(written for a small community of Race-sim drivers - a kind of action-packed 'interview' with some of its better known members. From year 2000)

Hey Stephano!

A yellow Lamborghini Gigliato pulls up in front of me. Thanassis sticks his head out the window and grins.

"Want a lift buddy." Then he haggles a while with his passengers and three mini-skirted girls squeeze out of the two-seater pouting and waving Coca-Cola bottles.

"Jump in fella" he says.

I watch the girls as they congregate in a tight group and look on envious as I squash myself into the passenger seat.

"aw! Don’t mind them." he says in an aside. "They’re my sisters." he grins and flattens the throttle, delicately balancing the car on the steering as it fish-tails out of a cloud of blue smoke. As my eye-balls settle slowly back into their sockets I think hard of something nonchalant to say.

"Is this your lipstick?" I say pulling out a small cylinder from under my right thigh.

"What colour is it?" he laughs, but his eyes are locked on the road ahead and behind like a hunting eagle’s. "No my friend. The only make-up I use is charcoal-grey" he gives me a strange sidelong look. "But what do you think of the car? Do you think you could get many women with a car like this?" his easy smile has returned.

"I never thought it was your style!" I scream, flinching as he weaves over a junction against the lights.

"Ah! You are thinking about my Chrysler Stratus maybe!" I watch the lorry and the 2CV as they jack-knife in the wing-mirror, arms and fists waving. "That thing is okay for going to football practice. But for the girls, my uncle’s…" he goes quiet as he sees simultaneously in his mirror what I am seeing. A long way back now, a Bugatti – I think it is a EB110 – power-turns into view and charges after us with impressive looking speed. The sound of burning rubber arrives a second later - like thunder after lightening.

"This guy" he says with an amused look, "is after me I think!" He downshifts and does a neat little power-turn of his own in order to head down a side street that I happen to know leads out into open country. Magny Cour, that we have both been to watch, is left far behind - along with the crowded traffic, and the flying chickens that Thanassis throws up behind him like a tornado-struck caravan site. He reaches behind his seat and pulls out a couple bottles of coke handing them to me.

"Here" he says as he slides down and sinks his chin into his chest, "open these up".

The Bugatti is clearly chasing us, and is taking the gentle curves and rises of the opening country road as gracefully as ourselves. I put the bottles down a second while I strap myself into the seat as tightly as I dare without strangling, then snap the bottles open using the screwed-in opener on the dash. I take a deep breath and ask him how he intends to pay the speeding-ticket. I’m surprised at the sound of my voice, kinda like Mickey-mouse on helium.

"Cops? Bah!" He brakes hard and swerves to avoid some old bloke on a bike with onions around his neck, then makes a dive for a fork-off and accelerates down a hill leading between a couple of barns, past a farmhouse full of ghostly bewildered faces, and out through an open gate back onto the tarmac - all the while changing up and down with the same hand that he’s holding the coke bottle with. The Bugatti has taken advantage of our momentum loss and is now right behind us, so close that he could easily scratch his name on Thannasis’ boot with his front spoiler. Thanassis has got a gritty look of enjoyment and concentration on his face. I wonder how this is all going to end, but never once have I feared we will crash. I think, if a wall were suddenly to appear beyond the next curve, these two guys would somehow coax their cars into leaping it as easily as any common steeplechaser.

Now we take an easy right hander, over a humpback so that I almost get airsick, then there is nothing but straight empty open road for as far as I can see. I begin to think this could go on forever, like in that film The Car, with both all of us haunting quiet open roads and eating hitch-hikers for breakfast until the end of time. Thanassis’ face is still set and determined – I know nothing will make him give way. Then, like an answer to a prayer and just as miraculous, the sound of a beeping horn seeps over the roar of wind and pounding cylinder heads. It is too faint to be the Bugatti. HONNNK! HONNNK! It blares, distant and irritated, but with the rising pitch of an approaching freight-train .HONNNNNK! HONKY HONK HONNNK! We both look at each other – Thanassis’ face is red and furious – he hates being disturbed while ‘doing-the-business’ and many a household pet has come to grief when begging-for-food at inopportune moments.

The Bugatti has given ground, probably just as dazed as we are. Thanassis eases off then has to make a quick nearside swerve as a champagne-pink Dodge Viper roars past flashing its headlights and blasting out the sound of some female punk band. All I see through its side window as it flashes past is a big-smile, a waving hand and a matching pink furry dice swinging from the rear-view.

The three of us are now down to a dawdling 50mph as each driver tries to work out what’s just happened. "What the F*** was that?" Thanassis asks, swearing for probably the first time in his life. But the Bugatti has already recovered and Thanassis has no time to ponder further the identity of such an ‘obviously dangerous’ driver as he responds to the bonnet-high acceleration of the Bugatti by dropping a couple gears and taking off again. This time the Bugatti driver seems more intent on overtaking than pushing us into a ditch, and Thanassis has his hands full keeping level as both of them notch-up the needles to 180mph, looking for all the world to any bystander like a couple stukas homing on a target. It is perfectly clear to me the intention of both drivers, but already the pink Viper is a diminishing dot disappearing around a bend and out of sight. Now I am beginning to worry. Skill or no skill I was sitting in a road-car with a bend coming up, and although it had a rear wing, I doubted very much that it could push-out enough downforce to enable us to drive around on the ceiling (like F1 cars are reputedly able to do).

"Oh what the hell!" Thanassis says dropping the empty coke bottle behind his seat in a gesture of futility. "What you say Stephano? Enough is enough, yes?" Before I can reply he has already seemingly made some kind of visual communication with the Bugatti, and both cars slow gradually down to a more leisurely 60mph. Still I notice neither one wants to fall in behind the other, and I’m beginning to picture us both touring all the way to Paris side-by-side

"Come on" I suggest playfully, hoping to break the deadlock. "Let’s stop for a drink at this village here." But I don’t think Thanassis is convinced – he’s fingering the gearshift spasmodically and still looking to be in the grip of his low-slung petulant eagerness. In the end the Viper decides it. We see it nestling in the car-park of a café just outside the village. Thanassis perks up.

"Aha! The mysterious dodge!" his grin is suddenly back and he’s sitting up in his seat again. He pulls into the carpark through the gate (which is luckily wide enough to take two cars!), and all three of us emerge from our ‘panting beasts’ as relaxed-looking as we can. Thanassis pulls out a couple of cokes from somewhere and tosses me one over the roof. The Bugatti driver is lounging his elbows on his own roof and looking at us with an expression of friendly inquisitiveness. Thanassis and myself return the casual observation as we both bite off the bottle-tops and spit them out in a single harmonious movement. Thanassis takes a pull at his bottle then rests his back against the car, spreading his arms out in the sun. Not a thing has been said yet. Not to be outdone, the Bugatti driver eases himself up and saunters over to us in slow appraisal. He walks around the car. He kicks a tyre.

"Nice wheels mate" he says in a tone he might use when not wishing to hurt the feelings of a Skoda owner.

"Yeah! It’s not bad!" Thanassis drones. "Would be better though if I could get it out of second gear! Perhaps you have some ideas?"

Shaking his head sadly Mr Bugatti says in all seriousness "I thought perhaps you had ‘some’ problem back at the farmhouse. I should have known it was because you couldn’t drive. I’ll ask my gran to give you a few lessons if you like mate".

Things might have got out of hand at this point, but a light tinkling voice broke the chain.

"Well! Shown up at last have we boys! Had enough sight-seeing for one day then?" I recognise her immediately, though I’ve only ever seen flat 2D images of her on the Net. It is Stephanie Caldwell, looking rather cool, tanned, and with a frosty glass of Vodka and orange (probably ‘Sunny-D’) in one hand (the other hand is holding a driving wheel – I notice it is handcuffed to her wrist!).

"Hey! Steph!" I yell. She gives me a long searching look, which is both pleasant and unsettling, like being contemplated by a sleek and cuddly-looking lioness of uncertain tameness.

"Ah! Stephano" she says, sounding demure – but I notice her eyes seem to look at me and see a lame gazelle with coughing fits and the words "larder" stencilled over its body in flashing neon letters.

Suddenly I’m stammering. "H – How did you know it was me?"

"You’re badge" she says matter of fact. I remember I’m wearing a large ‘buddy badge’ with the words "HI BADE – MEET STEPHANO" written on it. I forgot I’d been wearing it all through the Magny Grand-Prix. Then she amazes me again by greeting the other two guys by name, like she’s been expecting them to turn up at just this time. It turns out that the Bugatti driver is none other than Alex Cosentino, making this day’s excursion almost a GP3GL busman-holiday. However, Thanassis and Alex prove themselves cooler than ‘yours-truly’ by simply waving a hand and shrugging a shoulder with the words "Hi Steph" and a brief glance at the horizon.

"Well, Isn’t this just cosy" she says with an ironic twitch of her mouth. "Maybe we ought to find a seat, unless you guys still have some work to do on your egos – or whatever it was I interrupted?"

We follow her over to one of the picnic tables they have and make ourselves comfy. Alex has disappeared into the café saying he was getting a drink – me and Thanassis have our cokes. We sit in a dry prickly silence for a while thinking of something to say. Steph has her hair tied back and is wearing a croupier’s eyeshade. Thanassis has produced some foster-grants from his shirt-pocket. I have finally lost my buddy-badge on the way over and feel a little more human.

Steph sighs and picks up the menu from the table. "Anyone join me in a burger?" she asks with that look of guilt you always see with gym-jockeys when introduced to cholesterol. Thanassis dismisses the idea and asks if there is any Souvlaki on the menu. Both of them look crestfallen when they discover the only things on the menu all contain wheatgerm of some description. Me? I knew the chances of finding any Chilli in rural France was asking a lot. I was not surprised when Alex came back to say that a bunch of New-York health nuts were running the place. He was angry that they’d given him some grief when he asked them to make up his own speciality drink: a SUPER98 (Don’t ask me what’s in it, but it looks blue and has the bouquet of jet fuel). I had no wonder they’d given him grief, it was the kind of drink that had to be dispensed from a foot-wide rubber pipe held by two men in space-suits on Sunday afternoons!

You can see that Alex is pretty worked up. Without a word of explanation he slams his drink down on the table and marches back into the shop.

"I think he’s hungry" I explain to them with a shrug. I had seen that his glance had first fallen on the menu before his departure. I also saw the blind stubborn look of outrage grow on his face as he read it. We wait a while. Though I’m not sure why. The birds have become pretty quiet too. Soon all hell is breaking loose as vulgar sounds emerge blistering from the building – it is the heart-chilling sound of delicate feelings and illusions being irreparably shattered. Alex comes hurtling bodily out through the door and slides skidding to a halt. A couple guys in white chef hats come partly out too, throwing bits of lettuce and celary at him, and gesticulating wildly that he go away somewhere else. He picks a piece of lettuce from his hair and throws it back at them, then walks over to us with an air of dignity-restored.

"Aw! Don’t they have cows over here, or what!" he smirks. (Alex confided in me once that his diet consists of cow-meat. Of course he various it a bit from time to time. Sometimes it is the front bit, sometimes the back bit, but mostly it is the secret, hidden inner bit – that bit which tends to move around a lot sloppily when them other bits are still warm and animate). We look at him with mouths open for a good long while.

To break the silence I ask Steph what she thinks of Jenson Button’s performance this season.

"Oh!" She thinks, then "I really don’t know enough about Jenson before he came to F1." she says, abstractedly scratching moss from the table-top with a fingernail.

Alex raises an interested eyebrow at the turn of the discussion, but Thanassis jumps right in.

"Nar!" he says through a twisted grin. "He’s nothing exceptional. Better than some maybe, but not strikingly better".

"Do you reckon you could beat him in a matching car?" I ask.

Thanassis looks at me like I’ve said something party-stoppingly stupid..

Alex is more verbal about it. "No problem!" He says with conviction. "With the same spec car, team and practice I could beat him easy."

Both Steph and Thanassis catch their breath, but I can tell they wish they’d been first to say it.

"Yeah! But that’s the catch isn’t it!" Steph looks up with very sharp hard eyes. "Getting a good spec car I mean. How would you prove yourself in a… I don’t know… a Bennetton, say?"

"That would be easy, so long as I was only driving with Wurz. He’s the pits." Thanassis is as vehement as ever. Alex slaps the youngster on the back and offers him a taste of his drink. (It is so funny when you see somebody change skin colour so fast, and his new lime-green sets off the blue of the drink to perfection).

Stephanie leans back and appraises Thanassis critically. Now I can really see the deceptively languid queen of the jungle looking out of those cool steady eyes. "Do you reckon your that good then?"

Alex covers for his new found chum (who is a little distracted) by returning her unflinching gaze and admitting, "modesty is a load of hog-wash! I’m good enough to beat any of the mid-field drivers, and I don’t care who hears me say it!"

"What about the Sim players?" Stephanie asks, leaning further back and looking even more languid. "Do you think you could beat me, say?"

Alex is unmoved, I wonder if "anything" could ruffle his feathers (but I’m forgetting that earlier episode at the junction) . "I don’t see why not. With time." He says it without any hint of boasting.

I’m fascinated at this discussion. I see his ‘stud-bull’ flicking a tail to her ‘menacing lioness’, but not wishing to see any blood-sports today I interrupt "Is there anyone in the sim league that any of you would hesitate to play against?" I am forcing down a smile as I ask this. But I’m too late. Steph is sitting forwarding again, smiling and looking both pleased and annoyed in turns. It seems Alex’s own candour has diffused the situation. She shakes her head before answering into her ‘Screwdriver’. Two words. One name. "Heimen Brons".

Thanassis has recovered a little. "yeah! He’s good." He says finishing off his coke, "But I’d have to go with Moldzinski. That guy’s pretty scary."

I exchange looks with Alex who doesn’t seem familiar with the LFRS scene either.

"I think Roy Kolbe is pretty good." He says, "He seems to build the car around himself."

"What about Gjermund?" I ask him.

"Oh yeah. What an entry that guy has made to the league."

"I’d have to go for Roy myself." Steph slips in. "For a keyboard driver he’s frightening. I hope he never gets it into his head to use a wheel".

"Both of those guys make me nervous", Thanassis colour has changed yet again (to white this time) as he says this. "I mean, seriously." He looks at us with pleading eyes. "One day I will have to meet these guys face to face I think, when we start playing on-line. I get nervous enough as it is. But this thing. Ugh! No!." Alex and Steph are looking at him, and I can see that they too are not above getting wet-palms.

Steph laughs, seemingly at herself than at anything else. "It’s sillly isn’t it! Getting so worked up over a mere game." She looks at us like she would her mom and dad when she owns up to smoking behind the garden shed. "You know, I have to keep a rag to dry my hands on whenever I pit, I get that nervous."

"Yeah me too Steph. You know you should try this SUPER98, it really calms you down. I mean it." Alex offers her his glass, and she tries it with shrinking-lips and hunched shoulders. But it seems to do the job because she relaxes immediately and looks up surprised at us.

"Hmm! This is good stuff. What’s in it?"

"Aha!" He says taking the glass back with the air of a protective father. "If you nice to me maybe I email you the recipe".

With this the heavens open up and we are treated to a summer downpour. The men both look disgusted, but Stephanie looks up delighted and holds out both hands. "Yahoo!" She shouts. "Oh! I love this. Rain! Yeah! Hey! Where ya going?"

We are all running to our respective cars, but Stephanie seems to be enjoying the experience. "See you at ‘The Ring" she shouts, then skips happily to her own motor and jumps in.

"See you mates" Alex shouts briefly as he slams the Bugatti door closed.

"Let me drive!" I say to Thanassis.

"Err! I don’t know!" he says looking worried. But he gives in to a little persuasion, and then I’m behind that damned wheel! Not a Ferrari maybe – but it’s close enough for me. I wind it up, feeling cold prickles down my back as it bursts to life, then think I might show my Greek friend a thing or two about driving. I slide it into first gear, notch up some revs and pop the clutch. (oops! Handbrake on!). I try again, then drop the beautiful thing onto the black-stuff. Thanassis has changed colour yet again, but I wont say which one.

"You clipped the Bugatti!" he sighs loudly slapping a hand over his face

"What?" I say. I look in the mirror and see Alex’s jet-black job doing a doughnut in the car park, throwing up gravel like an acrobatic water-skier and then falling in behind me with a squeal of burning rubber.