCD rediscovered him in 2014.
Esther, ever-so-thorough, emailed me copies of the new GT7 Regulations Book in English, Japanese and Chinese. It was my idea to investigate how we could
alternately interpret the rules of this new series, but it was ultimately Tsai, who plotted the course on how to accomplish it. Like most all racers, neither of us were strangers to cheating. But unlike the "Cup Level" shenanigans I was used to pulling, Tsai's level of expertise was on another level. Tsai, in fact, was so good at
interpreting rule books, that many Le Mans and F1 teams hired him as a freelance consultant to go through the rule changes for the upcoming year, and figure out ways around them. Due to NDA's, TSAI can't really do much more than smile or nod, but being that he was an extremely talented engineer, more than a few of his
interpretation inventions, made it into production. Polyphony Digital, the title sponsor of this
GT7 Series, was kind enough to provide the starting
"Performance Point" starting values for all the popular GT3 cars still in use. The list of this new "PP System" was that said values could go up or down and you took weight on or off of a car as well as putting or pulling power as well. Minor value changes would incur if you changed suspension settings as well, but the meat and potatoes was within the power to weight ratio. Still, that didn't stop Tsai and myself from breaking out Excel Spreadsheets, and seeing what fine-tuning could be accomplished.
"I don't understand, what is a BIG welder and why do you need it Andrew?"
(grinding noises and hammer clanks)
"Whaaaaaaat? ESTHER?? CAN YOU HEAR ME???"
"Yes! You said you need a 'BIG' welder?"
"No! A
TIG WELDER!! YEAH!! HEY TSAI! Shut down that grinder, OK?"
(tool sounds die down)
"sorry boss"
"The 'whatever' welder you requested is 10 grand, Andrew? What's it for?"
"What does it matter? I need it... which is why
we requested it."
"I'm just asking Andrew."
"Look, you can either send me a Hobart, or pay the homologation fee for us to use the
488 on our plane. Your call Esther."
"Why would we need to pay for the licensing fee of a 488?"
"Because the rulebook didn't say we couldn't use non-homoligated GT3 cars either.."
"I still don't know why you guys need a welder"
"I need it Esther, that's why. For fork's sake, if its that big of a forkin' deal, I'll pay for it myself...Its not like Mr. C and myself didn't front this magazine for the past 13 month
--"
"It just sounds like a $10,000 add-on to an impending $500,000 lawsuit, that's all."
"There isn't going to be a lawsuit Esther."
"Why's that?"
"Cause' it's within the rules, and you're going to be there to protect us."
"If its within the rules, why do I need to be there?"
"Because we're going to get protested regardless."
"Protested? By Who? Why??"
"Because they can. And because they have deep pockets
, that's why."
"Who's 'they'?"
"Ferrari, Mercedes, Ford... all the big boys. And Alfa Romeo just because they want to be part of something."
"Sounds like a big PITA."
I laugh, and then pause for a second as I search for the words.
"Esther, this is the PITA you were meant for. Companies worth billion's of dollars? All going after our humble publication because we're smarter than them? Come on
E, this has
you written all over it."
"Don't call me that"
"You know I'm right. Listen, we need you at Spa...day' after tomorra'"
"Why? The race is on Sunday... 4 days from now."
"We get into Stavelot tomorrow morning. The second we unload our truck and the other teams see what we're running, the protests are going to start. Trust me on this."
"Well, I'll see if I can get there in time. I'm back in Montana.."
"Montana?? Back at Kasarian's place?? What are you guys?... an
item or something?"
"What are YOU, my mom?"
"I was just askin
--"
- CLICK -
Tsai thought we'd be ok with the lower control arms without modification. I wasn't so sure. Yes, this car had been raced in a number of endurance races, but never with an additional 330-some-odd pounds strapped to it in order to meet regulations. These cars were carved to the bone as it was, and carrying all this extra weight, which was only going to get multiplied by a high-g-force track like Spa over the course of 24 hours, wasn't going to do the chassis any favors either.
"We might as well gusset the engine bracing while we're at it Tsai"
"Copy that boss"
"What the hell are you guys doing under the--, OUCH!!!! MY EYES!!!!!!"
"Oh crap Esther, you're not supposed to look at the light.
Fork! You ok?"
"Yea, I'm fine. I just..can't...see."
"Even moreso then normal? I know you have to wear those coke bottles for a reason." I said with a slight smirk.
"Ha, ha. Very funny."
"Its a good thing you're here Ma'am.." Tsai chimed in, with a sense of urgency in his tone. "Yard was right. The second we unloaded our rig, the protests stated to pour in."
"How many are we up to?"
"Five." I said.
"Well, six if you include Mazda", Tsai corrected.
"Psssst.
They don't count."
"On what grounds are they protesting?" Esther said.
"That we're not following the 'spirit' of the rules", I say with a chuckle.
"Yeah, like they've given a fork about the spirit of any rules in the past..." Tsai says as he slides out from under the Nissan on a creeper.
"Well, what's our defense?"
"On the
face of it all,
they are faster than us."
"Then I don't understand what the issue is."
"The issue is, they're faster than us on a flying lap."
"Ok?"
"They know as well as we do, that they won't be able to hold a candle to us over the course of 24 hours."
"You're racing for 24 hours straight Andrew!? Who's going to co-pilot with you?"
"No one."
"That's...this isn't safe Andrew!" She said with a whiff of genuine concern in her voice.
"Since when do you give a damn about my safety, Esther?" I say with a laugh as I slide back under the car on my own creeper.
"I don't. But the insurance company isn't going to willingly pay out for your carelessness when you careen into a wall after you've fallen asleep!"
"Yeah, I wouldn't either."
"Then why are you choosing to do this solo?"
"Its called Iron-Manning it. And....
'Hey Tsai, pass me the torch'. Watch your eyes Esther."
(Buzzing sounds coupled with a bright, sustained flash of light) - "Yeah, that'll do it. Lemme pass you back the torch Tsai." I slide back from under the car on my creeper, get to my feet, and walk over to the tool box to grab a gulp of coffee - then turn back towards Esther, cup in hand.
"I've done this before." I finish the sentence with another swig of coffee followed by a chin-wipe with my forearm.
"What do you mean you've done this before?"
"On bikes."
"On Bikes?" Esther puts her hand on her hip as she asks, rhetorically.
"Yeah. I've done the Glen Helen 10 hour three times. The 24, twice. Starvation Ridge, Perry Mountain, and the Baja 1000. All in the 'Iron Man' class."
"Dirtbikes aren't race cars, Andrew."
"Yes, I know."
"Then how do you plan on staying awake for 24 hours straight?"
"Same way I've done it in the past. And I was racing for 27 hours straight when I did the
Thousand' , in case you were wondering".
"Which is? And I wasn't."
"Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, salami, carbohydrates and lots of Nozz-A-La."
"Eeeeeeww, Nozz-A-La? You actually drink that stuff?"
"What? I like the way it tastes."
"No one likes the way that crap tastes."
"Whatever. Its better than that
Tiger ***** that Square drinks."
"Don't forget about the Cocaine-Coffee.."
"Oh yeah, Tsai has this crazy coffee that he gets from Japan. Stuff' is like legalized
speed."
"I don't know. What am I supposed to do with th--, I mean..how am I supposed to defend you guys from the protests, while convincing the stewards what you idiots are doing is even safe?"
"I don't Esther....this is your expertise. Just work your magic, and make it happen like you always do."
"Psssst..." Esther scoffed with her patented eye-roll, as she
walked with a purpose down pit row in five-inch heels, towards Race Control, rulebook in hand.
My Brother in law, myself, and my dad after the Glen Helen 10 hour last year.
While Esther was fighting WWIII in front of a crowd of stewards, team principles, pre-madonna's -
uh, I mean drivers, and gawkers alike; Tsai and myself finished buttoning up the car. I was in the changing room getting into my suit, when I heard Esther's voice from the front of our garage.
"I got good news, and bad news."
"Good news first." Tsai said.
I walked out from the changing room with my suit half-way down, curious to what she was going to say.
"They're going to let us run the R92."
"Great!!!" Tsai said. And then, "what could possibly be the bad news?"
"They want more."
"More of what?" I chimed in.
"More concessions."
"Are you forking kidding me?? We've already choked this thing of any air trying to find its way into the intake. Tsai already retarded the timing as much as he could, and we're running next to zero boost! What more do they want??"
"50kg more ballast."
"Gezzus Christ."
"That's not it." She said flatly.
"THERE'S MORE?!?!". Out of the corner of my eye I see Tsai quickly removing his cap and looking at the ground, at the sound of my raised voice.
My god, he's like my dog Palomina when I'm yelling at the television while the Raiders are playing.
"Yes." Esther looked at me, and then Tsai - who was slowly looking up from the ground to catch her gaze. He put his cap back on.
"They want you to disable traction control, as well as brake bias adjustments - whatever those are."
I looked at Tsai. "What do you think man?"
"I mean...that's no problem. Of course I can do it. It just a matter of hooking up the laptop and couple minutes worth of keystrokes."
"Who's idea was it to impose more concessions on us? Race Control?"
"No, not really. Race control was siding with us, actually. Especially when I threatened a lawsuit."
I chuckled at the site of a
prim and proper Esther, diplomatically threatening to bankrupt the GTWS organization.
"Then who was it?"
"Well, it was Mercedes and Ferrari who were the loudest. Toto Wolff and that curly-haired guy."
"Binotto?? That forking nerd?? That friggin' geek is just trying to get back into Ferrari's good graces after they fired his arse from the F1 team. I still can't believe they even hired him back to run their GT3 program. They must be desperate, or they don't care."
Tsai laughed at my last comment. From what I remember from one of our inebriated conversations a few days back, they used to work together. But Ferrari offered Mattia the position of lead engineer over Tsai, mainly because
they had to have an Itallian as they're front man. Regardless--
"Whatever." Esther moved her messenger's bag from her left shoulder to her right, "What do you want me to tell them?"
I looked at Tsai again. He nodded.
"Tell them we're in.... and...". I paused.
"Yes?"
"Tell Toto if he has a problem with us, to come find me tomorrow morning after the race, and I'll chin-check him harder than a
Little Mac Star Uppercut."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. seriously tell him that. This isn't F1. If he thinks he's gonna try to big-league us, he has another thing coming.'"
"Any message for the curly-haired guy with the glasses?"
"Yeah, if he starts piping up, just ask
who he is. That'll piss him off."
With another eye-roll, followed by an about-face, Esther was once again off to race control - breaking necks the whole way down pit row.
"Hey Tsai, this traction control thing. You got a work around, right?"
"Yeah, I got something I can do. It'll take me about 30 minutes to code."
"That's fine. Qualifying doesn't start for an hour anyways."
"The brake bias though. There's nothing I can do about that, being that its entirely a mechanical system."
"No problem. Just lock me out in the most frontward setting. We'll then take off the handle and give it to race control."
"Good idea, Yard. Say, Andrew?"
"Yea?"
"Were you serious about fighting Toto? You know that guy is like 6'5" or something.."
I take a sip of my coffee while gazing out of our paddock, taking in the humming of generators in the distance, the smell of high-test fuel wafting down pit row, and the low murmer of voices as the grand stands were beginning to fill up. I turn around and look at Tsai, take one last sip of my coffee - before chucking it into the trash can with an audible thud, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Tsai removes his cap.
"Fork Toto."
I walk purposefully past Tsai, saying over my shoulder, "I'm gonna finish getting ready. Let me know if you need a hand."
"Sure thing boss."
//////
Qualifying went as expected, on purpose.
Now, I know that compared to these WT drivers, I'm not much of a threat. But even I know that I need to ease my way into
Campus so I can get a good exit out of
Paul Frere all the way to the
Chicane. However, an inside line at
Double Gauche will compromise your pace for nearly 1/2 of the track. Couple that with a whisky-throttle-spin at the exit of the chicane, not only did it guarantee me a DFL starting position on the grid, it also earned me some scoffs and chuckles from all of the factory teams. Perfect.
It quickly became apparent to everyone, that my severely stymied R92 wasn't much of a threat down a lot of the long stretches at Spa. In fact, just about every other GT3 car in the field had little trouble getting in my slip, and motoring right passed me before the heavy braking zones. Sure, I was able to use my outdated, but still superior aerodynamics to attack Eau Rouge, Radillion and Double Gauche at full-forking tilt. But the
Ace up my sleeve was R92's disproportionate advantage of being able to sip fuel. Unlike most of the other GT3 cars on the grid, my Nissan was made for endurance racing, first and foremost. By the time the rest of the field was dipping into the pits for their first scheduled stop about 2 hours into the race, the course was just starting to open up and allow me to take full advantage of my superior cornering ability, without any other racers that might compromise my exit speed. Couple that with fuel consumption that was 30% better than any other car out there, it was close to the 4-hour mark before the other teams became privy to Team COTW's
slow-cook strategy.
Rain came and went in light patches throughout the early evening, into dusk. But it never really became a strategy-altering threat until about midnight. For whatever reason, the big dark blob on the radar that was slowly heading our way, caught everyone with their pants down. To be fair, I pitted for
heavy wets about 20 minutes too early. But it was of little consequence, being that I had already opened up a sizable gap on the field, as most the teams had started to fuel-save themselves, in an effort to match our pit strategy. Still, the rain
was coming. And when it came, it didn't let up for the better part of 4 hours. Needless to say, I used the wet conditions to fuel-save even more; and combined with my supreme downforce - I was able to stay on the wet line while keeping good pace, both preserving my tires long after conditions warranted a change to inters, thus extending my stint 150% longer than anyone else. But it also made passes much easier, as I was able to use parts of the race track that would have sent any of the other cars spinning into orbit.
As the checker flag flew some hours later, I had gapped second place by 4 whole laps, and was literally hours ahead of the teams outside of the top 8. The car was no worse for the wear either. And when all was tallied, we were able to wallop the competition with 5 sets of Racing Hards, 1 set of Heavy Wets, 623 gallons of fuel, 3 cases of Nozz-A-La, 15 liters of Tsai's cocaine-coffee, and (4) 6' long Subway sandwiches - Black Forest Ham, of course. Pretty economical way to embarrass everyone there if you ask me. As for post-race protests? Yeah, there were some. But nothing ever came of it after Esther threatened to bankrupt Mercedes and Ford so bad, that their great grandkids would be on welfare. Rumor also has it that Tsai was seen entering our trailer with a few of the trophy girls in tow. But to that, I can neither confirm, nor deny.
As for me and Toto? Yeah, he found me too. Lets just say that the fight
wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.
/////////
After getting discharged from a hospital for the second time in 10 days, I jumped a quick flight to meet the COTW team down in Italy, for the Sardegna WTC 800 Classic. Walking up the stairs to our Truck with my duffel bag in hand, I was greeted by Tsai, with a fresh cup of coffee in his out-reached hand.
"You look like crap, Yard."
"Yeah, well... at least my left eye matches my right, now."
"Na, not really boss. You're right eye is already starting to turn brown. You're left, is still pretty purple."
I smiled as I took a sip of coffee. "Well, to be frank, I'm just glad I didn't see you in the hospital as well, Tsai."
"What do you mean?"
"Shoot... with all those Ferrari groupies and Trophy Girls you had in and out of the trailer all night, I figured there was a good chance you were gonna
pick something up."
"I have no clue what you're talking about boss...". A smile had also begun to manifest across Tsai's face as well. I laughed and took another sip of my cof
---
"We got a problem. And....gross."
"Nice to see you too Esther. And don't worry, I loved the flowers and chocolates you sent me while I was in the hospital."
"I didn't."
"Exactly."
"Whatever. You deserved it as far as I can tell. Look..." Esther sat back in her chair and adjusted her glasses,
"...We got some issues."
"With what? More teams protesting us? Its Bull-
stuff. I heard that Mazda and Porsche had been rushing all week, trying to revive some old Group C Cars they dug up from their basements, but they ran into some issues."
"What kind of issues?" Tsai asked.
"Well..." I re-took my hijacked sip of coffee, and winced at both the bitter taste, and the dull pain from my left eye. "...for the past 30 years, the only thing these teams have worried about, is how to bend the rules in order to
hide power from the race stewards."
"Ok?"
"Yeah, well... they completely forgot how bend the rules to
take power from their cars."
"I see.." Esther commented.
"So all the teams entered in this series that used to have Group C's, were feverishly trying to reverse engineer the magic Tsai was able to work." I motion to Tsai, whom was standing to my right, with a sideward head-toss. I could see out of the blurred corner of my swollen left eye, that he was beaming with pride, but at the same time, slightly uncomfortable with the accolades.
"None of that matters though?"
"Why? Goes to show you that they're willing to do the same thing we are, given they can figure it out."
"A former colleague of mine who now works at Honda, also told me that the top Brass at corporate were putting pressure on the team principle, to figure out how to detune their Super GT cars to 800pp specs", Tsai chimed in.
"That should have been easy enough to figure out", I commented.
"You would think, but they were burning piston rings when trying to run them on super lean mixtures, sooo...
---"
"Look, none of that is relevant. The fact of the matter is that GTWS is concerned that the legitimacy of their series is coming into question, with us running an old Le Mans car."
"Doesn't matter what they think Esther. We're just following the rulebook that
they wrote."
"Normally I would agree, its.....just...that.."
"'Just that', what?" Tsai inquired.
"Yeah, 'what?' Esther?"
"Its just that... the legitimacy of COTW has come into question too."
"From who? The FIA?? The media?? Who the
fork is pushing that narrative?"
"I don't know 100%, but all roads are leading to Ted Thomas at Mazda"
"
TED-FORKING-THOMAS IS BACK??? YOU GOTTA BE FORKING KIDDING ME ESTHER?? I thought the FIA banned him for life???"
"They did, but GTWS isn't sanctioned by FIA. They're their own governing body."
"Wait, I'm confused.." Tsai interjected, "Who is Ted Thomas and why is Andrew so upset about this?"
"Ted Thomas is..." Esther sat up in her seat and adjusted her glasses again,
"..He's...been a thorn in our side ever since the old GT5 series."
"He's a slimy piece of crap is what he is!! And of course those grease balls at Mazda would hire him!! Those idiots haven't been relevant in motorsport since they
lucked' their way into a win at Le Mans in 91'. How long has he been with Mazda??-- Argh! This is so forked!!"
"Look, the GTWS stewards have decided to let us compete with the R92, regardless of every team filing formal protests."
"Really, why?"
Esther reached into her briefcase and produced a white binder that she handed to me. I opened it to find it was filled with graphs, flow charts and accounting sheets. I spent all of 10 seconds trying to decipher what I was reading, before getting frustrated and...
"Esther, I don't know what I'm looking at." As I slammed the folder shut and tossed it on the couch to my right.
"Its viewership ratings from the last 2 televised races. As well as the metrics of social media posts that GT7 and GTWS have been tagged in."
"So? What does that have to do with us and our current situation?"
"Their ratings are up. WAY UP as a matter of fact. They're smart enough to know that these ratings equal dollars. And a big part of this recent spike is directly in part because of COTW's attendance of this new series."
"And Yard's shenanigans.." Tsai pipes in.
"And yes. Andrew's outlandish personality does have a bit to do with it." Esther says with a slight smile.
"His Twitty page is already up to 750K followers Esther."
"
TWITTY PAGE?! WTF Esther?? You know I don't do social media? Why the hell do I have a damn Twitty page??
"You had one as of 3 days ago, and apparently, you have seven hundred and fifty thousand followeres... not bad." Esther says with a slight shrug of her shoulders as she stands up.
"You got to be forking kidding me Esther. I didn't consent to this."
"To be honest, if you want to stay with COTW while maintaining this insouciant persona, this is a necessary evil to avoid the masses from turning on us. Besides, it was the boss's idea."
"Who the hell is this
boss you keep talking about?
"Doesn't matter. Let's just focus on the task that's directly in front of us."
For once, I decide to listen to my inner
rational voice, and save that battle for later.
"Alright. Soooooo, what do the Stewards want from us?.... what about the potential negative impact on COTW's legitimacy as you mentioned Esther? Our main job is testing cars and reviewing them in our magazine--"
"And on our podcast." Esther interrupts.
"We have a podcast now?? -look, it doesn't matter. What about the potential negative impact that this could have on our business model Esther? We're a highly regarded car enthusiast publication. We're not a race team."
"Let me handle that, Andrew."
"Fine, whatever. Just let Tsai and myself know what
other concessions the Stewards want. First practice is tomorrow. I want to be practicing with the setup I'll be racing, and we're going to need some time to figure this out."
"No problem, I'll handle it."
The door shut softly behind Esther as she walked out of the trailer and back to race control. I look over to Tsai..
"What do you think, you got any more tricks up your sleeve?"
"Depending on what they ask for, yes."
"Fair enough. I'll be back in a few Tsai, I gotta give Mr. Casual a call."
"I'll be here..."
The GTWS stewards could have easily knee-capped us by imposing a minimum ride height and/or limitations on the amount of downforce we could use, rendering our distinct handling advantage useless. Instead, the only thing they required us to do; was use our leanest fuel map setting, coupled with real-time ECU data transmission to Race Control technicians for constant oversight and analysis. God knows they had enough pressure from the other teams to take an 'all of the above' approach in BOPing' us into oblivion. But for some reason they decided to go easy on us.
Suspiciously easy, actually. I'm sure part of it was them accepting the fact that we were simply just following the rules that they wrote. But this whole thing felt eerily similar to AbuDhabi 2021, where the F1 stewards decided to chase ratings instead of sportsmanship. Wether they came to this realization on their own, or from the persistance of Esther with her binder full of flow charts and flux capacitors, is another subject that is entirely up for debate.
However, engineered lieneance or not,
forcing us to stay in our leanest fuel map played perfectly into the strategy that Tsai and myself had already been cooking up for this race since last week. Much like Suzuka, this was going to be a 'sprint-style' type of race, that was to last no more than 3.5 hours total. Paying close attention to the 10 day forecast, I already had it in my mind that I was going to fuel and tire-save, effectively turning a 2-stop race into a no-stopper. Was it risky? Sure. Would it work? Probably not. But Esther
was right about that one thing;
"How well we did, or didn't finish is completely irrelevant. The real story is; that a few chumps from a car enthusiast publication were taking it to all the premadonna's." And to that, she was spot-on.
The next two days leading up to the race didn't go off without complications though. Esther was getting in her
daily workout doing laps back and forth from RC, willist handling the constant onslaught of belly-aching from the factory teams. Tsai and myself were struggling to find a setting that kept us within .5 seconds of the race pace without completley shredding the tires. Toto was fanatically searching up and down the pits for me after he got word that I called his wife a floozie. And I mysteriously would get a massive migraine headache every time I finished a practice session, causing me to retreat rapidly to my trailer so I could
rest in complete solitude. The armed guards at my door were just to insure that I wasn't to be disturbed. However, according to Esther and Tsai, things were looking up. The weather forecast was shaping up to be dry and cool, and according to both of them, my Twitty page was up to 1.2 million followers - mostly due in part to one of the posts that went
"viral". Honestly, I have no clue what they're talking about. Tsai's the one with the
VD, not me.
Sitting in the pits, waiting to be released for our sighting lap before the race started, I was already physically and mentally exhausted from the previous 5 days. Despite both our sanctioned and non-sanctioned road testing, and countless hours of
simulation races, we couldn't find a tune that kept us on par with pace without completely shredding our tires within 90 minutes. In the end, we had to settle for a low downforce setup to keep as much weight off the front tires as possible. Luckily for us, the Sardegna
'A' layout offered more fast sweeping corners than tight hairpins, with the added bonus of increased fuel economy from said low downforce setup. We qualified DFL by a long shot, so the plan was to fake a mechanical right before they sent us out for our sighting lap, get carted into our garage for "investigation", to where they were going to fuel me up to the top of the gas cap with petrol that was chilling in a Cryotherapy chamber to condense the molecules even further, giving us both a small performance boost coupled with the ability to squeeze in a couple more liters of high-test.
The lights went out and I settled into a very lack-luster pace that was predicated upon long lifts going into corners, smooth arcs throughout, and the prudent application of throttle upon exit. 60 minutes in, the no-stop strategy was starting to manifest as one by one we picked off cars as they either pitted or went off. By the 2.75 hour mark, we had worked our way well inside the top 10, and according to
@Obelisk who had flown in to help run strategy for us; we had enough fuel to begin pushing. As for tire degradation, we weren't looking so hot. In fact, I was going to be god-smacked if we made it to the end without a puncture. But in true Alonso fashion, I repeatedly would radio to Tsai and OB that
"these tires were feeling MAGNIFICENT!!". Shortly after, in what could only be described as 'more of an orchestrated, and less of a
racing incident', while going three-wide through the left kink on the last sector,
Forkin' Beauvois dive-bombed the daylights out of Ryota Kokubun and myself, shadow-realming the two of them, while perma-realming a poor photgrapher and a couple of fans. The whole incident was a blur, and quite frankly, something I'd like to forget, so I'll let the race photos do the talking for me.
Unfortunately the photog, as well as a few fans, were fatally ripped to shreds by shrapnel.
Miracuously, I survived relatively unscathed, with the exception of some minor body damage to the car, and a very unsatisfying squishy sensation somewhere in the vicinity between my buttcrack and my Sparco. The mandatory pace car came out, and myself as well as the rest of the field dove into the pits for a dash of fuel and some fresh tires.
"Tsai, how much time is left in the race? What place am I in? OVER!!"
"Yeah Yard, copy that."
"Copy what? Over."
FFS Tsai, I know its been a while since you've been on a radio, but geezus...
"Copy your transmission, wrohwer"
"GEE**S FU***NG CH**ST TSAI!! HOW MANY GOD DA*N FUC**NG LAPS ARE LEFT??
OVER!!!"
"Yeah Andrew, you got approximately 41 minutes left, you're in 5th place. Over!". Thank god OB interjected.
"Roger, COPY THAT!
Look, I need you guys to give me MAX DOWNFORCE IN THE FRONT, AND MEDIUM DOWNFORCE
in the BACK! I don't CARE WHAT PLACE WE COME OUT OF THE PITS IN. WE'RE
going to push THIS LAST STINT. I'LL BE IN in 30 SECONDS!!
OVER!!"
Our pitstop went off without one single hiccup. The COTW crew dumped fuel and changed tires like they were possesed. Hell, they would have smoked the Jilted Wife's at Takeshi's Castle had they played with that furor.
And, I might, or
might not have seen Tsai clip a red wire with a pair of dikes. The fact that we exited the pits in 12th place was irrelevant. By the time the checkers flew, we had a 50 second gap over second place.
Oh yeah, Toto tried to find me again after the race - to which he almost succeeded. Unlucky for him however, Obe-"Big Country"-lisk found him first; to which Toto got sent back home to Vienna with a wired jaw and an icepack between his legs.
...Hey, I said snitching on others wasn't my style. But I never once mentioned anything about kicking a man while he's down. Where I kick him, is my business.
Fork Toto.
When we eventually get around to testing the Nissan R92CP in GT7, I'll conclude this chapter and tell you how we fared at Daytona. Until then...
COTW4LYFE!!!! 
