Chapter 1: The New Old Guy in Town
October 19, 1976
The crowd is pumped. The dirt is flying. The final race of the 1976 WRC championship is underway! The newcomer, Rob Jones, is kicking up dirt in his sweet Lancia Stratos! The youngest WRC driver ever, he is only 16 years old. He blasts around the final turn of the course to win the race…and the championship!
June 9, 1996
That was the scene 20 years ago. After Rob got in a horrible accident, he retired and led a private life. He never had a wife or hung out with anyone. He learned Japanese so he could move to Japan, where he could start mountain racing, and best of all, nobody would know who he was. He moved to Japan in January of 1996. It took him longer than he thought to get ready to move to Japan, but it was worth it. He hated living a private life, and now he didn't have to. He bought a Sunburst Yellow street version of his Lancia for mountain racing.
When Rob got to Japan, he beat some of the racers in the Saitama hills, but only because people paid more attention to his car than to their own driving. At around the same time, a certain rising star was making a name for himself over in Gunma prefecture. Rob was new to Japan, so he had never heard of Gunma. One day, a racer named Wataru Akiyama challenged him. Wataru knew that Rob had talent, and there would be no home course advantage. At first, Rob just laughed and said, "Hey, buddy, if I were you, I'd be heading to the junkyard first chance I get. At least they might give you 6,200 yen (about $50 U.S.) for it." He took that back when he saw the boost pressure gauge, though. "Hey, I don't exactly see that ugly thing on the cover of Modern Auto Magazine, either," replied Wataru. "At least my 200HP midship has better traits than your Hachi, Eight-Six boy," yelled Rob. "Show me some track skills, ancient car man! And by the way, my car can top 280HP at full speed." answered Wataru. Rob just stared. A 280HP Eight-Six was unheard of!
They persuaded a oncoming driver to start the countdown for them.
"Five!"
"Four!"
"Three!"
"Two!"
"One!"
"Go!"
The cars took off like jets. Rob took the lead at the start, but a Hachi-Roku slides a lot better than a midship, so Rob used grip driving at first. For advanced drivers, drifting gives you more line variations, but Rob wanted to take it easy at first. Wataru was a lot better than Rob thought, so Rob started pitching it sideways a little bit. Wataru pulled away on the straights, but Rob maintained his speed through the turns, unlike Wataru, who slowed down into them. After the first lap, they were actually tied, so they went into overtime! "How can his four-banger, 1.6 litre Eight Six keep up with my Ferrari V6! I mean, sure, he's got a horsepower advantage, but my hand-built Lancia midship should smoke him," Rob thought out loud.
Rob decided he had to kick it up a notch, so he used a full-blown drift into the first corner. He still couldn't shake Wataru, and fell behind in the second corner. Wataru still had the lead coming back, until something happened. Something Wataru had experienced a few times, but Rob had never even thought of. Not many people drove the beat-up hills of Saitama anymore, so Rob had never even thought of an oncoming car (Obviously, there were not oncoming cars in WRC). Wataru took advantage of the little space on the side of the road, while Rob swerved into the outside lane. Wataru was ready for the next hairpin, but Rob lost control after swerving out of the way. Rob managed a perfect countersteer to get himself the lead and the inside line on the second part of the s-turn! Because of his super fast Levin, Wataru was once again tailgating Rob.
Meanwhile, at the Takahashi mansion, Ryosuke was busy analyzing the data for the two cars, (He heard about the race from one of his contacts in Saitama) but couldn't find anything about the Stratos because it was a rare Italian car that most Japanese people haven't even heard of. Ryosuke didn't know who would win because he had never seen Rob's skills before, but he did know that it all came down to power vs. car control.