In a distant planet in an elliptical galaxy lives a red lizard. This lizard was unlike any other. He stood a mere hand tall and drove an equally teeny machine, the famous tin podracer.
The tin podracer was as it sounds; it was a clunky machine of clockwork and tinplate. His mechanical genius aunt built it from rubber bands, gum arabic, and parts bought from the junkyard. He had spent much of his meager childhood piloting the tin aerocraft, to dust the farmland upon which his family had grew shekelsol, eringlœ, and virrimit.
Such was the life of the red lizard, everyday was a drudgery on the rural planet they live in. The natural short lives of his species and the seasonal change by the hour had the red lizard crave action beyond an endless cycle of securing and ensuring. He wished to do something, something daring, something death-defying, something life-changing.
Almost all of his time he spent on piloting the meagre aircraft. He went speeding across the wide open air, twirling between the dry twisters characteristic of his home planet. He went on daredevil trips, performing loops, rolls, and tricks high in the sky. It became a point of contention with his family at times. He was reminded oftentimes that the duster, though tinny and shoddy, was not a toy that is to be played and broken.
The tin aircraft, despite being antiquated and used, was very cheap. It was a bargain of course, but a dozen gringes was a still a heavy price paid.
It was then that he had overheard of an event occurring very near. This event was the Tri-Sector Area Open Registration Podracing. It was a well-known biannual event, but to a farmer in a rural planet, it's something unheard of.
His dreams of the greatness that many up-and-coming champions aspire to achieve began here. Up above the skies of their farm, trailing behind a speeding sky-yacht, the ribbon advertisement of the TSAORP fluttered in the wind. It displayed proudly in the local tongue and script an invitation to the event, an invitation that the lizard received and entertained.
It was an opportunity of a lifetime, and something that the lizard cannot simply reject. The lizard hopped onto their tin crop duster and fired up the on-board reckoner to direct him to the registration hall.
The hall was lively that hour. Foreign registrants fell in line before the booth. Racers from numerous systems flocked to the planet to participate in the contest. Except for the red lizard, no other local could be found vying for a spot in the contest. Podracing had never been a tradition or popular sport in the agrarian planet.
The lizard was overjoyed to take a spot in the TSAORP, but the same could not be said to the rest of his family. Of his 42 siblings, 63 niblings, and 237 cousins, the number of those who approved and are excited in his placement to the sport was no more than he had fingers. The only person who felt excited with fullest sincerity was his aunt who built the machine.
While the rest of the family argued over the practicality of the crop duster being gone and busy for multiple hourly harvest cycles, the ultimate decision fell to that aunt. For she created the machine and so it shall be her responsibility to decide on the matters of the tin crop duster, and her decision had been set from the very beginning: may it be the farm become disadvantaged by the disappearance of their trusty duster, a rare opportunity had shown itself to them and it would be a shame for it to be ignored and a little bit more labor for the meantime is worth it just to grab this opportunity.
This had driven up the spirits of the red lizard and promised that he would acquire the foremost place in the race. The day of the contest's start was a few days away, but the lizard hadn't lazed nor neglected his duty on the fields. When the tin aircraft wasn't busy in the dusting of fields, the red pilot would take it for a spin across the skies. The lizard drove the dusting machine across distances at record speeds. He handled curves with utmost expertise never before seen by his family.
Soon, the day of reckoning came: the biannual Tri-Sector Area Open Registration Podracing had begun its opening ceremonies. Atop the platform built upon the surface Gretin, a rocky of moon of the Jovian sixth planet of the his home solar system, the numerous racers of various renown stood by their vehicles. The gleaming metallic and colorful hulls of the parked spaceships stood out in the cold desolate landscape. Their flying machines stood contrast to the dull olive rocks and craters that peppered the moon.
There were many vehicles, fitted and designed with their pilot in mind. Each of them sized appropriately to accommodate one sole passenger. Their shapes and engineering varied wildly from one to the other: some were boxy boats while others were arrowhead yachts.
The red lizard and his tin podracer stood out in crowd. He was by far the smallest participant of the contest; a third the size of the second-smallest participant. His tin podracer was smaller than a Thymeian Universal breadbox. His appearance had attracted a little curiousity. His size was commented upon, nicknaming him the Croissant and the Tin Breadbox. He paid it no heed.
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As the opening ceremonies and sponsorship announcements came to a close, the race proper was slated to happen. The pilots boarded their the podracers and started their engines. The hum of engines and fumes of exhaust filled the platform. One by one, the vehicles slowly floated off the platform as the signal light flashed the color of jormit.
When the signal turned kinneek-colored, all the racers simultaneously flew off the platform, albeit at differing velocities. The spacecrafts were mere blurs in the speed of their flight.
The race entails that the participants fly to 22 buoys in order. The organizers had stationed these buoys in the upper of atmosphere of gas giant Gretin. The buoys emitted an constant signal to indicate their location and order. The reckoners of each podracer had been programmed to direct their pilots to the next buoy.
The racers approached the first buoy, floating placidly at the far reach of the planet's atmosphere. The race would only get harder. While races that dip into a planet's surface are not unheard of, an entire course mostly going through soupy Jovian air was uncommon. Most podracers are often designed for optimal performance in the vaccuum of space, but podracers are also designed with some semblance of aerodynamism.
The red lizard had an advantage here. His vehicle was designed for aerodynamic flight first. Of all the podracers that entered the gas giant's atmosphere, the red lizard's was the only one which sped up as it entered. Whereas the others struggled to speed up, the tin podracer accelerated to the front of the race where it stayed.
The red lizard deftly weaved between the thick clouds that jutted above the top cloud layer. The buoys were strategically placed so that the racers had to take curves and even turn around.
Even against racers with advantageous equipment, those with bigger thrusters and stronger engines, the tin podracer flew spearhead with its efficient design. Its pilot used its efficiency to fullest as he skillfully wove through cloud clusters to reach the buoys they surround.
The red lizard soon came to spiral around a thunderhead. The cumulonimbus towered over the swirling cloud layer below. Its teal body rife with crystalline precipitates stood contrast to the orange surroundings. Atop it was the final buoy in the planet; the rest now lay in outer space and on the greenish-blue surface of the moon Herlta.
The tin podracer breached the atmosphere of the Jovian soon after it tagged the buoy. It is where its advantages would wane. The tin podracer moved in the airless void of the space between the moons with the speed of a hopping kirneeki. Despite its slowness in space, no other racers had passed by since he was so far ahead in the race.
But the other racers flew like the wind in airless voids, and soon the red lizard's headstart would wane. The second placer had already crossed half the planetary-lunar gap when the red lizard had grazed his podracer near the first buoy on Herlta.
There were only three buoys on Herlta, and the moon was frankly tiny compared to giant size of the Jovian, but its smallness was no excuse for poor performance.
The moon of Herlta had a geology made mostly of banded and speckled rocks. Its surface was rife of wide deep crevasses. The organizers of course put the buoys inside the cracks.
The red lizard wasn't the first placer anymore. He had placed firmly in fourth place as a few others had passed him, but he was not discouraged. He had a chance. He had just exited the little crack that housed the final buoy and it was on the final stretch. A few kilometers of relatively flat landscape stretched between the last buoy and the finish line.
The first three raced placidly for the finish line, conserving precious fuel and energy. It was not only to ensure their place, but also to occasionally avoid the spikes that jut off the surface. The mostly atmospheric course took toll to their reserves, but to the red lizard, it was a blessing. When the others spent their resources to speed up in the atmosphere, the atmosphere sped up the tin podracer. The tin podracer still had half of its gas tank even in the last leg of the race, an advantage that the red lizard will soon take.
With the finish line clear in sight, the tin podracer accelerated. The lizard put the pedal the metal and his ride zoomed across the landscape. This act drew the gasps and oohs of the audience as the vehicles rapidly approached the leading racers.
The red lizard used his piloting expertise to weave between the jutting spikes. His tinny vehicle oftentimes came to close calls where it barely avoided crashing onto the extruded rocks. The sharp turns and rapid speeds made his performance thrilling, but nothing brought more excitement than his quick approach to the finish line.
Many had thought that even at this speed the lizard could only place fourth, but some had faith that the reptile could make to the top. It was a close one.
The leading three had an oncoming challenger rapidly approaching. They were packed closely, seeking to overtake one over the other, seeking to take the prized the first place. They were confident. The finish line lay just a hundred meters away.
'There was no way the pipsqueak could pass us by before we could make it,' they thought in their heads. Oh how wrong they were.
The foremost racer just lay approaching the finish line five meters away. They were confident, it was for sure, the runner-ups thought so too, but before their vehicle could graze the sensor array that detects their crossing of the line, a podracer whizzed by them with alarming rapidity.
It was the tin podracer passing by fast. The lizard held on his steering wheel as he guided his vehicle to victory. Verily victory. The former foremost followed him past just a scant half-second.
With no more fuel and energy, the tin podracer sagged. It dropped from its comfortable height above the surface and crashed into the rocky lunar ground, grazing the a line that stretched a few meters.
It was a wild victory.
He exited the tin podracer as the hosts and press approached him for his victory. It was an unprecedented victory that would cost a pretty penny to some betters.
He would bring home a gilded trophy and some prize money to the farm. The runner-ups stared aghast at the winner, but nonetheless took his victory in stride (albeit with a tinge of jealousy).
But this close victory was just the beginning of the illustrious career of the Red Lizard in the Tin Podracer.