As the evening closed in, the weather was still holding the same pattern, which was a good thing, Jane had gambled with the weather, if it had started to rain Chang would have to drive with nearly no experience in driving on this course.
But then again, he might have driven here before, after all Chang had been running his own racing team once, before the incident that made Chang quit.

A yellow EK9 Civic had pulled up and the driver was getting ready, Keiichi approached them.

"What do you chose, leading or chasing?"

Daiki looked at Keiichi for a short moment before he looked at the FD and the driver getting ready to drive that thing, he had watched it the following night and realized the driver was not some Sunday driver.

"My choice is to chase."

Keiichi turned back to Jane and he had a bit of a worried expression on his face, he knew chasing was advantageous.
As he got back to Jane and Sweeper waiting for the answer from Todou School, Jane noticed Keiichi's worried expression.

"What's the problem?" Jane asked.

"They chose to chase, I had hoped for them to lead though."

"Chasing huh?" Sweeper asked.

"Yes, do you think you can handle it?" Keiichi asked.

Jane quickly shot in:

"Sweeper may be an expert when it comes to following his opponent, but he has another skill when it comes to leading. He is very good at managing the pressure; he can shut out the opponent and run his own pace. I have seen him do this, it is a miracle performance."

"I hope you are right, if we fail at this point it will be a major blow to the rest of the sponsors. Both my and Jane's head as well as the World Cup leader is on the line here." Keiichi's face expression was clearly worried.

"Don't worry, he will be able to do it without a sweat I bet, worry more about Carlos when it comes to this. He is a bit of a hotshot, but he has great driving skills."

"If you don't mind, let's just get this running." Sweeper left the table and headed over to his car; Jane rose as well and put her hand on Keiichi's shoulder.

"I'll do the start, you better get a bit relaxed because Carlos is easy to stress up, you want to try and calm him down a bit."

Jane walked on towards the starting line and got ready, the blue FD slowly pulled past the EK9 and stopped in front of it, it was going to be a slow start with a full throttle attack at the first corner.
Jane's job was to give the go ahead with the slow start.

Both cars began revving their engines, awaiting the go signal from Jane.
Her hands went down and Sweeper's FD began rolling with the EK9 following, at the first corner Sweeper slammed the gas pedal to the floor and let the 4 rotor put down the power to the wheels.
The 4WD computer began shifting power to the front wheels to maintain the same speed on all 4 tires.
Daiki was surprised by the acceleration of the FD, but the race had just started after all, even if the FD was faster on the straightaway it wouldn't be enough.

After the first few corners, Daiki felt reassured at this point.
The FD seemed to have one weakness in the area he was good at, and that was braking.
He would naturally brake late but not always release at the perfect point, in corners he would have the chance.
Sweeper threw a quick look in the mirror and noticed the EK9 closely following him.

"You have managed to keep up this far, well it is downhill so the power difference between our cars doesn't matter that much, so that's one reason you can keep up. The other is probably that you are better at exiting from corners than I am, at least at the moment. Though I got to admit I cannot be better than you at braking, however I have another skill that I haven't used yet; it is also my favourite skill. Let me show you the introduction to it at the next corner!"

Sweeper was on the gas pedal until the last possible moment before he slammed on the brake pedal to slow down for the corner.
The point where most cars break at going fast in out of corners is at the grip the tires offered, tonight Sweeper had picked hard rubber compound.It was a bad choice for getting maximum grip, however if you plan on taking a lot of corners or go at their limit quite often it is your best choice.Because hard rubber has a higher operating temperature than softer tires it was more durable to extreme cornering speeds than a softer compound would be.Even with the lower grip offered by the tires, Sweeper was an expert at distributing it for cornering.Next after braking comes tire grip distribution, if you fail to distribute it properly you will lose what you have gained in braking, Sweeper's car was half 4WD compared to the FF chasing him.In any cornering situation a car that had power to the rear wheels would be advantageous, because in a FF you had to worry about the infamous torque steer so acceleration when entering the corner as fast as possible would be very difficult to do, since the car would over use the grip at the front and understeer.In that aspect Sweeper's 4WD solution was the ultimate, 4WD only when needed, or rather when the driver wanted to have it.

Daiki got a shock, even though the FD missed the ideal release point yet again it was still faster through the corner.

"Impossible, how can it possibly pull faster than me through the corner? That is not the best brake release point, I tried that when learning this course and it is a time loss. But yet you can pull away doing moves like that?" Daiki was clearly shocked; he had to do better if he wanted to keep up.

The FD did the same on the next corner, slightly broadening the distance, at the corner a man wearing a red boiler suit were watching the race.
He looked over the cornering style of Sweeper and was clearly impressed, that man was Todou himself.

"He is using a somewhat forgotten technique, I only know of one man that can pull off that well tire grip management, but he retired from racing long time ago. But this will be another good lesson for Daiki, the next thing you need to learn after braking is to manage your tire grip properly. Anyone can do basic management but they will have a hard time stretching out those last few percentages of grip that the tire has available without losing the grip. This guy can do it very well." The FD blasted through the next corner with the EK9 closely following but losing on the exits, only on the entry could the EK9 win a bit with the braking.

"Man, driving with hard compound was smart, but it is damn difficult, a good thing I practiced a lot with cheap half busted tires earlier in my career. A lot of the friends I rode with always teased me for my cheap tire choices, I may have been a bit stingy but now I am laughing. I can drive a lot better on the same tires than what they can possibly do." Sweeper commented while rapidly steering in and out of corners.

Daiki kept watching the FD when he noticed another weakness when it came to the driver; his driving style wasn't matching the car perfectly.

"The FD driver is driving a NA car, however he is not using that advantage by varying the accelerator pressure in a corner, he seems to try and stay on full throttle as much as possible, a typical turbo technique to eliminate the lag from the turbo. Even though he can corner well with that NA engine he is not using it to his full potential just yet. I guess I should try to get closer with some trail braking and try to apply some pressure."

Daiki changed his driving style to allow a faster corner entry; he quickly got up to the bumper of the FD, but the same syndrome from the race with Takumi occurred.
He kept missing the chances he had to overtake by a hair length.
Even though he kept pressuring Sweeper in the corners he seemed unaffected, even though Daiki was clearly on the rear bumper of Sweeper's RX-7.

"Trying to apply pressure and make me do some mistakes huh? I can tell from here, but I am used to keeping the stress down when being chased, if you fail to do that you will make mistakes, and at high speeds that can lead to fatal things. I have seen people hit the wall at speeds well over 200 KPH and it is not pretty. I guess I should respond soon, but in my own way." Sweeper said while looking in the rear view mirror with a smile.

The cars entered a short straight and Sweeper hammered the throttle of his NA 4 rotor, shifted up at 11500 RPM like had done earlier, but at the corner that was coming up it was time for him to change strategy.
Daiki noticed the FD changed cornering positioning, Sweeper was preparing for a change in driving style, the main reason he had chosen harder tires in the first place.

"Time to show you and the Todou School, how we in the World Cup do cornering when it gets tight!" Sweeper said while turning in and braking, throwing the car into a 4 wheel drift the upcoming S corner was really going to show off speed and the power of quickly changing direction.
Daiki tried to keep up on the entry but it was useless, the FD driver was good at oversteer control, and the type of 4 wheel drift required little counter steering effort.In other words, it was a fast way around corners where getting power down to the ground wasn't a main concern.Daiki tried to step on the accelerator, forgetting the high speed his EK9 was travelling at through the corner, the front lost grip and begun to understeer.The driver slammed on the brakes hoping to regain traction in time, but the FD was already through the corner by the time he had gotten the grip back.At the following straight the EK9 had lost too much speed while battling the understeer to even compete with the FD's slightly slower than usual exit acceleration.

Realising the battle was lost, Daiki let go off the gas pedal and watched the FD go sideways through the last few corners, and he had been caught by the secret behind the speed of drifting.
Sweeper took his FD to the parking lot at the bottom and awaited the rest of the team to get there.
He waited 30 minutes, sitting on the hood of his FD thinking about his own life.
As the team members arrived on the bus, they noticed Sweeper looking somewhat phased out.

"What's wrong with him?" Chang asked.

"Sweeper is such a cool guy, he has a pretty cool life, and I mean is there anything he cannot do well? I mean he is a mercenary that has a good reputation and he drives like his pants are on fire." McClintock said.

"Believe me, you don't want to be like Sweeper McClintock, he is hardly home, and his home pretty much looks like a dump mind you. He lives in a shack that doesn't offer much comfort, sleeps on a military style bunk bed, and not to mention his love life, it is a DISASTER! Good thing is that he found a girlfriend that suits him."

"What do you mean by "girlfriend that suits him"?" Chang asked looking puzzled.

"Well, his girlfriend is a helicopter pilot and she rarely has time to be near him, when they do meet it is for short periods of time before one of them has to head off somewhere. Asking me it looks like they love their work more than each other. He is good on the battlefield and in a car, but that's where it ends. I guess if you asked them if they were engaged both would answer no on the spot."

"So in other words he has no chance to get a proper girlfriend?" McClintock asked.

"Yes, that pretty much sums it up, I heard he got a bit mad at Keisuke over the phone once, he asked him why he turned down some FD girl's offer, suffice to say the phone call that was intended as a hint about Keisuke's driving never went really well."

"If it has been like that for a long time, I must admit he is really good at hiding his true feelings." Chang commented while looking at Sweeper still sitting on the hood of the FD.

"Oh yeah he does, he is very good at hiding his true feelings, comes with the line of work you can say."

The bus stopped and they got out, Carlos and his Chief Mechanic started unloading the R34 from the truck, while Jane walked over to Sweeper.
She stopped in front of him and Sweeper quickly snapped out of his thoughts.

"I did it, I won the race. Though the FD felt a bit strange, it was like it was lacking that extra punch."

"Well let me judge that…" Jane bent under the front of the car and pulled out a camera.

"You installed a camera? Why wasn't I informed of that?"

"I needed to see how you handled the 4 rotor NA. It will also answer why it lacked that extra punch you expected. Follow me over to the truck and we will view this tape." Jane and Sweeper walked away, in the background the Todou School had already started questioning Daiki.

"How could you lose a 2nd time to outsiders?" A graduate asked.

"He was fast, all of a sudden his driving style changed, I tried to match him somewhat but failed, I didn't think drifting was that fast…" Daiki said while looking down.

"The psychological effect of drifting…" Sakai commented.

"Psychological effect?" Daiki asked.

"Yes, drifting is not the ideal thing for fastest times but when used in battle it can sometimes catch the opponent off guard when it comes to corner entry speed, it is a good way to dump speed but sacrifices acceleration, most opponents get caught up in the entry and tries to match it, even though the grip driving rule is to slow down and wait for the exit to and counter with pure acceleration force. You obviously tried to keep up, and you ran out of front grip in the corner, is that right?" Sakai asked Daiki.

"Yes, I under steered badly, had to slam on the brakes to avoid crashing. The moment I recovered the FD was already using his power to pull away on the straight and I lacked momentum to actually be faster than him on the exit out of the corner thanks to the understeering."

"Not very many drivers can use that in their mind games. Actually most people try to do it will use trail braking but it can be copied very easily by a skilled driver, drifting is a lot harder to copy." The graduate in the black sweater commented.

"It looks like it is all up to me now. I am going up against a R34 GT-R apparently; I have seen that driver somewhere. I know I have." Sakai commented while looking at Carlos getting into the black Skyline.

Sakai got into his Integra and pulled in front of the Skyline, he was going to do the leading for this race, after all that was the position he was best at.
Keiichi, heeding Jane's warning earlier quickly got up to Carlos who still had the door open waiting for everything and everyone to get ready.

"Hey Carlos, just remain cold out there, don't do anything stupid."

"Hey Keiichi, you think I will lose to some piece of shit Honda FF? If it was a NSX which is Rear Wheel Drive I would be a bit worried but it takes more than a FF to scare me."

"Like I said, don't underestimate or take him lightly. We cannot afford a loss, not here, not now."

"Well, I am not going to go easy on the guy, after all I dislike Honda's, let it be Type R or not. I will show him what a true R is all about. And with that I mean the R as in the GT-R badge that's on the rear of my car."

"Just… Forget it! Talking to you is just as useful as talking to a brick wall."

"Whatever, just get clear, we are going to race here." Carlos waved Keiichi away and shut the door on his Skyline; he was ready for the start.

Keiichi gave the all clear and the 2 cars started the race up the hill.