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Um... The other typo.
1976 is 100 years before 2076, not One Year : P
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Also, I just read the excerpt on Assegai Developments, and the part about how Piranha was keeping Assegai functioning as a Semi-Independent company made me come up with an idea for a Fan-Fiction where Assegai (as part of Piranha), Icarus (under the name Pegasus Industries), and Goteki (or at least a small portion of it) are competing in the F9000.
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Sounds interesting. Can't wait to see it. :)
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An idea I came up with whilst playing the Classic League of Wip3out SE:
According to the manual, the eight classic tracks were voted for by subscribers of "AG online" in Sept. 2128. To highlight the league, I was going to race the 2129 League on those tracks. But, due to the "popularity" of these tracks, should the F7200 stay on the classic league permanently?
Curious for your thoughts.
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Well...while part of me may think it's a bit much on one end to stick to the 'classic league' at the same time, they could either do something like a rotation, where one year it's the 'regular' races in Mega-city while another is classic. Or find some kind of compromise, like run both the classic and 'current' tracks in the same year, or even run some of the current courses and classic tracks on rotation.
But that's just me.
I'll say more once I can hopefully put my thoughts together...until then.
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F7200 records done...finally! I'll post it to the thread as soon as I've revised it.
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Kel Solaar - The Greatest Pilot Who Ever Lived
There is without a doubt that Kel Solaar is the greatest AG pilot of all time. He is at least the most successful with 83 podiums, 52 race wins and 10 Pilots’ Championships over his 20 year career which itself is the 2nd longest serving in history. Apart from his impressive record, Solaar has shown to be a consistent pilot, whose knowledge of craft control and use of weapons makes him a dominant force despite racing only with Qirex. If Solaar was piloting for a different team, there is without a doubt that Solaar would bring home victory for that team. As such, Solaar made a massive contribution to Qirex record as being the most successful team in AG racing.
Out of the starting line-up for the inaugural F3600 League in 2052, Solaar was the only pilot born before anti-gravity technology was declassified for public use. He was born in the year 2012 and from a very young age, he had a passion for aviation. Even when AG technology was made public in 2018 (when he was 6 years old), Solaar still preferred the streamlined aeroplanes over these new floating devices.
When he finished his secondary schooling, Solaar immediately enlisted into the Russian Air Force. (Sources claim that Solaar initially wanted to become a commercial airline pilot, but his somewhat aggressive character made him more suited to a life in the military. Either way, he would’ve been satisfied). Solaar would spend the next 15 years training with some of the best pilots and officers on Russia on countless missions, all the while building on his piloting skills. However, Solaar always saw the most enjoyment from actually piloting the fighter jets themselves. In fact, Solaar was ranked as a “Major” upon his departure from the Air Force, but his senior officers claim that he had been offered higher ranks and had the experience of a colonel, maybe more.
Despite favouring the classic style of flight, Solaar did show an increased interest in AG technology. When the Nx1000 prototype was demonstrated in 2035, Solaar was 23 years old. After witnessing the wonder of the craft, Solaar got as much info as he could on the technology and kept up to date with the latest developments.
When the AGRC was announced in 2045, Solaar made it a ‘goal’ as such to compete in this new competition which would combine AG technology with what he knew from the Air Force. Solaar left the Air Force and was quickly hired by local company Qirex Industries as a test pilot and advisor for their AG ships (Solaar was also a big contributor to Qirex’s patented all-terrain simulator). From the start, a lot of people saw that the relationship between Solaar and Qirex will be a long and potentially prosperous one.
Solaar made his racing debut at the first race of the 2048 Anti-Gravity Racing Championships in Nova State City. Unusually for his piloting style, Solaar was defaulted to the Agility ship (The Fighter ship was defaulted to Kurlov, who was also the lead test pilot for Qirex prototype based on the fighter). Either way, Solaar was able to bring out the strengths of either craft and it has been said that some of Solaar’s best flights had been in the Agility ship.
The 2048 season had been a nail-biter between Solaar, Japan’s Ami Nakajima in the FEISAR and the American AG Systems pilot, John Dekka. Solaar just managed to rise above these rivals to take the first ever AGRC championship. This was followed by another championship the following year, but just got beaten at the hat-trick by Dekka during the final round at the newly constructed, specialised Altima circuit in Canada. At this point, a fair amount of people thought that Solaar would step back from piloting and take up a supporting role for the 2052 F3600 (where there were two pilots per team). But a lot of people were surprised when Solaar was selected to be the lead pilot in Qirex’s 2052 line-up, supported by Japan’s Arian Tetsuo.
The first few years of the F3600 were not the easiest for Solaar, but did show a hint of what was to come. In 2052, Solaar struggled against the AG-S of Dekka, but also the FEISAR of Frenchwoman Sofia de la Rente. He finished 3rd with 4 podiums to his name. Between 2053 and 2055, his form got better, winning the pilots championship for all three years.
When Qirex débuted their dual-hulled craft in 2060, no-one could catch Solaar. In fact he won every single race from 2060 to Japan 2063; a record that he still holds to this date. Even more extraordinary when you consider he was approaching 50 years old. These few seasons contained some of Solaar’s greatest races. At the American round of the 2061 season, both Qirex found themselves down the order due to some reliability issues with the craft. Solaar managed to sort these problems out before the race and adapted his piloting style to compensate, and quickly found himself behind the leaders: Arial Tetsuo of Auricom and AG Systems’ Marcus Fairclough. After a closely fought battle, Solaar pulls ahead of Fairclough just before the final jump to take the win.
However, from this point, his dominance started to wane. Although he kept up his form and kept winning championships, he constantly found himself competing against his teammate, Arian Tetsuo, and in particular Sofia de la Rente of Auricom. De la Rente had returned to AG racing with Auricom after a 6-year break from the sport, and quickly became very familiar with the craft in no-time. It’s said she had found speed she dreamt of when she was with FEISAR. Very quickly, de la Rente found herself mixing it with Qirex team, sometimes coming out on top. This, coupled with the tension in Qirex because of Arian’s anxiety to be promoted to a lead pilot position, made her a serious threat to Solaar, and Qirex’s, dominance.
This wasn’t the only scrutiny behind Solaar. Ever since the early days of his career, he has been seen quite close to Auricom’s Anastasia Cherovoski. Cherovoski’s origins are quite hazy, but it is understood that Solaar is the only person who knows of her true identiy. Despite the amount of hype and pressure put on to both pilots, Cherovoski still remains enigmatic. The mystery of their relationship has sparked rumours on their legitimacy. Some speculate this affair was orchestrated by various datacast companies in an effort to cash in on the sport. Some extreme speculation states that there is nothing between them, and that Cherovoski is a spy for Qirex.
Eventually, after years of close racing and media frenzy, Solaar retired at the end of the 2068 season; his record streak of pilots’ championships ended in 2067 when Sofia de la Rente managed to breakthrough and claim her first pilots’ championship: the first for a Frenchwoman. She replicated this the year after, but this time with Arian Tetsuo in second (luckily, this was enough for Qirex to secure the teams’ championship for that year). Adding onto the mystery behind Solaar and Cherovoski, Cherovoski would retire as well.
Both pilots virtually disappeared from the media for a number of years after they retired. Neither of them was seen at anymore race events or Qirex functions. Some rumours went around that they did get together, got married, and lived quite comfortably for the rest of their lives. To many people’s amazement, Solaar was seen with Qirex during some races in 2096. But this was a different Solaar: instead of the tough-as-nails, aggressive but much loved pilot of his youth, he was a wise, approachable advisor to the whole of Qirex’s operations. But one thing that remained was his love of racing. In an article published by ‘Celebrity Home’ in 2098, Solaar lived quite a reversed life in his Moscow Metro home: all the AG ships and parts were displayed in luxury whereas Solaar’s quarters were near Spartan at most.
This lifestyle would eventually be his undoing. Whilst he modestly remained in the public eye for a number of years, there had been increased concerns of his health as a result of his obscure lifestyle. These fears were realised in 2113 when Solaar was found unconscious at Qirex’s testing facilities in Moscow. He had just had a stroke as a result of high cholesterol and fell into a coma. He was in a coma for two weeks but after no-one personal had visited Solaar, and confirmation that Cherovoski had passed away a little over two decades previously, the doctors decided to let Solaar pass way peacefully aged 101.
A period of national mourning was observed both in Russia and the wider AG community. No pilot before had been as dominant and as professional as Solaar, and it seemed that no-one could live up to him. Probably the only pilot that may be considered as Solaar’s successor was the Serbian Piranha pilot Simo Lukic. A reserved pilot, Lukic had been a talented mid-field pilot before breaking though to his first championship in 2147. From then on, Lukic was the master of the track. Whilst not as successful in terms of victory to Solaar, his charisma is similar to that of Solaar and shows good rivalry with Italian Auricom pilot Natalia Victor. Lukic would remain with Piranha into the F9000, but eventually stepped back into an advisory/developmental role with the team. But that’s another story…
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The Classic Leagues
During the first century of AG racing, we had seen many outstanding pilots steer some of the most advanced ships ever crafted on a number of sheer circuits. Some of these circuits are well remembered whereas other we love to forget. This was particularly the case with the original F3600 tracks, such as Altima VII and Silverstream, and the fans were quite upset when these tracks were replaced by the then-state-of-the-art tracks of the F5000. The F7200 Classic Leagues, held between 2129 and 2134, brought AG racing back to the forgotten tracks of the previous leagues and, in a way, the last display of classic AG racing before its upcoming stranglehold by the Overtel Corporation.
On June 9 2128 Pierre Belmondo, pioneer of AG technology, passed away aged 123. A state of mourning was observed worldwide and the Stanza Inter round of the 2128 season was dedicated to him. Almost immediately, the F7200 Race Commission (under control by former FEISAR/Icaras executive Roger Bowen) began discussing how to permanently honour Pierre Belmondo. The most favourable option was to create a teams’ champions’ trophy in his name. But a much more ambitious idea was about to be presented.
At the same time, the Commission had the issue of upgrading the current F7200 tracks. Ever since the series’ inception in 2116, the Mega City circuits had been virtually unchanged in terms of track condition. By 2128, most of the tracks looked quite dilapidated as a result of the numerous weapon detonations over the years as well as slight changes to accommodate the advancing ship and weapon designs. Because of the time it would take to renovate the tracks, several temporary locations would need to be used for the 2129 season.
During that year, the anti-gravity magazine ‘AG Today’ published hosted a survey asking for the fans’ favourite AG tracks. The results of this survey were published in their September issue. Quite surprisingly, the majority of the top tracks were from the previous F5000 League, most of which were still in use (probably because there were a few fans who remember the old F3600 tracks). This started a series of discussions in the F7200 Commission which culminated in the decision to run the top 8 tracks from that survey for the 2129 season.
However the idea of racing modern AG craft, in speeds in excess of 600km/h, on obsolete tracks was not going to be easy, especially with the three F3600 tracks which made the list. Most of the old F3600 tracks have been left to ruin after the F3600 had been phased out (the only exception was Korodera, which had been converted to a theme park). Only Altima was in the best condition to racing standard due to the track’s current use as Auricom’s main test track. As such, Altima would be raced earlier in the year. Terramax, in Germany, was also quite well kept, but not to the standard as Altima. After it was retired from competition, Terramax remained open for the amateur racing scene and on-and-off held various rounds of the European Championship.
But the biggest challenge was Arridos IV, situated in the heart of Utah’s Monument Valley. The biggest problem with the desert track had been its isolation from a major centre. Although Salt Lake City was no more than a half hour on an AG train, the amount of spectators that came to see the sleek ships in action became a major logistical challenge. When the F5000 was announced, the United States Anti-Gravity Association (USAGA) quickly chose a metropolitan track and allocated all resources into that track (Spilskinanke). As such, Arridos was completely abandoned and most of the tracks facilities were demolished. The only reminders of its existence had been the tunnels and segments of the track itself. Due to the massive repair of Arridos, as well as the upgrades to the circuit so that it can be race at F7200 specification, the track was worked on during the 2129 season with massive donations from several international AG Associations (the USAGA couldn’t have fronted the entire bill). There were doubts that the track would be completed in time. Luckily, it was completed (albeit two weeks late) just in time for it to host the finale of the 2129 season.
There was a lot of celebration at the first round of the 2129 season at Talon’s Reach with the return of AG racing to the fast Canadian track. The enthusiasm of the crowd skyrocketed when the ship were hard at it. British Pirhana pilot Laughlan Ivers pulled away from the pack to take the win. In fact, the whole 2129 season was dominated by Ivers and Pirhana with second place secured by Brazilian rookie, Vincinius Albeniz. At the end of the season, Pirhana were rightfully awarded with the new memorial trophy in honour of Pierre Belmondo: The Belmondo Cup – awarded to the team who not just finished first in the team standings, but had shown the skill and determination to achieve it.
The 2129 “Classic” season was a runaway success, enjoying popularity not seen since the F5000, if not ever in the history of the sport. This influenced the F7200 Commission, in association with the Anti-Gravity Federation (AGF) and Mega City, organised a plan to convert the F7200 to race on the older international circuits. It stated that “…the Classic Leagues will run for five years from 2130 to 2134, where at such time the F7200 Commission would assess the long-term goals of the plan and results from the previous competitions before making a decision to permanently race on these tracks.”
The “Classic Leagues”, as they now became known, continued to be a spectacle for audiences around the world. But it may have been from one pilot that helped the success of the Classic Leagues and create a legend: Katsuogo Muro. Muro moved to AG Systems from FEISAR’s pilot development program after increased pressure from media in his homeland. Despite being a mid-pack runner over the first few years in the F7200, he had become a sort-of protégé to AG Systems’ main pilot, Kurt Graham. But when the Classic Leagues came along, he was a different pilot altogether. Muro was always at in the leading pack and gave the veterans a good run for their money. He managed to the tighter tracks to his advantage and ran away to his first F7200 Championship in 2030. Eventually, everyone knew that Muro, in the quick and nimble AG Systems, on the tight tracks of the Classic League, was unstoppable. It’s no wonder that Muro (and AG Systems) claimed all but one Classic League Championship.
Apart from Muro, there were a few other pilots which stood out during this period of the F7200. The other AG-S pilots, Finn Jarno Toivonen and Zhang Dan, both shone at times. Muro and Toivonen were really good friends as well as teammates, and generally if you saw one on the track, there was a higher chance you would run into the other. On numerous occasions, Toivonen supported Muro in his championship attack and helped keep the charging Auricoms at bay to secure the 2133 Teams’ Championship for AG Systems. Zhang would assist the fighting duo in any way he can and sometimes gave Muro the support that Toivonen couldn’t give.
Auricom pilots Mélissa Flament and Aaron Hayden both were quite competitive as well. Flament kept achieving high placed finishes, even a 3rd place, up until her retirement at the end of the 2131 season; and Hayden would rise to become a strong pilot for Auricom who would finally break the AG Systems dominance after the Classic Leagues ended in 2135.
Sadly, this popular era of AG racing was not to last. In 2132, the Overtel Corporation managed to take majority control of the Commission from the Belmondo Foundation. Seeing more profits that would come from a central location over international races, Ovetel did not continue with the Classic League plan and AG racing came back to Mega City in 2135. This was met with serious outcry from the public (who had grown stronger than ever due to the convenience of the races in their countries) and even the threat of boycotts plagued the decision. Despite Overtel completely revamping the media design for the sport, which exposed AG racing to extreme levels of publicity, they were still viewed with suspicion form then onwards. They were marginally forgiven when Overtel announced that the public will choose the tracks for the F9000 when it was announced in 2152.
However this, plus the abolishing of AG racing after the fall of the F9000, most of these tracks were left to rot and as of today, the only way to race on these classic tracks is via simulator.
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2137 P-Mar Brawl
The P-Mar Brawl of 2137 still resounds quite familiar with AG teams and fans today, as it was the first time that AG racing (or motor racing, for that manner) had seen a conflict between two teams in such violent circumstances. Whereas other teams would protest over an incident through a formal protest or motivation to innovate so as to gain an advantage over the other team, the tension between Goteki 45 and Icaras in the lead-up to that fateful race in September would spark into one of the bloodiest moments in the sport’s history.
Although they were new teams to AG competition, the Pacific Goteki 45 and British-based Icaras teams were not favourably liked by the community: Goteki with their focus on on-track combat than racing success and the commercial background and behaviour of the privately entered Icaras. As such, these teams normally remained at the back of the grid with FEISAR. On the odd occasion, they did enjoy some success but were constantly cut down with criticisms of their success. When Goteki won their maiden championship in 2128, the team was bombarded with criticism and accusations of foul play on part of the team. Their 2128 victory was indeed legitimate, but it was obvious that the more “pure” members of the community did not want this sort of team taking “their” silverware.
Things were looking quite well for Goteki and Icaras during the mid 2130s with both teams contracting and/or training talented pilots. This was particularly evident with Icaras when they acquired “DJ” Jukka Rautio in 2133, followed by Kenyan pilot Thomas Tanui from Assegai two years later (briefly). Although they never finished higher than 9th, they were never eliminated in a race which, for Icaras, was outstanding. In 2135, Goteki acquired female Polynesian pilot Sarema Illkeina from the Pacific Leagues. Over the course of two years, she had become the only possibility of the team winning another championship.
2137 was destined to be one of the most competitive battles in the F7200 League. Not just because of a classic Auricom-Qirex battle between Wolfgang Van-Über and Fyodor Eppirov respectively, but for the first time the top eight pilots all came from different teams. This included Illkeina for Goteki and upcoming British Icaras pilot George Dravare. The first race at Porto Kora was quite predictable, but after the next race at Mega Mall saw two battles going on: between Van-Über, Eppirov, Piranha’s Vincinius Albeniz and the late great Laughlan Ivers out front, and Dravare against Jarno Toivonen of AG Systems and Roland Ncita of Assegai.
The scene at Icaras was ecstatic during most of the year with all night parties put on to celebrate the point-scoring placing Dravare achieved in the previous race (they only have ever done this twice previously). At Mega Mall, Dravare managed to pip Toivonen to the line to score 5th and 2 points: his first points of his careers and Icaras’ first in almost a decade. This was followed by a 6th placing at Sampa Run (after a hard fought battle with Goteki) and another 5th and Stanza Inter. It had been commented that Icaras were celebrating as if they had won the championship.
At the start of the second half of the season, Goteki, who had fallen back in the first half, were starting to come back with Illkeina’s 4th placing at Hi-Fumii bringing here up behind Dravare and Toivonen in the standings (Ncita at this point was challenging the front runners). Icaras were starting to have some reliability issues with their craft, which dropped Dravare to 8th and the other Icaras crafts to near last: they had been careless with maintenance in midst with celebrating Dravare’s successes. This result inspired both teams to up their game for the next race at the tricky P-Mar Project.
Both Goteki and Icaras had their intentions to go well, but both saw stiff competition from the other. Whilst both teams had been back-runners, Goteki had made it habit to prey on the weak-shielded Icaras craft just for pleasure. Knowing that Icaras was threatening a good placing, they were going to place particular focus on them. Icaras also saw the threat of elimination by Goteki (and knew that P-Mar was one of their most hated tracks). So, they placed massive resources on Dravare so he can rise above the Icaras’ “flaws” and take home a good place.
The start saw a commonly seen line-up: Van-Über and Eppirov out front followed by Ivers, but with Toivonen in a tight battle with Albeniz for fourth, leaving the three newer teams bringing up the rest of the field. Dravare and Illkeina battled quite hard with each other, clearly no quarter was given. Then suddenly, the tables were turned after Vincinius Albeniz scored a lucky quake which forced the original (and leading) four pilots to pit again, putting them out of contention.
With the first two positions were likely to be Albeniz followed by Assegai’s Roland Ncita, it was a dogfight between Dravare and Illkeina for third. Both team owners, Resaru Kipwada (Goteki) and Burnston Burns (Icaras) reportedly exclaimed “This is it, get on with it!” but not reply from either pilot (both pilots had their radios of to get extra thurster power). This battle between Dravare and Illkeina was one of, if not, the hardest battles fought over three-quarters of a lap. Coming onto the final straight, Dravare, with the Icaras’ superior speed managed to just pull ahead of Illkeina, but a lucky plasma bolt from the Goteki hit dead-on to the Icaras engine: denying Icaras’ first podium just metres from the finish.
The sudden shock and outrage from the event caused an outburst of emotion within the Icaras team. But the most infuriated members instantly went to confront the “victorious” Goteki team. What resulted was an all-out riot between both teams that also included the neighbouring teams of AG Systems and Assegai (trying to break it up of course). Local authorities broke up the fighting which saw most members of both teams arrested. In total, 31 mechanics were injured, 5 of which were permanently crippled with a mechanic on each team killed. Kipwada himself succumbed to blunt force trauma to the head a few days after.
The entire AG community was in shock from the incident. A few pilots, such as Ncita, Toivonen and Ivers, would retire at the end of the year, using the incident and the resultant political trials as motivation to escape the increasingly political issues of the League. There were even rumours that the League would be suspended again (which were quickly extinguished).
Two weeks after the incident, the court cases began. Goteki defended that their actions were all within League rules, but Icaras maintained that Goteki deliberately held onto that plasma so they can humiliate Icaras whilst denying them their first podium. Most of the other teams couldn’t understand what and why this happened, in particular Qirex who had long time supported Goteki against their corruption allegations over the years, but had also provided Icaras with shielding technology to not stir any bad blood between the two teams.
As the subsequent trials went out, a decision was made quickly. Because the background leading up to the incident wasn’t illegal or morally incorrect, both teams had no reason to start the brawl between them. As such, both teams were charged of causing a violent conflict with another competing team, stripped of all points acquired during the year and banned from competition until at least the end of the 2138 season (this is in addition to paying damages to both the circuit and all parties injured in the incident). The main influence behind the quick decision was the threat of the League’s suspension due to the trials.
Goteki would not return after their base of operations on the man-made Hawaiian island of Makana was bombed by an unknown party later in the month. To this day, no-one has claimed responsibility although there had been conspiracy theories pointing the blame to Icaras.
Icaras would return in 2139, but at nowhere near the strength and exposure they had before the P-Mar Brawl. Although George Dravare stayed with the team and raced quite well, even scoring second at Manor Top in 2140, the team was sevrely vilified for causing the P-Mar Brawl in the first place; as such, when Burnston Burns died from a balloon accident that year, his son Terence to dissolve the team and trade in his father’s assets for a quiet home in the country.
On the bright side, not everyone involved in the Brawl was booed out by the AG community. This is mainly with Dravare. After Icaras dissolved, Dravare immediately sort out to sign with another team to keep his career going. He wanted to show to the world that he was a genuinely good pilot, not another Icaras playboy. He managed to sign with Qirex for 2141, which helped him win his only championship the year after and kept showing good form until his retirement at the end of 2146. Jukka Rautio too found success after Icaras, immediately defecting to Piranha after Icaras’ barring and took the 2138 championship with the Brazilian team. Rautio would retire at the end of the 2142 season. Thomas Tanui (who signed with Goteki in 2136) would return to Assegai for a few years before retiring in 2144, finishing last.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is based off Challenger #001 team descriptions with some edits in the interests of game continuity, particuarly Icaras and Goteki 45. Click on the links to read further on this story.
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Records All Done!
After almost a full year of collecting the games, playing them and filling out records for every year; I've finished the last year last night.
:hyper
And now, I can focus on both writing more stories the cover the whole 110 year history of the Leagues as well as my take on the team backstories. These will come within the coming months, I can't wait!
Hope y'all read through the records I painstakingly created for you, with a few surprises hidden here and there (it was by accident that I gave Natasha Belmondo 7 TITLES in her career).
(P.S: Whilst I was playing Katmoda 12 - first track of Themis/2170 League [the last league to do] - Intuative's "Wav Seeker" was playing in the background. I thought this was cool, considering the darker tone of the song and the unbeknownst event that was to happen in that season [Fall of F9000]).
Also, Merry Christmas everyone and a have a Happy New Year! :xtree
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This is by far the longest entry in the Chronicles yet: 2000+ words (in contrast to approx. 13-1500 entries). But, inh my view, it was worth it.
Woflgang Van-Über
There is without a doubt that Wolfgang Van-Über is right up there with the most influential personalities of AG racing as well as with the best pilots of all time. A much loved figure, Van-Über is quite famous for his purist stance to racing, even refusing to use weapons and insisted to race on skill alone. And even in retirement, he was still a familiar sight within the AG Leagues through his home-grown racing team, Van-Über Racing Developments. Van-Über is very much a true living legend of the sport.
Van-Über’s beginnings were quite humble. Born in a blue-collar, racing fan family in Hamburg on 3 September 2107, Van-Über’s early passion was athletics. Van-Über was quite competitive, becoming a regular sight in numerous regional and national athletic competitions and events. This was a key reason* why he would adopt an anti-aggressive stance on AG racing later on:
“…When I was sprinting, in my youth, there was no politics; no aids; nothing. It was just a group of young boys running to find out who was faster out of our own devices. With AG racing, if someone passes you, you wait for a particular corner or hold a weapon and use that to your advantage – you will get back ahead. In running, if you got passed you’ll give it your all to get back and if you can’t, that’s just the way it is: you win some, you lose some.”
As Van-Über got older, his attention turned to AG racing, and eventually made his debut in the European Junior Championships in 2123. Although it can be noted that Van-Über used weapons as much as the other pilots, these Leagues were much less reliant on weapons to change the outcome of the race so eliminations in themselves were quite rare. This started to change when he started to associate himself with the main F7200 teams, namely FEISAR. Although quite eager to race with them, it was reported that Van-Über expressed some dissatisfaction with racing at this level and had complained about how much firepower he had to use to turn the race his way.
As Van-Über admits, he threatened to walk away from the League on more than one occasion, but one thing was keeping him from doing that: his speed. In his time trials, Van-Über is one of the fastest pilots to ever have raced with FEISAR, and in turn tried to use his speed to his advantage. At times this worked, but he was still hindered from weapon hits.
If there was a definitive moment where Van-Über announced and stuck with his anti-weapon belief, it was a Venom class race in 2130, as Wolfgang remembers it…
“I was in second coming up behind an Auricom craft (fielded by a privateer team) towards the end of the race when my crew chief had told me to eliminate him quickly. The pilot of the Auricom craft hadn't run a perfect race (he was caught in a crash with a few other pilots), so his shields were quite low, but had decent speed to keep my craft at bay. I initially didn't want to do it because I thought I can catch him, but I was ordered by my team. So I eased off and eliminated him with a missile on the last lap (anti-climatic, I know). After the presentation ceremony, I immediately left feeling quite upset with my team and myself; not just for not having faith in myself but for not winning with my own skills…”
His attitude towards racing in the F7200 changed dramatically midway through 2127 when his older brother, Klaus, got involved in a high-speed hovercar crash which left him with severe spinal injuries. Although with the advancements of medicine, Klaus was still able to walk but was permanently disabled. Klaus, like Wolfgang, had ambitions to race in the F7200, and was quickly approaching his zenith in the European Leagues. Wolfgang, taking up the mantle as the family racer, swore to race for his brother as well as himself and contributed a sizeable share of his winnings and sponsorship funds into Klaus’ ongoing treatment. Klaus never forgot his brother’s generosity.
Van-Über made his official debut with FEISAR in 2131 alongside Johan Janson of Sweden and Canada’s Léa Guise and made a big impact. He constantly placed within the top 10 and scored a few points along the way. The most notable was the final race at Arridos IV, where he managed to score third behind Alisa Novosad and the late great Katsuogo Muro. Van-Über became hot property throughout the 2132 season with offers for quite a few teams, whilst continuing to score point-scoring finishes for his original team. Van-Über would sign a contract with Auricom at the end of the year.
For Auricom, 2133 was to be one of the strongest years in years with Van-Über signing alongside their current lead pilot, American Aaron Hayden. Hayden, like Van-Über, had been a rapidly rising star-of-the-future, placing 5th in only his second year of competition. It was acknowledged that either pilot can successfully challenge for the title, but was more difficult for Van-Über because of his principles. This is reflected in the final points tally whereas Hayden had consistent high placed finishes, eventually finishing second, Van-Über was placed all over the top 10 from as high as third to as low as 9th.
This was similar in 2134, although this time Van-Über only stood on the podium once when he should’ve been supporting his teammate’s assault on the dominating AG Systems. It was rumoured that Van-Über’s contract with Auricom would be cancelled if he did not produce good results for the next season, strongly suggesting to abandon his now infamous belief in, what was now called, the “purity of the race”.
However, there were radical changes to the League in 2135. For one, the death of Muro dragged AG Systems’ morale down a lot, but the F7200 Race Commission (under administration from Overtel) had changed the calendar back to Mega City. With the generally more technical circuits was where Van-Über’s “handicap” didn’t appear. Motivated for a place on the team, Van-Über blitzed everyone with his performance, even more with his refusal to use weapons (unless absolutely necessary) and clean-swept the season; his nearest opponent was 49 points behind.
2136 was a tough year for Van-Über and the Auricom team with a tough battle being played out between Van-Über and teammate Bobby Butler, Vincinius Albeniz (Piranha), Fyodor Eppirov (Qirex) and Laughlan Ivers (FEISAR). However, Auricom had a firm grip on the Teams’ championship (they were the only team with two point-scoring pilots) and Van-Über taking the last three races to take his second title.
2137 was marred by a brawl between Icaras and Goteki 45 at P-Mar Project which lead to the suspension of both teams. As this was the last year of his original contract, Van-Über had originally decided to leave the sport using the P-Mar Brawl as the perfect opportunity to distance himself from the current state of the sport. As stated in his autobiography, it took a lot of convincing from newly installed Director of Operations Gideon Oldfield that made him change his mind from an early retirement, and signed a new three-year contract that he was allowed to exit anytime he wanted.
It’s fortunate he re-signed, as he showed some of his best racing in those three years as he battled against “DJ” Jukka Rautio (who had signed with Piranha). Whilst just beaten to the 2138, he came back stronger in 2139 and battled hard with Rautio to achieve his fourth title before announcing his retirement from professional racing.
Van-Über’s retirement stunned everyone. This was because that Van-Über was still quite young at 32 and was still at a strong point of his career with many years still ahead. His reasoning, when quizzed by the media, his family and Auricom themselves, is that:
“…no team should continually have one pilot to take all the glory, and that another pilot should have a chance to shine in his place. And in turn, he would make sure that other young pilots had a chance to fly and be successful as I had been.”
Leading up to his retirement from racing, Van-Über had developed an interest is the development of the craft, and was quite involved in the development of his Auricom craft during the last few years. When he retired, Van-Über wished to enter craft development and pass on his on-track experience into developing an ideal craft. FEISAR offered Van-Über a position on their team as a head designer, but Van-Über turned this down, insisting he wanted to do it alone. After experimenting with a few designs over the next few years, Van-Über formally established Van-Über Racing Developments in 2142 along with Klaus and a good friend of Van-Über, Ryan Morgan, with technical assistance from FEISAR.
For the first 10 years, Van-Über saw considerable success in the European AG League, even managing to score back-to-back titles in 2149 and ’50. This success, as well as the announcement of the F9000, motivated them to push for entry into the AGRC. They were granted a full season entry in 2151, filling the position vacated by Assegai, and used this season as an experimental season, to observe the field that would be entering the F9000. Van-Über’s nephew, Sören, performed quite well managing two podiums (which is more that can be said for the other two pilots, who failed to score all season).
Their first season in the F9000 wasn’t a good one, with the team finishing only one race in the whole season (Songen Grey’s 6th place at Temtesh Bay), but they gradually grew as the seasons progressed. The scored their first and only race win at Cubiss Float in 2157, and coming in 5th place in the 2158 and 2159. However, the durability of the craft plagued the team and they gradually fell to near bottom throughout the rest of the F9000.
But despite this, Van-Über was quite popular due the charisma of Wolfgang and his belief in the “purity of the race”. In an interview in 2159, he famously quoted “…we must remain cleaner than clean… If all the clouds in the sky turn black, who can hope that the rain will ever cease?” In this period, he coined the term “the sublime and delicious game”, which has entered common use and has further influenced the name of the AG datasheet “Sublime and Delicious” and Van-Über’s own range of men’s toiletry products, S&D. Also, the appeal of one of his pilots, Nami Mishima, helped the image of the team, as she had often been compared to the late Arial Tetsuo, Auricoms’ lead pilot in the early years of AG racing. This has made her popular with young fans, but also the target of constant sabotage which has plagued her performance over the years.
Due to the increasing political pressure from the F9000, Van-Über followed Auricom’s lead and withdrew from competition at the end of the 2169 season and returned to regional racing. However, the Fall of the F9000 a year later virtually halted all of Van-Über’s activities. Whilst they still continued performing R&D work and produced craft for public consumption, the team was rapidly declining. Wolfgang would liquidate his share of the company and retired to a quiet life in the German countryside.
Van-Über was present at the AG Rebirth Festival in 2185 and express absolute delight when it was announced that AG racing was to return to prominence. However, he did show disappointment as he would not lead the charge to promote the “sublime and delicious game” in the new era of AG racing. His grandson, Helmut, would rebirth the team in the 2198 with his father’s blessing to compete in the newly-formed FX300. Piloted by German-born American Daniel Albrecht and using a updated variant of their old F9000 model, the team enjoyed moderate success in this era culminating with Albrecht winning the title in 2202.
The team did not transition into the FX400, mainly due to the health of its founder. Approaching his centennial birthday, Wolfgang had become quite reserved from the media particularly with his team’s victory in 2202. It appeared that Wolfgang had achieved his dream of “leading” a team to League success, so now he can spend the rest of his years in peace.
At age 105, Van-Über is one of the oldest AG champions still alive today (only beaten by 2126 Champion Mélissa Flament), but his pacifist beliefs and his extraordinary career makes him a true legend of AG racing, up there with names such as Muro, Tetsuo and the great Kel Solaar.
*There are other reasons behind Van-Über’s ideal, such as his Roman Catholic background and his admiration of primitive Formula One drivers as seen in old videos.