<div align="center"><span class="bbc_u">CarnivalOfTheGoat</span></div><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"><em><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 10pt;">"My Daddy, think what you will about him, felt inspired to name me Rex. Now there's two ways I figure to look at that. If you believe names mean anything. Either I'm gonna be the cause of some serious crash and burn...Or baby, I'm the King. And I tell you, I've never been in one I couldn't walk away from, and I don't plan to start."</span></em></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/><div class="floatright">(http://24.media.tumblr.com/f316e8d5e841d371e8c1e041f71f6971/tumblr_mguw35lsqM1r9tnh2o1_500.png)</div><br/><span class="bbc_u">Character Name</span>: Rex Hartmann<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Age</span>: 12 September, 27 y/o<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Character build</span>: A lean and hungry five-foot-ten, one-forty. Pale-skinned, dark Germanic. The slight hint of a sneer seems to have been factory installed on his face - it's there even when he sleeps. Of course, when he means it, it becomes even worse.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Affiliation</span>: Street racer, occasional smuggler, parts-shop stocker. Rex works by day in an auto-parts shop, doing stock-work and making deliveries to dealerships and local mechanics. Undoubtedly while some small part of his financial success has to do with the occasional shipment gone missing, significantly more of it has to do with the occasional shipment that contains things it shouldn't...and his willingness to make deliveries on those things without asking questions. As a parts-counter guy, he's only a barely adequate mechanic - but he's willing to trade parts or cash to see a job done right on his car. When Friday night rolls around, he's a bat out of Hell any place he can find someone worth challenging, putting his legal and illegal earnings on the line in the best tuned vehicle he's been able to have cobbled together.<br/><br/><hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://jaydeemmm.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/240f3-4b-n2.jpg)</div><span class="bbc_u">Automotive Preference (The car)</span>:Grey market import 2002 Autech Silvia S15 Spec-R Varietta (What's a Varietta?! It's a powered hardtop Silvia convertible (and Rex's retains the original factory wing shown in this gallery that is NOT in the above image) (http://jm-imports.co.uk/index.php/2000-nissan-silvia-widearch-varietta-500ps-6-speed-manual/)...coated in carbon black and with a black pearl 'ghost' checkered flag scrolling across the passenger side of the hood and passenger front fender...the pearlescent paint becoming visible only when the light hits it right. (http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/76/f9bdeb33457b4001bb463883ddeacab2/l.jpg) As might be expected of a grey market import, it is RHD.)<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Brief History</span>: Rex isn't an evil guy. He isn't malicious or deliberately cruel, he's just got a somewhat broken moral compass and very low tolerance for rules or laws that get in his way.<br/><br/>Rex's divorced mother took him with her to California when he was ten, and with her constant bitching about alimony payments instilled in him a sense of the unfairness of the world and its lack of respect for an individual's entitlement. As time went on, he saw less and less of his father, a low-end stock-car driver who made ends meet by working as a club magician (when he could find such employment) and doing children's parties (when he couldn't). These two miserable people were the exemplars from which Rex derived the Way the World Works:<br/><br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>The hand is quicker than the eye.</li><li>Everything's got to come from somewhere. You gain, somebody else loses. That's the breaks.</li><li>Sometimes you've got to take what you're entitled to.</li><li>The best way to control an audience is to focus their attention.</li></ul><br/>Growing into his teenage years in California, Rex never stopped craving the spotlight. He was the second-best quarterback on the school team, until he got caught with steroids because he was tired of being second best.<br/><br/>At 17, he ended up pleading to a misdemeanor reckless driving charge that was part of a joyriding case against two of his friends. Because one of the accused thieves was eighteen, the case was uneasily divided between the juvenile and criminal courts. As his friends frequently worked on, bought, and sold automobiles, and were witnessed picking him up in the stolen car, he argued that he hadn't been told the car was stolen, and still wasn't aware when they were finally pulled over. He was fined, his license was suspended briefly, but because he was tried as a juvenile this is a 'sealed record.'<br/><br/>It is only because of this sealed record that he was able to get a driving job at eighteen while he was going to tech school. After his first year, he rapidly became one of the highest-paid young cabbies in the San Francisco Checkered cab fleet - until they figured out he was using every trick in the book to jump fares and run up the meter while using speed to convince passengers that they were getting somewhere fast, even though the 'short cut' was the long way around. It was around this time that he first started racing in SCCA Autocross events - solo slalom-course races that rewarded pushing the limits of control to make the best time through a difficult course. The skills he picked up would serve him well later.<br/><br/>At twenty-one, he was involved in a three-car pileup that was ostensibly the result of street racing. Rex insisted blithely that he was a non-participant, casting the blame on the other two, both of whom were also being charged with DUI (Rex was, perhaps surprisingly, clean). He got out of it with what amounted to a minor hand-slap, but his insurance agency then tried to charge him as well, and by the time it was done he had no car and a rather large legal debt. He couldn't keep doing his work without a car, and he couldn't pay off the debt without a job - hell, even with the job, he couldn't easily pay off his debt. Enter his old acquaintance Fernando, who knew some people who knew some people who could get him some money, quick, but he would have to repay it.<br/><br/>Rex understood from the beginning that he needed to pay the debt off in full and on-time, if not sooner. He made a pretty good impression for the first half year. Never missed a payment, always handed over a little extra, never made it necessary for anybody to ask where he was, much less where his money was. Better still, Fernando eased him into an evenings and weekends job that was significantly more lucrative...He just had to do some regular travelling to Mexico, behave himself at the border, and not ask too many questions. In time, his debtors merged with his employers, and when he finally paid off what he owed, he had a nice, regular source of side-income.<br/><br/>Two years later, after 9/11, the borders got a lot tougher. Rex had fewer appointments, and things seemed more and more dangerous. He'd gotten a decent job at an auto parts store, though, and in 2002, he got asked if he handled shipping and receiving. Why yes, yes he did. This was convenient, since a great many aftermarket and semi-OEM parts were produced in Mexico and shipped into the U.S. without much in the way of inspection. Rex simply had to make the right orders from the right companies at the right times and make sure the right customers picked them up. Or in some cases, he got to do some more driving, delivering 'parts' to particular customers who didn't have the time to come into the shop.<br/><br/>For Rex, things have been going pretty well ever since.<br/><br/>Rex has picked up more than a few simple sleight-of-hand tricks from his father - nobody who knows him can ever remember seeing him use an actual lighter to ignite a cigarette, and when he's bored he has a tendency to roll quarters along the backs of his fingers. No-one has ever proven any direct connection, but a few serious competitors have had to drop out of races in his vicinity because they couldn't find their keys. He's known to occasionally deal drugs...deal, not push...and while he uses weed, the word is that he can get hold of almost anything. Rex has strict rules about not selling to racers a day or two before they'll be racing. He'll happily sell to them afterward, but in at least this sense he sees himself as responsible, or at least not wanting any share of the responsibility if other drivers end the race in a hospital or a morgue.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Appearance</span>:  Rex is a swaggering cock. He dresses like a polished version of something out of a fifties biker movie, right down to the black leather bomber jacket and the slicked and styled hair. But between the curt remnants of his Brooklyn accent and the way the leather fits him, he somehow manages to make it work. As annoyingly stereotypical as it is, in a peculiar way the greatest annoyance is that he doesn't seem to be acting, or even aware of the stereotype. The man pulls it off, and somehow pulls it together with a casually maniacal flair that makes the hooligan effect seem only natural.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Personality</span>: Rex is slightly aggressive at the best of times. He likes to be the center of attention. He likes to win.  He's willing to support someone else's win, so long as it's obvious that he's the one who made it possible. He likes helping his friends, so long as they're appreciative and remember who helped them. Actually, he'll help just about anyone, so long as it'll feed his ego to do it - not that he thinks about it that way, he's just propelled by a more selfish drive-train than an altruistic one, but once it's put in gear, it's still delivering the same results so far as everyone else is concerned. When racing, Rex is extremely aggressive. He makes a good lieutenant or 'blocker' in this sense, and he's not averse to a bit of cooking the books, fixing the odds, minor theft, sabotage or other forms of cheating and unpleasantness, so long as nobody gets seriously hurt...And as far as he's concerned, emotional wounds can heal, and if it's a little risky, well...most modern cars are made to keep their drivers alive through most crashes...Not that anyone's certain Rex ever deliberately caused a crash, but he certainly seems willing to play chicken. This and the somewhat maniacal attitude he cultivates go a long way to suggest that he doesn't go out of his way to<em>avoid</em>causing crashes. Off the track, he has a tendency to see himself as the man others come to for solutions...Whether it's parts, drug connections, or solving problems that consist of other people. He's pretty easy to get help from for people who know him...So long as he's believes he's being treated with respect and people are willing to acknowledge that they need him and what he can do. Stroke him the right way and it's easy to get what one wants. Irritate him and...Things are liable to get harder. At the worst of times, Rex will be an arrogant and pushy bastard. If he is someone's lieutenant, they'd best keep him on a short leash. If he isn't the lieutenant, then whoever<em>is</em>had better watch their back. (With his limited scruples he probably shouldn't be a group leader.)<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u">Other</span>: Crooked. Which is to say, not straight...Not that it is likely to come up much, since every other male here seems to be! Rex certainly seems to prefer females, but then, more than<em>any</em>matters of gender, Rex pays attention to having his ego stroked. He's definitely a self-obsessed bastard, and the odds are good he'll either take the lead in bed, or expect to be treated well for the favor he's doing you. What do you mean he isn't doing you a favor? You're in his bed, right? ;)