Slipstream

The race starts with Catalina is in 1st place, Aki in 2nd with his modified AWD Pista, me in 3rd and Michael at last. It's evident that this Michael guy can't get good traction at low speeds and unfortunately for him, the latter half of the race after the highway section will have us getting back onto the city.

After a while, Aki takes 1st place by overtaking Catalina. The highway is coming after 4 turns. I pass both Catalina and Aki in one turn getting me to 1st place. We take the 4 more corners and merge onto the highway with me in 1st, Aki in 2nd, Catalina in 3rd and Michael at last. As soon as we get to the highway and Michael opens up all his horsepower, he takes the lead as if we were standing still. We quickly get to 250 Km/h. It's all about power now. The highway gets completely empty and we floor our cars. Michael obviously has the advantage in his car and he is slowly getting farther in front. But without any driving aids to help him control all that horsepower and torque sent only to the rear wheels, it's not too unlikely for him to make a minor mistake allowing us to close the gap instantly.

Traffic on the highway gets heavy after a while and this causes Michael to fall back. Giving me the lead once again. It's easy for me to look at his car from my rearview mirror and notice that he is having a hard time swerving around the traffic in his low downforce rear wheel drive Hennessey. The Venom GT keeps fishtailing after every lane change. But it's not just Michael struggling here, I start struggling to dodge the traffic at this speed too, so I slow back down to 250 KMH. Because of this, Aki gets past me but he doesn't get much of a lead as it would be dumb to take much risks in this heavy traffic. So we are quite close together, almost as if we're just cruising.

The light traffic wouldn't stay for long though, as we get past all that traffic and get to a dead empty stretch of the road.

"Hey Michael..." Catalina speaks out.

"What?" Michael replies.

"Gimme a push... till we're out at the off ramp."

"Tyler?" Aki speaks out as well.

"Ight sure, but no way we're keeping up against THAT Venom GT." I reply.

Aki chuckles a bit as he says "we'll see at the braking zone before the off ramp."

"Oh *chuckles* no, it's gonna be an all out war out the off ramp." Michael says.

And Michael gets behind Catalina and they start bump drafting. I get behind Aki in his lane and start to push him as well and as expected, we can't Keep up with Catalina's Murciélago SV that's being pushed by the Hennessey Venom GT. They slowly come closer and overtake me.

"Hey Catalina, I taking the lead now you don't really have the straight line performance." Michael says

"Ok sure, I'll be in your slipstream then."

And Michael takes 1st with Catalina surprisingly keeping up very well, and giving him a few pushes from 2nd place. Aki right behind in her in the same lane in 3rd with me pushing him from dead last which doesn't really bother me. We've formed a 4 way draft and me at the back pushing the whole crew forward makes me feel like I'm some NASCAR driver.

"Ayo guys, I wanna try something dumb." I say

"Bro what?" Catalina asks, amused.

"No really, I wanna see how well side drafting works on road cars"

"Tyler, the more you speak, the more it seems to me that you're just a stupid kid having dumb fun. Not some mysterious racer that emerged from the shadows." Michael replies.

" "Stupid kids having dumb fun." You just described the Midnight Club here." Aki says.

And anyways I get my car into high boost mode for a split second and get inches beside Aki's rear quarter panel. But as soon as I deactivate high boost mode, my car fails to keep the same speed through that intense opposite wind and I fall back down behind and get back into the slipstream.

"Okay Nevermind, I can't side draft in this wind. Not without some heavy reliance on high boost."

"Did you seriously risk your engine to try this dumb stunt" Aki says while chuckling.

"At least we know a split second of high boost won't melt my internals." I reply.

And we get near the off ramp and Catalina, Michael and Aki start braking at over 350 KMH. I push my luck a bit as I chicken run my way onto first before braking hard and nearly locking up. Catalina gets in front of Michael with her front wheels right beside my door as well and gets onto my left side as Aki is right there behind Catalina at my rear right fender. We're going 3 wide onto what's essentially a 1 and a half lane wide piece of road. As I braked way too late, I go a bit wide and oversteer grazing Catalina's right door with my rear left fender. The Murciélago SV is slightly unsettled but Catalina gets it easily under control again. And Aki on my right hand side gets a slow exit as well as he just squeezed through a tight turn without any chance decent racing line.

Well actually, none of us were able to get any decent racing line. With the only exception being Michael who was behind all of us in this 'off ramp war'. But despite Michael getting a decent line through, he can't get a good exit to pass us because there was no space in front with us going 3 wide into the turn. So far, I am in 1st, Catalina in 2nd, Aki in 3rd and Michael in 4th as we enter back into the city section of the race.

My car starts handling a bit weird as soon as we exit out onto the city. I swerve a bit to check my tire condition. And it's quite clear the pressure is increasing.

"Uhh... Guys, my tires are starting to expand." I say.

"Side effects of overdriving." Catalina replies in a smug tone.

"Ok" I reply.

"Excessive use of the slip angle" she replies again with the same smug tone.

"Always stayed at the minimum angle without compromising turns."

"Sliding through that off ramp at high speeds."

"Ok I get it shut up."

"Too much steering angle back at the first section."

"Can you shut up and let me concentrate? I'm already having a hard time as is in these slow turns." Michael says.

"The turns aren't that slow. It's a dead empty city with 4 lane wide roads. We can carry decent speeds through these. And Tyler's not the only one experiencing tire issues here. I think we all are more or less." Aki replies.

We go through the second turn and get to a straight line, I look back at the rearview mirror and see Aki let Michael get past him.

"Hey Michael, I got AWD so I can bump you out of these corners better. You tow me through these short straights." Aki says.

"Alright" Michael replies.

"Ay Aki, your tires are also having issues right? And your behind in the slipstream." I say.

"Yeah?" Aki replies.

"So that means you won't be able to have much downforce through these turns." I say.

"I'll go slow on the entry and focus on the exit speeds while Mike dive-bombs into the turns focusing on entry speeds, that way our lines won't overlap until we're already out of the corner. And I think Michael got the gist of it as soon as I suggested."

"Actually, I wouldn't have gotten it until you told me." Michael replies to Aki.

"Bro you're dumber than I thought. Ain't you supposed to be the fastest racer in the highway here?" Aki says.

We approach a 90 degree turn here and we all take it quite fast and after a few turns just like this, we reach the final stretch of the road. It's a mile long straight through multiple blocks. And there's no traffic in sight. So we all form a 'draft train' once again with me in 1st, Catalina in 2nd, Michael in 3rd being pushed by Aki in 4th. It is now a 15 second drag race to the end in this 1 km stretch of road.

"I think we all know who we should defend against on this stretch." Says Catalina.

"It's kinda scummy innit? Defying what's essentially a blue flag." Michael says as he chuckles.

We're all going flat out in a line. And Michael gets out of the slipstream from behind to the right hand side of Catalina. And Catalina can't really do much here since it's just a straight line and Michael easily gets on her quarter panel, pulling forwards slowly even with all that extra headwind slowing him down. He has the extra Horsepower. There's only 400 meters left now and Michael is just in front of Catalina.

"Tyler, you better come in Clutch here now. At least one of us got to win." Catalina says as she lets go of the gas a bit to attempt to create a 1 car length gap in between. "Now let's get over to the right lane, block Mikey here." Catalina says and I quickly switch to the right lane, getting infront of Michael. And I get a slight bump by him as I was switching lanes which gives me a small speed boost and slows down Michael. And Catalina is about to get to the right as well but Aki takes the lane before her and gets right behind Michael as she was busy slowing down.

"Cat, thank you for the contribution but I'm taking 3rd here." Aki says.

"Okay that works as well. Doesn't change the winner though. Anyways, I'm gonna try the high boost mode and see how well I keep up" Catalina replies in a somewhat disappointed but relieved tone as she presses the high boost button on the center console. This is the button next to the sport mode. "This is probably the first Murciélago in history whose unlabeled button actually serves a purpose. Anyways there goes my engine. And I'm also putting the bat ear air intakes down for that DRS." She says.

And even with the bit of extra power and reduced drag, she still can't gain on us. So she is right next to Aki's quarter panel, not gaining any ground and not falling behind either. And the race ends with me in 1st, Michael in 2nd, Aki in 3rd and Catalina in last. Upon ending the race, Catalina instantly opens up the Murciélago's side air intakes and turns off the engine after putting it to neutral right as we are all slowing down. I pull over to the side of the road.

"Phew, that was stressful. But I think we can all say that this 918 Spyder is one hell of a car. And that th-" Catalina's Murciélago rushes past us down the road with the engine off.

"Uhh Cat, you good?" I say.

"Thank you for your concern I am in fact alive. Turns out, not engine braking puts a lot of extra distance to your braking." She replies as she drives her car back and parks it behind us on the side of the road.

"So anyways back to what I was saying, I think we can all say that the "mystery racer" and the 918 Spyder did not disappoint." I say.

"The car sure surprised me. Especially yesterday on the highway loop. But what really got me was the coordination you guys had. That was some legendary teamwork all throughout the race." Michael says.

"That's not including the dumb crap we did during the race, right?" Catalina replies as she gets out of the car after making sure that the engine is all fine.

"No yeah, you've had your dumb moments like going 3 wide into that narrow off ramp but that was intentional tomfoolery wasn't it? When it came to the serious moments, you guys were a scary good team."

"Yep, especially my heroic sacrifice at the end there. Truly a cinematic masterpiece. Still wanted the P3 though" Catalina says.

"By the way, aren't the Murciélago doors supposed to go up? Why'd you have normal doors?" Michael asks.

"The chassis might be loosely based on the Aventador, but much lighter obviously but the engine's a small twin turbo V10, right? Gotta let the world know that I'm missing 2 cylinders. And we all know only the longitudinal mounted V12 lambos deserve the cool doors."

"I was about to say Miura's got normal doors but then I heard the Longitudinal part. Damn even a purist wouldn't this typea shit. And your car's got literally nothing in common with an actual original Murciélago except for the steering wheel. Well even that thing's not entirely out of the Murciélago you removed the airbag inside." I reply.

"That's exactly what I was about to say. Catalina has to be the least "purist" purist in existence." Michael says.

"I'm gonna have a stroke trying to comprehend what you just said, Michael. Anyways where you headed now that the race's over?" Aki says.

"Don't really know. Maybe out in Blackwood. Or the abandoned mall out in Edgewood Valley."

"Oh speaking of Edgewood, Kozo Hoshino's gonna be there with his GTR R34, isn't he? We could try a chill race with him in our mid ranged cars." I say.

"Oh that would be fun. This reminds me, none of us did a proper race against him, have we?" Aki replies.

"Oh by the way Aki, your F12 is NOT a mid-range car. We hereby are banning that mf-ing car from our mid range hangouts. Use your LFA." Catalina says.

"Yeah I'm with Catalina here. You've got 595 wheel horsepower in that damn LFA plus it's got that manual swap, use that shit when we're out with our "chill cars"." I say.

"Ok... No more F12 domination from now on I guess. So Catalina, you're gonna be out with the orange Mustang, right? And Tyler with his 240z."

"Yep those are the cars we always use, and you go back to your "manually" retarded LFA cuz that shit was the perfect match against our cars before you decided to ruin it that day with your F12." Catalina replies.

So anyways Michael went his own way and we all went back home to pick our cars. I got in my 240z and the three of us decided to meet up at a nearby location called Bayview Park before we convoy over to the abandoned mall out in Edgewood Valley.