WGP2 Nexus Racing Press Conference (Now open for questions)

[Former Citizens of the Nimbus System]

OOC:

This topic is part of the larger World Grand Prix Two Season 1 roleplay; please see the main thread if you want to learn more about that. A transcript of the roleplaying here will be posted there.

Thread Rules

• Please signify OOC (Out Of Context/Character) text clearly to differentiate it from IC (In Context/Character) roleplaying. This is typically done by typing 'OOC:' before any OOC text.
• Generally speaking, those attending the press conference will be interested parties: mostly journalists with possibly a few members of rival teams, fans and so forth. So long as you don't roleplay as someone whose characters aren't yours (only Tropicorp has the right to roleplay as someone from Tropicorp Engineering, for example) and stay within reason (no circus clowns, please), you should be fine. Please only ask questions to the interviewees if you're roleplaying as a journalist, however.
• Please ask questions to those being interviewed at the conference one at a time; if there is an outstanding post detailing a question for the interviewees (one that has not been answered by myself), please do not add another until it is no longer outstanding.
• I won’t be responding questions from about noon (GMT) tomorrow until Friday of next week; there are two other great roleplayers to question between those dates!
• Feel free to use the material here for press coverage of the event, should you so desire; that is the point of a press conference, after all!

Key Background Information

This press conference is being held after the official announcement that Nexus Racing will be competing in the World Grand Prix Two, though the fact that they would be competing was common knowledge for a while before that. Those to be interviewed are Rebecca Darlington, Esmerelian and winner of last year’s ESTL domestic championship after her former teammate left for WGPC (ironically now engaged in overtures with Nexus Racing for a seat next season), Lukar Urdaneta, a relatively green Astograthian driver known for performing well in an underpowered Barrertze car in the Astograthian Grand Prix Championship, Timothy Guard, Project Manager of Nexus Racing, Gertrude Thompson, Head Designer of Nexus Racing's Ultra High Speed Ground Vehicle-series cars, nicknamed 'Chase Cutters', and Jacob Gibbons, Minister for Sport of the Ministerial Offices, the Nimban executive, and commissioner of Crossbay Circuit, a track that will host the Nimban Grand Prix for both WGP2 and, hopefully, WGPC.

Nexus Racing grew from a department of the R&D division of the Assembly, one of the four Factions of the New Nexus Force, the Nimban military. Originally codenamed 'Project Overdrive', its purpose was to advance the design of the principle ground vehicle of the Venture League Faction, the lightly-armoured, fast-moving Dragoon, for greater speed, reduction of drag and, most importantly, traction - the nature of the origin of the Nimban nation being a group of disgruntled survivors somehow shunted from another universe left the modern Wardship with an excellent understanding of physics along with, now, their newly-restored Imagination and the technology based on it (or 'Imagitech' as it is colloquially known), but barely any surrounding biology or much of chemistry, including such mundane things as the chemistry of tyres.

Project Overdrive continued for about a year, making some progress with the Dragoon's design but without many major breakthroughs, until four years ago the Nimban Ministers for Sport and for Science and Technology decided to enter a national team for the WGPC; with permission from the Minister for Warfare, Project Overdrive was reimagined as Nexus Racing for this purpose. Last year's entry to the WGPC, surrounded by a significant amount of hype, was the first manifestation of their efforts and the team delivered in full, bringing home a victory in the Drivers’ Championship by virtue of the performance of Nimban former street racer Ryker Lane and a second place in the Constructors’ Championship. They now hope to carry this success over to WGP2 racing, though most analysts believe that their primary purpose for the series is to use it both to test prototypes of their UHSGV for the next WGPC and to train upcoming drivers for the series.

A statement was released by the team today on the subject:

‘We would like to confirm that Nexus Racing has a place in the inaugural season of the World Grand Prix Two. After Ryker Lane’s World Championship and the penultimate placing of the team as a whole in our initial WGPC season, we see this formula as the newest front in the grand war of the motorsport world and, as such, will be bringing all of the attributes that made us competitive there to bear now. We look forward to an exciting season to come and encourage anybody with an interest to watch the competition as it unfolds.’

Nexus Racing 'Chase Cutter' UHSGV


'Chase Cutter' without driver livery

Driver Name: Rebecca Darlington
Hometown: South Vauxhall, Rosetta, Esmerel
Date of Birth: August 25, 1995 (age 21)
National Trigram (the thing you need): ESM
Driver Trigram (bonus): DAR
Identity: Human female
Preferred Racing Number: 15
Ability (Agg/Tec/Rel): 3/4/5

BIO: Rebecca Darlington is another Esmerelian-raised domestic grand touring star. Her debut in 2012 at the age of 16 made her the youngest person ever to participate in Esmerel's domestic racing league, the ESTL. After several seasons of racing with backmarker teams she managed to be snapped up by the Obey Autosport team, who gave her a great car and the ability to win races. However, she was never close enough to take the title, usually going to another driver or her teammate at the time, Jean Mercer-Daly, a name you may have heard of.

However, in the 2016-2017 season, she was presented with a serious title shot when Jean left Obey mid-season to join the WGPC. And the title she got, scoring five wins and beating second-placed Robert Ost by a mere four points.

Naturally, this title meant she wanted to move up in the world, and she hopes the WGP2's inaugural season will be her stepping stone.

Driver Name: Lukar Urdaneta
Nationality (Trigram): Astograth (ASG)
Gender: Male
Preferred Number: 27
Aggression: 5
Technique: 3.5
Reliability: 3.5
Short Biography: 20 year-old Urdaneta was the youngest driver on the grid for the latest season of the Astograthian Grand Prix Championship, punching above his weight while driving the mediocre Barrertze car. He finished twelfth but a full four places above his teammate, earning as many plaudits as he did criticism for his daring, forward style on the track and on the microphone.

Circuit Name: Crossbay Circuit

Grand Prix Name: Nimban Grand Prix

Location: Nimbus Bay, Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System

Lap Record (F1/WGPC Car): Not yet set

Track Lap Length (km): 4.83

Map of Track:

Description: With the success of Nexus Racing apparent from the very beginning of the WGPC 15 season after Marika Pedanovic won the first race and champion-to-be Ryker Lane achieved fourth in the second along with a clear public interest from high native viewing figures, Jacob Gibbons, Nimban Minister for Sport, saw immediately an opportunity for the Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System to carve out a place for itself in worldwide motor racing. With a site identified on the coastline between Nimbus Bay and the peninsula hosting the First City and a circuit pulled together from parts of three of their origin universe’s most famous tracks, the government have been channelling money and Imagination (which proved supremely useful in hollowing out the tunnels) into the project of constructing a race facility appropriate for the world stage.

They’re just about done, too.

The people of the Nimban origin universe have a long and proud tradition of constructing race circuits in areas of astounding natural beauty; Crossbay Circuit continues this tradition, running across, through and below the stark dolomite rock cliffs of Nimbus Bay. Significant efforts have been made to avoid ecological damage in places untouched by the racetrack itself; local cliff-nesting birds, for example, have been relocated away from the circuit, predominantly to cliffs elsewhere in the bay.

Crossbay Circuit is also run through with the latest advances in Nimban technology. Roman-style concrete has been used for its hydraulic properties and decreased environmental footprint to construct the bridges for the over-water sections of the track. In terms of Imagitech, a large Imagikinetic force field, permeable to nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen but impermeable to all else, overtops the track and divides spectators from the cars, both keeping pollutants sealed in where they are scrubbed from the air by industrial-scale machinery underneath the track and serving as nigh-on unbreakable protection for fans from rogue car parts; more traditional belt-and-tyre barriers line the bottom of the circuit or, where they exist, its runoff areas.

A lap of the track begins in Sector 1 with a short run down the end of the start/finish straight to Turn 1, a long and smooth left-hander that is deceptively tight in the middle of the turn, as well as descending by a few metres over its course. From Turn 1 a tiny straight leads into the gentle Turn 2 before the car enters the first of the two tunnels on the course, descending rapidly into an underground stadium section featuring the moderately tight Turn 3 and the hairpin of Turn 4. This section is downhill all the while, making it quite the challenge for drivers. The track then passes under itself before shooting down and out of the cliffs into the water-crossing Sector 2.

Immediately drivers are forced to deal with the esses of Turns 5, 6 and 7. While 5 does demand something of a deceleration, the latter two can be taken with surprising speed; the measure of a good driver here will be how much momentum they can retain into the straight leading up to the nudge that is Turn 8 and the sweeping, ever so slightly banked Turn 9. After Turn 9 the chicane of Turns 10 and 11 provides another momentum-holding test into Turn 12, which technically begins immediately after Turn 11 but really comprises the mid-speed corner at the very end of the sector.

Sector 3 is by far the fastest of the sectors. Drivers dart into the cliff tunnel after 12 to face a long, climbing straight broken only by Turn 13, a left-hander that may as well not exist for all of the change in speed that it necessitates. Immediately after the tunnel is Turn 14, a slightly tighter but still fast right-hand turn, before a straight that leads to Turn 15, probably the sector’s slowest part. From there a short run and the small chicane of 16 and 17 brings drivers back to the far end of the start/finish straight and, through that, the finish line.

The five interviewees enter from a door in the back corner of the small room that is to host the press conference; those attending are assembled on seats in front of a table and chairs at which they take seats. The conference is then opened to questions.

[Esmerel]

IC:

After a long waiting period, the floor was finally opened to questions. Eric Vaughn, a popular talk show host, was requested by the citizens of Esmerel to be their Major Interviewer in this discussion. (There were plenty of fans, too.) Eric began with a few questions for Rebecca Darlington.

"Rebecca, you're only the second Esmerelian to make the jump to international competition. Can you describe what exactly got you into this situation? And what are your expectations for the team?"

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"Well, Eric, it's an honor to talk with you, just to say," she began, "though that's besides the point. I wanted to say it was passion that brought me here. Normally we know not to engage in any sort of international stuff, but when you've run out of stuff to do, like when you win the ESTL, there isn't much else to do. It really isn't all that bad and I'd love to see more Esmerelians do the same.

"And my expectations? I know I can't set them too high. So far, the tests we've had against the rest of the field prove that we're not the fastest car. However, I do know that we'll be able to improve by the end of the season. This car was built by the same people who built the car that won the World Championship, so I'd say we have good chances to do a lot better than you may have noticed."

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Eric closed with questions to Rebecca's teammate, Lukar Urdaneta. "Overall, Lukar, I'd just like to ask you the same two questions. How did you get here, and what do you expect of the team?"