ECRL: The Wonderhawks

by WildFire15

Good Thing it’s only Practice

Concorde approached the hair pin on their newly reconfigured practice track, sighting his slowing point before getting to it. Before he started slowing, he shifted his focus to the apex of the corner.

He threw his wings and fore legs out wide to create a powerful air brake to slow him enough for the corner, snap rolling into it just before he was in line with the apex and propelling himself through. The late entry approach to the corner was good for fast laps, but in racing conditions made him extremely vulnerable to attack.

He accelerated as fast as he could, noticing the rest of his team stood on their observation platform and watching him go by, Maffett holding up a board with ‘L1’ on it to tell him he on the last lap of his ten lap run.

He was simply flying to find the line around the track, which Fleetfoot felt worked better for Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust to learn from as supposed to just sending them out and getting in Concorde’s way.

Now he was on his last lap, he was going to put in his fastest lap. He put his left foreleg out as he entered the long corner, banking over and gliding slightly in, starting wide and drifting in towards the apex. As he approached it, he put his leg straight again and started to flap his wings, still banked over as he pressed for a fast exit. He drifted out towards the cloud barrier to show the edge of the track, glancing it with the tip of his wing as he rocketed down the back straight towards the hairpin.

As with before, he slowed as late as he could and turned in late to give himself as much room to accelerate as possible, quickly coming up to speed before the start/finish line where the chequered flag was being held out by Fleetfoot.

He glided around the track for another lap to cool down before landing on the platform in front of his team.

“How was that?” Fleet asked the second he landed.

“Felt good. Plenty of lines through the long corner.” He replied as he went to undo his helmet strap.

“Don’t take it off.” Fleet said, holding up a hoof. “All three of you are going on track in a second.”

“Don’t want to hear more from me or let me rest?” He asked, slightly surprised.

“Nope. Think of it as a challenge.” Fleet replied simply with a smile before turning to Dash and Dust. “You two get your helmets on, you’re going to have a short race. Twenty laps, I think.”

“Start them side by side?” Spanner inquired.

“Yeah. Dash, Dust, Concorde from left to right.”

“Let’s practice radio silence.” Maffett said to her friend as she arranged a few things on the board she was still holding.

“Bet you’re enjoying me being quiet.” Concorde randomly replied.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” She smiled before turning off her radio.

“Come on, my little ponies!” Fleet said loudly to make sure she had their attention. “Get yourselves lined up.”

Once Dash and Dust were ready, the three of them did as they were told and stood on the strip of cloud that had been set up as a starting line.

After making sure his helmet was still secure, he stood ready as Fleet held up a green flag and quickly waved it to start them off.

Concorde pushed off, his hooves slipping slightly on the strip of cloud and not providing as much thrust as he would have hoped for before flapping his wings. Glancing over at his team mates, he saw Dust had the same problem he had while Dash seemingly didn't have a problem at all as she out dragged him and got into the long corner ahead of him, Dust following in behind.

While still recovering a little bit from his solo run around the track, he followed Dash for several laps. Dash had certainly gotten better, having worked out the techniques needed to slow and accelerate but she still didn’t quite have the speed around the entire track. He could still slow later and turn faster, but she was far faster on straights.

She was taking the tight early, wide on exit approach to the long corner, which kept putting him in a position where he had to hold back at the apex to avoid flying into her, thus wrecking any momentum he could take into the hair pin to overtake.

Going into the long corner again, Concorde opted to follow Dash rather than take his own line, which proved equally frustrating as he couldn’t push as hard as he waited for her to pick up speed.

Even after following her exactly, he couldn’t accelerate enough to get alongside her and by the half-way point of the straight she was pulling away just enough to make an overtake into the hairpin unnecessarily risky.

A thought occurred to him; was that what EJ meant when he said he was too conservative? He was faster than Dash, but he’d just evaluated a possible overtake as ‘unnecessarily risky’.

He never dived into overtakes that could leave an opponent in a position to crash, that just wasn’t his style. Some of the greats of the recent past did intentionally put themselves in a position where, if the one they were overtaking didn’t react and move aside, they would crash.

That being said, he was no stranger to outlandish overtakes. His home track of Windy Valley was perfect for unusual overtakes around the outside of long corners and he’d pulled off a few moves himself. Perhaps it was because he was so comfortable with that track he was able to pull the moves off, but surely he could imitate such feats elsewhere as well?

To pull off such a move, he needed to know as much about his opponent as possible. He needed to know he could trust them either to see him or not do anything silly, something that normally came with experience but also came with intuition. Dash was certainly intuitive, judging from how fast she'd picked up racing techniques, but he wasn’t sure if she was intuitive enough to know what he was about to try.

Dash’s line would allow him to get alongside her in the first half of the long corner and he likely was fast enough mid way through to draw alongside and pin her to the inside out of the corner, possibly allowing him to be just far enough ahead to keep him in position to finish the overtake into the hairpin.

It was risky. If she didn’t realize he was there they could end up crashing, but it was worth a try he concluded. It was practice, after all.

As they went into the corner, Dash taking her usual line, hugging the inside of the corner as they entered. Concorde went slightly wider on his original line, carrying more speed into the corner and pushing hard to get alongside her. As with her last couple laps, she started drifting wide after the half-way point of the corner as she pushed for an exit and Concorde started to drift with her so they didn’t collide. He pushed a bit harder to try and get out ahead, but as the cloud barrier approached, he realized it wasn't going to happen.

He tried to throw his wings out to slow and let Dash go on ahead, but he couldn’t slow quick enough and Dash drifted into him, causing her to spear into the barrier and taking him with her.

Concorde tumbled through the cloud before falling out the other side and landing on what was surprisingly soft ground. He paused for a moment, wondering if he was hurt before rolling onto his hooves and seeing he’d landed on Rainbow Dash.

“You okay there Dash?” he asked, slightly embarrassed.

“What were you doing?” She asked hotly, sitting up as Fleetfoot flew over.

“That was idiotic, Concorde.” She stated as he got up.

“It was rather dopey, aye. Sorry about that.” He said to Dash as he helped her up. “Was having trouble getting past so thought I’d try something.”

“That was definitely a something.” Dash commented as she rubbed her side. “I didn’t even know you were there.”

“I was trying to go all the way round the outside of you on the long corner.”

“Well, that’s as good as maybe,” Fleet sighed. “But Dust is on the verge of putting you two a lap down so get back up there.”

***

Concorde evaluated the attempted move as they continued their practice race. Saying it looked good on paper was pointless as it just looked crazy from any direction.

It was entirely possible it could have worked, but there were two significant things lacking. Dash’s awareness was part of the problem, she wasn’t aware of his presence but seeing as they quickly had to get back on track he hadn’t had the chance to find out if she was at least aware he was following her, but there was very little chance of her being completely unaware of him being there.

Most of all was the fact he simply hadn’t gotten far enough alongside. He wasn’t sure if it was simple hesitation from being unsure or just not being quick enough to get alongside. Perhaps he needed to adjudge his line for next time or maybe consider a switchback move instead.

The practice race eventually came to an end. Fleet looked reasonably pleased as her flyers landed on the platform after thier cool down laps and took their helmets off. The exhaustion and rivers of sweat from their pre-season practice was a thing of the past and all three looked reasonably exerted yet raring to go again.

“Much better.” She smiled, looking at Dust and Dash. “Concorde still had the fastest lap but only by a quarter of a second.”

“Not too bad, considering he took me out of the air.” Dash said, shooting a look at Concorde.

“Again, I’m sorry.” He replied. “Did you know I was behind you?”

“Yeah, but not there. I was on radio silence.”

That would explain part of why she wasn’t aware he was on the outside. Her focus would have been away from him so there was an absolute minimal chance she could see him and if Ratchett wasn’t telling her, she definitely wouldn’t know he was on her outside.

“You’ve got a fan club, by the way.” Fleet smiled, pointed to something in the trees. The three racers looked over to see what looked like all the foals in the town, along with a few grownups. They all seemed to have home-made signs and baseball caps supporting the Wonderhawks team, with a few for the individual flyers.

Concorde was somewhat taken aback. He knew he’d end up with fans if he did get into the league, but he honestly didn’t know what to do with them. Dash and Dust, however, looked rather pleased before gliding down to see them.

Following their lead was probably a good idea rather than standing like a pumpkin on the platform, so he glided down after them as the foals started to surround the two mares once they’d landed, begging for autographs and pictures.

The same awaited him as he landed, the foals surrounding him wearing scarlet baseball caps with a white fifty two sown onto the front. He really wasn’t sure what to say, he was somewhat blown away by the idea someone would actually make such a thing with his racing number on it, though an image flashed through his mind of whoever it was in Wonderbolts merchandising department who Spitfire had talked into making Wonderhawks stuff was likely very annoyed, which amused him no end.

“Can you sign my baseball cap, please sir?” One of the foals asked, his politeness taking Concorde even further by surprise.

“I need a pen.” Concorde realised after a moment, before calling to Dash as she seemed to already have one. “Can I borrow a pen or something?

“Come on, Concorde, aren’t you prepared for this?” Dash called over with a laugh after signing a Wonderbolts poster. She looked like she was in her element, as did Dust as she signed a baseball cap. Dust was also looking extremely proud with herself, possibly from winning the practice race they’d just had, for what it was worth.

“Hey, I’m not used to this!” He called back, a slightly panicked note in his voice.

“You’ll have to get used to it, then!” Fleet called from the platform, looking amused by how uncomfortable he looked. Maffett then cast a marker pen towards him, which he caught.

“Cheers!” He called back before accepting one of the baseball caps offered to him.

“Do you think you can win, Mr Concorde?” The Pegasus colt asked as Concorde signed his baseball cap.

Honestly, he hadn’t thought about actually winning a race, merely doing what he could and seeing what he had to do from there. He hadn't expected to score points in his first two races, but he did feel a podium was potentially up for grabs if things went his way.

“At the moment I dunno.” Concorde replied honestly. “But it’s entirely possible.” He added when the foals looked a bit uncertain.

“I think you can.” The colt perked up. “You’ve already beaten Dawn Wisp and he won a race in his first season.”

Concorde paused for a moment as he regarded the colt. He was right, Dawn Wisp had won a race in his first season three years ago, if largely by luck, if he remembered rightly, with two high profile crashes ahead of him clearing his path.

Even still, it was nice to know there were ponies with faith in him.

“What’s your name, lad?” He was compelled to ask.

“Gyromite, sir.” The colt smiled. Despite his size, he looked like he was old enough to graduate from school and had a chequered flag cutie mark. Concorde smiled as he put the baseball cap on Gyromite’s head.

“Well, Gyro, I’ll give it my all.” He smiled.