Marcy Quail

Blackwood Gazette #189- Marcy Quail Destroys Competition in Rommsbach

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By Huxley Pruitt, Sports

15/9- Marcy Quail may be on the verge of a winning streak in the Pandion Racing League, as she took the top spot in the Horizon division for the second race in a row. Not only did she win, she completely destroyed the competition.

The colonial born pilot once again found herself going head to head with Perys Kerby during the weekend’s last race. The two pilots stayed neck and neck for the first half of the race, until Quail blew past him at the turn around.

“I miscalculated the wind direction and over corrected,” Kerby said, taking full responsibility for his defeat. “It was a dumb mistake. Not to take away from Miss Quail’s victory. That was a difficult course, and a lesser pilot would have balked at some of the stunts I pulled to out-maneuver her.”

Despite Kerby’s admission that his defeat was a result of his own oversight, many other Horizon racers continue to accuse Quail of cheating. Some have even suggested that she and Kerby are romantically involved, and that Kerby took a dive.

“That’s a load and a half,” Quail said when asked about the accusations. “Kerby and me don’t even like each other. In fact we can’t stand each other, out of the cockpit. Loud mouthed braggarts, the both of us. But he’s honest…he’s a good racer, and he knows the only way he’s gonna beat me down the line is if he’s truthful about why he lost in the first place and fixes it. If the others would do the same thing, perhaps they’d have a chance against the Green Chopper.”

The Green Chopper refers to Quail’s aircraft, a souped-up first generation crop duster.

The victory puts Quail in the position of the being the first Horizon racer to face a Legacy racer at the Oeil de Fleur race in two weeks. The event will be the first where the two divisions will finally go head to head.

Blackwood Gazette #189- Marcy Quail Destroys Competition in Rommsbach

Blackwood Gazette # 180- Accusations and Rivalries Flair During Walsh Race II

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By Huxley Pruitt, Sports

24/8- Blood ran hot amongst the participants of the Pandion Racing League this week, as the second half of the inaugural season began with the Walsh Race II. A number of upsets and several near misses led to accusations of carelessness and cheating.

The first mishap happened before the first race even began, when Legacy League racer Aaron Deuboe, who many have taken to calling the Disappointment of Saderale due to his abysmal performance over the course of the season, reportedly cut across opponent Hardisty Pender’s flight path during takeoff. Many have questioned why a lower tier racer like Deuboe was doing racing against a top tier racer like Pender to begin with.

“It was a challenge, made by Deuboe to Pender, after Pender made light of Deuboe’s three legged dog, Locksley,” said Mathis Galland. “I approved the race, thinking a gentleman’s duel would help spice up the Legacy League’s showing after continuing criticism over the League’s rather ‘professional’ racing style. In other words, people find Legacy boring.”

This revelation has led some to question the validity of the league. Is Pandion Racing concerned with providing a legitimate test of aviation skills, or is it more concerned with putting on a show?

“Why not both?” was Galland’s only reply to that question.

The drama continued with the Horizon league the next day, as Marcy Quail took the top spot this week, knocking down Perys Kerby to second. While Kerby was cordial in abdicating his spot to Quail, the Lakenheath Twins, whom Quail defeated at Waystation Bravo, very loudly accused the colonial woman of sabotage. The accusation was then backed up by Gideon Hotoft and Jedidiah Seabury, both racers who have lost to Quail.

Hotoft, Seabury, and the Lakenheaths’ planes all showed signs of tampering. It was believed that the league’s officials would suspend Quail’s victory pending an investigation, until Kerby showed that his plane had not been tampered with in any way. Kerby suggested a conspiracy might be afoot amongst the Horizon racers to oust the lone female racer. With no evidence of either possibility, however, the officials simply issued a warning that any mechanical malfeasance would be met with expulsion from the league, and a fine of up to 5,000 gold.

The next Pandion race will be held on a new course along the coast of Rommsbach. As usual, tickets have already sold out.

Blackwood Gazette # 180- Accusations and Rivalries Flair During Walsh Race II

Blackwood Gazette #170- Racing Fever Overshadows Fear as Thousands Flock to Waystation Bravo for Pandion Event

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By Huxley Pruitt, Sports

3/8- Many people voiced concern over the fledgling Pandion Racing League’s decision to stage its latest event on the newly relaunched Waystation Bravo, given its grim history over the last year. Even more expressed the idea that the government sponsored event was no more than a ploy to get people onto the station to see that everything is running smoothly.

Despite all of this, the event’s turnout proved to be the League’s best yet. This of course brought out concerns that the station was over capacity, with many over nighters forced to either bunk on ships or camp in common areas. The station suffered no failures over the weekend and it seems that the event’s secondary objective, to sway public perception of the station, has succeeded as well.

“This isn’t so bad,” one attendee, standing in line at a job recruitment booth said. “The place is pretty clean, you can still smell the paint, and I haven’t seen a single trace of ghosts nor heard any whispers in the dark since I got here an hour ago. Figure I might as well apply since I lost my job at Klankenvroot last year.”

As for the races themselves, opinions weren’t as warm as they have been in the past. Many cite the fact that the open air of the barrier ocean wasn’t nearly exciting as the wild twists and turns of the Serpent’s Tongue canyon event two weeks ago. Nevertheless, the races brought some stunning upsets, the most notable of which was Horizon League racer Marcy Quail’s victory over both Lakenheath twins in subsequent head to head events, knocking them off the winner’s podium and taking second place overall, after Perys Kerby, reclaiming first place after his defeat at Serpent’s Tongue.

The Legacy League saw no such upsets, with the winner’s podium remaining static over last week. Gargary Dobbs remained in the top slot, followed by “Bonzo” Doosly in second and Hardisty Pender in third.

The next event will return to Walsh once again, where Mathis Galland promises a course reworked to take into consideration feedback from fans and racers alike, as well as data collected during the Serpent’s Tongue race.

“My course designers are committed to delivering a wide range of ever changing events and course layouts,” Galland said. “Things will only get more exciting and complex with time, so stay tuned!”

Blackwood Gazette #170- Racing Fever Overshadows Fear as Thousands Flock to Waystation Bravo for Pandion Event

Blackwood Gazette #151- Pandion Air Racing League Opens with Outstanding Numbers

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By Huxley Pruitt, Sports

6/7- The first annual Pandion Aerodynamics Racing Circuit got underway this weekend in Walsh, drawing thousands of citizens from around the Triumvirate for some high flying racing action. For two days the best pilots in the empire showed those of us with our feet trapped firmly on the ground what a plane can do, and then pushed those planes just a little bit more.

The Legacy League provided fast action out of the gate, with a head to head race between Tobias Cuthbertson, former Captain of the Crowndon Air Corps, and “Bonzo” Doosly, retired pilot for Nor Easter. They were neck and neck for most of race, cutting close corners around the course’s obstacles. The turnaround occurred around the last turn, when Doosly clipped Cuthbertson, sending both air craft careening. The crowd watched in silence as Cuthbertson brought his craft under control and pulled ahead, winning the race with a two second spread and earning cheers from the mostly Crowndonian crowd. Cuthbertson would go on to dominate the weekend for the Legacy League, beating Walsh’s own Parker Behan and Toring’s Hardisty Pender for the top of the winner’s podium.

The second day of racing focused on the Horizon League, and if you asked anyone in the crowd, this league, made up mostly of amateur and trade pilots, is the reason they came out. Promising head-spinning stunts and a true sense of derring-do, the Horizon League did not disappoint.

The-Middle-of-Nowhere’s Gideon Hotoft shut down des Anges’ Micah Le Fleur in a stomach churning stunt race to open the event. This exhibition was followed by a heavily modified version of the head to head course the Legacy League raced the day before, featuring more obstacles and tighter turns. Hotoft once again put on a good show, but ultimately came in third on the podium. The first place pot ultimately went to Rommsbach’s Perys Kerby, while second place went to the controversial woman pilot, Marcy Quail.

After the races were over, we spoke to Mathis Galland, owner of Pandion and the creator of the races, about how he felt the event fared.

“I think it’s safe to say it was a rousing success!” he told us. “The crowds were going wild at every close call and photo finish, and we’re already getting requests from sponsors who want to enter their own racers for a second season.”

Tickets for the next event, two weeks from now in Des Anges, have already sold out.

Blackwood Gazette #151- Pandion Air Racing League Opens with Outstanding Numbers

Blackwood Gazette #111- Mathis Galland Signs Colonial Woman to his Racing League; Four Others Back Out

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By Huxley Pruitt, Sports

30/4- Mathis Galland’s much anticipated air racing league has hit a snag this week. His decision to sign Marcy Quail, a woman bush pilot from the colonies’ northern territories, has sparked controversy amongst those racers already signed as well as the wider sports world.

“The idea of a woman competing with a man is patently ridiculous,” said Bart Blunderberg, a racer from Rommsbach who formerly served as an officer in the Crowndon Air Corps and announced his resignation from the league upon hearing the news. “It always has been. That’s why we have separate leagues in all other sports, if the women have leagues at all. It’s bad enough we have to race against these backwoods hicks from the Middle of Nowhere with their third rate scrap jobs, but women? From the colonies, on top of that? I’m done.”

Three other racers backed out at the news as well, all of them from the tentatively named Legacy League (a title self-proclaimed by those racers hailing from the military and private service amongst the Triumvirate aristocracy.) Mathis Galland does not seem worried, however.

“If they want to behave like children and stomp out of the room holding their toys, let them,” Galland said. “There is no room in my league for such behavior. And the nature of racing, one of mechanical, rather than physical, prowess and skill render the typical arguments against integrated sports leagues irrelevant in this matter. Not that that would matter, in Miss Quail’s case. She’s six foot four and two hundred pounds of pure muscle. When I went to recruit her, she’d just thrown some poor sod who’d gotten too fresh with her through a wall.

“If someone can maintain and fly their aircraft, I couldn’t give two wet [expletive removed] where they’re from or what their genitals are. It’s also noteworthy that those pilots who dropped out are from Crowndon, and the Crowndon military at that. It’s well known they don’t allow women in combat roles, while we here in Nor Easter do. Now, I don’t want to say that our fighting women are the sole reason we won the war, but…we have fighting women, and we won the war.”

Blackwood Gazette #111- Mathis Galland Signs Colonial Woman to his Racing League; Four Others Back Out