The Vanilla Rice chronicles

[Parnelli Bone]

I started Vanilla Rice as a character months after the rest. I'm surprised and not sure why I didn't create him earlier. A bit of history...

2 Short was the very first character, starting in October of 2003. Meth Hed showed up slightly after 2 Short. These two characters were the only ones which made the trasition from Ford Racing to Gran Turismo 1 in December of 2003. There were several others (Bubs, Blubs, Babs, Blabs, etc). but they weren't as "fleshed out".

The Slut sisters (and a couple others who are no longer) around showed up during GT1. My first GT2 character was Jacques Strapp, who was supposed to be this French former Formula 1 driver or something. I noticed GT2 had French cars, but Jacque's first car was the '82 Toyota Starlet, since I coudln't put him in a French car for less than $10,000. The infamous Graham "Yuppy Scum" Wellington, Soccer Mom, and Princess started shortly thereafter, as well as Marco Homo, Herr E. Koch, Fur Burger and a few others.

I estimate Vanilla Rice showed up over a year afterwards, so this would be in late 2004 or early 2005. I put driver stereotypes into all my games, and what bigger stereotype is there than the thuggy racer boy kid we've all seen behind the wheel of the tricked-out Integra, Civic, Evo, etc.?

Anyways, here we go. It's the Vanilla Rice Chronicles. I think his diary starts just before the Sunday Cup even started. Originally, I called him "Vanilla Lice" because I hadn't thought of Rice yet.

...ah....the Prelude VTEC! Forgot all about the fact that this was his first car! Wow, this stuff takes me back.


Ameature car driver and drug dealer Vanilla Lice began his career in a 1994 Honda Prelude VTEC and placed his car 5th/6th/ and 3rd overall for 0-400, 0-1000, and top speed categories


Okay, now it skips to the Sunday Cup, thank God I didn't blow off early writing of this one like I did with Wail Hung and Choo Sum Gum.


Vanilla Lice Day 4 or 5 - was kicked out of ED Driver's racing class (as a nobody, he couldn't appear as a guest ?????? (can't read word), so he was forced to tke take a lesson for smoking a during a lunch break.

He won the High Speed Ring, but came in 2nd at Red Rocks after spacing out and crashing in the first half of the sprint.

I forgot all about Ed's racing school! "Ed" was supposed to be the teacher of this racing school or somehting. I forget exactly what was supposed to happen in this class, but it had humorous elements. As we saw above, Vanilla got kicked out of it for smoking something...green, you get the picture.

I never wrote about Tahiti, but we can assume I simply blew it away (Honda VTEC power and all, lol). Otherwise, I had the usual difficulties winning the Sunday Cup 1-2-3, which means (hopefully) I wrote up Sunday Cup part II? Let's see....

..nope. He skips to the Clubman.

Vanilla Lice nearly got busted for trying to carry nearly an ounce of high-grade hydro-grown swiss-legal 🤬 out of Switzerland as he left won the race at Grindelwald. Luckily the tour manager found the stash, adn gave it away to a Poor Belgian backpacker. Vanilla never knew what happened to his stash.



I gotta find the next journal Vanilla appears in....

 

[Pyle_PMG]

I like, I like. Its interesting how you use your original writing and add your view to it (reminds me of the directors commentary in movies). You must have had a lot of time on your hands back then.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

Yea I did have more time on my hands. I didn't have a real job at the time, that helps. Was playing music full time, temping when I needed extra money (which was all the time). Those were the days. I started work as an apprentice mechanic in spring of 2005, leaving behind that weird, but also awesome phase of my life.

Anyways, now I"m going to post more of this journal. I know it's not really a "real" story, by the way. I'm just documenting (online) this stuff because it's kinda cool to go back. See what was going on and stuff.

This next entry has Vanilla in the A Nationals. To get here, I had to open a new journal; the post above was made from what I'll call journal #3 (there were 7 in all I think). I'm almost positive there's a journal missing between the post above and this one. Ah well...

Another absentee on the trax lately was Vanilla Lice, whom had lately been involved in some heavy drug deals to earn cash that Gran Turismo was lacking. The giant xtacy deal went along as planned, and Vanilla could choose to pay rent and bills for the next 7 months if he chose to.

He was now entering the silver Acura Integra in the A middle class Nationals of Pacifics.

Tahiti - the Integra was loaded with stage 1 tuning (??? + turbo) and aspiration + turbo removed to qualify for the new 70 hp modified limit. His car's engine had just been balanced, and HP was just under the 225 limit (223 @ 6,200 rpm). The Integra was loaded w/close gearing, single-plate clutch and light gauge flywheel as per see the rules.

Vanilla won the race, but not without a fight! The Integra seemed to have less power than Pierre Pressure's Venturi Atlantique and the Peugeot 306 S16 driven by Marie Mi. In fact, the Integra didn't even make 5th place till the first sharp corner.

Vanilla's only hope waz to out corner and outbrake the competition, which he managed to do withoo without slamming NE1!


By the time I was doing Vanilla "Lice", I had most of my GT2 Racing Guide page worked out, apparently. That's what all that talk about the rules (parts requirements, power restrictions, etc.) is about.

Since he's driving the silver Integra, this means it would have been written in February of 2005, right around the time Mardi Gras was going on. I was "dating" (ha ha) this girl who went down to Mardi Gras. We didn't last long as a couple, but during that time I remember writing about the Integra on my website. The "I think I'm in love" bit in the opening paragraph of the Integra review was actually me unsure whether me and Liz (that was her name) had a future. I was starting to fall for her, bla bla bla...but things didn't work out in the long run.

The text below mentions somebody named "Baby Phat", who was yet another character. She was supposed to be Vanilla Rice's raver girlfriend, but eventually I ran out of ideas for what the heck she was supposed to drive.

What happens now is Vanilla gets some offers from car-makers who want to sponsor him as a driver...but things turn for the worse...

Midfield - He managed 2nd here b4 in the some other car, and today entered the Prelude Integra. The same HP limit applied here to this model lower "A" liscense race, so all he could do was make the dampers of the Integra coupe a little stiffer and lessen the camber on all wheels.

He chose close gearing again, which didnt hurt top speed at all.

B4 the race, the dope Vanilla (Baby Phat in tow) was approached by no less than 4 car makers for with pamphlets, brochures, and other paraphernalia describing all the cars he could win (to date, only he and B-phat + the aloof Wail Hung seemed interested in winning in Japan).

After a practice run, he had his crew install street tires in the rear to foster some slide action. DrIfTaHs UnItE! This turned out to be a bad decision, since he got sideways about 3X in the race and only made 3rd place.

Chop Gooey in the Honda S2000 passed Vanilla Down the straight. Pure + simple with more HP, too.

Laguna Seca - Midfield had been a dissapointment: all those investors seemed to vanish after Vanilla lost the race.

Here back in the US, he had the Integra equipped w/ a 1 way LSD unit for $4,500. He also bought a middle weight flywheel, lighter than the sports piece he had, in a desperate attempt to win in America!

And he did win here, oddly. Nobody expected Midfield to be any easier than Laguna Seca! Vanilla passed the 1st 4 Skip Barber clone drivers B4 the first corner, and slipped by Phil MiPokitz B4 the hill, and passed Aimee Dart thru the 1st lap of the corkscrew, and was untouchable the rest of the race.

On the 2nd lap, he managed a complicated 4-wheel understeer slide at the top of the corkscrew and used feint motion to carry the Integra down the hill. Very smooth.

He got the best 🤬 that nite from B-Phat.



^The 🤬 bit rhymes with CJ.

 

[Pyle_PMG]

A great chapter. Your writing has a serious tone, yet its kind of humourous at the same time.

 

[DK]

I am loving this lol-fest.