Chapter 2: What had been started

Inside the facility of Daiban Raceway. It consisted of paddocks for each racing team to help them prepared their race cars.

For today's event. Each team are gathered from different continents around the world. Two from the Americas, one from the Europeans, and four from the homeland continent of Asia.

Now, each team had their own history of races in their own home continent. First up, the Americas.

Americas teams are Ravenwest and Thunder Group. They are the most experienced racing teams currently in the Americas.

Ravenwest. They are founded in 2006. The founders are James McKane and William Rick. Their notable achievements are won many of the Liberty Sweepstakes 248 times out of the 310 races, and also won the NASCAR cup for 205  times out of the 301 races. This team was build from the foundation of passion in motorsport racing through the mind, body, and soul of the drivers. 

Thunder Group. They are a team founded by Chevrolet since 1998. They are a expeditionary team for the car company Chevrolet to enter races round the world. The purpose of the team was to increase the baseline of their sports car to be further ahead in technology and safety through motorsport. One of their iconic car was the Camaro ZL1, powered by their home build LS1 engine.

Now, for the one team that came from the european was Dexter Torres.

Dexter Torres (formerly Jackals United) was a well known racing team in the United Kingdom since they are founded in 1960. They had won many races in the 20th century using classic cars until reaching the dawn of the 21th century. Most of their races are won from rally-cross and auto-grass. Now, they are entering the circuit racing across the world into different countries and disciplines; to represent the United Kingdom in Automobile Racing.

For the four teams came from the homeland continent of Asia. They are Jouhan Racing, Ino One, Qihian, and Tristan Star.

Jouhan Racing and Ino One, they are the two same teams from one company. That company named Hi-Teki Limited, a company that service and repair cars around Japan; one of the second influential company in the country.This team existed since 2016, and slowly growing through out the years.

Both team purpose are to reach many drivers who wanted to compete with other drivers; with all of them had the one dream in their mind.

Qihian was a racing team from China. They were created from a corporate sponsors of Build Your Dream (BYD) since 2037. BYD was a car maker company that make electric cars around China. This team strictly used BYD branded cars around competing with many other rivals in a closed circuit racetracks. Until now, they hadn't lost any races yet.

Finally, Tristan Star. A racing team founded by Kei Eida (Speed Joker) under the legal paperwork since the late year of 2038. This team was formed for many who wants to rise to the top stage. All the people who are hired in this team are chosen by Kei Eida himself. Many of those whom struggled with money, and some fallen deep to bankruptcy and debt.

---

Speed Joker entered the paddock of her team. She saw many mechanics prepared all of the tires being preheated in tire' covers.

"You really made it in time."

She heard a familiar voice. When she saw the person who called her; it was Tanami Hideyoshi. A middle age race engineer that had his infamous brown beard.

"Sorry, it took quite a while with public transportation. But I got here on time."

Tanami calmly replied, "No worries, currently the car is in the final setup phase. So any tires that will be use in the race?"

Speed Joker looked at the list of tires on the clipboard. She pointed at the tires with red lines along the rim.

"I'll go with soft tires. This race is just five laps, it should make it, " She said.

"Okay, I'll tell that to the mechanics," Tanami said, and do a slight nod.

As Tanami continued to do final check up of the car. Speed Joker went to a changing room. Inside the room, she met her expert make up dresser; that person was Izumi Rei.

Izumi Rei, she was a expert make up artist. She had been picked up by Speed Joker when she was fired from her old job as a make up artist from a movie film company. Now, she was happy with her contract with Speed Joker for passed three years.

"Its been a while Izumi-san," Speed Joker calmly said.

Izumi Rei softly replied, "Yes, it's been a while."

Speed Joker sat down on a chair, as she was being prepared to get disguised as Kei Eida.

"Have you been studying to your dream university lately?"

Which Izumi Rei replied, "I've been studying hard, manage to passed the exam."

"I see, congratulation."

As time continued. Speed Joker silicone mask was finished. Her face was now overlapped with a silicon mask covered her entire head. Her horse ears are no longer visible, only the human ears of the silicon mask. Her hair turn from dark gray into short black hair. All of those are inside the silicon mask being supported by a hairnet.

She looked at the mirror, surprised by the result, "This is amazing! You improved a lot!"

Izumi Rei chuckled in embarrassment from the given praised, "Thank you! I've been working hard. Now, I manage to make it look more realistic with smaller details too."

It was time for Speed Joker to wear her racing suit. She went to the dressing room. Her racing suit was made with the highest standard materials of safety regulation that given by herself. The suit was made by her tailor, Koji Ian.

Koji Ian, a young man with impressive high set of skills in tailoring, that he can tailor any type of clothes. He was one of the men recruited by Speed Joker herself. When he was in debt and due to bankruptcy of his tailor shop. His entire debt was paid by Speed Joker who won a street race against the Yakuza.

"Here you go, miss Joker," Koji Ian said as he gave the racing suit Speed Joker.

Speed Joker cheerfully replied, "Oh, Thank you very much."

She wrapped her breast firmly with a white piece of cloth. Patted on them make sure it was secured. Then she wore her racing suit. Once that was done, she looked at the mirror.

"Not bad, I like this design."

Speed Joker went out from the dressing room, meet Koji Ian eye to eye.

She asked, "So this is the upgraded suit that I requested?"

Koji Ian nodded. He replied with a smile, "Yes, its been heavily upgraded as I follow your suggestion. I've been testing materials right and left to make sure it doesn't under perform. I can give you the report video if you want."

Speed Joker denied, "Not now. But maybe after this race."

He replied, "Okay, I will set it up as soon you are finished racing."

Speed Joker exited the changing room after she was finished her top side up. She looked at the car in front of her.

It was a sport car designed by her own hands, crafted through a brutal three years trial and error. It was called the Jetsun LP1440. Her car was under the brand named Jetsun, a car company that she secretly registered under her own name since Junior High School. Which her family or any relative close to her didn't know about its existence.

The car architecture itself was comparable to the current car being sold in the dealer ship, it was called the Jetsun L2011 Comet. Despite the same body, its engine are different.

Both L2011 and LP1440 uses the IA-4 Engine Series. But the differences are in its displacement. L2011 used a IA-4D model, it only allowed to reached displacement of 1.4 Liters. While the LP1440 used the IA-E4M that allowed a displacement of 1.8 liters. Additionally, the LP1440 engine was also twin charged; used both supercharger and turbocharger. Make it twice more powerful than the L2011.

For the rest part of the car like the transmission, suspension, body, and brakes; it had been completely overhauled.

---

The full list specification of the LP1440:

-> Body: Aluminum Monocoque

-> Drivetrain Layout: 40(F)-60(R) 

-> Engine: IA-E4M 1.8L DOHC Twin Charged (510 BHP / 380 kW)

-> Transmission: 6 Speed Manual P510 HDS (Hydraulic Dual-clutch System).

-> Suspension: Multi-link E230 QWRS (Quick Weight Response System).

-> Brakes: DeltQ Ceramic 16'

-> Weight: 800 KG (0.8 tonnes)

---

Speed Joker wore her racing helmet. After that, she walked out of the garage and saw the crowd on the spectator stands.

There was a lot of people who would watch the race, it wasn't a small amount. If anyone that would count of how many person who would be watching it. It would be around twenty five thousand in total.

She looked up at the stand, with rays of light blocking her view. Many spectators wore racing merch from the different team, even some waved a giant Japanese flag.

"That is so bright."

As the spectator venue was nearly full. She saw other team cars coming out from the garage.

Ravenwest used their Dodge Viper SR 1, and Thunder Group used their Camaro ZL1.

Dexter Torres used Aston Martin AM8C.

Jouhan Racing and Ino One used their Nissan S30Z. Qihian used their BYD Atlas GX3.

All of the cars are ready to go. Until one of the drivers from Qihian approached Kei Eida (Speed Joker).

"So you're the underdog team that everyone talks about."

That driver was named Zhu Yi. He had habits of making some enemies for drivers on the racetracks.

"Is there any problem?" Speed Joker asked.

Zhu Yi shaked his head left and right. 

"No, I got no problem with it. Because you're just a small team that barks without a bite."

{What the hell? Trying for provocation already?} Speed Joker said in her thought.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll make that car of yours turn into a pile of scrap by the end of the race."

But that provocation didn't affect her. Rather, she felt karma loomed around Zhu Yi.

{Instead of being angry, I feel sympathy for some reason.}

Speed Joker went back to the garage and entered her car. She started up the engine, which it roared to life.

She put into the first gear, it allowed the car to move out from the garage. Then she shifted up to second gear to cruised at the pit lane.

She looked the rearview mirror, cars from  other teams followed in for a practice run.

{Time to do a bit of warm up.}

Practice runs are about fifteen minutes. This allowed all the driver for this race to get used of the track layout.

When that fifteen minute was up, they went to qualifying; it took another fifteen minutes into account. Totalled around thirty minutes with both practice and qualifying.

Once that was done, the starting grid for each drivers are revealed. For the fastest gets the pole position.

Here are the starting grid list for this race after qualifying:

- P1: McCane Thomas (Ravenwest)
- P2: Dave Justin (Ravenwest)
- P3: Michael Strand (Thunder Group)
- P4: Noah Pierez (Thunder Group)
- P5: Kono Ikeda (Ino One)
- P6: Ronin Endou (Ino One)
- P7: Rowan Cooper (Dexter Torres)
- P8: Tanner Forster (Dexter Torres)
- P9:  Kenzo Tanaka (Jouhan Racing)
- P10: Kouta Sato (Jouhan Racing)
- P11: Zhu Yi (Qihian)
- P12: Xiao Yu (Qihian)
- P13: Kei Eida (Tristan Star)