The Penn 500 in Appalachian Nation had been a complete shitshow, at least as far as UrGa Motorsports Division was concerned. One of their drivers had decided to engage in a wheel-to-wheel war with another racing team for the stupidest of reasons, the other driver was not happy that her teammates were not giving her the same help that she had given them when they had asked of it, and their third and only non-chartered driver was not able to consistently keep up with his teammates.
It had all been going so good for Olga Gatutina up until now. Now things were looking like they were about to spiral out of control. Maybe that was the thing, she thought to herself. UrGa had been on such a good run at the start of the NSSCRA season that now the bad luck that they had managed to avoid was finally catching up to them. It can't end like this, Gatutina thought to herself. She had to admit that there was a little deja vu setting in for her right now. Her brother's team in WGP2 (also called UrGa Motorsports Division) had had a good start in that competition before falling away at the start of the second half of the season. In NSSCRA there were only a few races left before the end of the regular season and the start of the Chase, but it could be said that this was perhaps the worst possible time to get a poor run of races for any given team.
These thoughts were still brewing in Gatutina's mind as she went out of their briefing tent when she ran into someone standing a ways away from the UrGa garage. Gatutina didn't recognize her, but for some reason the woman felt familiar to her, or at least should feel familiar. The woman was tall, but also looked strangely young. "May I help you?" Gatutina asked her.
The woman nodded and then introduced herself with an overly long name that immediately identified her as a Valentian. Only they had such unbelievably long names in her experience. And out of that long string of names, Gatutina was only able to recall the first five: Head Diplomat Charlene Jeannie Natalia. Head Diplomat Charlene identified herself as a journalist, but she was quick to point out that she wasn't after rumors or clickbait, just information on what had happened in the tent earlier, which she couldn't help but hear.
Gatutina took a deep breath, and then she put herself into her "team principal" mindset before replying. "There's not much that I can tell you at the moment, Head Diplomat, other than the fact that we have had some disagreements between drivers at the moment. If you wish to know more, I suggest waiting for our official press release. Sorry, but that's all that I can tell you right now."
Guillermo Archer emerged from the UrGa tent with everyone's words still bouncing around in his mind. If he was being completely honest, none of his fellow UrGa teammates had yet managed to convince him to drop his vendetta against Jaguar Racing just yet. He could be stubborn that way. And another thing, he was now reconsidering his earlier stance that it was only Daniel Marx that had pissed him off. Now Alfonso Mercado was pissing him off as well. Gil knew that he had to be careful about that. He couldn't let Mercado get under his skin; it was he who had to get underneath Mercado's skin. But so far he had nothing against Mercado aside from the fact that the driver of the 64 was taking Gil's "war" against Jaguar Racing seriously. He would have to tread really, really carefully around this fellow, that was for sure.
What Gil was really looking forward to right now was getting back to his mobile home and crashing in his bed. Some races always left him feeling exhausted, and the Penn 500 was no exception. All he really wanted to do after a race like that was to rest. But it didn't look like he was about to get any rest anytime soon because there was this freakishly tall woman in his way. She looked to be between her late teens to early twenties, but there was something... not quite right about her. Gil couldn't put his finger on it. There was something... uncanny about her.
"Hello!" the woman said cheerfully, too cheerfully for Gil's tastes. "My name is Head Diplomat Charlene Jeannie Natalia Adeline Marceline..."
And there Gil finally understood it. The woman was from Valentine Z. Only the "people" from that country had such ludicrously long names. And being from Valentine Z meant that she had to be a robot or an android or some kind of mutated whatever.
"Hold it right there," Gil interrupted her. "No need to tell me more. I know who you are, or rather, what you are. Look, I don't know what you're about to say to me, but whatever it is, I'm just gonna tell you to shove it. And get off my face, you weirdo. I don't need your fucking plastic face haunting my dreams tonight. Now get out of my way."
For the first time since the second Big Ass Bash in Hapilopper, William Archer had come with the rest of the UrGa Motorsports Division for a NSSCRA weekend. This time their destination was Wreckeria, a nation just recently recovered from a bloody civil war. Unlike many in motorsports, William had a front-row seat in the machinations behind the Archer-JR war, and while William didn't really know what it was that had bitten his dad this time to take such drastic actions against another team, he wasn't really in any position to tell his father off about anything just yet.
William actually had two reasons to come to Wreckeria this time. The first was to begin getting acquainted with stock cars. It had come as a surprise to Gil when William had told him that he wanted to take part in the Rumble in the Rice Fields in the Sherpa Chinese Territories. Not just in open wheelers, mind, but also in stock cars, although depending on the schedule of the events that might be a little hard to pull off.
The second reason was because of Abdoulaye Goita. William had no idea how long the plan to bring Goita to a cameo in Saint Kanye had been, but once he heard about it something in William told him that maybe it was time to get acquainted with the current WGP2 champion. Maybe he could learn something from Goita seeing as now William had every intention of making the leap to the WGPC.
William was standing beside his father's car inside the UrGa garage. He was wearing civilian clothes, but had an ID identifying him as a member of UrGa's staff. That was true, or at least it had been until the start of the WGP2 preseason when someone in UrGa had misinterpreted the rules of the competition and cut both his and his teammate Taras Matviyenko's contracts with UrGa. Matviyenko made it back, but William had opted to sign for Lisander's Bitten Heroes, which had not been the best decision he had made in hindsight. Now William was in some sort of strange legal limbo where officially he was not part of UrGa in any capacity, but because of his planned entry into the Rumble in the Rice Fields he was going to be entered as an open charter user for IRACT (if he won the Rumble, that is), and while waiting for the Rumble to come around William was using UrGa's simulator to get used to stock car racing (although of course nothing was ever going to beat driving an actual stock car).
"What are you waiting for, William?" Gil asked his son. "The GFR garage is over there," he said, pointing down the row. "From what I heard, it's GFR that's paid for Goita's charter so if you wanna talk to the guy, he should be right over there. And even if he isn't, you can ask any of the Yeezies where he is."
"Hey, Dad, check out the Jaguar Racing garage," William said. "Looks like they've got new armbands out again."
"Yeah, I've seen them," Gil nodded. "Black armbands, right?"
"Yup," William nodded back. "So, what about it, Dad? Gonna say anything about it now?"
Gil thought about it for a brief moment then shook his head. "No, I don't think so. This time I think they've got a legitimately good reason for those armbands. This place, Wreckeria, just came through a very long civil war, William. If there's one time where I don't care about armbands so much, it's in a time like this. Remember, Abanhfleft also went through something like that."
"Yeah, Dad, I remember," William nodded, and then he walked over to the GFR garage to find Abdoulaye Goita.
