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Description

Rain came down on Friday, but a break in the weather gave us a dry-enough track to set competitive lap times in qualifying. As for my Nissan team, all four of us quietly survived the first two sessions (I only just barely scraped through Q2 with 20th place to get into the top twenty shootout). In Q3, though, none of us really made an early impression, and it was clear that Jaguar, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Mazda, Volkswagen and Dodge had the upper hand over us. Midway through the qualifying finals, Diddy, Yukichi and I were in the 1:44 range while Tails was in the high 1:43s, and many of us decided to call it a day and save our strength for later in the weekend.

However, Tails decided right then and there to get out of his car and use his famous genius intellect to make last minute adjustments to his car before making one final run. Bizarrely, he did most of the work himself rather than rely on his car mechanics, because ... apparently ... he knew very well what he was doing while I simply watched from afar next to my black GT-R, scratching my head at what was transpiring. He adjusted multiple areas of the car, but most crucially, he rose the downforce levels, which required permission from the GTA because downforce adjustments would alter the car's PP numbers (to make sure the PP stayed below 750.00, the maximum allowed in the series' regulations). The officials' PP calculators measured the car at 749.71, meaning he was clear to go, and while some on the team just stared in amazement that he was able to pull this off so cleverly in just a few minutes, the intellectually gifted fox put his helmet back on, strapped himself back in his GT-R, and fired it up for one last qualifying run. There were only five minutes left in the session, so by the time Tails would exit the pits and come back around to the start/finish line, he would have enough time for just one more timed lap ...

Using his new setup, Tails flawlessly navigated the infield section that took up the first half of the lap. From there, it was smooth sailing, even though there was still the Le Mans chicane on the back stretch to consider (the last real challenge before the end of the lap). Add to that, he was coming up behind another car whom was also going for a final run. In a twist of fate, that car just so happened to be the Mazda RX-VISION of Ryo Kanemaru, the very man Tails had defeated and befriended at High Speed Ring eight months ago. Even then, Tails perfectly navigated the chicane and closed in on his friend/rival to pick up his slipstream and get a tow. The tow sped up his car and allowed him to shave off precious milliseconds, but there was one final moment of disaster potential, as Ryo was not going fast enough to stay ahead, and he was running the middle part of the track ...

Tails would NOT let off the throttle, because if he did, his shot at a top spot would be gone, so he did the only sensible thing: he kept his right foot glued to the throttle and dived to the inside with Kanemaru only barely giving him enough space, just missing the flat apron, and the two rivals tapped each other as the fox got ahead with the checkered flag waving over them. There was so little space that Kanemaru could very well have turned Tails around and sent him to a head-on smash with the outside wall, but Ryo gave him a few precious inches to prevent that from happening, and they shot across the line with Tails' lap time clocking in at 1:42.896. This took down Masaki Yamamoto's Mitsubishi by just four hundredths of a second, and thus after four agonizing near misses last year, Tails finally scored his first-ever pole position in Gran Turismo.

I absolutely could not believe my eyes while watching it unfold on the TV screens in the garage. All the Nissan mechanics around me were suddenly shouting and cheering with excitement, Sonic was beaming with pride as he congratulated his little brother on their radio, and Ogasawari-san was smiling as proudly as ever. Tails had earned his first pole, and with it, his fifth career transfer (awarded to the top three qualifiers), allowing him, Yamamoto and Pablo Castillo to bypass the Saturday morning Heats and have a guaranteed starting slot on race day. With qualifying over, we knew one thing: Tails is guaranteed to race on Sunday, and he can now be called the undisputed King of Qualifying, having rightfully earned his new nickname in the Gran Turismo paddock, the Fast Friday Fox, always consistently qualifying at the top and today being faster than anyone else.

Tails MMD character model by SAB64 . Uniform painted in Paint.Net.

Description

Rain came down on Friday, but a break in the weather gave us a dry-enough track to set competitive lap times in qualifying. As for my Nissan team, all four of us quietly survived the first two sessions (I only just barely scraped through Q2 with 20th place to get into the top twenty shootout). In Q3, though, none of us really made an early impression, and it was clear that Jaguar, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Mazda, Volkswagen and Dodge had the upper hand over us. Midway through the qualifying finals, Diddy, Yukichi and I were in the 1:44 range while Tails was in the high 1:43s, and many of us decided to call it a day and save our strength for later in the weekend.

However, Tails decided right then and there to get out of his car and use his famous genius intellect to make last minute adjustments to his car before making one final run. Bizarrely, he did most of the work himself rather than rely on his car mechanics, because ... apparently ... he knew very well what he was doing while I simply watched from afar next to my black GT-R, scratching my head at what was transpiring. He adjusted multiple areas of the car, but most crucially, he rose the downforce levels, which required permission from the GTA because downforce adjustments would alter the car's PP numbers (to make sure the PP stayed below 750.00, the maximum allowed in the series' regulations). The officials' PP calculators measured the car at 749.71, meaning he was clear to go, and while some on the team just stared in amazement that he was able to pull this off so cleverly in just a few minutes, the intellectually gifted fox put his helmet back on, strapped himself back in his GT-R, and fired it up for one last qualifying run. There were only five minutes left in the session, so by the time Tails would exit the pits and come back around to the start/finish line, he would have enough time for just one more timed lap ...

Using his new setup, Tails flawlessly navigated the infield section that took up the first half of the lap. From there, it was smooth sailing, even though there was still the Le Mans chicane on the back stretch to consider (the last real challenge before the end of the lap). Add to that, he was coming up behind another car whom was also going for a final run. In a twist of fate, that car just so happened to be the Mazda RX-VISION of Ryo Kanemaru, the very man Tails had defeated and befriended at High Speed Ring eight months ago. Even then, Tails perfectly navigated the chicane and closed in on his friend/rival to pick up his slipstream and get a tow. The tow sped up his car and allowed him to shave off precious milliseconds, but there was one final moment of disaster potential, as Ryo was not going fast enough to stay ahead, and he was running the middle part of the track ...

Tails would NOT let off the throttle, because if he did, his shot at a top spot would be gone, so he did the only sensible thing: he kept his right foot glued to the throttle and dived to the inside with Kanemaru only barely giving him enough space, just missing the flat apron, and the two rivals tapped each other as the fox got ahead with the checkered flag waving over them. There was so little space that Kanemaru could very well have turned Tails around and sent him to a head-on smash with the outside wall, but Ryo gave him a few precious inches to prevent that from happening, and they shot across the line with Tails' lap time clocking in at 1:42.896. This took down Masaki Yamamoto's Mitsubishi by just four hundredths of a second, and thus after four agonizing near misses last year, Tails finally scored his first-ever pole position in Gran Turismo.

I absolutely could not believe my eyes while watching it unfold on the TV screens in the garage. All the Nissan mechanics around me were suddenly shouting and cheering with excitement, Sonic was beaming with pride as he congratulated his little brother on their radio, and Ogasawari-san was smiling as proudly as ever. Tails had earned his first pole, and with it, his fifth career transfer (awarded to the top three qualifiers), allowing him, Yamamoto and Pablo Castillo to bypass the Saturday morning Heats and have a guaranteed starting slot on race day. With qualifying over, we knew one thing: Tails is guaranteed to race on Sunday, and he can now be called the undisputed King of Qualifying, having rightfully earned his new nickname in the Gran Turismo paddock, the Fast Friday Fox, always consistently qualifying at the top and today being faster than anyone else.

Tails MMD character model by SAB64 . Uniform painted in Paint.Net.