Disciplines

Five disciplines, each with its own ladder and points table (Rank and championship). Each discipline's technical rules are in Regulations; race lengths are in Season.

Discipline	What it is
Grip	Multi-lap circuit racing, in four sub-formats: Open Grip (full field, mixed specification), Class Grip (one performance class), Sector Shootout (the track is divided into sectors and points are awarded per fastest sector), and Time Attack (single fastest lap, no wheel-to-wheel running).
Drag	Straight line over a fixed distance: manual staging, launch, shift precision. Build specialisation is near-total; a drag car is useless elsewhere.
Drift	Scored runs judged on angle, speed, line and commitment: two solo runs and a team tandem.
Speed	Long, fast, narrow point-to-point routes where top speed and stability at the limit matter more than cornering.
Sprint	Point-to-point racing on closed public roads between two marked points. Wheel-to-wheel, no laps, no second chance at a corner.

Running order

Every festival event is entered by two cars from the same team: the protagonist and his discipline teammate (Team). How those two cars run differs in every discipline, and is part of what each discipline is. Personalities are defined in Relationships.

Sprint

Both cars together, from the same grid. A full grid with both team entries released at once — eight cars, in the heat or final structure (How an event runs). No phases, no solo running: a point-to-point race from a standing start, with the teammate simply another car wearing the same colours.

Team relationship: positional. Sprint has no cooperation mechanic of its own, but a rival directly behind the protagonist is a rival a teammate can be between.

Personality	Behaviour toward the protagonist's race
Wingman	Actively defends. Will drop back to cover the protagonist, hold a faster rival for the whole distance, and finish lower than he could to do it.
Metronome	Neutral. Races his own race cleanly; a rolling obstacle to whoever is behind him.
Technician	Vulnerable. Fast in clean air; gives up positions as soon as someone sits on his bumper.
Competitor	Races the protagonist as hard as anyone else. If he is quicker, he passes him.
Brawler	Will physically block, and will earn the conduct multiplier proving it.
Spike	Either leads the race or is not in it.

Both entries score their own classified position, and the two are summed. Sprint is the baseline the other four vary.

Grip

The running order changes by sub-format:

Sub-format	Running order
Open Grip	Both cars on the grid, full field, simultaneous
Class Grip	Both cars on the grid, restricted to one performance class
Time Attack	Sequential: the teammate runs alone, then the protagonist runs alone. No wheel-to-wheel contact is possible.
Sector Shootout	Sequential: each car runs the full lap alone; sectors are timed independently.

Team relationship: additive, never cooperative. In the timed sub-formats the two drivers never share a track — no slipstream, no blocking, no interference, no way to help. The team score is the plain sum of two solo performances.

This makes Time Attack and Sector Shootout the purest read of a teammate's quality in the festival. Nothing the protagonist does can flatter or drag down the number. A weak Grip teammate is visible on the timing sheet, alone, in public, every round.

Drag

Sequential qualifying, then a bracket that can pair teammates against each other.

1. Qualifying. Each car runs the strip alone against the clock — teammate first, protagonist second. Elapsed times set the bracket seeding.
2. Elimination. The sixteen fastest qualifiers race head to head, two lanes, single elimination. Seeding places the two team entries on opposite sides of the bracket, so they cannot meet before the final.

If both reach the final, they race each other. It is the only event in the festival where the protagonist races his own teammate with something on the line, and the game does not soften it:

• The team scores first and second whatever the outcome — the maximum available.
• The individual Driver Rank does not: one of them wins the round and one does not.
• Whether the teammate gives the win away depends on Personality. A Wingman or a Metronome at Loyal will hand it over. A Competitor will not, at any Standing — he came to win, and the game does not treat that as betrayal.

Drift

Three phases, ending as a pair. The most structured event in the festival, and the only one where the two team entries are scored as a single unit.

1. Teammate solo. He runs the course alone, judged on angle, speed, line and commitment. The protagonist watches from the wall; he cannot intervene, cannot advise once the run starts, and his own performance has not begun.
2. Protagonist solo. Same course, judges and criteria, run alone.
3. Team tandem. The two run the course together as a pair, lead and chase, on track alongside another team's pair. This phase is scored on synchronisation: proximity held through the corners, matched angle, matched transition timing, and the chase car mirroring the lead car's line without contact.

How the solo and tandem scores form a classification is in Drift scoring.

Team relationship: the deepest in the game, gated by both axes. Standing decides whether the teammate is trying to synchronise; Personality decides whether he can.

	Friendly	Loyal
Metronome / Wingman	Predictable; holds a usable line	Best tandem scores in the game: identical lines, matched transitions
Technician	Precise alone, hesitant in proximity	Synchronises, but only after a run or two to settle
Competitor	Runs his own line; will not follow	Tries to lead every phase; the pair scores well but never cleanly
Brawler	Close, aggressive, contact risk	Very close, very committed; occasional contact that costs both of them
Spike	Unusable — either perfect or in the wall	The same, with more commitment

Two drivers who trust each other and are temperamentally able to work together score dramatically higher than two who are merely both fast. Drift is the one discipline a player cannot win on driving alone, placed deliberately in a game about a man who spent five acts insisting he needed no one.

Speed

Released together, and the slipstream is real. Both cars are released as a pair over a long, fast point-to-point route; trap speeds and elapsed times are recorded individually.

Team relationship: mechanically cooperative, and Personality decides who benefits. At Speed velocities the slipstream is worth real time, and the car in front gives it away: a tow is a genuine sacrifice, the lead car taking the full aerodynamic load so the follower does not.

Personality	At Friendly	At Loyal
Wingman	Leads by instinct, gives the tow	Leads the whole run, gives the tow
Metronome	Holds station wherever he starts	Leads and gives the tow
Technician	Uses the tow himself	Alternates, trading the lead
Competitor	Takes the tow and keeps it	Takes the tow and keeps it — he will not give up trap speed for anyone
Brawler	Sits far too close	Sits far too close, and the contact risk at that speed is real
Spike	Unpredictable	Unpredictable

The team total is the sum of both cars, so a teammate sacrificing his trap speed to lift the protagonist's is not always the best team play — and the ones who do it anyway do it because of who they are, not because it is correct.

Summary

Discipline	Running order	What the teammate can be
Sprint	Simultaneous, full grid	A shield, an obstacle, or a rival
Grip — Open / Class	Simultaneous, full grid	A shield, an obstacle, or a rival
Grip — Time Attack / Sector Shootout	Sequential solo	A number on the sheet, nothing more
Drag	Solo qualifying, then head-to-head bracket	A potential opponent in the final
Drift	Teammate solo, protagonist solo, then tandem pair	A partner, and the score depends on it
Speed	Released as a pair	A tow, or someone using yours

The five-car requirement

No car can be legal in two disciplines at once. Every pair of disciplines is separated by at least one regulation that one requires and the other forbids (Regulations):

	Drag	Drift	Speed	Sprint
Grip	Grip requires treaded competition tyres; Drag requires drag radials or slicks	Drift requires an angle kit; Grip prohibits one	Speed's stability aero exceeds Grip's dimensional limits	Grip caps ride height below Sprint's minimum
Drag	—	Drag requires a wheelie bar; Drift prohibits one	Drag requires drag radials or slicks; Speed requires speed-rated tyres	Same tyre conflict as Grip
Drift		—	Drift requires ABS disabled; Speed requires ABS enabled	Drift requires an angle kit; Sprint prohibits one
Speed			—	Speed's stability aero exceeds Sprint's dimensional limits

Beyond legality, each car is useless elsewhere anyway: a drift car is unusable at Speed velocities, a drag car cannot turn, and a Speed car's long gearing and heavy aero make it hopeless over a Sprint's corner sequence.

The player therefore maintains at least five separate cars, each acquired in the city, each built and tuned for one discipline's rulebook. Converting one car between rulebooks is possible but costs workshop time (Blueprints), and a race date runs two to four disciplines on the same day, so a converted car could only ever cover one of them.

This is the festival's real cost. Money earned in the city is not a score; it is the budget for five compliant cars and ten salaries (Salaries), and the player goes back to the streets to earn it. Teammates' own cars are covered in Team.