#mylittlepony - #The Ghost of Foal Pass

The Ghost of Foal Pass

It's night time at Sweet Apple Acres. The sounds of a pony finishing up the dishes is interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. A very country sounding mare answers. "Sweet Apple Acres? Oh, hi Pinkie."

"Applejack! I haven't heard from you in so long, and all you have to say is 'hai pinkie.'? The other day, you passed me on the way back from a delivery. I signalled, and you didn't!" The pink pony exclaimed, flailing her forelegs and the phone with it, almost hitting her milkshake on the counter of Sugarcube Corner.

Applejack, squinting with her tired eyes, responded with a cool, level tone. "Nope, wasn't me."

"It had to be you, it was your Eight Six!" the voice at the other end loudly replied.

Without skipping a beat, Applejack answered. "Well, what I mean is, that was my car, but I wasn't driving it..."

As she listened, Pinkie Pie took a big sip of her milkshake on the counter.

"...my little sister Applebloom delivers my fritters to the hotels now."

The counter suddenly splashed with milkshake. "WHAT?! Since when?!"

Applejack ran a foreleg through her hair, resetting it from the explosion of sound. "Five years ago." She replied, a little smirk working its way across her face.

"Five years ago? She's been driving since middle school?!"

Later...

Foal Mountain. A road to Ponyville winds down it. A pair of lights streak across the road. It's a late model Mazda RX-7 Twin Turbo, specifically, an FD3S, large rear spoiler and all. The white car streaks down the straight-away, pink and lilac pinstripes leaving a colourful streak with the tail lights, SAPPHIRE SUNS written in glittery blue on the rear quarter panels. It brakes, downshifts, and pitches into the right turn in a braking drift. The driver, a white unicorn mare, with a fashionably curly pink and lilac mane, controls the drift with the finesse of a dancer, exiting the turn and accelerating down the next straight.

Sweetie Belle checks the rear view mirror, and sees nothing. As expected. During the day, she's a professional singer, but at night, she does a different kind of song and dance, the FD as her partner. Tonight, she practices on Foal Mountain, ready to race whoever stands up to her team's challenge. So far, nopony is fast enough. The Foal Speed Stars are a joke at best. She and her older sister are way above their skill. Admittedly, even the Sapphire Suns' other drivers are more than enough of a match.

"If I get serious, they can't keep up with me." she says, thinking out loud on the straight, as her team-mates fall further behind. "They're still at that level," which means she can go easy and lift off for a bit.

Suddenly, headlights appear in the rear view mirror, exiting the last turn and entering the straight. "finally caught up, huh?" She muses, as the car approaches from behind.

The car in question races down the straight, the mechanical roar of a 4A-GE engine with the runners open echoing along the mountain. It's a white hatchback with pop-up headlights, black trim, and Sweet Apple Bakery written on the side. A Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX, also known as the AE86.

Sweetie sees the mystery car approach in the rear view mirror. "Huh? That's not one of ours. Is that a MR2 or a 180?"

The unfamiliar car approaches the FD, and starts drafting behind it, before moving to pass. The singer sees this, and narrows her eyes with the resolve to race. "Nice driving, but after two corners, I won't even see you in my mirror." Putting her hoof down, the 13B twin turbo sings like a racing motorcycle as it pushes past 8000 RPM, and the FD accelerates away from the other car. The next turn comes up, and with another braking drift, Sweetie rounds the right turn.

The opponent also drifts the turn, drifting in parallel with the FD. Sweetie can't help but to look quickly at her opponent. "An Eight-Six?!" she exclaims in disbelief. "you got to be kidding!" As soon as the turn clears, she puts her hoof to the firewall, accelerating down the short straight, away from the 86. The next right turn comes up fast, and the FD bursts fire out the exhaust as she downshifts while braking for the turn. Both cars parallel drift the right and left turn, the 86 again coming close to passing.

"My FD can't outrun an old Eight-Six?" Sweetie quietly exclaims. "Is this a nightmare? Cupcakes! I'm the number 2 driver of the Sapphire Suns!"

The next right turn appears, and she brakes hard for the turn. The 86 takes this moment to pass, diving into the inside of the turn at speed. The unicorn is dumbfounded, her jaw open. Doesn't she know this road? After this slow right, there's a sharp left. The 86 breaks loose, the car oversteering as it exits the turn.

"I knew it! She's going too fast! There's no room to slow down!" Sweetie starts braking for the turn, hoping the 86 doesn't wreck right in front of her.

In the 86, a yellow hoof lifts off the throttle abruptly, the car engine braking in the drift, as it suddenly swings left, pitching into the sharp left turn sideways.

"Wh-What?!" The unicorn spits out, caught completely off-guard. Her mind replays what she just saw in a moment's notice. The 86 exited the right turn in a drift, then suddenly shifted into a big leftward drift on the space between the turns, going almost completely sideways as it entered the left turn from the outside, nearly hitting the guardrail. Inertia drift?! The 86 continues into the turn, towards the apex, as Sweetie follows.

If somepony were to have a camera on that turn, it would have been a picture perfect scene. The 86 drifting at a steep angle, touching the apex of the turn, with the FD falling behind, apexing early in a shallower drift angle.

Sweetie realized too late, her entry angle was off. She was so enamoured by the 86's driving, the momentary lapse in concentration put her into the turn at a bad angle. With teeth-gritting desperation, she gave it too much throttle, and the FD started to oversteer. Fortunately, she entered the turn at a lower speed. Unfortunately, there was no saving it. The guardrail came closer, like a snake ready to strike out at the FD's rear bumper, but then the car spun towards the inside. Slamming on the brakes, the FD skids to a stop, sideways, at the turn's exit. The singer pressed her forehead into the steering wheel, defeated.

I can't believe it. She thinks, in quiet disbelief. Did I just see the ghost of a street racer who died here? The first counter-steer to the right was actually a feint setup for the next left corner. In her mind, the 86's inertia drift replayed again. That was the perfect drift, of a driver with ultimate knowledge of this mountain pass.

Two cars approach the turn, stopping before the FD. Two mares hop out, Aquamarine and Bee Bop. "Sweetie!" Exclaims Bee Bop, the seafoam-colored mare with the hazel mane. "Did you see that Eight-Six?"

"Yeah" the singer absently responds, exiting her car. My pride is torn to ribbons. As she thinks on the matter, Sweetie looks at the FD. To think that the latest mountain Spec-tuned FD could be defeated by some ten-year-old beat-up Eight-Six. Where in Tartarus did that car come from?

Submitted December 21, 2017 at 11:18PM by blastermaster555
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