Cartoon Car Toons!

The net has the complete story. Just like Acura air filters which are also available online.

If you like racing games, chances are, you have already played Nintendo’s F-Zero X.  But do you know that this racing game has its own anime series? And one of the characters in the game you can see in action in this animated series is Captain Falcon.

Captain Falcon is one good race driver who is also a bounty hunter.  Because of this profession, the captain has made a lot of enemies.  To protect himself from these threats to his safety, he lives on a chain of islands off the coast of Port Town.  This is his sanctuary and it is where he spends most of his time.  He is the best bounty hunter in the series and he is also one of the best racers around. To keep his driving skill sharp, he has race tracks on each of his islands where he practices.

His car is the Blue Falcon. According to Wikipedia:  “Captain Falcon races in an F-Zero machine named the Blue Falcon. This racer is one of the most well-rounded vehicles in the racing tour… During an interview with Mr. Zero, the race announcer, in F-Zero GX Captain Falcon commented that if he wins the Grand Prix, he will use the prize money to build a new machine called the ‘Neo Blue Falcon’.”

Apart from the Blue Falcon, Captain falcon also owns another vehicle which is the Falcon Flyer which is the captain’s vehicle of choice when he is on bounty hunter mode.  According to Wikipedia:  “Captain Falcon has another vehicle, called the Falcon Flyer. This is a speedy, mid-sized star cruiser boasting an on-board computer. The on-board computer means that the ship can be controlled remotely. The Falcon Flyer is mainly used to prowl the galaxy in search of criminals.”

I know you can just have your childhood taken away from you and to help you remember, that let us recall another cartoon known as Speed Racer. I know maybe hard to recall as it is not as famous as Spider-man or Superman. But I know there are some of you who know Speed Racer and of course who would forget Mach Five?

To benefit those who do not know who Mach Five is, well he is the racing car Speed Racer which also has a Japanese version called Go Mifune. The car was built by Pops Racer, Speed Racer’s father. The car also features several devices which Speed Racer uses throughout the series. The car was originally made in 1966. But the white car has M written on its hood and in 1993, the design was completely rechanged.

The car certainly does not have Mitsubishi Eclipse auto parts but the car sure has more gorgeous car parts than that. The name Mach Five was derived from fact that it speeds above Mach 5 are known as hypersonic but the car doesn’t speed up like Mach speeds. The name consists of two languages, one word is “five” and in Japanese it means “go”. In Japanese, “go” is attached to the names of the ships and many other transportation. The Japanese version of the car is also called “Mach” in Japan.

The car was given more power in the TV series. An unrealistic 20,000hp was given to the fictional version of the car. Aside from that, the car is also incapable of transmitting such power to the ground without spinning. 

Have you tried playing Grand Theft Auto? I’m sure you’ve heard of it. After all, it is one of the coolest games out there. If you have played the game already, specifically Grand Theft Auto III, do you even know who the protagonist is? No? Through the course of the game, the protagonist never talked and he only made mild sounds when he is wounded.

The guy’s name is Claude and the reason why I know of this is because of Wikipedia. According to the site: “While his name is never disclosed in GTA III, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas hinted ‘Claude’ as his name, as uttered by Catalina during several phone conversations. There is also evidence hidden in the GTA III’s data files that the player was once allowed to enter their own character name, and the ‘DEFNAM’ (default name) value for it was ‘Claude’. In the light of these revelations, there is speculation that Claude is the same person as Claude Speed. In a data file in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the skin used for the character is named “Claude”, further proof that his name is actually Claude.”

But apart from that name, Claude is also given other names by various characters and here are those names:

• “Gecko” by all three heads (Trey Welsh, Red Valdez and Uno Carb) of the Zaibatsu Corporation.
• “Jumbo” by Elmo, head of the Loonies.
• “Kosai” by Johnny Zoo, head of the Yakuza.
• “Rooster” by Billy Bob Bean, head of the Rednecks.
• “THC-303″ by Dr LaBrat, head of the SRS Scientists.
• “Comrade” by Jerkov, head of the Russian Mafia. Also “Pal” by Russian Mafioso in intro movie, but eventually it was muted by music.
• “Grasshopper” by Sunbeam, head of the Hare Krishna.

We have gotten to know the talented female driver that is Rena right?  Now, it is time to meet her rival, the equally talented Gina Cavalli. Although they are rivals on the track, Gina is not the “bad guy” in the video game but a shady company known as G.V.I.  Said company is the one sponsoring Rena initially but there is something off with the company.

Gina knows what is going on inside the company and has left the team to start her own prior to the arrival of Rena on the racing scene.  With her mad skills behind the wheel of a race car, Gina took her team named Riccardi to prominence.

She was at the top of her game when she met Rena at the Japan Touring Car Championship on the Yokohama Street Circuit.  At first, Rena was just like a bully as she belittled Rena.  But when racing time came, it was she who bowed down to Rena as the latter took the win in impressive fashion.  After the race, she started to respect Rena and that was the start of the rivalry between the two female drivers.  If only Alonso and Hamilton would have had the same respect for each other just like Gina and Rena, both of them would still be driving for McLaren next season instead of Hamilton only and a new teammate.

Towards the end of the game, Rena found out about the shady dealings of G.V.I. and managed to leave the corporation. She then joined Gina on her team.  They have become friendly rivals towards the end and Gina promised to Rena that she will win all their races.

Anyone following the Indy Racing League would definitely know Danica Patrick.  She is one of the several ladies who have made an impact on the sport dominated by male. Milka Duno, Sarah Fisher, Janet Guthrie, and Lyn St. James are professional drivers past and present who have shown that women can be as fast as men on the tracks.

On the virtual world, women also showed that they can burn rubber as well as men do.  In the racing videogame R-Racing evolution released in 2003 for GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation2, the main character is one fast lady named Rena Hayami.

According to the story, Rena was born in Japan and moved to Ridge City, a fictional location. At the said city, Rena pursues a career as a paramedic given the duties of driving an ambulance.  She has in her the gift which Jeff Gordon could only dream of having.

One day while performing her duties, she was called upon to bring a wounded race car driver to a hospital. Said driver was accompanied by his manager who took note of Rena’s driving skills.  He saw that the driver was really talented when he asked her to go faster to bring the victim faster to a hospital.  Rena did all that she can do behind the wheel to get the victim fast to a hospital thereby impressing the victim’s manager.

The manager then urged Rena to race for the team as the victim will be out indefinitely.  Rena showed that while she is a good driver, she still has a lot to learn when it comes to race car driving.  Thus her manager took her for some practice sessions which made her driving skills improve.  After that, she went on to the Japan Touring Car Championship Class 3 and there met her rival, Gina Cavalli but that’s another story for another post.