Grand Prix Rejects

The place for spinning interesting fictitious tales, including your virtual racing exploits. But that's all that there is: virtual racing. What if someone, meaning me, just wrote a plain old fictitious tale and posted it as a thread?

Enter the Xtremely Xperimental X-country Xcursion. Teams of two divided by country (for example, a valid team could be Vettel and Hulkenberg) would rally, on non-closed roads, from one coast of the continental United States to the other. I know it sounds a lot like ripping off the Cannonball Baker, but that's because it is. It's also like the One Lap of America in that there would be speed limits, enforced by engine regulations making the cars incapable of travelling over 100 kph.

The race would take place in "days", stages around 800km long, one of which would be run every (in-universe) day. Any stops for food/bathrooms would count against a team's time. A team's first driver would drive on odd-numbered days as the second driver reads them the occasional Google Maps direction; on even-numbered days, the roles would be reversed. Drivers will not be allowed to use "highways", formally defined as anything orange on Google Maps. The cars would essentially be normal road vehicles.

So what do some of you think? It wouldn't just be a few lists of times, I'd make it funny or something, and anything that seems strange can be changed before I actually write it. So should I actually try this or is it just a spectacularly weird and stupid idea?

UgncreativeUsergname wrote: I know it sounds a lot like ripping off the Cannonball Baker,

I've heard of the Cannonball Run, so I thought you were making some reference to me in this comment, until I Googled 'Cannonball Baker' and realised the originator of the Cannonball Run was a guy with the surname Baker...

dr-baker wrote:I've heard of the Cannonball Run, so I thought you were making some reference to me in this comment, until I Googled 'Cannonball Baker' and realised the originator of the Cannonball Run was a guy with the surname Baker...

Another name for the Cannonball Run is the Cannonball Baker. Wikipedia wouldn't lie to me, right?

So Gumball Rally? Me gusta!

The crappy ones like Saudi Arabia and Lebanon probably won't end up competing, or at the very least will get ignored in the reports. But here are all 47 potential teams:

Andorra (Andorran Racers): Albert Llovera, Alex Loan
Argentina (Buenos-Aires McFangio Racing): Luis Pérez Companc, Marcos Ligato
Australia (HRT): Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo
Austria (Red Bull Racing): Alexander Wurz, Walter Grübmuller
Belgium (Chocolate Ambrosia Waffle Team): Jérôme d'Ambrosio, Thierry Neuville
Brazil (Nestlé Brazil Racing): Felipe Massa, Rubens Barrichello
Canada (JV Rallying Team): Bruno Spengler, Robert Wickens
China (Team Dragons or Something): Ma Qinghua, Ho-Pin Tung
Colombia (ColombiaTech): Carlos Huertas, Julián Leal
Cyprus (Rally Team Halloumi): Tio Ellinas, Spyros Pavlides
Czech Republic (Team Czechmate): Martin Prokop, Josef Král
Denmark (Danish Engineering): Tom Kristensen, Marco Sorensen
Estonia (Black and Blue and White 4X): Ott Tänak, Kevin Korjus
Finland (GeneRally Talli Suomi): Kimi Räikkönen, Heikki Kovalainen
France (Genii Francosport): Romain Grosjean, Jean-Éric Vergne
Germany (Petronas AMG Mercedes Team Germany): Sebastian Vettel, Nico Hülkenberg
Hungary (HWNSNBM Industries): Tamás Pál Kiss, Norbert Michelisz
India (Sahara Force India): Narain Karthikeyan, Karun Chandhok
Indonesia (Team Coffee or Something): Rio Haryanto, Subhan Aksa
Ireland (Potato Automobiles): Craig Breen, Robert Cregan
Israel (The Promised Team): Alon Day, Rafael Danieli
Italy (Santander Scuderia Italia): Jarno Trulli, Davide Valsecchi
Japan (Honda 4X): Kamui Kobayashi, Takuma Sato
Lebanon (Lebanon-in-contention Racing): Joe Ghanem, Shahan Sarkissian
Malaysia (Petronas Malaysia Team): Alex Yoong, Fairuz Fauzy
Mexico (TelmX Racing): Sergio Pérez, Esteban Gutiérrez
Monaco (BetClic Racing Team): Stefano Coletti, Stéphane Richelmi
Netherlands (Chelsea Dutch Motorsports): Robin Frijns, Giedo van der Garde
New Zealand (Kiwisport): Scott Dixon, Richie Stanaway
Norway (Roast Rally Racing): Mads Ostberg, Petter Solberg
Peru (Petroperú World Rally Team): Nicolas Fuchs, Ramón Ferreyros
Philippines (Philiphilic 4X Team): Marlon Stöckinger, Kotaro Sakurai
Poland (The Kubicettes): Maciej Oleksowicz, Michal Kosciuszko
Portugal (POR Choice): António Félix da Costa, Filipe Albuquerque
Qatar (Team Corner-Qatars): Nasser Al-Attiyah, Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari
Russia (Carlin Rally Team): Vitaly Petrov, Evgeny Novikov
Saudi Arabia (Team Middle Eastern Sponsorship Moneys): Yazeed Al-Rajhi, Saud Al Faisal
Slovakia (Team Slowvakia): Richard Gonda, Christian Malcharek
South Africa (Kyalami George XXXX): Tomas Scheckter, Ashley Haigh-Smith
Spain (HRT): Fernando Alonso, Pedro de la Rosa
Sweden (Team Mojang): Mattias Ekström, Marcus Ericsson
Switzerland (Army Knife Chocolates): Sébastien Buemi, Marcel Fässler
Thailand (Bira Memorial Team): Tor Graves, Sandy Stuvik
Ukraine (U'll Need a Kraine Rally Technology): Valeriy Gorban, Oleksiy Kikireshko
United Kingdom (Vodafone Team UK): Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button
United States (McDonald's Chick-Fil-A Team of America): Ryan Hunter-Reay, Alexander Rossi
Venezuela (PDVSA Runners): Pastor Maldonado, Johnny Cecotto, Jr.

Maybe I should use Xkoranate or something. That'd give me another X. Anyway, thoughts on the teams? Who should I add or change or remove?

UgncreativeUsergname wrote:The crappy ones like Saudi Arabia and Lebanon probably won't end up competing, or at the very least will get ignored in the reports. But here are all 41 potential teams:

Maybe I should use Xkoranate or something. That'd give me another X. Anyway, thoughts on the teams? Who should I add or change or remove?

We need more African representation!

Meanwhile, further north:

Henning Solberg wrote:Hej! How come Lebanon get a team and we in Norway don't?

Pål Varhaug wrote:And Thailand. Prince Bira's the best driver on that team, and he's dead.

And a bit further east:

Harald Schlegelmilch wrote:Sehr Schnell Fahren Motorsportfahrzeug Lettland! Oh, wait, I'm not really German, am I. Slava team Latvia!

Karline Štala wrote:*flutters eyelashes* Me too!

Mads Ostberg somehow became Danish, but I fixed it. Cyprus, Norway, and South Africa have gained teams.

Hungary could have a team in this...

This is a town to town race, simmilar to european Mille Miglia and what in Southamerica we call "Gran Premio de Carretera". Since Perú has the last of this great races (the now legendary Caminos del Inca), I belive that we deserve a spot here.
Peru, with the Petroperu VRT brand, ask for Nicolas Fuchs (who will do the job aside his stints in the PWRC) and Ramon Ferreyros (revitalized from his adventure run in the Dakar) to be included into the fray

Hungary (Kiss, Michelisz) and Peru (Fuchs, Ferreyros) added.

UgncreativeUsergname wrote:Hungary (Kiss, Michelisz) and Peru (Fuchs, Ferreyros) added.

Why Kiss, and not HWNSNBM?

Because HWNSNBM would steamroller the field. There's got to be some competition here!

dinizintheoven wrote:Because HWNSNBM would steamroller the field. There's got to be some competition here!

We know that HWNSNBM can do in a race car, but not having him around for something like this seems... wrong.

Indonesia's team should be "Geckos and Crocodiles Racing", in reference to our police vs anti-corruption agency scandals.

A couple questions:

1. Should a certain number of teams not qualify for the race or should they all be allowed to compete?
2. If I don't decide to completely make up the results, what program could generate them?

I thought other team:

Malaysia (Petronas Malaya Team): Alex Yoong, Fairuz Fauzy

Malaysia (Yoong, Fauzy) added.
I'll write up the qualifying report (I know it's a rally, it'll make sense later) when I feel like it.

UgncreativeUsergname wrote:Ukraine (U'll Need a Kraine Rally Technology): Valeriy Gorban, Oleksiy Kikireshko

This is the best team name.

Also, since Kubica is rallying again, he should be in this.

Unfortunately, Kubica doesn't think he's prepared for something of this scale yet. He might (i.e., will) be ready next year, though.

Qualifying — Laguna Seca
When plans for the Xtremely Xperimental X-country Xcursion were announced in early 2012, nobody thought it was going to happen. It was an FEB-level joke. But after gaining the support of Toyota and a bunch of sponsors, they managed to pull it together: a six-day race across the United States featuring the best drivers in the world. Before the race could start, though, it was time for qualifying. All the teams of two, divided by country, went to Laguna Seca for a single three-hour qualifying session. The winning country would get a three-second head start in the race proper, with the second best getting released three seconds before the third, and so on. Note that it’s not a total time race where competitors clock in and out; the head starts are actual head starts.

The pit lane was jam-packed like Monaco. Superstar drivers, coverage crews, and horrible human traffic jams proliferated across the entire length of the paddock. The obscure drivers no one had ever heard of from almost as obscure countries had channels of their nationality to talk to, the expected midfielders having the same. But absolutely mobbed were the major F1 drivers, particularly Alonso and Vettel; everyone eager to finally see them in, even if set up differently, more equal machinery.
“Looks like there’s a bit of a queue here,” Martin Brundle said to his cameraman, known only as Bob. “Maybe we can just squeeze in around here—”
“Hey,” said to him a very in-your-face German reporter with a stereotypical German accent, the kind where they make “v” sounds instead of “w”. “Ve interviewers vrom every channel vat is not Sky are zick of your constant line-cutting. Iv you really need to talk to Vettel zo badly, zen you can wait your turn, no?”
“Well....”
“How about vor once in your life you actually vait your turn for a driver instead of completely disregarding ze line that literally everyone elze is following? Do you not think social rules as basic as impromptu queues apply to you?”
“I just—”
“Do you zink an entire grid vull of people like you vould get to talk to anyone for more than two seconds before zey got shoved over by some guy who zought he was entitled to any interview he wanted for any reason at all, regardless of how long countless numbers of people who got there before him had been waiting? Some people have been patiently standing in zis line for minutes in a row, and if you show up late you can patiently vait your turn like everyone else. Iz zat fair?”
“Um, sure, I’ll....” He pushed through a few people and found the end of the queue. “I guess we’ll just see if there’s another driver we can talk to, then.”

Unfortunately, there weren’t any other conversations nearly as interesting besides Bathplug Montagny talking about the left-right Bathplug of the Corkscrew, so here’s the qualifying report.

It was a hot, sunny, perfect for racing day at Laguna Seca. Of course, it was actually qualifying and not a race, but whatever. Karthikeyan put the first timed lap in, but no one knew what to think of it since it was the first timed lap, and they were going to improve anyway as the track got less green and the drivers more practised, so it didn’t really matter. Over the first two hours, most of the teams were all going through very similar cycles: send out a driver (usually the team’s more testing-type driver (Ma for China, Hülkenberg for Germany, de la Rosa for Spain, etc.)), bring him back in and tweak the setup, repeat.

Tragedy struck for France forty-four minutes in when Grosjean, on a fast lap, binned the car at the Corkscrew. The session was yellow-flagged as they got the car off the track. The damage was ultimately reparable in time for the race, but not to continue qualifying. With France almost certain to start last, having set their fastest time on a slow lap on a heavily green track, the session eventually continued.

Around the turn of the last third of the session (though it varied quite a bit from team to team), it was time for the teams’ better drivers to put in the exciting fast laps. Interestingly, Wurz went tenth with a time ending in .049 with 10:49 left in the session. I’m not saying the conspiracy theorists are true, I’m just saying that that looks mighty suspicious.

The top five were Spain (Alonso), the UK (Hamilton), Germany (Vettel), Finland (Raikkonen), and Australia (Ricciardo) with ten minutes to go, everyone slightly confused as to why the people who actually drive normalish cars weren’t doing better. This apparently wasn’t a concern for Bruno Spengler, however, as he almost took pole with a time just a tenth off Alonso’s. The order, especially at the top, was quite stable, no one jumping ahead of each other, until with just forty-seven seconds left in the session, Maldonado put the car on pole by over half a second. He slowed down afterwards, having completed the last hot lap on his program. Vettel crossed the line soon after him, beating Spengler, but he was going to do one more.

So with forty seconds left, that was the question: could anyone on track beat Maldonado? Since the only others were countries like Israel and the Philippines, that task was left to Vettel. No one wanted him to win, of course; they all wanted to see an epic Maldonado upset against the very slight arrogance of Sebastian Vettel and the not being a longshot of people like Alonso and Spengler. All the crowd members watched their nearest JumboTron® closely as they saw Vettel, corner by corner, set freakishly similar times to Pastor. Sometimes Seb seemed a bit faster, sometimes slower, but the fancy timing showed that he was a tenth down coming out of the second sector. Surely he couldn’t do it. It was a Maldonado pole and a very happy PDVSA. He even corrected just a little coming out of turn 9. But he swept through 10 brilliantly and perfectly cut 11, a place where Maldonado had a slight lock-up. With the session over and only Gorban behind him, he crossed the line...

.012 seconds ahead of Maldonado. The qualifying session for the inaugural 4X had become another thing for Vettel to shake his finger out the window at. But it wasn’t all bad; there were, after all, still six whole days of racing, plus everyone had to live through this PdR interview:
“So, Paul, what do you think of the British lineup?”
“Well, they have a good shot at the top five, for sure. I just can’t believe they picked Button instead of me. When you think about it, he got thrashed by Hamilton all of 2012 whilst I beat my teammate in Formula One for most of the season. So top five, probably, but if they had had the sense to choose me then a podium would be more or less inevitable.”

Top ten:
GER-VEN-ESP-CAN-FIN-AUS-BRA-SUI-DEN

Highlights from day 1 — Imperial Beach, CA to Tucson, AZ
Scores of massive temporary grandstands lined either side of Monument Road at Border Field State Park for the 2013 XXXX. Hundreds of camerapeople, interviewers, and other media-type things had done their job for now, because the impatient ‘Murican fans were finally about to see all the cars released. Three red lights, a yellow, then finally a green, and Vettel started it off in the silver and pale green German car.

There were tolls, but all the appropriate authorities, meaning a couple teenagers working at toll booths, had been notified about the impending wave of cars described to them as “like Corollas, but with sponsors and really slow”, a description which despite its simplicity was quite accurate. Exclusive to this day was a route that went through Mexico, technically making the race cross-country and international at the same time. This would also be a good time to mention the rule that each team has been supplied with $700 for the entire journey. Hotel accommodations have been paid for by the organisers, and if a team ever runs out of money, it’s their problem.

“We’ll catch him,” Maldonado said like literally right after he took off, seriously. “That lap he put in was a fluke.”
“Your fastest lap was a fluke,” Cecotto, Jr. responded. “You barely did anything within a second of it.”
“Well... shut up.”
FIVE SECONDS LATER!
“How did Vettel beat me?” Alonso whined. “Is this not a spec series?”
“Maybe it’s because, instead of helping me set up the car for your final run, you just sat in that chair whilst I did all the work,” suggested de la Rosa.
“Hey, I can’t set up a car and you can’t drive one.”

From Lebanon:
“Do we have anything like a long-term strategy?” Ghanem asked, nervous as they were waiting in line just ahead of Grosjean.
“Don’t fight Romain?”

Somewhere near Eastlake Greens, the cameras also caught this conversation from Scuderia Italia:
“Jarno?”
“Yes?”
“You need to be more careful and stop understeering into the other lanes. I know you need to use all of the road to be fast, but we’re going to have a head-on collision.”
“Sorry, it’s just that the power steering in this car is awful....”

Alonso got by Maldonado just a few minutes after the start and started after Vettel. Having followed him through twisty roads for some time, Alonso finally tried a pass into a decreasing-radius turn in Julian. He nicked the grass on the inside and swerved to the outside, fortunate not to hit one of the many trees lining the road but still losing a lot of time. He slowly clawed the time back and eventually looked to the inside at a square turn in Calexico, but aborted the move, leading into an epic slipstreamer for the lead from Puebla to El Pinacate, the drivers passing and repassing repeatedly. The road got twistier and a long side-by-side duel developed, Alonso eventually winning out and having a clear lead before Sonoyta.

Near the back, Al-Attiyah crashed by virtue of pushing too hard trying not to get passed, ending the race for Qatar. Near the middle, Trulli held up a train of about ten cars until Grosjean, having sliced his way through the field but unable to get past him, tried a late pass at a square turn in Why, Arizona, running into him. Both cars were unable to run after the collision and Italy and France’s races came to an early end.

This resulted in a massive battle between the no-longer-held-up cars, the most spectacular incident of which was a high-speed tap at the turn before Gu-Achi Trading Post resulting in the retirement of Japan. It was generally agreed to be Kobayashi’s fault, as he turned in on the innocent Massa. The Brazilian car had no obvious damage from the incident.

And so the first day ended with 43 of the teams pulling into Arizona Inn safely. For subsequent days, cars will be released at noon plus however much they came in behind the leader. For example, a car that got to the day’s finish four minutes and twenty-two seconds after the leaders would leave at 12:04:22.

Top ten: ESP-GER-VEN-FIN-CAN-SUI-DEN-AUS-MEX

Not a fan of Grosjean then?

I love the idea of this race, keep up the good work.

Why is the Australia team called HRT when it should be Walkinshaw Performance?

And next year, we'll have Tander and Whincup in the team. Because we can. And before I forget, Team New Zealand can be Stone Brothers Racing with Greg Murphy and Fabian Coulthard. But I digress

Seriously though, this is gonna be good. And can we also have a trans-Russian version of the race just for teh lulz?

The idea should evolve into a league. The Roadrunner World Championship, which could have the rebirth of the great city to city races all over the world. The season must have the following races:

USA: Cannonball Run
Italia: Mille Miglia
Peru: Caminos del Inca
Africa: Original Dakar
Argentina: Panamericana

Ideas for another places to run, specially in Asia and Oceania?

SeedStriker wrote:The idea should evolve into a league. The Roadrunner World Championship, which could have the rebirth of the great city to city races all over the world. The season must have the following races:

USA: Cannonball Run
Italia: Mille Miglia
Peru: Caminos del Inca
Africa: Original Dakar
Argentina: Panamericana

Ideas for another places to run, specially in Asia and Oceania?

Perhaps have this as the headline event?

dr-baker wrote:

SeedStriker wrote:The idea should evolve into a league. The Roadrunner World Championship, which could have the rebirth of the great city to city races all over the world. The season must have the following races:

USA: Cannonball Run
Italia: Mille Miglia
Peru: Caminos del Inca
Africa: Original Dakar
Argentina: Panamericana

Ideas for another places to run, specially in Asia and Oceania?

Perhaps have this as the headline event?

If I do decide to turn it into a series (which sounds like a good idea; its eventual execution or not will hinge on the test of my attention span), I'll have, at a minimum, races in the following countries:
the United States (since that's where "the original race" (this) was set, plus the Cannonball Run/One Lap of America)
Italy (because of the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio)
Mexico (Carrera Panamericana)
plus wherever else anyone can name that ever held an endurance open-road race.

And unrelated, but how should I write the subsequent legs? Should I make them longer or shorter, or is the length fine? Should they be more like race reports or more dialogue-heavy? Or is it good and I shouldn't fix things that aren't broken?

UgncreativeUsergname wrote:

dr-baker wrote:

SeedStriker wrote:The idea should evolve into a league. The Roadrunner World Championship, which could have the rebirth of the great city to city races all over the world. The season must have the following races:

USA: Cannonball Run
Italia: Mille Miglia
Peru: Caminos del Inca
Africa: Original Dakar
Argentina: Panamericana

Ideas for another places to run, specially in Asia and Oceania?

Perhaps have this as the headline event?

If I do decide to turn it into a series (which sounds like a good idea; its eventual execution or not will hinge on the test of my attention span), I'll have, at a minimum, races in the following countries:
the United States (since that's where "the original race" (this) was set, plus the Cannonball Run/One Lap of America)
Italy (because of the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio)
Mexico (Carrera Panamericana)
plus wherever else anyone can name that ever held an endurance open-road race.

And unrelated, but how should I write the subsequent legs? Should I make them longer or shorter, or is the length fine? Should they be more like race reports or more dialogue-heavy? Or is it good and I shouldn't fix things that aren't broken?

I might suggest a remake of the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race,the first race ever to be held.Just make it a simple two stage event,first stage to Bordeaux and second stage back.

As for the reports,they're fine as is.Great job running this series,starting to be a favorite of mine here.

I only put nine teams in the last top ten update, so pretend it has -GBR on the end.

Day 2 — Tucson, AZ to Las Cruces, NM
It was the start of the second day of the XXXX and time for all of the 43 remaining teams’ second drivers to prove themselves. For some, like Sarkissian, it wasn’t a big deal, but for some such as Hülkenberg, it could mean the difference between staying on the team in the next race (if there was ever going to be one) or getting sacked in place of a countryman like Rosberg or Heidfeld. Of course, there was every possibility, some more likely than others, that a team’s second driver would actually do better than their first, but it wouldn’t happen most of the time; no matter how many other drivers were from their countries, they were all number two for a reason.

de la Rosa saw the hastily-put-up drag racing-like Christmas tree go green and set off for Spain after a few seconds of waiting for cars to go by.
“How far ahead were we again?” he asked Alonso.
“It’s not much, but don’t push, especially in the urban areas like this.”
“I can drive, I was asking you a question.”

Several minutes later, Hülkenberg also had to wait a few seconds after his actual starting time to wait for traffic.
“It’s just a few minutes,” Vettel said, “We can catch them.”
“Look, sorry for being all McLaren serious or Kimi shunning, but can you just give me directions unless you have something important to say?”
“Fine.”

“So we’re a bit behind Heikki,” Wickens stated to Spengler as they waited in the parking lot, “But I’m sure we can do it.”
“Why did you stress ‘can’ so—oh, I get it. Yeah, that’s not funny.”

“Get up, Joe!” Sarkissian screamed loudly enough for an exclamation mark, but not enough to also have italics or allcaps.
“Ehh...?” Ghanem said. He glanced at the clock for a moment. “Oh. Can’t it be a few more minutes?”
“The only reason we’re not last is because we cut it front of the Saudi Arabians in that mini-mart.”
“Fine....”

The day was largely characterised by the countries with large gaps in skill between their drivers, such as Venezuela and Mexico, dropping down the order as the more consistent teams like Norway went up. This generated a lot of overtakes, many of them caused by bunching up at red lights or language barriers at gas stations, but some more exciting.

In particular, the Germany-Spain battle continued with Hülkenberg slowly chipping time off HRT and looking to the inside at a square turn near Rodeo (the airport) for just a moment, but quickly thinking better of it. He kept right on their tail and pressured de la Rosa into a mistake when the Spaniard locked up and went off the track at the first of two turns in Animas, sliding onto some sand and grass straight towards a building but able to turn the car in time with some mad opposite lock skillz. Spain regained the lead when they passed a refuelling Germany in Columbus, but lost it again when the roles were reversed in Deming.

In midfield highlights, Cecotto, Jr. got passed a lot, undoing much of Maldonado’s work to bring PDVSA Runners down to tenth; Wickens proved to be extremely capable and easily passed Kovalainen in Sonoita after slipstreaming him, followed by a pass on Cecotto, Jr. to bring Canada to a provisional podium; a wrong turn in Douglas briefly sent Lebanon into Mexico; Barrichello drafted past Button on a remote straightaway after Hachita; and Gutiérrez had a brief off at turn he described by saying “yeah, it’ll be easy flat”. The turn in question was a few kilometres west of Hachita, coming right after an intersection with South Well Road.

Near the back, there was some action as well. Ligato locked up at a sharp turn entering Sierra Vista in an attempt at a clever late braking pass and nearly had to go straight for the intersection, before catching up to his rival again for a square turn in the same city and doing the same thing.

Aksa had a scary opposite lock moment at some mountain road esses in Bisbee, coming within a few centimetres of a barrier, but saved it. A long straight before Rodeo was the home of many F1GP-style drafting duels. Kikiresho was caught out by the square turn near Rodeo’s airport and nearly hit a civilian’s car. Philiphilic’s passenger window was hit by a baseball from Hatch Public Park; no damage was reported.

The final unique incident was a crash at a bend in East Hall Street in Hatch; Stuvik carried too much speed into the turn and, despite the tarmac runoff, still crashed into someone’s fence, knocking it down. The front had a couple slight crumples, but the car was still running, so he reversed away from the fence and carried on.

And so the leg ended with 43 cars left and Germany on top. Canada were much better than expected, Spengler and Wickens a remarkably consistent pair; and the rally-style roads meant Scandinavia were more than showing up. But there are still four days left, and a lot can happen, so tune in tomorrow on Sky/RTL/NBCSN/whatever.

Top ten: GER-ESP-CAN-SUI-DEN-FIN-NOR-BRA-GBR-VEN

Great race reports, you should keep them like that. I'd like some more detailed results, though.

Day 3 — Las Cruces, NM to Abilene, TX
It was an odd-numbered day, so the first drivers were of course back in. The big story at the front was the Germany-Spain battle, Alonso a touch faster than Vettel and Hülkenberg a touch faster than de la Rosa. Of course, that was just the first two days, and as the drivers got more tired and/or frustrated by having their slowly and painstakingly-earned thirty-second leads completely nullified by red lights, anything could happen....

After much giggling by all the teams at Carlsbad and Midland, it was time for the leg to begin. Alonso was slightly faster just like the first day, slowly gaining until another drafting war ensued, lasting from Hope through Artesia all the way to a tight turn west of Hobbs where Vettel went off and lost too much time to continue the battle. Besides briefly meeting each other again when they used the same filling station in Lamesa, Alonso kept the lead from then on. Canada didn’t pull away from the others much, but didn’t lose much time either. Kristensen kept the pressure on Buémi during the beginning of the leg and dramatically passed him by not stopping in Alamogordo.

Speaking of Alamogordo, the following winding road through the Sacramento Mountains made for a great test of the drivers. The esses before High Rolls caught Companc out; heavy wind had blown some sand onto the tarmac near Co Rd A80, which most drivers who came there afterwards coped with by slowing down slightly. Companc was one of the ones who chose to go for normal speed driving, and the sudden lack of grip made him understeer into the left lane. He tried to fix it by braking and putting in more steering lock, doing too much of both and skidding into a tree. The car was totalled and he suffered a fracture in his left elbow.

The curves near Cloudcroft were especially tough. The Karussell-like turn that intersected with Bailey Canyon Road saw Ghanem off into the sand but able to not hit anything, as well as Al-Rajhi off into the sand and hitting a tree. The area around the left headlight featured some dented metal and broken glass, but the car remained functional. Maldonado followed Massa through the turn and went into the left lane for the following left-right-left complex. They went side-by-side through said complex and then entered the following left turn, the battle ending when Maldonado, being in the wrong lane at a fairly blind turn, collided head-on with a civilian car. The sole person in said car got a broken rib; no injuries occurred for either Venezuelan driver.

The decreasing radius of the following turn made Scheckter lock up and understeer into the left lane; fortunately, he was able to regain full control and get back to the right* side before any cars came at him. Haryanto was caught out by the turn intersecting with the 244, running into the left lane and getting half the car onto the sand, but saving it from total disaster with some well-done panic correcting. At that long, vaguely double-apex left turn with the huge runoff area to the south, Ellinas went off at high speed and slammed on the brakes, barely avoiding a building.
*Pun intended

A risky dive to Kartikeyan’s inside by Prokop in Mayhill ended surprisingly well. The people of Mayhill were disappointed to hear about Maldonado’s crash, as they were so confident in the difficulty of their turn that they had pre-dug graves for the PDVSA Runners at the nearby cemetery.

The four turns near Penasco Fire District were damp from putting out a recent human error-caused forest fire. Fortunately, the difficult turn was a right, meaning of the three drivers who screwed up, two managed to get away with going into the other lane for a second. The one who didn’t, Karthikeyan, would’ve crashed into a tree at high speed if it wasn’t for the fire clearing them out. He lost a bit of time, but nothing more.

Around the middle of the day, overtakes were the result of slipstreaming, jumping someone on fuel strategy, or being a reckless idiot in Lamesa. A highlight in Snyder was Huertas passing Coletti on the bridge over the 84; this led into a very long and repetitive slipstreamer, only ending when traffic lights in Roby conspired to delay Huertas and give Coletti an undraftable lead.

Anson was the site of many wrong turns, some teams going straight east instead of turning right to head towards the finish in Abilene; Lebanon in particular made it to Breckenridge before realising their mistake. The very final highlight of the day was a textbook overtake by Kiss at the square turn just north of the finish.

With forty-one cars making it through half the rally, the big question remained the same: would it be Spain or Germany? Or what if they crashed and it was Canada? Or what if a really bad traffic jam bunches everyone in the top ten? Only time will tell what’s in store.

Standings
I realised, after doing some quick math, that the spread of the field was probably way closer than I had always been imagining it. Oh well. Also note that all of the times will be either overly patterny for comedic purposes or generated by me randomly clawing my keyboard’s number row.

Day 4 — Abilene, TX to Monroe, LA
With the first half of the race over, the day was about to start with Spain 49 seconds ahead of Germany. But were Hülkenberg and traffic going to let it stay that way? There was only one way to find out, but an hour before the day even started, there was already an unanticipated factor: rain.

“How do you plan to deal with the rain?” Will Buxton asked Rossi.
“Drive more slowly? I don’t really know, it’s not like we can change the setup or tyres or anything. I’ll just be really conservative and careful with my driving until I get a good feel for the car, I guess.”

“So, is there anything you plan to adjust for the rain?” Ted Kravitz asked Button.
“Nah, there’s not much we can really do. You can’t go and take a minute to change the suspension in a normal car like this, so... I’ll drive safe? I don’t know.”

With similarly hopeless answers across the rest of the field, it was soon enough time for de la Rosa to take off for HRT. He managed to widen the gap until he started slowly losing time again near Santa Anna, which was just barely inside the range of the eerily stationary rain. Speaking of Santa Anna, Gutiérrez went off at a seemingly trivial turn there. Before the minor Xcursion, this duologue was caught by the cameras:
“Do you think this’ll be flat-out?” Pérez asked.
“It better be or my name isn’t Steve,” Gutiérrez responded before turning in, aquaplaning onto some grass, and just avoiding a conveniently V-shaped patch of trees.
Speaking of conversations that happened, this one between JV Rallying Team near Brownwood:
“We’re doing pretty well,” Wickens said because he was feeling lonely, “But it’s still early.”
“Rob, if you’re making a pun, then I don’t understand it.”

Early featured low traffic and a chicane perfect for drivers to gain some time in by illegally going to the left and illegally hitting a brilliant apex. Pavlides’ decision was particularly weird; instead of driving safely or hitting an apex, he went wide across some grass into a school’s parking lot and skidded through the building’s front doors. The doors were damaged much more than the car, so he backed away and carried on. At a turn which many drivers described with “don’t worry, I can do this” in Goldthwaite, Haigh-Smith tried to take just a bit too much tarmac, taking some grass as well, and spun sideways into a tree. Both drivers were uninjured, but the car could only get up to 50 kph. He pulled over onto County Road 303 and they retired.

Waco was home to much traffic-induced bunching and separation, most critically letting Hülkenberg catch up to de la Rosa near the Brazos. A long slipstreamer happened down the 84, ending when de la Rosa ran a red light in Mexia whilst Hülkenberg didn’t feel comfortable doing the same.

A right-hand hairpin in Palestine made for a particularly popular place to screw up; several drivers unaccustomed to rallying locked up and didn’t hit the apex, but some had more dramatic incidents. Stanaway overestimated his car and had to take the intersection straight, Ellinas failed to inform Pavlides of the turn until they had already passed the reasonable alternative of County Road 378 and they lost a couple minutes, Ferreyros tried to turn in too quickly and drifted with his steering sharply leftward through half the turn, and Sarkissian simply turned onto some grass and just avoided the close trees. The next highlight was a square turn in Rusk where, with no moving cars in sight, Solberg pulled to the inside of Kovalainen and made a surprisingly normal overtake. At a gentle right curve south of Laneville near a worryingly large number of cemeteries, Albuquerque clipped the grass with his front left but got away with it.

Despite Timpson’s three square turns, nothing of note happened there, but Loan went off at a turn in Joaquin and nearly hit a telephone pole. He would later help the people of Mansfield by mowing the lawn of Jaycees Park and amuse Campti by drifting through a hairpin, setting a new record of three highlight reel-worthy mistakes during the same day.

Having left Mansfield just five seconds down, Hülkenberg stalked de la Rosa down a long straight before an angular turn in Saline and, as they came out of a slight left, went to the left to make his move. The angular turn was a right, so he would be on the outside, but there were no cars coming and he went for the pass. He was able to brake later, but as they were ready to turn in, de la Rosa still had the inside and a lot of overlap, so Hülkenberg let him through and waited for another chance.

The bad turn cost him some time, most of which he was able to make up in some esses near an intersection with the 501, but he still wasn’t close enough to slipstream or try a crazy overtake. He took all the right risks through Gansville and Wyatt and, instead of getting into a drafting and redrafting war, which he was perfectly capable of doing, he stayed behind to try and pressure de la Rosa into a mistake. A square turn in Weston was another right, so he kept following.

“Hey,” Vettel said as they went over Caney Creek Reservoir, “There’s a turn in this town called Chatham after a right, and it’s a sharp left. I’ll tell you when.”
Hülkenberg nodded in response and continued to stalk the Spanish car. When the time came, Vettel duly informed him that the right was the next turn to come. He kept right up close as usual, but at the exit of the apparently critical bend, he saw no cars coming and unwound the wheel just a bit differently to get into the left lane. He had more speed thanks to the marginally better line and steering angle, but would it be enough? They came into the braking zone perfectly side-by-side, and the answer was yes; de la Rosa recognised that he was the one on the outside and Hülkenberg had enough overlap, so he conceded the corner and Team Germany had the lead.

The plan for Spain was to start another slipstreamer, but Hülkenberg was much more confident and aggressive on the throttle out of the corner, giving him a sufficiently better exit that Spain were unable to draft him. Traffic in Monroe bunched them up, but Germany still pulled into the MCM parking lot an amazing two seconds ahead of their rivals.

Standings

Day 5 — Monroe, LA to Columbus, GA
It was about time for day five to start. Only two more days before everyone got to find out which country was the best in the world at making ninety-degree turns. Vettel and Alonso weaved through traffic down the 165, turned onto the 15, and it was once again Reims-style slipstreaming time. A couple turns in Alto, despite being actual challenging turns instead of Valencia kinks, did nothing to separate them, but Vettel lost enough time at the turn in Archibald that Alonso was able to pull away.

As for the mistake report, Massa just touched a Jersey barrier at Natchez, but the car was undamaged. Laurel had an incredible six opportunities to screw up, the fifth of which Day took by locking his brakes and ultimately toppling a street sign.
“Well, this isn’t a good day,” Danieli commented immediately after the incident.
“Yeah, shut up.”
None of the teams stopped for coffee in Coffeeville, but at nearby and almost rhyming Grove Hill, Gonda oversteered into a spin at the right-hand bend just off the 84; just before the spin, he mentioned that the turn “should be flat”. Near Cook Cemetery west of Camden, a city hated so much that a road named the Camden Bypass was built specifically so people didn’t have to drive through it, Oleksowicz and Ghanem both ran two tyres onto the grass at the exit of the same turn, but neither crashed.

As for the report of epic overtakes, nothing happened. As for the report of epic dialogue, there were some post-leg interviews:
“So,” an interviewer for the main F1 channel you watch asked, “You’re about a minute and a half behind, do you think you can make that up?”
“We’ve still got an entire F1 race or three left, so we can do it,” answered Hülkenberg. “The final leg’s the shortest one, but there are a lot of opportunities to gain time outside of raw speed since it’s an open road race.”

“You’re ahead of the Scandinavian countries with actual rallyers,” the same interviewer “asked” of Wickens.
“It’s been rally hard to—where are you going?”

Standings

The final day's report will be epic, I promise.

Day 6 — Columbus, GA to Daytona Beach, FL
It was time for the final leg of the XXXX. The weather was intolerably hot and sunny, there were no construction projects or major traffic jams along the route, and everything was generally perfect for racing. After a few square turns in Columbus, it was time for the appropriately-named Victory Drive. Gutiérrez and Korjus had a slipstreaming battle which came to a dramatic end when, at an active intersection in Cusseta, Korjus thought he could thread the needle and instead caused a seven-car pileup. This blocked the road for the racers behind, but Broad Street made for an adequate detour.

North of Richland and west of Van Cleve Lake, Malcharek put a wheel (or tyre if you’re pedantic enough) on the grass, which lead to him almost but not quite sliding into a tree. After a particularly long instance of a boring straightaway where nothing could really be bothered to happen, there were some promising turns in Albany. Hülkenberg gained some time by being a crazy illegal apex-hitter and Kosciuszko lost some time trying to be a crazy illegal apex-hitter, but that was it.

Doerun had a right that everyone was eager for, and Hülkenberg was the first to do something by taking it perfectly, using all of the road, and coming within inches (because he was in the United States, but also centimetres because he was a German driving a Japanese car) of hitting another car which, coincidentally, was a Corolla. Despite being a perfect opportunity to screw up by being tired and down on time, the worst that happened at the turn was a couple people meaning to take it legally going half into the left lane for a moment.

After some luck-based bunching/separation at Valdosta, Germany were only thirty seconds behind Spain by Jasper thanks to a combination of taking turns more quickly and the aforementioned being luckier with traffic. In addition to the spectacularly small but well-named filling station Pit Stop, White Springs also had a turn for people to be crazy on. Some people were even so crazy that they gained a couple tenths over the guys who weren’t. No one crashed.

Lake City, Starke, and a couple municipalities by some river were more of the same for the two-horse race at the front, then Hülkenberg cut down on Spain’s lead by twenty seconds through running a couple lights they didn’t in Bunnell. With only four or five seconds between them, the two teams could clearly see each other coming out of said Bunnell.
“Do you think they can catch up?” de la Rosa asked his teammate, glancing at the rearview mirror for a moment. “How should I drive?”
“It’s mostly straights from here with only a few turns, there’s no reason to panic.”

“Do you think we can catch up?” Hülkenberg asked his teammate, looking out the windscreen for the entire time. “How should I drive?”
“There are only a few turns left, so be as crazy illegal banzai as you can.”

As they headed into Ormond Beach, how Hülkenberg could make up four seconds was something only he and the traffic flow knew. The organisers had managed to get the roads from just after LPGA Boulevard to end of the route closed, the critical stretch of tarmac being lined by some cameras, some spectators, and some normal street stuff like trees.

But just before that, there was a red light at County Road 4009. As Spain stopped there, it seemed certain that Germany would catch up and it would be an epic sprint to the finish, and sure enough, they both stopped there, two cars between them. But Hülkenberg left when he judged it was safe, weaving through cars exactly like Korjus except he succeeded, before the light actually went green.
“That’s them,” de la Rosa said quickly, assuming there wasn’t another silver Petronas-sponsored slightly modified Corolla hanging around Ormond Beach running red lights.
“Go!”

DLR noticed them in the side mirror right as the car started moving again before they were ahead, meaning he could leave within a really close margin of them, meaning it was time for moar drafting. They passed and repassed a bit and ended up side-by-side for the relatively sweeping left before the actual sharp square intersection. Hülkenberg was in the farthest right lane and deliberately let de la Rosa have the corner ahead of him on the inside.

Germany lost a few car lengths to this, but everything was going as planned; by having one car width more for the corner, they had a better exit and started to gain on Spain. They duly caught the slipstream and went alongside to the right just before the soft right-hand bend started to kick in. They gained massively throughout the turn and were just a metre behind coming out of it, but would it be enough? As the two cars went by the parking lot to the right, Team Germany went past, and as they crossed the hastily-painted chequered line side-by-side, the answer was yes. Germany won the multi-megametre race by the length of a bonnet.

Both drivers braked to a stop. In the German car was predictable happiness, excitement, and celebration; and in the Spanish car was Alonso throwing out the window the massive stack of printed-out maps of every section of the route, with zoom-ins of every city and town with anything vaguely resembling a turn. Vettel and Hülkenberg got out of the car to be mobbed by anchors and blinded by camera flashes. The Spanish drivers did the same, to experience the same treatment for similar and yet so different reasons.

Some boring interviews ensued, but were briefly interrupted fifteen minutes later, for the Canadian car had arrived. A few minutes after them came Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Switzerland, then I don’t feel like listing the order of every single team. That’s for later.

Over four hours after the race was won, Lebanon finally came to the last square intersection, only for Sarkissian to get distracted by a particularly cute rabbit and lose control into a tree. The car would only run up to 10 kph, but it would run, and they slowly went down the final stretch to the roaring applause of the remaining crowd before the engine gave up and the car coasted to a halt thirty metres before the line. After a couple short lines in Arabic, they got out of the car and pushed it the rest of the distance to finish four hours and eighteen minutes behind.

And so it was on that note that the first, perhaps of more than one, perhaps the only, Xtremely Xperimental X-country Xcursion ended. After six days and a number of kilometres I don’t feel like adding up, Germany was scientifically proven to be the best country in existence. With nothing else to say, here are the final rankings.

Standings
Meh, I don’t feel like times.