Signal Boost: Days Without Thunder · 3:03am Feb 28th, 2020
Do you like race cars? And do you like weatherponies?
Than you’ll love AlwaysDressesInStyle’s newest entry into my not-a-contest, Days Without Thunder.
[Why, yes, the contest is still going on. The contest is always going on.]
Minor spoiler, the ponies don’t actually drive the race cars. I feel comfortable saying that, since it’s right in the story description. What they do is keep the sky clear for the race. And of course, they’ve got limitations--not very many ponies, and it’s a big sky. Luckily, Caldor is creative.
Now, most of y’all who are here reading this are likely aware that I wrote a little story about a weatherpony living on earth, a weatherpony who was a feral storms expert, and who volunteered as a weather spotter, so this is the kind of thing that’s right up my alley.
I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a NASCAR fan; I don’t really see the appeal in cars going around in circles for a while. IMHO, smaller tracks are more fun, although admittedly, those races don’t offer the grandstand-shaking potential of forty NASCARs going by at speed. I’ll also say that I would absolutely watch NASCAR if they got ponies, even if only for weather clearing duties and maybe a pre-show flyby or something like that. Get on it, Jim French.
Nice to know that the not-a-contest is still going!
I'm in the middle of writing something for it, but it's coming along slowly.
Boy, I tell you... there ain't nothin' more excitin' than gettin' shitfaced and goin' deaf in 110 degrees, and watchin' cars go in a circle for several hours! Yee haw!
I'd like to see them operate this big boy.
Already found it, but thanks. :)
5210863
Sure there is. Standing at the top of the mountain and watching the V8 Supercars go thundering past at Mt Bathurst. No easy circle-racing there!
Try this story: Twilight at Bathurst
5210901 lol I was only joking of course. nascar is boring af. Old nascar was kinda cool, though. There were actually several turns, and grass to drive on, and the fact that they were all driving ->stock<- cars was pretty cool, because all of the cars were (required to be) for sale to the public.
NASCAR is an odd thing to us non-Americans. We tend to be circuit track or rally racers not oval racers.
As Stellar Light mentioned, tracks like Bathurst and Sandown are more our thing but it does not mean we cannot also appreciate how amazing pony weather control would be... I can only imagine how years like ‘72 and ‘92 would have gone at The Mountain if rain could be kept at bay. Heck, my rally racing days would have been so much easier if patchy wet vs dry gravel and bitumen had not been an issue for tyres and suspension setups.
Off the racing topics and on to pony pics... the Twilight in a go cart makes me shiver as pony tails and cart chain drives is a scary mix!
I liked it
5210863
Ya see, NASCAR's and easy sport ta foller when yer hammered!
5210862
Of course it is! As long as I’m still here, there’ll still be a not-a-contest.
No worries; I look forward to it when it’s finally ready to post.
5210863
I dunno, riding shotgun with Tanner Foust as he blasted through the New Hampshire woods in his Subaru rally car was pretty intense.
5210873
I don’t know crap about farming or operating a combine. If you do, you ought to write a story with a clan of ponies on Earth operating a modern farm. Heck, if you know enough, you could get a whole series out of it. Earth pony magic combined with enormous machines. I’d read that.
5210879
5210901
Mountain racing is its own special thing (as are many types of racing, to be honest). I watched a YouTube video years ago where some rice burner challenged a bugeye Sprite (IIRC) in a hillclimb, and the Sprite won because it was light and nimble.
I’ll check it out, thanks!
5210968
I’ll be honest, the only racing sport I’m mostly less interested in is drag racing. That doesn’t even have turns.
(Although I will hand it to NASCAR, they have some really cool crashes.)
Hopefully, there’s some kind of guard in place to protect pony tails.
5211048
It was a good story, and of course made me think of Silver Glow right away.
5211384
That is an advantage. . .
5210945
Are you implying that Camrys aren’t rear wheel drive and V8 powered!?
5212525
5212546 LOL you know what's really funny? I've seen a Toyota (Camry?) "stock" car up close. Just like every other nascar car, it has *literally* a Chevy 350 under the hood.
5212550
Fun fact, there was a band named Dale Earnheart Jr. Jr.
5212666
I have as well, and thought the same thing.
They really ought to go back to their roots, have each team pick a 4cyl econobox of their brand off a dealer’s lot, add a bit of safety equipment, and run them to see what happens. That would be a fun race to watch. They could set it up like they do in cow racing--the first person to cross the finish line, or whoever completes the most laps if no competitors finish the race.
5213173 lol. See, the thing is, nascar tried an econobox race once... in the '60s. It was, naturally, Ford, Chevy, and Plymouth/Dodge. They all had straight sixes, and they were *stock* cars. But see, you gotta remember Chrysler at the time, in terms of nascar. So Ford and Chevy offered up their bone-stock straight six econoboxes - with perhaps bigger carbs or something - though remember that in the 60s, they were probably 10 year old engine designs, based on pre-war designs. Chrysler, meanwhile, already had the brand-spanking-new slant six - an actually modern engine design - AND they actually put their racing team on it. 1960's ass-kicking Mopar racing team... yeah. They came up with the HyperPak™, basically long ass intake runners, that gave a shitload of low end torque, for coming out of corners.
Not only did all seven Plymouth Valiants (or maybe Dodge whatevers) finish the race, but they took the first SEVEN places. They had such a big lead over Ford and Chevy that the race was deemed too damned boring to do again.
Though I do agree, it would be nice to see, like you say, actual stock cars, and like... and actual track instead of a stupid oval.
5213234
The closest you’re going to get to that in the States is SCCA.
5213234
I’ll give them credit for the HyperPak, that idea stuck around and kept Jeep and Ford inline-sixes in use long after GM dropped theirs due to misunderstanding how air was supposed to flow through an intake manifold. My old 250 Chevy engine had maybe three inches from the Monojet to the cylinder head on 3 and 4, and about a yard on 1 and 6.
I guess what I’m saying is if the automakers start cheating so their production econoboxes are more race-ready, well, I won’t be upset by that.
5212520
That description is making me think of the anime and the manga "Initial D". In one epidode, Kenji and Cole from the local race team race up the mountain in his 180SX with Takumi Fujiwara in his AE-86 Trueno to accept a challenge against a rival team member in a R32 Skyline in a downhill race. The 180SX got dusted on the uphill despite having more power.
5223069
Any race like that, it’s not just horsepower that wins, it’s nimbleness. Back in the day (early 2000s) somebody raced an out-of-the-box crotch rocket vs. the then-new Vette, and on a road course the motorcycle won handily . . . less horsepower (also less weight); more importantly, it could get in and out of turns faster.