Sunday, February 12, 2012

4 Lane Elimination Tournament

I love running tournaments. Recently, we introduced the idea of creating a Hall of Fame for all-time winners in Hot Wheels and other things. This makes the stakes even higher since winning a tournament puts a car one step closer to the Hall of Fame. We already have a couple of vehicles enshrined in the Hall. One is Little Red Roadster, the all-time gravity racing champion. It has won more gravity races than any other car. The second is RoadRunner, the fastest car I own. It has never lost in 4 lane raceway. A relatively short drag course with 4 lanes.

Lately, we've been playing a lot of 4 lane elimination raceway. This is similar to 4 lane raceway except that the track keeps narrowing. After the first third of the race, 4 lanes collapse to 2 lanes. There are little triggers that cause the cars that are behind to get flipped off of the track. The track collapses to a single lane near the end of the course. The winning car is the one to survive and cross the finish line first. The cool thing about 4 lane elimination racing is that, while some cars are faster than others, there is enough randomness that nothing is assured. Last week's champ was an 18 wheeler called "Rubber Duck" after the protagonist in the CW McCall song "Convoy", which I like a lot.

Brief aside: Aunt Holly and Uncle Ted were shocked when I launched into the Convoy song as we were walking to dinner.

Rubber Duck beat a long futuristic racer named Greased Lightning. This week, Greased Lightning was again in the finals against a buggy type of vehicle with machine guns mounted on the front and sides. Since it does not have a name printed on the bottom of it, we named is "50 cal" after its main armament. Both Daddy and I thought that Greased Lightning would win, but 50 cal pulled off the stunning upset and took home the trophy. He's now one step closer to the Hall of Fame.

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