Machinas: Lap 1

Running order as the race begins

Welcome to the world of Machinas: Death Racing in the Apocalypse!
Let's get straight to the race ...

Note: In the Machinas background, each car is given a canonized name such as "The Sedan of Saint Mercury," but to make it easier to write this report, each vehicle is referred simply by its faction color (red, blue, green and yellow.) The yellow car in this race is human-controlled, all other cars are NPCs.

Green shoots up Red

The Brother Pilots came across the starting line into the end of the straightaway with no problems. Blue takes the immediate lead followed by Green who hopes to gain momentum by drafting Blue. Next is Red who sets up to pass Green, and finally Yellow. Yellow would prefer to pass on the inside, but there's a chance that if Green gets passed, the inside lane could get blocked. So Yellow decides on an outside lane.

Sure enough, Red does make an attempt to pass Green, but the attempt fails. Instead of letting it go, Green retaliates with guns! Red is unable to line his guns up properly and gets pasted by Green. Red returns to his spot but his speed has been reduced for the remainder of the race.

Green and Yellow are in position to pass
on the near turn.

Yellow takes advantage of a weakened Red car and makes the pass attempt look easy. Yellow opts to simply make a pass, not ready to tangle with weapons just yet.

The pack angles their cars into the near turn with Blue still leading, followed by Green, Yellow and Red. Green and Yellow set up to pass but are unable to power themselves around the leaders. The pack comes quickly out of the turn and enters the far straightaway in the same running order. This time, everyone decides to line up, drafting one another to set up for later passes, but the train of cars causes Yellow to panic- he finds himself too close to the Green car ahead and they collide! Both Brother Pilots fight their wheels and the uneven track, but are able to regain control of their cars and continue to race.

The pack comes to the end of the far straightaway. Only Yellow, shaken by the collision, takes a different groove -- and for a moment, Yellow sees an opening and goes for an immediate pass! But he was too slow to react and the opportunity quickly closes.

Blue rams Green!

Coming into the far turn, Green finds his own opportunity at a free pass, and, despite his lack of power on turns, he passes Blue and takes the lead! Blue regains his focus and fights to regain the lead. Using his heavy ram, he bashes into Green trying to shake him out of position, but Green holds. Yellow again takes advantage of an opponent who's losing his momentum and also passes Blue! In Machinas racing, advantages can quickly disappear, so you have to pay attention to your resources (bonus dice) and know when to use them to maintain momentum or to steal it away from your opponents.

Entering the main straightaway, Green leads followed by Yellow, Blue and Red. Yellow feels it's the right moment and opens up with his guns against Green (in Machinas, a Pass attempt must be won to line up your guns before shooting or bashing.)  There is heavy firing from both cars, but neither can get a good hit, so both remain in position, finishing lap 1 of the first heat of the Festival of Saint Machinas!

All the opponents have used the first lap to size each other up. Their hands grip steering wheels tighter, trigger fingers are tensed and pedals are dropped to the floor; Now the real racing can begin!