An Anthro's Tale

Qualifying

The next morning DJ went on her usual alarm spree, waking us and probably a lot of other people with us.

“Why?”, Shelby moaned, “why does she do that?”

“Because she is incapable of sitting still”, I laughed, “maybe I'll tie her to her bed tonight.”

“Not without me you wont”, Tess yawned walking in, “you’ve unleashed a monster on us all Seth.”

“No I didn't”, I laughed, “she is out of my control.”

Tess rolled her eyes, “Joe's waiting downstairs with the wristbands, let's go see him.”

Shelby and I dressed and followed Tess down to the lobby where Joe was sitting. He was dressed in a white shirt, blue jeans, his boots and a jean jacket. I could see his Mustang sitting outside.

“Hey guys”, he said standing, “I got your wristbands.”

Joe handed us each a yellow band that resembled the bands you wear in the hospital. Each one read in white letters “Great Eight Festival. Yellow Wristband, Entry Level Races.”

“With these you can drive in any race no matter your age”, Joe said, “not having a license may hurt your chances at qualifying, but if you can run the track and not crash then your in.”

“Well yeah because if we crash then we have no car to race”, Tess laughed.

“Ha ha”, Joe said, “put your money where your mouth is, I'll see the three of you on the track.”

Joe left the hotel and slid into his Mustang. It rattled to life as he backed out and drove off. We went to get breakfast with the others and afterwords we hopped into the Ford and drove to the Festival. Dad parked the Ford underneath some trees with good shade and started setting some stuff up and then I went looking for Joe. There were hundreds, or maybe thousands of people here. They were all in possession of some kind of Tuner car with parts varying from rims and bumpers to full custom bodies. Some of them were showing off speakers, while others were challenging each other to see how loud their cars were. I had to navigate a little through the maze of people and sweet looking rides before I finally found Joe. He was with Ross and girl, Ross and the lady were underneath the hood of the new Koenigsegg CCGT and Joe was under the car.

“Try it now Ross”, Joe said as I walked up. Ross walked to the cockpit and and tried the key, the car squeaked and sputtered before dieing.

“Wasn't the starter”, Ross said.

“Back to square one then”, Joe said sliding out from under the car, he sat up and saw me, “hey Seth.”

“You guys having problems with the car?”, I asked.

“Yeah”, Joe said, “damn thing was running fine this morning, now it doesn’t even act as if it wants to try and start.”

“You got any idea what the problem is?”, I asked

“Well it's not the starter cause we just replaced it”, Joe said, “it's not the carburettors because they're brand new and it's not the supercharger because we just checked it.”

“So usual suspects?”, I asked.

“Pretty much”, Ross said, “we got to fix this car so I can get on the track and then Joe has to get his Firebird ready for the rally.”

“Well let's get this going then”, I said sliding under the car.

Koenigsegg's V8 engine was one I had very little experience with and only really knew from specs I'd seen online. The transmission was in the way of almost everything and on top of that, it was dark underneath the car. Joe had said that it wasn't any of the usual suspects, so I was at square one. At first, I thought it might have been the fuel lines. I checked them all, tightened the connections and then told Ross to try and start it, this time the engine made no noise at all, so I assumed the battery might be dead. Joe replaced it and then tried the car again, nothing. After over two hours of the scorching heat, sweating and being hunched over a burning V8, Ross finally found out the ignition wires were loose. We tightened the connections and then tried the car again. The V8 shook and roared it's way to life, a high pitched hissing sound will a deep, rolling muscle car sound made the car somewhat evil. Ross and the girl, who'd I learned was his wife, took the car over to qualifying and then Joe brought out his 1987 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am GTA.