Car Wars Internet Newsletter
Vol. 5, No. 7
August 05, 2052
 

Web Posted October 13, 2002
Updated October 13, 2002


THE GUNNERY CHAIR

Welcome back, sports fans. The City by the Bay was a great place to visit. It was nice to visit gamestores I heard about in ADQ over 15 years ago. Traveling on BART was fast and inexpensive.

This issue is short because of the lack of articles and the lateness of publication due to my trip. Thanks to the regular group of writers (AAIE, DSI, SCAB and others) for submitting duel reports yet again.

This month, I feature a quick review of the active WADA chapters that have Web sites. Next issue, I will discuss the Web sites of inactive chapters and independent autoduelists.
 

BACK 2 THE MAX
http://www.back2themax.com

Mad Max fans had a celebration of the 21st anniversary of Mad Max 2 at the site where the action occurred: Broken Hill, Australia. Photographs of the event should continue to appear on the event's Web site during the summer.
 

I will be updating the 2052 WADA League standings next week, therefore keep your radar locked onto the statistics. I will also be updating the links on SWAT HQ in August. I am aiming for an August 10th release date for the next issue of CWIN, so please give me your submissions before August 9th. See you in two weeks.

Drive offensively,

Michael P. Owen
 


STEVE JACKSON GAMES NEWS
 

SHIPPING NOW!

The Daily Illuminator
http://www.sjgames.com/ill

July 23, 2002

The following wonderful items have left our warehouse and should be in your Friendly Local Game Store in a matter of days . . .
 

Car Wars Division 5 Vehicle Guide

They're small but deadly! A dozen hot new Division 5 cars . . . with plenty of variant versions, and scenarios to use them. This book includes two different counters for each car -- 24 in all -- plus obstacles and other bonuses. 16 pages. Stock #40-1004, ISBN 1-55634-616-6. $7.95.
 

Car Wars Arena Book 1

In the arena, you'll show your stuff before thousands of cheering duel fans . . . You might become an ace. You might leave in a box. Eleven different arena diagrams, with scenarios for each one. The centerfold contains dozens of full-color 2-sided counters for obstacles and special arena features. 16 pages. Stock #40-2001, ISBN 1-55634-617-4. $7.95.
 


WEB WATCH: NEW SITES
 

ROAD RAGE NEWS
http://www.roadragenews.blogspot.com

News, comments, rants and idle thoughts regarding automotive combat games in general, including Car Wars, Axles & Alloys, and my own
Road Rage rules, plus my adventures in the wacky world of Hot Wheels collecting and customising.

Saturday, July 27, 2002

Finally I picked up a copy of this month's Dungeon magazine, primarily for the Polyhedron mini game included with it. "Thunderball Rally" is set in 1976 and features a coast to coast road race in the vein of the Gumball Rally or the Cannonball Run. It's not a scenario or campaign in its own right, but it's a complete set of rules (using the D20 system, so you need either the D&D3E Players Handbook or the D20 System Reference Document to play) covering vehicles, modern weapons, D20 Feats and some background and campaign structure. It's well worth a look, and it's
inspired me to see if I can't get the old gang together to play the sequel to "Legacy of Jade," probably using BESM again.

-- Christopher Johnston
 


WADA NEWS
 

ASSOCIATED AUTODUELISTS OF THE INLAND EMPIRE

From: Wesley Twitchell <nightcrawler@wallpaper.zzn.com>
To: AAIE Mailing List
Subject: AAIE Reporting; June 4 - July 2
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 11:30:19 -0700

Greetings Duel Fans!

With just a touch of a delay, I'm getting this report out to you.

This duel was quite fun. It was on The Delta. I'll paraphrase Edgar's description of it for you: An original scale arena that is two maps. It is an island with canals dug through it, effectively splitting the arena into eight islands with bridges and jumps connecting them.

We played in Micro Machines scale this time around (1.5x if you've forgotten). It's been a while since we've played a game with anything this small, but with a goodly handful of new cars Edgar picked up, it wasn't too much of a problem.

We started off scattered amongst the islands, racing towards each other. As Steve and Bryan closed on each other, Steve triggered Bryan's
LR web, dropping plenty of gunk on the arena. In his desire to aviod the mess, Steve ended up out of control and skidding into the water, making him the first victim of the Delta in a long time. After that, Bryan decided to race me down. The resulting 250 mph head-on collision confettied both of our vehicles quite nicely.

Meanwhile, Howard encountered Tom's spike field near the end of a jump.  Howard lost control, and spunout in place for a nice surgical shot by
Edgar to take out his mobility. By this point, Edgar and Tom has circled around the arena a little bit, and while Edgar made a jump, Tom was able to get a nice shot up through Edgar's underbody, and punctured his gas tank for a kill, and the game.

AAIE June 4, 2052 Weekly Rumble
The Delta
Div 40, 1.5x scale, CW2.5 Rules
Edgar Lincoln and Tom Lentz, GM's
6 players

1. Tom Lentz           36pts, 1vk
2. Wesley Twitchell    17pts, 1vk
3. Howard Lalicker     10pts,
4. Bryan Rider          2pts1vk
4. Edgar Lincoln        2pts
4. Steve Carder         2pts
 

This next duel was supposed to be an outdoor one, but the weather decided not to let us have any fun. So we played in the Hammer Downs.  This is an exact replica of the original Hammer Downs created outside of the Tri-Cities. For those who don't know the construction, I'll try to explain decently. It is a square arena, with an upper level circling around, and 80 mph jumps placed at the four cardinal points on the upper level, and four 60 mph jumps placed at the diagonals on the lower level.

The arena rules we had going were that holographic flames in the center of the course, just off the end of the ramps provided a -2 to hit, an extra
prestige point would be awarded for doing a multi-level jump, no pre-calculation allowed, and that a person had to jump to start scoring points. Being in the mid-point of a jump also counted.

We started off with five of the seven players all getting up to the ramps at roughly the same time.  It was a good bit of fun. On the top level, Tom jumped and took a pot shot at Edgar, Edgar jumped at an angle, took a pot shot at Tom, and landed on the ground. Howard managed a jump to the lower level while taking a pot shot at Edgar. On the lower level, Evan and I made our jumps without managing to do anything fancy.  Meanwhile, Carol had been following Tom, and encountered his dropped mines.  She ended up swerving to the edge, lost control, and fell off the ramp, landing the car on it's top.

Back on the ground, after missing Edgar, I double-tapped Evan for a kill, then Howard and I met up for the AAIE of the night.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the arena, Edgar and Tom started slugging it out.  Tom took out Edgar's tires, but Edgar was still able to coast
along for a while harassing Tom.  Steve had now made it across, and down to the lower level to join in the fray.  With another shot, Tom took out Edgar, and then blew Steve up for another kill and the game.

AAIE June 18, 2052 Weekly Rumble
Tri-Cities Hammer Downs
Div 30, 1.5x scale, CW2.5 Rules
Edgar Lincoln and Tom Lentz, GM's
7 players

1. Tom Lentz           42pts, 2vk
2. Howard Lalicker     20pts, 1vk
3. Wesley Twitchell    12pts, 2vk
4. Edgar Lincoln        4pts
5. Carol Daugherty      2.5pts
5. Evan Mendonca        2.5pts
7. Steve Carder         1pt
 

This next duel was quite a blast, in more ways than one. The weather was finally nice enough for us to do our Tonka scale game in the garden.  Nothing was really done this year to it, so Edgar mowed off some of the bigger weeds for a nice play area. Any weeds that survived and popped back up became trees that were a D2 hazard, and the large patches of growth that were untouched were thick bushes and other sorts of overgrowth that was impenetrable unless you had a brushcutter. There was also two sets of ramps, one 80mph, and the other at 100 mph.  The smaller of the two had one end in a semi-bare area in the middle of the garden that was treated as a mudpit.

Now the game finally started, because Bryan and I were a bit late.  Anyways, Bryan starts off blowing a hole in Howard's side with a Tank Gun,
killing his gunner, and incapacitating his driver for the first kill of the game. Carol tried to take out Edgar, but only blew off one of his tires before accumulated hazards threw both out of control.  Steve shot off a big flamethrower at me, and I burst into flame a turn later.

Meanwhile Tom was off like a bat out of hell, and Steve was in fast pursuit.  Edgar, after finally making his way through a bunch of overgrowth,
met up with Bryan's Tank Gun for another kill for Bryan. I took off for the mud pit in an attempt to put out the fire, but after swerving to avoid a tree, I spunout and slammed into a larger tree bringing me to a stop. I then hit my nitrous and the gas in an attempt to get going before I burned up. Bryan got faked out by Carol's fake ramplate, so he swerved off to the side and came up on me right as Lafe came through the mud pit at my rear.

This was an event that will make AAIE's crash of the year, if not decade. You see one vehicle trying to pick up speed as two cars come up and hit it. You see it explode violently, and if you're lucky, you get a glimpse of the attackers as they turn on each other and collide for resulting chain explosions. There was precious little left of all three cars afterwards. You would be hard pressed to make something more than a sode can with all  what was left after the resulting three explosions.

In phase 5, Bryan came in at my right front fender at 95mph, right at the same time Lafe hit my rear at 55mph.  Both of them were kind enough to
shoot as they came in at me.  At the top of the turn, both Lafe and Bryan shot again as they were through me and at each other, then they collided and confettied each other. Then Steve came in and shot and collided with Carol for a kill. Right after Tom topped out at 200 mph, he took out Steve for a kill and the game.

AAIE June 25, 2052 Weekly Rumble
The Garden
Div 50, 16x scale, CW2.5 Rules
Edgar Lincoln and Tom Lentz, GM's
8 players

1. Bryan Rider         48pts, 3.5vk
2. Tom Lentz           23pts, 1vk
3. Lafe Daugherty      14pts, 1.5vk
4. Steve Carder         5pts, 1vk
5. Edgar Lincoln        4pts
6. Carol Daugherty      2pts
6. Howard Lalicker      2pts
6. Wesley Twitchell     2pts

This last duel has no description, as I was unable to attend. But the skinny of it was a Div 15 Matchbox scale in the Hammer Downs, with the condition of taking a jump before firing. Firing before a jump would incur a -1 prestige penalty.

AAIE July 2, 2052 Weekly Rumble
Tri-Cities Hammer Downs
Div 15, 3x scale, CW2.5 Rules
Edgar Lincoln and Tom Lentz, GM's
6 players

1. Carol Daugherty      36pts, 1vk
2. Tom Lentz            17pts
3. Edgar Lincoln        10pts
4. Bryan Rider          3pts, 1vk
5. Howard Lalicker      2pts
6. Paula Grenvik        1pt
 
 

DRAGONSLAYERS, INC.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/HUDSOND/dslayer.htm

Subject: DragonSlayers Duel #10
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:02:08 +0100
From: David Hudson <dhudson@deepdale-systems.demon.co.uk>
To: owenmp@serv.net

Michael,

Here's the latest duel report from DragonSlayers Inc., for you to include in the CWIN and WADA league standings.

The final event of the current season (number 10) took place within the Double Drum Arena. Each team fielded two Div. 20 vehicles, without restrictions on body type. The arena's drums were closed off, making two small, circular arenas, with one vehicle from each team entering each of the drums. The gates between the arenas would only be opened when one drum was reduced to a single combatant.

The event used CW2.5 rules, and was entered by the following teams:

DRAGON -- Bumski (mid-size with ramplate and concealed, bumper-triggered autocannon) and Dreamer (small hover with incendiary spikedropper and anti-tank gun armed with APFSDS and HESH ammo).

Archdiocese -- Trinity (heavy trike with MGs left and right and spider mine dropper) and Ein Feste Burg (midsize with turreted FOJ and left-mounted HMG).

BLADES -- Two luxuries with sloped metal armour (over plastic): the Slug (with a ramplate and 24 mini-rockets; 16 front, 8 rear), and the Sniper (turreted VMG, AP-HR back, 2 flame cloud ejectors on the sides, and rear-mounted minedropper).

BUMS -- Firestarter (sloped midsize with incendiary rocket launcher, napalm mines and 2 flaming oil dischargers) and Fantasia (midsize with twin VMGs and twin spikedroppers).

Feralgrin -- Vix (compact with sloped armour and front-mounted laser) and Arsey (sloped luxury with turreted flamethrower, HDFT to the right, and three flame cloud dischargers).
 

Drum #1 contained, clockwise: Vix, Firestarter, Dreamer, Slug, and Trinity. Drum #2: Ein Feste Burg, Arsey, Fantasia, Bumski, and Sniper. With Archdiocese and DRAGON fighting for the league championship, with AD needing to score more than their opponent, and finish either first or second place, there was little doubt that DRAGON would be looking to despatch them at the earliest moment.

In Drum #1, the DRAGON hover and BLADES ramcar got off to quick starts, whilst only DRAGON's Bumski managed a quick start in the other arena. All other vehicles crawled out of their respective starting gates.

As the DRAGON hover launched towards Archdiocese's Trinity, it zipped past the front of the ramcar, narrowly avoiding a collision, dropping spikes under its opponents wheels, which the latter completely avoided. However, the maneuvering was too much for the hover -- the pilot lost control, and sent his mount spinning into a wall, dropping spikes automatically in a seemingly random pattern, requiring Trinity to keep its speed low to avoid running over any.

Meanwhile, at the other side of this arena, the BUMS Firestarter and Feralgrin's Vix were getting together for a little action. Following a point-blank miss with his rocket launcher, the BUMS car rammed its smaller, slower opponent head-on, bringing it to a complete stop, before turning and dropping its rear weapons around and under the compact. As if the flaming oil wasn't enough, Vix also detonated a napalm mine. On fire and with most tyres/wheels gone, the driver took the only sensible option and bailed out, becoming the first kill of the duel.

Over in Drum #2, the DRAGON ramcar was flying. Initially, it headed towards the BLADES Sniper, but the dropped weapons carried by the latter caused it to veer off towards its real target, the Archdiocese car, which was busy exchanging shots and maneuvers, at low speed with the flamethrower-equipped Feralgrin motor, which stopped and fired off its three flame cloud dischargers in an attempt to hide.

Closing at over 70 mph, Bumski rammed the Archdiocese car head-on, with the autocannon firing automatically on impact, as its opponent fired flaming oil under it. The point-blank shot and ram were both very damaging, ripping straight through AD's armour and destroying the power plant. Unfortunately, the maneuver required to make the ram, coupled with the flaming oil, caused the ramcar to lose control quite spectacularly, immediately pitching it into a burning roll along the side of the arena. If that wasn't bad enough, the flaming oil had completely stripped the very thin underbody armour, and the ram had re-oriented the AD car so that its breached front was now pointing towards a wall, making it difficult for other combatants to take advantage of an easy kill.

As DRAGON rolled, Feralgrin's Arsey saw, and took, the opportunity to fire through the stripped underbody, which destroyed the power plant. Despite ending the roll on its wheels, the DRAGON car found its weapon pointing towards a now closed gate, with no motive power. Despite this, the driver sat quietly in his component armour, waiting and hoping, but no-one rammed him and his weapon was finally reduced to molten slag.

Back in Drum #1, with the hover finally regaining control, and Trinity picking a safe route around the spikes, Slug had rounded the central column and was closing fast on Firestarter, with a rocket-mad ram in mind. However, he lost control on his final turn and began skidding. Firestarter took this opportunity to lay some well-placed mines, which, skidding, Slug was unable to avoid. The mines were not as effective against this opponent, and the BLADES car continued towards the inevitable ram. At the point of contact, 8 of the front bumper-triggered mini rockets launched, followed a fraction of a second later by the metal ramplate. The damage to the BUMS car was quite impressive, but so was its ability to soak up the damage! To add to his pain, the hover fired his anti-tank gun into the other side of the BUMS vehicle, dealing a hefty damage with the APFSDS ammo.

Having shrugged off the T-bone and weapons fire, Firestarter dropped another batch of mines in the path of the ramcar, which, when detonated, damaged both vehicles, but the ram car was set alight by its second encounter with the napalm, and exploded almost immediately. The damage, from the mines caused BUMS to lose control, forcing him to drive over the hover's spikes. The incendiary spikes took out the wheels/tyres on the left side, rapidly halting the BUMS car, but leaving it pointing in the direction of the DRAGON hover.

The hover, meanwhile, was trying to maneuver to shoot its main opponent, the Archdiocese trike, and chose to ignore the shots from the BUMS vehicle -- which was to prove his undoing. Incendiary rockets eventually resulted in the hover being set alight, but with the flames licking around him, the pilot continued to fire at the trike, without much luck, before the inevitable happened, and the fans melted, dropping the hover to the floor. Once he was no longer able to get a shot at the trike, the pilot bailed out. Shortly thereafter, the hover's gas tank blew, sending bits of hovercraft in all directions. With both vehicles destroyed, DRAGON were now effectively out of the event.

Drum #2 seemed a little quieter in comparison. BUMS and BLADES had engaged each other, with both vehicles heading towards the scene of the previous carnage, where the two immobilised vehicles and the "hiding" Feralgrin car were, with shots exchanged between various parties, without much effect.

With his car totally useless, the DRAGON driver emerged on foot, intending to shoot the AD crew with his pistol. However, the crew were protected by component armour so he tried another tactic -- setting his armour alight, he clambered into the breached armour in an attempt to set the car on fire, whilst his fireproof suit protected him from harm. This internal fire, together with a couple of hits from the Feralgrin flamethrower, quickly set the stricken car alight. Immediately, the crews' fire extinguishers put out the flames. This was enough to discourage the DRAGON driver, who sloped off, dejectedly towards the exit, unable to affect the outcome of the event, and hoping that someone else would finish off what he had started.

As the three mobile vehicles jockeyed for position, trading shots, the flamethrower-equipped Feralgrin car managed to penetrate Fantasia's armour, setting him alight. Before the vehicle became immobile, BUMS managed to maneuver and collide with Feralgrin's Arsey, causing the fire to spread to his vehicle. Within seconds, both cars were effectively destroyed and out of the combat, each killed by the other.

At about this time, the driver of the BUMS car in the other arena decided it was time to abandon ship, ending the duelling in Drum #1, resulting in the opening of the gates between the drums. Being in no hurry, the Archdiocese trike waited in Drum #1 for BLADES' Sniper to come in to attack, laying mines around the area to make things interesting.

As the Sniper closed in, exchanging fire with the trike, it passed close enough to spot that the mines were spider mines, as his tyres all but touched the protruding detonators. After a few seconds of firing, Sniper's shots payed off, and the trike's front armour was breached. Needing only to finish the event in second place to claim the championship, the Archdiocese vehicles both surrendered to the BLADES car, to end the event as follows:

1. BLADES (Paul Spence), 2 kills
2. Feralgrin (Andy Troman), 2 kills
3. BUMS (Geoff Lambourne), 4 kills
4. DRAGON (David Hudson)
5. Archdiocese (Ann Smith/Alasdair Brooks), disqualified
 

BLADES's Winning Design

Sniper -- Luxury, x-hvy. chassis, large PP with SuperCons, hvy. suspension, 4 SB PR tyres, driver, VMG in turret, 2 FCEs (1R, 1L), AP HR back, MD back, 2 links, SWC for VMG, bumper trigger. Sloped metal/plastic armour: F5/35, R2/30, L2/30, B4/30, T0/5, U0/15, four 10-pt. plastic AWHs, 10 pts. plastic CA around driver. Accel. 5, Top speed 90, HC 3; 6,600 lbs., $19,755.
 

Following post-event scrutineering, it was discovered that Archdiocese had entered an illegal vehicle, resulting in their disqualification from this event. As a consequence, they score no points from this duel, gifting the league championship to DRAGON, despite their less than convincing performance in this final duel.

David Hudson
DSI President
 
 

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AUTODUELING BROTHERHOOD

Subject: [SCAB] SW Regional Racing Report
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 00:37:08 -0700
From: Rob Hagmaier <rhagmaier@worldnet.att.net>
To: SCAB Mailing List <scab@blar.org>

Steve Jackson Games and the Southern California Autodueling Brotherhood (SCAB) hosted the annual Southwest Regional Racing Championship at GameX in Los Angeles over Memorial Day weekend. One preliminary round and a final were run. Winners of the preliminary round were given preferential choice of gates in the final, although participation in the prelim was not necessary to play in the final.  So while the event was not technically a two-round event, it did allow us to let more people participate.

The format for both the prelim and the final were the same (Division 40). Contestants could earn points by earning kills or by competing "circuits" around the pillars in the Towers Arena. Each pillar circled would earn 9 points, and multiple-column circuits were permitted, so circling 5 pillars would earn 45 points. Kills were worth 20 points for a mobility kill and 40 points for a full kill.

The Saturday morning preliminary round consisted of eight duelists:

Gate #1:  Bob Steinke
Gate #2:  Aaron Cappocchi
Gate #3:  Peter Cossaboom
Gate #4:  Rob Hagmaier
Gate #5:  Empty
Gate #6:  Jarett Weintraub
Gate #7:  Empty
Gate #8:  Empty
Gate #9:  Jeremy Willis
Gate #10:  Empty
Gate #11:  Jeremy Alexander
Gate #12:  Mike Rosenberg
 

Rob Hagmaier took out Aaron early with a shot from his turreted FOG and 5 linked spike guns, which caused Aaron to roll on fire. Peter mobility kills himself (tranny hit) and Rob turns his attention to Peter, taking out one of his tires. Peter turns away, leaving a horrible trail of dropped nastiness behind. Michael Rosenberg gets stuck inside Peter's mess, with only a small hole to escape. Rob conveniently closes the hole with his spike guns, forcing Michael to brave crossing Peter's line of ice and oil. Rob takes advantage of this, dropping several spike counters right in front of Michael as he crosses the ice and oil. The resultant loss of tires causes Michael to vault to his death, earning a split kill for Rob and Peter.

Jeremy Alexander and Jeremy Willis end up slamming into each other with both ending up as casualties. Jarett and Bob Steinke, meanwhile, have decided to make a race of it. Jarett circles a total of 9 columns, earning him 81 points and starting the clock running. If he can survive for 5 seconds, he will be declared the winner.

Rob and Peter continue to tangle, with Rob managing to remove all of Peter's tires with his spike guns, but failing to do that 1 extra point to remove the wheels. Peter braves multiple shots from Rob, and slams into Rob's CA-frame van, confetting it. Jarett decides at this point to take the certain kill by commiting a suicide rear-end ram on Bob Steinke at 200 mph, assuring himself of the victory and Bob of a serious headache.

Final standings for the preliminary round were as follows:

1. Jarett Weintraub (9 pillars, full kill Rob Steinke, killed), 45 points
2. Peter Cossaboom (full kill Rob Hagmaier, 1/2 kill Michael Rosenberg, mobility killed), 40 points
3. Rob Hagmaier (full kill Aaron Cappocchi, 1/2 kill Michael Rosenberg, killed), 20 points
4. Jeremy Alexander (full kill Jeremy Willis, killed), 0 points, 10 TBPs
5. Rob Steinke (full kill Jarett Weintraub, killed), 0 points, 9 TBPs
6. Jeremy Willis (full kill Jeremy Alexander, killed), 0 points, 8 TBPs
7. Michael Rosenberg (killed), -40 points
8. Aaron Cappocchi (killed), -40 points
 

The Final occured on Sunday, with a smaller, 10-gate version of the Towers Arena. This event featured only 7 drivers, competing for the title of Southwest Regional Racing Champion:

Gate #1:  Empty
Gate #2:  Michael Rosenberg
Gate #3:  Jeremy Willis
Gate #4:  Empty
Gate #5:  Aaron Cappocchi
Gate #6:  Rob Hagmaier
Gate #7:  Empty
Gate #8:  Tom LaLonde
Gate #9:  Peter Cossaboom
Gate #10:  Jarett Weintraub

Jarett makes a nice circle of dropped nastiness, closing off a corner of the arena for himself. Aaron tries to shoot past Peter, but Peter manages the t-bone and confetties Aaron. Peter later manages a head-on ram on Michael Rosenberg, killing Michael. Jeremy misses a control roll and skids towards a pillar. Rob takes advantage of this and places spikes and a shot from his FOG in Jeremy's path. Jeremy would eventually spin out, then recover after losing three tires to Rob's spike guns.  He fails to escape when he crashes into a pillar, coming to a stop on Rob's flaming oil. Jarett completes his fifth circuit around a single column a couple of phases before time expires and Peter wins.

1. Peter Cossaboom (full kill Aaron Cappocchi, full kill Michael Rosenberg), 80 points
2. Jarett Weintraub (5 columns circled), 45 points
3. Rob Hagmaier (full kill Jeremy Willis), 40 points
4. Tom LaLonde
5. Jeremy Willis (killed), -40 points
6. Michael Rosenberg (killed), -40 points
7. Aaron Cappocchi (killed), -40 points
 

We also hosted combat drag races on Saturday evening. The competition was a round-robin with a winners and losers bracket. Starting brackets were chosen at random. Anyone with one loss entered the loser bracket; anyone with two losses was eliminated. The format was simple. Two AADA legal dragsters start 1" apart. The strip is 88" long (1/4 mile) with an impenetrable wall only 22" past that.  To win a heat a driver must:

1. Cross the finish line before his opponent.
2. Vehicle must come to a stop with driver having at least 1 DP.

If neither driver manages to win, the drag is repeated. If neither wins a second time, they both enter the losers bracket. There were a wide variety of designs, including a snail with laser-guided rockets, some very fast cars with rocket boosters, nitrous, and drag chutes, and other dragsters sporting incendiary rockets, rocket launchers, anti-power-plant rockets, and other madness.
 

Round #1

Heat #1: Chuck Phillips vs. Rob Hagmaier. Chuck defeats Rob, Chuck advances to winners bracket, Rob drops to losers bracket.

Heat #2: Bob Steinke vs. Aaron Cappocchi. Neither is able to score a victory after 2 runs. Both drop into losers bracket.

Heat #3: Jeremy Alexander gets a bye into round 2.

Heat #4: Jeremy Willis vs. Tom Lalonde. Tom defeats Jeremy Willis, Tom advances to winners bracket, Jeremy Willis drops to losers bracket.
 

Round #2

Heat #1 (Winners bracket): Chuck Phillips gets a bye into round 3.

Heat #2 (Winners bracket): Jeremy Alexander vs. Tom LaLonde. Tom defeats Jeremy Alexander, Tom advances in winners bracket, Jeremy Alexander drops to losers bracket.

Heat #1 (Losers bracket): Rob Hagmaier vs. Bob Steinke. Rob Hagmaier defeats Bob Steinke, Rob advances in losers bracket, Bob is eliminated.

Heat #2 (Losers bracket): Aaron Cappocchi vs. Jeremy Willis, Aaron defeats Jeremy Willis, Aaron advances in losers bracket, Jeremy Willis is eliminated.
 

Round #3

Heat #1 (Winners bracket): Chuck Phillips vs. Tom LaLonde. Tom defeats Chuck, Tom LaLonde advances in winners bracket, Chuck Phillips drops to losers bracket. With Tom being the only remaining person in the Winners bracket, he is awarded first place.

Heat #1 (Losers bracket): Rob Hagamier gets a bye into round 4.

Heat #2 (Losers bracket): Jeremy Alexander vs. Aaron Cappocchi. Aaron defeates Jeremy Alexander, Aaron Cappocchi advances in losers bracket, Jeremy Alexander is eliminated.
 

Round #4

Heat #1 (Losers bracket): Aaron Cappocchi vs. Rob Hagmaier. Rob defeats Aaron, Rob advances in losers bracket, Aaron is eliminated.
 

Round #5

Heat #1 (Losers bracket): Rob Hagmaier vs. Chuck Phillips. Rob defeats Chuck, Rob advances in losers bracket, Chuck is eliminated. With Rob being the only remaining person in the Losers bracket, he is awarded second place. Chuck is awarded third place.
 

Final Standings

1. Tom LaLonde
2. Rob Hagmaier, 2 kills
3. Chuck Phillips
4. Aaron Cappocchi
5. Jeremy Alexander
6. Jeremy Willis
7. Bob Steinke

Highest speed safely attained: 240 mph by Rob Hagmaier
Fastest run completed safely: 5 seconds, 2 phases by Tom LaLonde
 
 

Subject: [SCAB] Duel Report
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 08:23:15 -0700
From: Rob Hagmaier" <rhagmaier@nocccd.cc.ca.us>
To: SCAB Mailing List <scab@blar.org>

The Southern California Autodueling Brotherhood (SCAB) hosted a Division 20 duel on Saturday, June 15th. The arena was the Riverhead Tangram and the participants were the following:

Gate 1: Peter Cossaboom in a compact ramcar.
Gate 2: Empty
Gate 3: Empty
Gate 4: Rob Hagmaier in a luxury ramcar with a FOJ, SD and incendiary RL.
Gate 5: Empty
Gate 6: John Nicholson in a sloped compact with a laser.
Gate 7: Jeremy Alexander in a sloped midsize with a ramplate.
Gate 8: Jeremy Willis in the "Welcome Wagon", a station wagon with 2 rocket EWPs and a rocket platform, sporting a total of 13 laser-guided AP HRs.
Gate 9: Michael Rosenberg in a reversed heavy trike with a VMG and an ice dropper.
Gate 10: Tom Lalonde in a compact with a HVMG.
 

The duel activity of note:

Turn 1: Jeremy Wills blows off Jeremy Alexander's front right tire with a laser-guided rocket. Tom blows off one of Michael's front tires, earning a mobility kill in the process.

Turn 2: Jeremy Wills blows off Jeremy Alexander's remaining front tire with a couple more rockets. Jeremy Alexander then rams the other Jeremy at a combined speed of 50 mph.  Both survive the ram, but since Jeremy Alexander has no weapons, he becomes a full kill when he screeches to a stop in turn 3.

Turn 3: Jeremy Willis fires 4 rockets at Tom's side and connects with all of them, turning Tom's power plant into a fine powder and finally killing Tom's driver with the last rocket.

Turn 4: Jeremy Willis fires his 6 remaining rockets at the stationary Michael Rosenberg, completing the kill and ending the duel!
 

Final Standings

1. Jeremy Willis: 100 points (killed Tom and Jeremy Alexander, completed the kill on Michael)
2. Peter Cossaboom: 0 points
2. Rob Hagmaier: 0 points
2. John Nicholson: 0 points
5. Tom LaLonde: -20 points (mobility killed Michael
6. Jeremy Alexander: -40 points, 3 TBPs
7. Michael Rosenberg: -40 points, 1 TBP
 

After Jeremy's speedy (four-second) win, it was unanimously decided that in the future we will kill Jeremy before continuing. With nothing better to do after the duel, we sat around and played Frag!

Rob Hagmaier
SCAB President
 


WEB WATCH: WADA ACTIVE CHAPTERS
 

U.S. East Coast

Steel City Autoduel Rampage (SCAR)
http://home.attbi.com/~gasp01/scar
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

A sub-group of the Gaming Association of Southern Pennsylvania (GASP), this group has been around for several years. Rules for SCAR leagues, rules for SCAR tournaments, and a useful links section (which includes an interesting selection of arenas) are the highlights of this site. Thanks to Jim Robertson, SCAR Webmaster, for the nice comment about SWAT in the Links section.
 

Tri-State Auto Rally (TSAR)
http://www.geocities.com/tsarnj/TSAR_Page_1.htm
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

TSAR is the home of the Car Wars Referee Questionnaire and the Car Wars Other Dueling Questions Index. The Arena section has The Hub, the Vehicle section has four designs, and there are several entries in the Duel Reports section. TSAR also hosts the MADHAT Vehicle Design Spreadsheet. Curt Lindmark is the new TSAR Webmaster and plans to significantly update the Web site this autumn.
 

U.S. West Coast

Dueltrack Racing Association Carbon-Aluminum Rally (DRACAR)
http://www.dracar.org
Los Angeles / San Diego, California

After a year of setting its Car Wars Web site aside, DRACAR is starting to have an active site for autoduelists again. The old resources of DRACAR variants, tracks and league information are still on the site.
 

Seattle Washington Autoduel Team (SWAT)
http://www.serv.net/~owenmp/swathome.html
Seattle, Washington State

SWAT runs WADA, publishes this newsletter you are reading, and has links to all Car Wars Web sites.
 

U.S. Southeast

Mid-South Autoduelists and Handgunners Attack Team (MADHAT)
http://www.ccstech.org/gaming
Dyer County, Tennessee

MADHAT is naturally the home of the famous MADHAT Duel Designer vehicle design spreadsheet. The site also has vehicles and a nice links collection. Thanks to Jimmy Anderson, MADHAT Webmaster, for the nice comment about CWIN in the Links section.
 

Southern Hitmen Autoduel Assassins Guild (SHAAG)
http://groovygalaxy.50megs.com/shaag.html
Memphis, Tennessee

SHAAG has not been updated in a long time, but it is still the only place on the Web where you can find ADQ 1/4. Its former president (and former AADA World Dueling Champion) John Blaylock is an active user of the Dueling Debate message board.
 

U.S. Midwest

New Omaha Vehicular Association (NOVA)
http://www.novia.net/~desslok/nova.htm
Bellevue, Nebraska

The oldest AADA chapter existing today, NOVA has one of the largest Car Wars Web sites (if not the largest) online today. You can find almost everything for autodueling on NOVA HQ: arenas (over 30), variants, the regularly-updated Nightmessenger Archive, and hundreds of vehicle designs.
 

St. Paul Area Road Knights (SPARK)
http://www.io.com/~bms/spark
Roseville, Minnesota

Featuring a very cool logo, SPARK plays Car Wars and sponsors an Oldsmobile Delta 88 racecar at the local racetrack. Reports of Car Wars events and SPARK team races routinely appear on the site. Visitors to the site can even purchase merchandise with the SPARK logo. Thanks to Brian Strassman, SPARK President, for creating such a fun Web site.
 

U.S. Mountain West

Boneheadz of New Idaho (BNI)
http://www.cableone.net/manycubes
Boise, Idaho

Specializing in campaigns and roleplaying, especially in post-apocalyptic gameworlds, Tony Kontes has been publishing the material created over 10 years of Car Wars campaigns on the BNI Web site. If you like Chassis & Crossbow, you will love BNI.
 
 

Free Oil States

Houston Autodueling Enthusiasts (HADES)
http://carwars0.tripod.com
Houston, Texas

An ever-expanding collection of vehicle designs, variants, and a few reports of 9X scale duels with photographs round out this site.
 

Canada

Federal Dueling Authority (FDA) / New World Autodueling Association (NWAA)
http://www.squishybug.com/fda
http://www.superaje.com/~subliminal/fda
http://dreadgazebo.com/fda
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/1044/nwaa_introduction.htm
Ottawa, Ontario

After going to Highway One in the late 2040s, the NWAA is back in action, now calling itself the FDA. Darcy Burgess, the group's president, has been running events at a constant pace and created an extremely nice Web site for the chapter. The old NWAA Web site is still online, however.
 

Europe

DragonSlayers, Inc.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/HUDSOND/dslayer.htm
Leeds, United Kingdom

DSI is small, but it has been running Car Wars events for years. Duel reports are posted regularly the Web site or e-mailed to interested duelists.
 

Painted Target
http://www.bus.bton.ac.uk/staff/fesg/games
Brighton, United Kingdom

Starting as a site that presented rules how to convert the dinosaur comic series 2000 A.D. to Car Wars, Painted Target is the best place on the Web to find the most unusual variants for Car Wars. If you want mini-subs, new pedestrian equipment or Formula De combat racing rules, Painted Target has it all, combined with very nice organization and a comprehensive index. Francis Greenaway, Painted Target Webmaster, is a big credit to the autodueling community.
 


WEB WATCH: UPDATED SITES
 

PHILIP J. REED
http://www.philipjreed.com/articles.html

Articles: Fireball Arena for Car Wars, Sentinel Arena for Car Wars