ZakStunts

The Stunts life lately from the eyes of Akoss

Life at Stunts World - Akoss Poo's point of view

history January 2004 - January 2006

Inspired by Zak, I decided to tell you how the years went by in the Stunts World for me in the past few years. Zak described the whole as a competition manager, he tried (wanted?) to write general things. As for me, I want to write more personal things, to really let you in the things in my head, in my soul, and a bit, in my heart.

I finished 2003 with an unexpectedly good performance. I won my first races of my career, I finished 3rd at ZakStunts overall standings in the professional league (2nd in the whole league, with different scoring method - but everybody considered the other league scoring as the official one). Alain won the whole seasonal competition, ZakStunts 2003, probably the hardest competition ever. Today, I am still very satisfied with my 3rd place overall in 2003 - that was the best I could do among so superb racers. I won the legendary Kalpen Contest this year, which was back for 3 races during the summer. The prize was the game with the original package, the original disks. KHR and JTK sent it to me by post. I won my second consecutive track design contest - now without ghosts, and without the others knowing which my track is, which filled me up with great pride.

In 2003, we had some very memorable conversations at the chatroom. That was the best chat period for me ever at #stunts. I talked a lot with Bonzai Joe, Zak McKracken, Alan Rotoi. With Bonzai Joe, I discussed the mental world of the champions. We assumed that the current champion is always the one who is the loneliest king. Stunts Racing World means only an island... we're having a rest there until our ship arrives, and we sail away with our girlfriends... The racing spirit tends to fade away (like it was with Roy in 2002, and later with Bonzai Joe and me), but the community feeling remains...

By the end of the year (still talking about 2003), my eternal rival, former class- and roommate, CTG, showed up some frightening results. My dominance among Hungarian racers seemed to be in doubt. 2004 started with the rise of CTG. It was a surprise to everyone. He learnt how to drive by driving like a fool. I assumed that if someone drives at least 20-30 hours per a month and uses replay handling, he will acquire enough experience to find and do the tricks, reproduce his replays (tricks) very quickly. It works for drivers who don't bear the skills in their hands automatically (drivers like Bonzai Joe were born to handle the arrows, but not everyone). It happened with Alain in 2002, and it happened with CTG in early 2004. He was talented and very motivated - he became one of the contenders to the podium places at the overall standings.

2004 began with the dominance of Argammon, but as always, he dropped in only for a few races. He disappeared then, and turned up again later with great results again - but this doesn't influence the battle for the overall podium places. In February, we could live the bloodiest war in Stunts history. The competition level continued to be very high, and Orion had a great month with the Lamborghini LM 002. They maxed their replays out quickly, and they led the scoreboard from the beginning. Mingva was in form of his life. This deceived CTG and me, we considered the leading times of Orion as cheated ones. I was very depressed at that time because of a girl, and I started to say hurtful words to Mingva and Alain on the chat and on the forum. These words became so bloody that Zak had to stop us. He was more or less succeeded, although, his methods weren't the most appropriate. CTG and me, we felt the threat of permban too harsh. That meant Zak also got into the enemy side. The blo ody war went on, and I had enough of it, declared my retirement. I started to live my life. After a short while, I reconsidered the situation, and I changed my mind. I started to race again, I stopped attacking others, and this inspired CTG to race as well. In the end, we almost catched the winning three (including the two ominous Orion drivers).

My mental status also became better, so we could start the real season then. My goal was to finish as high as I can at the overall standings, and if it was possible, to win a track at last. It seemed that CTG and me would have to fight against Orion, Bonzai Joe and Argammon. We wasn't right. A new talented driver appeared, Gutix. He became stronger and stronger month by month, and by March, he became unbeatable. He was the man to beat throughout the whole season, collecting several victories. CTG and me we fought several hard battles against each other, and for podium places. It was stirred up by a conflict in March: CTG beat me under quite unfair circumstances. The fight became very sharp again in November. As I told to CTG that I have a stunning replay, and I may win that track (ZCT 45), he again started to drive like a fool - like probably never before. In the end, he stole the victory from me (we beat everybody with a big gap), I could dry my tears only on finishing secon d in overall standings behind Gutix (and finishing higher than CTG there). I had some affairs during the year (including attacking Orion, including time/replay hiding/showing with CTG, including criticising Zak's girlfriends, who has a taste that is almost the opposite of mine), especially when I was in bad mood, but in the end, I was rather satisfied with the happenings. I finished another good season.

And what was the main reason of my satisfaction? In this year, the Internet community became a real community. The drivers who could see each other on photos and on the scoreboards earlier... now they meet each other live. In August, Zak McKracken hosted the first World Stunts Meeting. We had a great week in Budapest. Without any conflicts, without a bad hour. We had a lot parties (almost each night we went out to the city, almost each night we drank), we had a bike trip to the nearby mountains (we had an uphill time trial on Hármashatár-hegy), and one of our old dreams was fulfilled: to drive live against each other, without using replay handling. It turned out that Bonzai Joe is the best driver among us. I followed him in the second place, winning about 3 events (all others were won by Bonzai Joe). We invented some famous songs, we had some memorable meals (I mean mainly Zak's chilli beans). It was the first time when I could practise my above-intermediate English... well, I could face how perfect Zak's, Bonzai Joe's and Thomas' English is. I decided to improve on it. We did the sightseeing around Budapest, and we had a voyage trip to Visegrád - everyone enjoyed that... having a cold beer aboard, observing the sky, talking, playing 'Live Stunts'... and it was just a moment of a fantastic meeting...

This year was followed by the year of 2005. I had two main goals: to win a track at ZakStunts (I knew that I couldn't finish higher than the previous overall 2nd, so I decided to put more effort into some tracks instead of the whole season), and to travel to the Second World Stunts Meeting, hold in Denmark (that time it was planned to hold in Germany). I continued racing, but...

...I found my girlfriend then. 21st January I travelled to the town of Veszprém. A girl, Laura, and me, after knowing each other for 9 months, after an adventurous and long fight, we fell in love with each other, find ourselves, grabbed each other's hands... that meant I stopped playing Stunts. I was very happy, I was lovesick, I had no reason to continue racing here. I experienced a lot of new things in the life - it seemed I had found my happiness. I was a part of the community, but I wasn't a racer on the scoreboard.

But this didn't last for ever. We broke up in May, the hardest months in my life came. I didn't have the racing spirit, but to busy myself, I decided to continue racing. I had two good months, in the second, I won the first ZakStunts event of my career. I had been waiting for that for long long years, however, it didn't really make me happy. I couldn't really cheer for it - the racing spirit faded away. I wanted to continue driving, but I had to face with computer problems during the autumn. My computer on which Stunts runs, broke down in October, that meant the possibility of my real return decreased to almost zero. I was knocked out by the happenings of May, I was trying to be myself, I had strange feelings, however, I wasn't sad. I just lived a saturnine life. I came to the end of 2005 in this status.

While I was womanizing, having computer problems and trying to find myself again, big things happened in the Stunts life. Some mysterious Argentinian drivers appeared, and dominated the new season. Chulk and Ayrton became great winners, and when Gutix was active, he performed quite well, too. First I thought (and I guess CTG still thinks) that they are unexisting drivers, there's somebody who creates the replays for them. We had some reasons for it (no activity from them on forum, becoming too good too quickly etc.), but there was no real evidence. Fortunately, it didn't broke the community up. They (the new, talented Argentinians) replied with signs of life (Chulk on the forum, Ayrton trying to speak English to Zak on msn) and with continuous fantastic results. Season was won by Ayrton.

This year's world meeting was held, too. Bonzai Joe hosted the squad at his home, in the city of Aarhus, Denmark. This meeting was about equally good as the first, but it had a quite different feeling. We went out to have a party in the city only once, and we made no trips to the other fields of the country. We had different programs (e.g. tivoli park), and we stayed in most of the cases. We saw some new faces, like Diesel Joe and Krys Toff, it also made the meeting different from the previous. We also drank a lot, like in the previous year (but heavy drunkenness and vomitting didn't occur this time). We had a lot of great food, we invented a lot of great new songs (including the famous international fisse song, and the drinking song about Diesel Joe). We had more live races, and they were more exciting - thanks to Zak, who invented a new type of live contest. I got to know a new country, some new people, I practised my English abroad, I had some great parties (the best was t he night bathing in the cold sea after previously getting drunken)... and I returned to home with many great memories and nice experiences.

We arrived to today now in the story. It's mid winter and -5 Celsius out there, and I'm ready for something new. I'm ready to start something new. I know that my life will soon be changing. New hostel, new people, maybe I will meet some new girls. I tend to change my company of friends, too. And I'm ready to race at ZakStunts again. I don't want to 'compete', I just want to spend a part of my free time with 'driving really fast laps'. It will rather be a hobby than a competition for me. Because I love this game, and I want to belong to this community... despite the fact that I show the opposite when I'm feeling down. And I want to participate in this year's meeting as well... Budapest will become the capital of Stunts life once again... I will be waiting for you all in Budapest, in August...

Akoss Poo (R)

Kazincbarcika, 11th January 2006 2:24 CET