Ze Death Race!

Rewind to Sunday, 1745 eve time, me logging in, hoping the start of the race isn't too far away.  You see I had guessed wrong, thinking Misaba would be the start of the race, when it turned out it's not-so close brother Assah was indeed the start.  I left my station in a hurry, forgetting to swap from my ever-present Vagabond to my dual prop, speed fit Stiletto with points.  I only realized it one jump out but time being what it was and being 11 jumps from Assah left me to jump jump jump with no time to turn around and change ships.  Besides it seemed that everyone else was going to be flying frigates, not at all a bad opponent for my vagabond, if I had just managed to catch up.

To your cars Mentelgen!

Fleet chat was quite funny, blood pumping, people quoting music, hoping for the start of the race.  Mike's Party boat and the disco phoon for sure drawing the attention of many.  Time ticked down slowly as I sped through space, hoping to make it in time.  1800 ticked over and I was a single jump out, but already I knew I was too late.  First way point was T-R.  Sticking with my mantra of "you pay your money and you takez your chances!"  I plunged through the G-5 gate, expecting to see some combat on the other side.  Instead I found empty space with the trail of gang mates in the race leaving the system before I even jumped in.  The second jump, 9-F, had a cane, with the support of the thrasher and Sabre on the gate, bubble up, hoping to catch some unwary pilots.  They were the first on my plate.  I uncloaked and headed for the outgate, locking the Sabre, and unleashing rounds into his shield, my Barrage M doing a decent job of hitting the fast moving Destroyer.  He missed his scram tackle and fell behind.  I warped out as my D-scanner picked up a few more fast tackle, I, not wanting to risk it, headed to the next gate.

Damn Traps!

I emerged on the far side of the gate, 4B-N local sitting at around 25 pilots, almost all Agony.  I entered warp, nosing towards the planet closest to my outgate, or so I thought.  Turns out I warped to the gate, not the planet (skillful I know).  I ended up trapped in a well place Agony push bubble, somewhere close to 70km from the gate.  Not thinking I moved towards the gate, MWD on, locking my guns first on a nearby Ishkur and then on a further Sabre, engaging my 220mm guns as I tried to make for the gate, breaking one of my own Vagabond rules as I did.  I should have pushed for range, swinging around later to make it to the gate there would have been a good chance I would have survived, hell even killed the pesky small tackle that wished to scram my Vagabond.  Instead, my death course was already set, the Vagabond Death Knell was quickly scrambled by the skillful Agony gang, reducing my momentum to a slow crawl.  I luckily pushed out the side of the bubble, allowing just enough of my Vaga to be outside of the bubble that when my pod dropped from the shattered HAC I was able to warp out to a nearby Moon before being crushed.  Other racers were meeting similar fates and I headed back to Assah to re-ship and try again.  I made my way carefully, the previous Sabre and cane camp had left to join their compatriots in 4B-N.  My pod made it all the way back to Assah, only to hear through the gang that Persephone Astrid had already crossed the finish line.  Yeah so what if I gave up at that point!

I shook my head and headed back to pickup my now useless Stiletto, taking it back over to Rens.  Shoulders slumped in defeat, I later found out that the Sabre I had been shooting at was eventually killed by a well placed bomb. 

In any case it was all great fun, I just wish I had been able to make it to the start line sooner, would have been a blast to give Persephone a run for her money, or at least attempt to kill her.  Alternatively I wish I had stationed a smartbombing BS in R3- to catch those pesky, no guns fit, speed setups and teach em what the death race is all about.  Maybe next time.

Looking forward to it Rixx, great work, and I can only imagine it was a lot of work!  I'll be around for the next one.

Look to the below links e for a list of winners and the first 14 Participants, I even netted a cool 20m for first kill!  I rock like that!

Results link
Top 14

Keep watching the Death Race blog for the next event!

And of course the amazing EVEOGANDA Blog