//------------------------------// // A Morning Interval // Story: ECRL: The Wonderhawks // by WildFire15 //------------------------------// Even after living in the town for a few months, mornings in Ponyville felt alien to Concorde. The gentle bird song and rustle of trees was certainly a pleasant thing to wake up to, but he missed the sea air, the hustle and bustle of ships coming in with the dawn and the occasional bang or explosion from his father’s workshop. Concorde rolled out of bed after silencing his alarm clock, casting his sheets back onto the bed for the rest of the day as headed over to the window. He opened the curtains, followed by the window before leaning on the ledge. He didn’t have the same commanding view of the town he enjoyed in Whitbay, but it was still a picturesque view of one of Ponyville’s out lining streets as ponies started their day gardening, making deliveries and heading off to work. There wasn’t a cloud in sight either, which was similarly odd to him. It had taken him a while to get used to there being very little wind, what with his own town’s weather being intentionally windy, but he had to admit it was quite pleasant now he was used to it. After a quick reminisce, he headed over to his desk, which was almost exactly like the desk he had in his old room in Whitbay. It was messy with note books, scraps of paper and binders covering the entire thing, along with his pure white practice race suit laid across the chair, while his helmet and goggles were sat on the floor. He pulled out his track guide book from under the mess and flicked to the appropriate page, showing the full layout of the Vanhoover Challenge circuit. There were a lot of fast and flowing corners leading into each other and allowing slightly more speed as the natural line would feed straight into the next corner, starting with a ninety degree left corner at the bottom of a small drop from the front of the grid. Turn two was long and sweeping to the right, allowing more speed through turn one. Turns three, four, five and six came one after the other in quick succession, the relatively easy left turn three effectively being a slowing zone for the tight right of turn four. Five and six, both left hoofers, were close enough together to be run as a single corner that led onto a short straight into the tight right hoof of turn seven. Turn eight was the corner that stood out the most. It was fast and seemingly went on forever with four separate apexes and, if taken wrong, could wear out a racer in seconds. This long corner led onto a straight and into a ninety degree corner and was followed by an extremely long, supersonic speed pair of straights separated by kinks. It was no secret Concorde wasn’t the fastest in terms of raw top speed, but the straights were long enough to eliminate any advantage he’d gain through the corners in the first two thirds of the lap. The three slow speed corners at the end of the supersonic straights, a tight left followed by a ninety degree right and then left onto the start straight, could help him draw back up, but not by much. He looked over the map, visualizing the corners, undulations and slowing points. Being such a hilly track, it would feature several cloud arches to show the height you should stay below. Even though the race was over a week away, getting himself in the right mind set was always a good idea, but he also needed a shower so he threw the book shut and headed off to the bath room. *** Once showered and dry, he headed downstairs to get some breakfast. Fleetfoot and Spanner were already in the kitchen, the latter mopping up a large mess on the floor. “Morning Concorde, hope you didn’t stay up all night watching that recording.” Fleet smiled, though Concorde was immediately drawn to have a look at what Spanner was mopping up. He looked like something wet had been thrown over him. “What happened here?” Concorde asked, seeing it was milk and cereal being mopped up. “Did we tell you Spanner tricked Dust into drinking a sleep potion when they left Baltimare?” “Aye.” “Well, as you’d imagine, Dust wasn’t best pleased, as you can tell by the fact she threw her breakfast in his face.” “I’ll have to re-groom my moustache.” Spanner groaned, squeezing out the mop before continuing to clean. “Come on, Corde, you’re blocking the stairs.” Maffett said as she stood behind him. Concorde looked over his shoulder at her, looking slightly smug at his lifelong friend who still had curlers in her hair, before sitting down on the step. She just sighed before clambering over him. “Come on, you scarlet step, we’ve got a fair bit of practice to do today.” She said as she hopped down the remaining stairs. “Oh joy.” He replied sarcastically, rubbing where she’d just stood on him. “We’re just waiting for Ratchett to wake Dash up.” Fleet added, putting her own plate in the sink. “So we got plenty of time for breakfast, then?” *** Concorde, Fleet, Maffett, Spanner and a still annoyed Dust went out into the back yard once they’d finished their breakfast. Concorde finished off his third cup of tea while Fleet scolded Dust, though he doubted a single word was getting through to her. Eventually, Ratchett came around the side of the house with a sleepy Rainbow Dash in tow, who was then followed by the three fillies who would frequently watch them practising. “Ah, good morning Rainbow Dash.” Fleet called over. “Morning.” Dash yawned, the fillies dancing around before arguing over who actually woke Dash up. “What’s the plan?” “Oh, I’ve got quite the plan.” Fleet smiled, peeking a mixture of interest and concern from her team. “For now, kiddilwinks, time to warm up!” “What did you just call us?” Dash asked, as genuinely confused as her team mates, but Fleet didn't answer. “Just do some wing presses," She said instead. "I need to find Cloudchaser and Flitter to help me modify the track.” “Should we expect explosives, bananas and turtles or maybe even random catapults?” Concorde asked. “Not this time, but Vanhoover has the longest non-loop corners on the calendar so we’re going to recreate something similar. For now, get down and give me as many as you can do.” The three of them lay down on their front as ordered, planting the tips of their wings on the ground and pushing up. “Hold there a moment.” Fleet added, but before they could look over to see what she was doing, Dust yelp as something was put on her back and she fell to the floor. “What the hay?!” She exclaimed, looking over her shoulder. “Howdy.” Applebloom smiled, who was now sat on Dust’s back. “Just giving you guys a bit of a challenge.” Fleet smiled before putting Sweetie belle on Concorde’s back. “Oh, cheers.” Concorde said sarcastically. She just smile sweetly when he looked at her. Before Fleet could get to her, Scootaloo jumped on Dash’s back. “Why do I get the Earth Pony?” Dust complained. “Shouting’s going to make it harder to do press ups.” Fleet replied without answering the question. “Come on now, Maffett and the colts will be counting how many you do and I want to see at least two hundred.” With that, Fleet headed off into town. “Well, come on then.” Maffett encouraged. The racers just exchanged looks before getting to work. Concorde didn’t mind wing press ups, not that he did them very often, but with the added weight of a filly on his back it made it much more difficult. Dust would have more difficulty as, even though she did so much of her own exercise, Earth ponies were naturally heavier then Unicorns and Pegasus. The three fought hard to keep the extra exertion from their faces, not wanting to show weakness before they found a good rhythm. It didn’t take quite as long as they expected to reach one hundred push ups, either. “Come on, Rainbow Dash! You can beat both of them in your sleep!” Scootaloo shouted in encouragement. “Haven’t you been watching Mr Concorde do really well?” Sweetie shot back, which surprised her friends. “Do you even know where he’s finished in the last race?” “Erm, did he win?” “I wish.” Concorde chuckled. “See.” Scootaloo said, as if that settled her point. “But he can win and he will!” Sweetie shot back with surprising conviction as she jumped up and down. She landed slightly off Concorde’s centre, right on his shoulder, throwing his balance and causing him to yelp in surprise as he fell over. As he fell, Sweetie went flying into Dust, knocking her over as Applebloom attempted to jump out of the way and instead landed on Dash, causing her to fall over as Scootaloo attempted to jump up and hover, but instead fell on top of the pair of them. Naturally enough, Maffett, Ratchett and Spanner fell about laughing as the racers and fillies untangled themselves. *** Fleetfoot eventually came back and led her team to the practice track, once they’d gathered their practice race suits and helmets. She stood with Cloudchaser and Flitter as the racers and spotters looked upon their latest creation. It almost looked like all they’d done was taken their old oval track and blown up one end of it, making one corner extremely long while the other was an ultra-tight hairpin with reasonable length straights, looking almost like the outline of a slice of pie. From what he could see from below, it would appear to Concorde that they’d simple have to hug the inside edge of the long corner, not quite like Vanhoover’s four apex epic of a turn eight, but it would strain the wings in a similar fashion, even if it likely would require more patience. But in being a perfect curve, it missed something essential that made Vanhoover’s turn eight what it was; the fact the line had to be perfect. Miss any one of turn eight’s four apexes and you’d lose shed loads of time as you drifted wide. The thought crossed his mind as he remembered his first meeting with Spitfire, after Hurricane had told him about her suggestion of the Wonderbolts and Red Hawks collaborating on a racing team for reasons he’d yet to fully figure out. Spitfire had immediately put the names Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust on the desk and asked him if he could teach them a few things. Concorde still wasn’t sure what he could teach them, but they both seemed willing to adapt to the very different approach needed for racing. Truthfully, the chance to race in the ECRL was all he really cared about and when the offer was put in front of him, he leapt at it. Theoretically with the track above, there were three different lines he could take through the long corner; starting wide and cutting in later, cutting in early and drifting out a bit on exit or just hugging the inside the whole way through. For pure speed, the first option was by far best as he could take slightly more speed into the corner. The other two solutions were more ideal for defending by impeding the pursuer’s line through the corner. “Corde, what do you think?” Fleet asked, poking him in the nose to get his attention as he hadn’t realized she was stood in front of him. “Oh, well,” Concorde started after the moment of surprise passed, trying to form the sentence now he was on the spot, eventually offering: “It’s alright. Very pie shaped.” “I was thinking of Soarin’ at the time.” She smirked. “Only alright?” “Well, aye. If you wanted to emulate Vanhoover’s turn eight, it’s not very good, mind.” “I wasn’t trying to, that would take ages and seeing as we went to that party we have less time to practice.” “Well, you were enjoying yourself so I thought I’d let you.” Concorde smiled. “While you and Maffett were little wall flowers in the corner.” “As I said, I’m not one for big parties, though that was much more fun than the flashy dos I’d been dragged to as a foal.” “Are you two going to talk about that stupid party all day?” Dust cut in, sounding impatient. “We just want to torment you for chickening out, especially when the pictures arrive.” Concorde almost automatically replied. “But aye, we may as well get cracking.”