"It's Like A Sports Car!" - Part One

This Intro Will Allow Me To Get Rid Of A Bookmark

 - that has been sitting in Youtube's 'Watch Later' for months.  It's from the 'Australian Armour And Artillery Museum' and concerns two of their rebuilds being taken for a drive around their trials course.  The driver is named 'Kurt', which seems rather apt for the last vehicle he drove.  Art!

     That above is the 'Stug III', short for 'Sturmgeschutz III', an assault gun cobbled together from the chassis of an obsolete Panzer III and a 75 mm anti-ank gun, designed with absolutely no regards for ergonomics.  Art!

Kurt is contorting himself into knots here to change gears.  Art!
     Then you have this, a Cromwell, capable in it's early variants of hitting 45 PROUD IMPERIAL MILES per hour, and which Kurt declares to be akin to a sports car, which is where we get our title for today from.  Compared to the lowly Stug's plodding 25 mph.
     The dragway here is typical of a drag strip, being dead straight, flat and paved, used for side-by-side racing over 1/8th or 1/4th of a mile.  Car-l informed that this particular event was a 'no-prep', meaning the surface lacked any kind of additives to aid sports cars with traction.  He and Winning Wifey took along a trio of cars, which he describes as an '1996 Honda Civic Hatchback sporting an engine swap', and if Art will put down his bowl of coal -
     Their other car was a Japanese import not available commercially in South Canada: a Nissan Laurel.  Art!
     There was a 3rd car that plays no part, so it's not getting a description.
     Hmmm.  So much for AI.  I don't see any drivers.
      This striking image is from a burning Wildberries warehouse complex - is there any other kind now? - in Samara.  Conrad,  only lightly anchored in reality, recognised the signature title credits of 'Doctor Who', Sixties iteration.  Art!
     Bruce tends to focus on subject matter that isn't all hardware and spaceships, but he manages a credible rendering of 'Discovery One' as inspired by the film "2001", in a rather Vincent Di Fate style, whom is another story from a different kitchen.  Art!
or yuIt is

     ANYWAY of course - obviously! - that has verrrry little to do with the rest of the Intro, which is dedicated to a Youtube tale of revenge that I found fascinating as it refers to sports cars, an area I know 0.0% of, but am willing to take direction in.  I will dub the narrator 'Car-l' because I like to make you wince, and his other half will be Winning Wifey.  His tale comes in two parts, the first of which takes place at a drag strip WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS we're talking about a specialist race track.  Art!

     By 20:00 hours our protagonists had accumulated the not-inconsiderable sum of $20,000 thanks to winning 'small wagers' across the day as they competed with other drag racers.  They were looking to pack up their kit and roll, when Klutzy Kar Ken made an entrance, hereafter abbreviated to KKK.  He was brash, pushy, loud, a dyed-in-the-bones misogynist and tried proposing a $10,000 wager on a race between his car (a 1969 Pontiac GTO) Art!

It's like a sports car.
Because it is one.

     and Car-l.  After hearing KKK repeatedly insulting his wife, Car-l suggest they race her in the Laurel against KKK, whole huge yet fragile male ego cannot resist the lure of both verbally and mechanically beating Winning Wifey.

     Our Man Of Motor also puts it to KKK that they race for possession of each other's car, by depositing their pink title slips with a race official.  Whom doesn't seem to bat an eyelid at such a wager, implying that it's not exactly commonplace yet not novel either.  Car-l later goes into a bit of corroborative detail about how such betting is perfectly legal, just as much as placing a bet on a horse.  Thanks, Car-l, we'll take that as a given.  Art!

     ANYWAY ANYWAY the race is over a quarter-mile.  KKK pulls ahead immediately off the start line, and is then beaten by Winning Wifey, whom lives up to her name.  This is not a photo-finish, there is exactly 0% debate about who won and who lost.

     You can probably guess how this goes.  Car-l and WW go to the track official holding the title deeds and pick up both, and then go to visit KKK.

     Who flies into a fiery rage, denying that SHE won, SHE got lucky, SHE needs to do best out of three, SHE's not getting the car - on and on for 15 minutes.  Car-l notices that KKK has, unwisely ('wise' seems a concept he has very little grasp of) left the keys in the car, which he deftly snaffles.  Art!

Hard to find a good sucker punch illo

     Car-l is then sucker-punched by KKK, whom still refuses  to admit defeat, threatening to call the police - 

     Until the Track Owner - a lot more wholesome a title than 'Drag Strip Owner' - turns up, tells KKK to leave before the police are called to trespass him, and that he's banned from the track.

     Car-l and Winning Wifey leave, with the GTO in tow.

     Here we shall end Part One, which has been focussed around the cars and racetrack.  Part Two has stupidity ladled upon a heaping serving of stupidity, with a stupidity side and liquid stupidity to wash it down with.  Did I mention stupidity?

They can play the soundtrack

You've Gotten Off Lightly So Far

By which I mean all the highly kinetic events taking place in Ukraine and Mordorvia.  The Ruffians are continuing with their Murder Missile Mission, which they have been waging since 22/02/2022.  The orcs have a very shallow learning curve.

      Meanwhile the Ukrainians are continuing to find new and interesting things to hit with their drone waves every night. 'Waves' is the appropriate noun, they occur in the hundreds, up to 400 of the Furious Birds nightly.  Art!

Work with me on this

The Prof Is Emptying My Wallet Again

Or trying to, and it's still 2 weeks until payday.  His last recommendation was a couple of murder mystery novels from a Croatian author, which are only just out in paperback and thus unlikely to be around as second-hand copies on Abebooks any time soon.  Art!

As recommended by Professor P. Caddick-Adams, the piker

     0P VERITABLE was the British army's crossing of the Rhine and invasion of Germany proper in early 1945.  No, it was not all over bar the shouting, there was a lot of blood spilled in what was not a mere cakewalk.

     Hmmmm. I wonder how much it costs? 

     £45! Plus I was wrong, it's only available in hardback. Maybe 2027.

Bring On The Brucey

Pennington, that is, as featured on the 'Sci-Fi Art' Youtube channel.  Which we've looked at previously, when it was dealing with Angus McKie.  Conrad has seen other vlogs they have, focussing on other artists, some of whom I recognise with more I do not.  Art!

I

     You ought to have recognised the 'Title Gap' at the top of his illo here, so the publisher can add in whatever the title will be.  Since the gap here isn't that large, they can't use a whole lot of words.  I note that they didn't re-use this illustration for a completely different novel, such as 'Lord Of The Rings' mind you Ol' Clarkey did set his original Discovery mission towards Saturn, which does have rings - or am I overthinking this?

 A Final Ungentle Shoeing

Only for this blog today, don't worry, I haven't acquired a sudden sense of good taste, mercy or toleration.  Art!

Mister Entirely Misplaced Smugness is seen here in one of his more perilous situations, including all the assassination attempts: being in the vicinity of Marine One, the giant helicopter responsible for transferring his gargantuan bulk around.  The rotor downdraft is so powerful it's revealed his baldness hidden by the Hair Helmet, which may be why he's resorted to a large piece of wool, woven into his scalp.  

     There's a pulp comic strip that Smuggy reminds me of, just can't place the artist yet.  One of the 'Mister Monster' spin-offs, I think.  I shall dig and get back to you.