Half an hour passed in no time.
The sound system at the venue began blasting high-energy music, signaling that the main event of the night had arrived, and the host returned to the commentary platform to give the audience a live play-by-play of the race.
"Thank you for waiting! Our race is about to begin!"
"All contestants, please proceed in order by team number to your assigned starting positions!"
Because the track wasn't wide enough to let every team start from the same line, the teams' starting positions were staggered by number.
As Team 1, Jei Chou's group naturally took the very front position, while Team 4, Mizuno and Maruzensky, were in second.
Following the teams' numbered order, the host once again introduced the contestants for the audience.
"Number 1: Jei Chou and Uehara Mika, driving an AE86."
"Number 2: Eren and Mikasa, driving the Cart Titan..."
But as the audience followed the host's introductions all the way from Jei Chou in front to Team 8 at the very end, a very complicated look suddenly appeared on everyone's faces.
Because Team 8—the "owner's command" duo made up of a sexy beauty and a muscled dog-man—didn't have a vehicle at all.
Instead, the dog-man boyfriend was down on all fours, serving as a human seat for his girlfriend to ride on. There was an iron collar around his neck, with a dog leash extending from it into his girlfriend's hand, making it look exactly like they were in the middle of some kind of play.
"Don't tell me they're planning to run with their legs?!" Both the host and the audience were baffled.
Everyone else had a sports car or a jeep—at worst, a wheelchair. You two showing up like this made it very hard not to suspect you were here to throw the race.
Actually, weren't you just here to do dog-training play in public on Tanabata?!
"Uh..." Even the well-traveled host had no idea what to say to that, but professional instincts still carried him through a brief introduction of Team 8 before he quickly turned the audience's focus back to the race itself.
"Now then, the race is about to begin. Starting the countdown!"
"..."
Vroooom—!
As the host counted down, all the racers focused with total concentration, staring straight ahead at the green lights going out one by one. The roar of tires spinning up gradually rose across the track.
Mizuno focused as well, placing his finger on the nitro boost button, ready to blast forward the moment the race began.
Since he had chosen Maruzensky as his partner, his plan naturally mirrored her usual strategy: a breakaway.
Blasting off at the start would not only give him a good position and create a lead for the rest of the race, it would also keep him from getting dragged into item brawls with the other teams, which was another way of compensating for Maruzensky's near-zero item accuracy.
After all, if I drive fast enough, then I don't need to compete with you on throwing accuracy, right?
"Hoo..." Mizuno took a deep breath and silently counted down the remaining seconds in his head.
"Five... four..."
The instant the starting horn sounded, all eight teams moved at once.
Normally, getting a vehicle moving took time. Even if you used a tire-spinning launch technique, the initial acceleration would still be slow.
But Mizuno's street-racer wheelchair was different. To secure position right off the line, he had specially equipped it with nitro jets. A single burst of nitro was enough to push it straight to top speed.
And so, to the audience's astonishment, while the other teams were still getting underway, a wheelchair trailing blue flames had already completed its acceleration sync and shot past everyone in an instant.
"Go! Go!" Mizuno held nothing back, mashing the nitro button to the floor as the wheelchair carved a meteor-like streak across the dark track.
Only five seconds had passed since the start of the race, and he had already reached the first corner, leading the others by more than two hundred meters!
"Holy crap! A wheelchair can go that fast?!"
The new spectators were still in shock, while the veteran ones were already being dragged into old memories.
"Could this team have something to do with Maruzensky-dono?"
That familiar race strategy instantly made some longtime viewers think of Maruzensky, who used to dominate the rankings in first place with the same kind of explosive breakaway start in her red sports car.
Of course, none of them recognized the cardboard-box spirit sitting behind the wheelchair as Maruzensky herself. They only assumed this team must have been influenced by her, which was why they were using the same all-out dash strategy.
"A breakaway! It's a breakaway! After months, Maruzensky-dono's racing style has appeared again!" the host shouted excitedly.
"A full-throttle opening burst, huh? Interesting!" Watching Mizuno drift cleanly through the corner two hundred meters ahead, Jei Chou felt his blood start to boil.
Racing wasn't the same as running. In a footrace, Umamusume still had stamina limits—they had to constantly manage their energy, and if they overdid it with an opening burst, they would burn themselves out and get overtaken one by one later, making it a losing trade.
But racing didn't have that problem. As long as you had enough fuel, you could go as fast as you wanted.
So an explosive opening in a car race was completely viable. The gap you built was real, after all. The faster your start, the more room for error you had in the later stages.
"As expected of Maruzensky-dono's boyfriend—he really does have the skill! But I'm no pushover either!" Jei Chou gripped the steering wheel and slammed down on the gas.
But just as he was about to accelerate and chase down Mizuno's wheelchair, he suddenly realized that four other teams had quietly boxed his car in from front, back, left, and right.
As the saying went, to catch the bandit king, first catch the chief. In a free-for-all race, the stronger a contestant was, the more likely they were to be singled out.
And among all the racers here, the genius teen Jei Chou—already a two-time champion—was publicly recognized as the greatest threat, the demon king who absolutely had to be dealt with.
That wheelchair team that blasted off at the start could wait for now.
But Jei Chou had to be eliminated first.
So what they needed to do now was focus fire and take Jei Chou out immediately!
The drivers of the four teams moved in tacit coordination, using their vehicles to block Jei Chou's path, while their support partners all pulled out items and aimed them at the AE86.
Team 2, the Titans, pulled out a toy carrot knife.
Team 3, the Doraemon team, pulled out dorayaki.
Team 6, the Ultraman team, pulled out fireworks.
And Team 7, the Pokémon team, pulled out a Poké Ball...
"Jei Chou, take this!"
---
T/N: WOW A RACE???? THIS IS CRAZY ITS BEEN 200 CHAPTERS
bonus chaps
200 stones -> 1 chapter
400 stones -> 2 chapters
600 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
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