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A generational shift is happening in the F1 world. Sir Lewis Hamilton is facing his toughest challenge in a few years from a young driver. Several other young drivers are waiting in the wings. It reminds me of Cal Weathers when he told Lightning McQueen that the youngsters will tell you when it’s time to retire from the track. 🏎
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George Russell was a young fan of Lewis Hamilton years ago and now Russell will be Hamilton’s team mate in 2022. That is amazing.
I can’t help being reminded that Cruz was a big fan of McQueen and now he’s her mentor. Sometimes life imitates art. 🏎
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McQueen thought retirement was the end for him, but found it was the beginning of something new and amazing. He now understands why Doc loved developing the talent of a young racer.
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Today, Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix even though the left front tire on his car had ruptured. Of course, this event brought out the Lightning McQueen jokes on the internet.
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Hi everyone. It has been a while since I posted fan fiction, but I still have lots of ideas. No major drama or long story lines; just snippets from Cruz’s early career in the Piston Cup series. This fic was inspired by my cats who aren’t shy about letting me know when breakfast should be served.
Alarm Clock
Cruz sped past Jackson Storm in a classic slingshot move.
“Slowing down, Storm?” she yelled as she passed Number 20.
She saw the race official holding the checkered flag a hundred meters ahead.
Tap.
Number 51 ignored it. She couldn’t lose her focus so close to the finish line.
Tap. Tap.
“No!! Not now!” she said through gritted teeth.
TAP!!
Cruz jerked awake, opening her eyes. In the dim light of the bedroom, she could just make out the shape of a quadcopter racing drone perched on her hood.
The blue and yellow racer sighed. “You could have waited until I took the checkered flag.”
The nine-inch long drone, her task completed, started her propellers and began flying circles above Cruz’s roof. At that moment, the cell phone alarm sounded.
5:50 am.
Cruz grunted. “Hamilton, reset alarm for 5:50 am tomorrow.”
“Alarm is reset,” Hamilton replied.
Cruz looked up at the drone buzzing above her. “Why do I even need a wake-up alarm? You have been beating Hamilton everyday for a week.”
She rolled out of her bed, stretching her joints on the way. It felt great. She drove over to the source of morning light: the room’s floor-to ceiling window. A beautiful view awaited her: pre-dawn at Fireball Beach. She smiled. She never thought that she would sleep in the Resident Racer’s Suite of the Rusteze Racing Center.
A pet project of Sterling meant to recruit elite racers to Rusteze, the suite was beyond posh. Memory foam beds, voice-activated appliances, TVs with 5K screens, room service, etc., but Cruz’s favorite was the view of Fireball Beach, the place where Lightning McQueen first taught her how to race, though neither of them realized it at the time. The suite was a nice change from her trailer. Yes, Tex Dinoco provided a very comfortable home on wheels, but it did become a bit confining after weeks on the road.
Since it was located between their last track, Georgia, and their next track, Pennsylvania. Lightning wanted to spend a couple of nights at the center in order to restock the haulers. He also decided that Dinoco’s car chief should give Cruz a check-up at a first class racing facility.
A blue form blurred past her eyes, breaking Cruz out of her reverie.
“Okay, okay, Calypso” she said to the agitated drone. “Fully charged and ready to fly.”
Smiling, Cruz turned away from the picture window. The Dinoco racer called the racing drone to settle on her roof. “Gotta save your batteries for the morning workout.”
Calypso compiled and both owner and drone left the suite’s bedroom.
McQueen had been skeptical of her acquiring a pet, especially something as hyperactive as a racing drone. He feared a pet would be too much of a distraction for a Piston Cup rookie. Cruz pointed out that a racing drone would be the perfect pet for her. The two of them could train together since Cruz would enter Calypso into drone races during the Piston Cup off-season. Her mentor changed his mind when he learned that drones carried digital cameras. Calypso transformed from pet to training assistant. So Cruz got her drone, a top-of-the-line, competition-eligible racer.
Cruz drove through the suite’s living room and entered the private elevator, yet another perk of the position. Once they reached the ground floor, Cruz passed by the kitchens to reach the double doors leading to the “backyard”, a massive open space behind the building. At the insistence of both Strip Weathers and Lightning McQueen, Tex Dinoco installed two oval tracks, one dirt, one asphalt. The two Piston Cup champions felt the trainees needed to get their tires dirty sometimes.
The double doors slid open, letting the cool summer morning air flow over Cruz’s body. Calypso broke training and leapt from the racer's roof heading for the tracks.
“Hey! Wait for me!” Cruz laughed as she followed close behind.
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Due to The Virus, I am at home all day (which is annoying to a workaholic like me). However, being at home gives me an idea of what my cats do during the day.
This is Chase (aka Catzilla) checking out the aquarium filled with mini ornamental shrimp. So far, he has not tried to scoop any out (yet).
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Cruz: Catzilla seems friendly. Can I keep him as a pet?
Lightning: NOOO!!!!
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Did Lightning McQueen really know what he was getting himself into when he decided to train Cruz Ramirez for the Piston Cup Series, a young, hyperactive rookie with a gas tank full of Dinoco’s finest racing fuel? I imagine a few of his days resemble this cat’s time with a hyper kitten. 🤣😂😅
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NEW FILM OUT NOW! It’s Kitten Crazy Time…😳 😱
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I love the expression on Cruz in this scene. It’s like she is a city kid wondering if the tractors are going to poop on her.
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I have three favorites: Truex, Elliot, and Larson.
a) Truex because of his comeback story
b) Elliot because he is nice driver like his dad
c) Larson seems to be a cool guy who has finally overcome a series of bad breaks
Of my choices, only Truex currently has a slot in the final race.
I also follow Formula 1 and the comparison is interesting. In Formula 1, a driver becomes champion when no other drivers can mathematically beat him in earning racing points. This means Lewis Hamilton can (and most likely will) become the champion during his next race (Austin TX/COTA) with at least two races to run after that. His team, Mercedes AMG Petronas, has already won the constructor’s championship. For Hamilton and his team, the next races are really prep time for the next season. (And there is a lot of grumbling about “Mercedes dominance” in F1.)
In NASCAR, the Cup champion is decided by the final race. This does add more suspense to the NASCAR system.
This is the first time that I have followed the NASCAR playoffs. Any thoughts on J Johnson’s annoyance at being disrespected by the drivers still in contention? Also, I still don’t get the full racing field thing. If the slow drivers are just in the way of the serious guys, why have them there? How about just letting the top 16 drivers just have it out until the end? Thanks!
Oooh, welcome to your inaugural playoffs!!! It’s been a pretty wild one so far; I hope you’ve been enjoying it. :) Are you rooting for/against any teams in particular??? Who’ve you got pegged for the final four?
I haven’t had a lot of time to pay much attention to what storylines have been playing out off-track, but I do vaguely remember him mentioning in the pre-race last week that he felt that respect needed to be re-earned. But that makes me sad, so I try not to think about it too much. I want JJ to win 10,000 races this season, strike fear into the hearts of men, etc.
As for everyone racing even if they’re not in contention for the championship–I actually had a similar question when I was watching my first NASCAR playoffs! Because I was like, man, this seems like a VERY expensive way to spend an afternoon, y’all. But I think it actually does make a lot of sense, for a number of reasons, some of which are duller than others, haha. Here are some, though by no means all, reasons everyone races even when they’re not in the playoffs:
Business reasons:
In Harv’s words, you signed a contract. Sponsors still want their colors on track.
Your driver, crew, supporting staff, etc. also still need to get paid, and so need to work.
Development reasons:
Especially in years like this, where the rules package for 2020 is going to be pretty much the same as 2019, teams that aren’t in contention for the playoffs have a little more leeway to try out some experimental set-ups and strategies to see if they find any magic that’ll give them a leg-up next year.
Young drivers get seat time, new crew members get practice.
Especially for teams that are still developing, or perennially low-budget, track time matters. It takes a lot of work to build up a team and get it competitive (see: the 95 team).
Racing reasons:
It would be real, real boring watching only 16, 12, 8, 4 cars roll around the track alone. It only worked in Cars 1 because we, the audience, did not have to watch all million and ten laps of that tiebreaker race where NOTHING AT ALL HAPPENED. XPP
Plus, racing only really works if you have a field of cars to work with–no one really wants to watch someone get out in clean air and then gap the field, never to be heard from again. So we need lapped traffic; we need the ability to lose 15 points because there’s a bunch of non-playoff drivers between you and the next guy in contention. We need fights for the lucky dog position, we need the potential for unexpected chaos and inopportune/opportune cautions. Especially with this rules package, which is so aero-dependent, and makes the cars handle so differently in clean air vs. in traffic, and brings side-drafting, etc. into play. If there’s no cars to cause these kinds of conditions, there’s really no race. The backrunners and non-playoff cars are crucial to the sport! They are not #meaningless at all! (#meaningless copyright Denny Hamlin)
And honestly, if you can’t maneuver around lapped traffic and hold onto your lead, you don’t deserve to be a NASCAR Champion, anyway. This is racing, real racing, not turning left.
Plus, even if you’re not in the playoffs, a win is a win. And for a lot of guys, a win is more important than a championship, because a championship was never in the cards for their team in the first place. A win, though? That’d be everything.
And you can spite-win, stealing precious points and potentials to be locked in from the playoff guys, lol. It doesn’t happen often (like, in the last two years, I’m not certain it’s happened more than once…? when Matt Kenseth won Phoenix in the Round of 8 after being eliminated in the Round of 12? I don’t remember any others, in any case) but a win is a win is a win.
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Y’know, everytime I see one of these cars, I think “HARV!!!”
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Thoughts
“Let her go, idiot!!!” Ray Reverham yelled into his headset. Storm was going to get himself black flagged by pushing Ramirez into the wall.
His hot-headed racer showed no sign of heeding his command. Sure, Ramirez was much better than either of them thought, but trying to wreck her was insane.
Ray was about to yell at Storm again when he saw something that resembled the stuff the old guys would talk about, tall tales his grandfather and great uncles would talk about in the back of the local bar.
He watched as Cruz Ramirez, a total unknown with a number ninety-five painted on her flanks, use the wall as a springboard to flip over Jackson Storm, the defending Piston Cup champion.
Maybe those old guys really did know what they were talking about….
Maybe all that talk had a basis in real events….
Ray heard the crowd roar in approval, then closed his mouth when he realized it was open. “Jackson…?” he asked tentatively. The voice of a race official responded instead of his racer.
“Chief IGNTR, please report to the main office with Jackson Storm in ten minutes.”
Ray winced. “Here it comes,” he muttered softly. The crew chief looked down at his team. “Can’t win them all.”
As he waited for Storm to return to the pit box, Ray made a note to meet up with his grandfather very soon.
Author’s Note:
I thought it would be interesting to look at Cruz’s win from Ray Reverham’s POV. In addition, while the Piston Cup seems to tolerate rough racing, I would think that the Piston Cup would have some limits on the violence, esp after Chick Hick’s move that wrecked the King. And NASCAR has penalized drivers who got too rough on the track.
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I spotted this guy while at a local county building and immediately thought “Harv”? 😁
Harv waited by the office videophone. No way was he going to be late for this call from Dinoco Legal. That contract McQueen signed during his rookie year was rock solid. Not even the racer’s fancy lawyer girlfriend could poke a hole in it, and Harv knew she had tried. His own fancy lawyer had done a great job of making sure that McQueen was locked in for life.
The agent chuckled as he waited to the “Accept Call” button to appear on the screen. McQueen might not be racing at the Cup level anymore, but that car still sent plenty of revenue to his agency through merchandising. Bless those fans and their bank accounts.
The number of agents for top level Piston Cup agents must be small. Do you think Harv ever interacts with the agents of the other racers? Also, now that Lightning McQueen is an employee of Dinoco Inc. and off the track for a while, would the Dinoco lawyers contact Harv about a contract renegotiation about who currently has rights to Lightning’s image and related stuff? Didn’t Lightning sign over over a lot of that to Harv while a rookie? Thanks!
(Omg, sorry for the world’s latest response, especially since this is such a great ask AND it’s about
!)
@masked-king-dedede wrote an absolutely perfect and fantastic fanfic about Harv getting drinks with Chick’s agent, which can be found here:
Fridays
Harv’s favorite pastime as the World’s Greatest Agent is unwinding with a stiff drink and what can pass for a friend on a Friday night.
–
A few weeks ago I was looking up my newest favorite NASCAR Cup backrunner team, Spire Motorsports, and discovered that the parent company Spire is actually a talent agency for actors, musicians, and–yup–race car drivers. Like, a lot of race car drivers. A lot of racecar drivers who are all competing against each other in one national association for stock car auto racing. XDD I mean, I imagine they’re all represented by different agents employed with Spire, but given that in the Cars universe things are more simplified and the tasks of many humans tend to boil down to the task of one (1) anthropomorphic car, I was like, HAHAHA I BET YOU HARV REPRESENTS OTHER PISTON CUP RACERS IN ADDITION TO LIGHTNING. (Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest?)
He probably takes pride in his ability to fine-tune his strategy to the vagaries of each of his clients, and set up exactly the right kind of publicity that would play to their particular nature and strengths as a marketable entity. Lightning is by far Harv’s most high-profile client–and his favorite, though he’s not allowed to say that to anyone but Lightning. (Also, he tells everyone that they’re his favorite.)
Anyway! Back to your actual ask. XD Even though he’s taking a hiatus from the circuit, Lightning is obviously still very much a public figure, and he’s the kind of racer with such an investment in the sport that he’s probably never going to fade from view. So Lightning definitely still needs Harv. That and he also very definitely signed a crazy absolutely whackadoo contract with Harv his rookie year, lololol, where, likely in addition to Harv’s actual contract fees, Harv also gets
10% of Lightning’s winnings
10% of Lightning’s merch earnings
and appears to also hold the rights to any ancillary properties that might emerge from Lightning (movies, books, comics, and since we’re talking cars, probably throwback paint schemes, etc.)
IN PERPETUITY. THAT IS, FOREVER.
F O R E V E R.
I’ve mentioned this before, in that it’s unclear whether that means 10% of the total pot or 10% of Lightning’s personal cut of it, but lolllll regardless I’ll bet Harv makes more money off Lightning than Lightning does.
Is Dinoco chill with that? I mean, they’re probably not thrilled, but in terms of Dinoco’s overall investment profile, the entirety of Rusteze Racing and Lightning McQueen likely aren’t but a drop in the bucket. Like the Hendrick car dealerships versus Hendrick Motorsports, for Dinoco anything related to racing is probably where the money gets spent, not where it gets earned. Even fielding a championship-caliber team. Tex got that big Texas oil $$$$$. XD
So if hiring Lightning comes with some weird account that basically hemorrhages money into the cupholders of one random singular agent guy, so be it. And if Dinoco wants to use Lighting’s image for promotion or, say, ancillary properties? Who is Harv to complain. XD He’s only been waiting ELEVEN YEARS to play at Dinoco’s big boy table!
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I spotted this during my weekly Cars die cast hunt at Target. Peeps meet milk.
Did you know there is peeps flavored milk? Gross XD
I like Peeps.
I like milk.
But God forbid they ever come together in some unholy, unhealthy concoction…
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In recognition of Justin Haley’s win at the Coke Zero Sugar 400, I present another great video by S1apSh0es. I feel Mr. Haley would be classified as Chaotic Neutral. Stuff just happens.
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Cruz: I thought Catzilla was just a myth.
Lightning: CRUZ! Get away from there!
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