“Welcome back to the Essendarium, the ongoing recap of the final race in the Apocalypse Road series where I will be revealing the teams of Apocalypse Road, the cars and the stories behind the game, both fictional and real. These first few articles will be covering the various teams in Apocalypse Road and possibly some background on who is behind them and how they turned out the way they did. Some of the teams still have openings for sponsorships and I will be providing you a pathway to join the Thunderverse by sponsoring a driver or a team or even a track. Carla & I do this to allow you to become a part of the game and at the same time provide a small revenue stream for Carla and myself that we use to print prototypes and attend conventions where we get more chances to interact with you. Thanks for your patience” – Jeff Horger

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Sometime after midnight, while The Fist was still at the local bar getting into trouble, the thumping of helicopter blades in the distance created an air of electricity in the sleepy garage area. Only one team would come in using airborne lift capacity. Eight vintage S-64 Skycranes accompanied by 4 Chinook helicopters slowly swept over the track, their heavy rotors disrupting the quiet peace of the late night. Each Skycrane carried one of the Xtreme Hazard Road Racing’s cars. The cars, each painted canary yellow and bearing the trademark biohazard warning, were set down perfectly and the race teams quickly unloaded before the massive helicopters spun up and headed back to the airport. By morning four pre-fab buildings had been erected and a makeshift command post established for the team out of the Mount McKelvey Bioweapons facility in Antarctica.

To race in the Apocalypse Road circuit, each team must provide eight functioning cars. Not only does each team need 8 cars, each team must have two Rabbit-class cars that have light armor and only machine gun armament. Each team is required to have two heavily armored Tank-class vehicles that meet the required weight. The other four cars are hybrids with weapon upgrades and medium armor. In this middle class, each team must include two automated targeting systems on their cars. These two cars are called the ‘Hitters’ while the other two are referred to as ‘Shooters’ (hitters tend to hit, shooters tend to just shoot and not always hit).

There are three main classes of weaponry on the circuit. The most common weapon is the .50 cal machine gun. This weapon is the lightest and is mounted on the fastest cars. The ammo will not penetrate the driver’s tub except the vulnerable view-ports, but can do damage to tires and other lightly armored parts. Machine guns are often used to suppress enemy fire by focusing their accurate weapons on the sights of opposing cars. The second weapon class in the auto-cannon. The AC’s do not often penetrate the driver’s tub, but they can punch through previously weakened sections. Their main use is to shred through opposing armor, especially in the engine section. The final weapon is high-explosive missiles. Armor penetrating charges are illegal as they can easily lead to the death of the driver. Instead the missiles are a combination of explosive and concussive force designed to be able to shred the steel armor without penetrating the ‘tub’ and at the same time providing a concussive force that can flip over cars if targeted just right.

Xtreme Hazard Road Racing is directed by “Lead Jacket” Jeff Pattison who also drives one of his cars.

Xtreme Hazard

Francis “Killer” Lalumiere (888)                         Jean-Luc Simard

Dan “the Disintegrator” Pattison (PBX)             Jeff Pattison

“Lead Jacket” Jeff Pattison (HMX)                      Jeff Pattison

Alice Beck (36)                                                  Ron Gamble

Chips Brewster (18)

Omzig “Mutant Boy” Bocaj (J16)                        Matthew Stevenson

Franky “Firefly” Geldof (300)                             Franky Geldof

Luther Albatros (B)

I would like to thank the above people for sponsoring cars in Apocalypse Road.

Currently Xtreme Hazard has two driver sponsors remaining.

If you would like to name a driver on the yellow team for $20 you receive the following benefit.

• Driver Naming Rights allowing you to name one driver and assign that driver a 1 to 3 digit ID.

If this interests you, please contact Jeff Horger at jagrcz68@aol.com and we can get the ball rolling. There are other teams and drivers still available and Carla & I are happy to help all of you that want to be a part of the Thunderverse onto the team.

If you just want to play the game, we need your votes with your wallet on the GMT P500 right now. The game is ready to take that last step into completion but we need your commitments right now. Apocalypse is very close to the cut (496 orders when this was written) and we just need a handful more orders to get us over the hump. If you back it now the discount is pretty substantial ($72 down to $49) so now is the time to let your voice be heard. https://www.gmtgames.com/p-623-apocalypse-road.aspx

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