DISCLAIMER: The X-Men aren't mine. Wish
they were…even though I am a lowly college student strapped for money; I ain't
making anything on this story. NASCAR
belongs to NASCAR Corp. Respective
driver names belong to those drivers, and it's the same with all the drivers'
sponsor names as well. Wish I owned all
that; then I wouldn't need to be at college…oh well.
POINT OF INFORMATION: This was a dumb little idea I came up with while BORED TO TEARS
at work. Feel free to criticize it,
find it completely stupid, love it, etc.
It would not go away, so I am forced to publish it. Hopefully, it will be pretty cool. Oh well if it doesn't. JEFF GORDON RULES AND THAT'S ALL I'M GONNA
SAY ABOUT THAT!!!!!!
Ch. 1 – Gambit gets an idea…
Things were dull around the mansion. It was a Sunday in October, so the team had
off from its normal endless hours of practice.
Wolverine was up in his room watching football and downing a few beers in
the process. Xavier was going over
notes for the upcoming week for the other students. Cyclops and Jean were of course in their room together doing…well
you know. Jubilee decided to join
Wolverine watching football. Storm was
off meditating somewhere. Rogue and
Gambit were on vacation in Charlotte, NC to see Shadowcat, who had moved up the
corporate ladder at one of the many banks in the metro Charlotte area. Things had been dull on the enemy front as
well. Sinister, Magneto, Juggernaut,
Mystique and Apocalypse had all gone underground or had not been active for
several months, so the normal routine of the X-Men was not interrupted to go
off and save the world.
Shadowcat's company gave out tickets to the annual race
at Charlotte when the NASCAR Winston Cup returns to the one and a half mile
oval. She couldn't make it because she
had a date in the afternoon, so she gave the tickets to Rogue and Gambit. It was for a private luxury suite situated
high above the racetrack, so they had a beautiful view of the racing. They also had pit passes and winner circle
passes because Shadowcat's company was sponsoring the race.
It was late in the racing season,
and the number of races left to determine the championship was getting fewer
and fewer. There were three drivers who
were left in contention of the coveted Winston Cup. Jeff Gordon was leading the point standings, but not by a
comfortable margin. Sitting tight in
second place was his corporate teammate, Jimmie Johnson, who was less than
fifty points behind. Kyle Petty, son of
the patriarch of NASCAR Richard Petty, had had a surprising year and was
situated in third place in the point standings within easy striking distance of
the top two if Gordon or Johnson were to slip up. Neither Rogue nor Gambit had ever watched NASCAR before because
they found it boring to watch men (and a woman, Shawna Robinson, who had become
the first regular female on the Winston Cup circuit since the 1950's) going
around and around and around in circles.
But Shadowcat insisted that they use the tickets or and give NASCAR a
chance. Gambit and Rogue decided not to
upset their friend, so they went.
Tony Stewart, or Tony the Tiger as
he has been dubbed, sat on the pole position with the three contenders for the
championship not to far behind. The two
X-Men were paying more attention to each other more than the drop of the green
flag to start the race. The race began
slowly as the teams were being careful driving the racetrack. Then they heard tires squealing and saw
there was a huge wreck. This one
involved Jimmie Johnson, so he would take a hit in the points. They became more and more interested as the
race progressed, and the two became hooked.
"Gambit tink Jeff Gordon is de
man. I mean, he win four championships
already, and is de defending champ. He
drive smooth as silk." Rogue just
scowled.
"Ahm into the hunk of Dale Earnhardt
Junior. To bad he don't date older
women. He's as good with that Budweiser
Chevy as he is good looking!" Gambit
looked at her.
"You just say that chere because he
good looking. He ain't nuttin the
driver dat Jeff is."
"Wanna bet Swamp Rat?" Gambit gave up the fight in favor of the
wreck that was developing on the track.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had gotten a little close to the points leader Jeff
Gordon and they made contact. It spun
them both out with both drivers managing to recover their cars quickly with
minimal damage. But tensions were
boiling over up in the luxury suite.
"It was yer Jeffee fault! He shouldn't have checked up or else Junior
wouldn't have gotten into him."
"No chere, Junior boy is at
fault. He de one to make contact with
Jeff. Jeff just racin' out der."
"AARGH!" They focused more on the race instead of blaming a driver. They were down to the final few laps of the
race with Jeff Gordon managing to fight his way up through the traffic to battle
Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty for the race win.
After many attempts Petty managed to nose his was into the lead in front
of Labonte. Gordon decided to split the
three entering turn one for the final lap.
Only problem was the fact that Charlotte's corner was designed to handle
only two cars comfortably. They managed
to squeeze into the corner, and maintained their position through the
backstretch and into turns three and four, where cars could race three wide. They came off the corner and into the tri-oval
heading toward the finish; no car had a distinct advantage going to the
checkered flag. In a last burst of
momentum, Petty managed to nose less than two inches past Gordon, who had a few
inches on Labonte. They crossed the
line Petty, Gordon and Labonte in the closest three-way finish in NASCAR
history. The two X-Men were cheering
along with the 135,000 people in the stands and the infield for that incredible
finish. Gambit grabbed Rogue and together they fought the crowd and managed to
squeeze into the infield. Since they
had the sponsor pass, they made it to Victory Lane, and managed to get a
picture with Kyle Petty. After partying
with the Petty team, they wearily made it back to their rental car.
The next day, they tried out the
real thing at the Richard Petty Driving School that was also based at
Charlotte. After a twenty-minute
classroom session, it was Gambit and Rogue's turn to try their hand at that one
and a half mile oval. The instructors
slowly got the two mutants comfortable with the racecars that they were
driving.
"Ahm gonna get you swamp rat! Prepare to get beat by a woman!"
"Gambit don tink so cher." They got use to handling the of the cars
and after about ten laps, the instructors told them to stop on pit road so the
class (including Rogue and Gambit) could drive the cars solo. Gambit pulled up alongside Rogue, and
offered a brief race.
"YER ON SWAMP RAT!" Suddenly, Gambit was off even before Rogue
could drop the clutch and get the car rolling.
Rogue quickly got her car in gear and off after Gambit. Although Gambit had a faster single lap
speed of 163.57 mph, Rogue had a better overall speed in her laps and ran
Gambit down. Gambit used the advice of
the instructor of keeping the car on the bottom of the racetrack. Rogue was obviously faster and Gambit was
holding her up.
"MOVE OVER CAJUN!" Rogue screamed in her car. Yet Gambit would
not yield.
"One more lap class." Came the head
instructors voice on the radio. Going
into Turn 1, Rogue was gonna try to pass Gambit on the backstretch. On the backstretch, Rogue managed to get a
good head of steam coming off turn 2 and slipped to the inside of Gambit. Gambit tried to block her, but Rogue already
had the nose of her car alongside his. Going
into 3, Rogue came alongside Gambit, and they both wanted the "win." Coming to the start/finish line, it was a
dead heat. Since it wasn't a real race,
they didn't have a photo finish. So
both X-Men thought they had won. But it
was a great experience they would never forget.
Returning to the mansion later in
the week, Gambit had formulated a plan to present that the X-Men form a Winston
Cup team to race the next season…
I'd
like some feedback on this one. If you
find this interesting, lemme know. I'm
probably gonna post more unless I get like "THIS STORY IS COMPLETE GARBAGE." Just testing the waters.
