RASPBERRY RACERS (RSP)

From a young age, team captain Razzy was interested in marble racing. They met Rozzy at their local racing club outside the city of Rubow, known as the “raspberry capital of the world” for its fields of farms, many specializing in raspberries. The two’s athletics club, located in Tumbletown, would one day become the headquarters of Marble League 2019 champions, the Raspberry Racers.

Recruiting Rezzy, Rizzy, and Barry from a Rubovian sports club, Tumbletown Athletics’ trainer Willamette saw potential in the five athletes to represent Rubow as a professional sports team in the now-defunct Fruit Circuit, an untelevised marble sports series that ran until 2016. Although they found it difficult to work together early on, the Raspberry Racers bonded over their passion for marble racing and rivalry with fellow Fruit Circuit teams. 

Having been among their first friends, the Limers soon became the Racers’ most contentious rivals. Controversy arose when Slimelime appeared to block Razzy in one of the final events of the Fruit Circuit, a decisive factor in deciding who would earn one of the top three spots to transfer into Marble League 2016. Yet Razzy finished the race well enough, keeping the Racers in second overall by the time the final event came around. Instead, it was Barry, the team’s reserve, who went out of bounds on a windy winery course in southern Europe. Their DNF allowed both Mellow Yellow and the O’rangers to slot into second and third behind the Limers in first place, shutting out the Raspberry Racers from competing in Marble League 2016.

The team was understandably disappointed. After firing Barry, the remaining four members of the team took a trip to Rubow to visit their families, drink some raspberry syrup, and get away from the Marble League. The Raspberry Racers disbanded sometime during this period, but the team’s former members began taking interest in the Hubelino Tournament, which was slated to air after the Marble League and would be recorded for the Internet, marking the athletes’ international debut.

Razzy and Rozzy joined the Bluefastics while Rezzy and Rizzy joined the Valiant Violets. Each adopted pseudonyms to match the themes of each team, although interestingly, it is unknown which names the Racers chose. Both the Bluefastics and Valiant Violets performed modestly throughout the tournament, which originally ran for eight events but was extended to twelve, running before and after Marble League 2017. 

Throughout the twelve events, both teams earned one gold medal and another podium finish each: the Bluefastics won Pursuit Slalom and proceeded to earn a silver in the Swing Wave, while the Valiant Violets won the Relay. The Violets could not place higher than last overall when the Bluefastics advanced out of Group A in the final event, but they earned a hard-fought silver after defeating the Bluefastics in the semifinals and losing a tiebreaker to the tournament champions, the Green Gang. The Violets finished last overall with 55 points, behind the Bluefastics in sixth with 62 points.

Although it was rumored among many fans that the face-off in the Ball Battle would spark an intense rivalry between the Bluefastics and Valiant Violets, the opposite turned out to be the case when it was revealed that the Raspberry Racers were reforming. Unbeknownst to fans, Razzy, Rozzy, Rezzy, and Rizzy had been training together during the 2017 offseason to try out for Marble League 2018, recruiting Ruzzy as their fifth member from Tumbletown Athletics. Just a little over a month after the Hubelino Tournament ended, Razzy, Rozzy, Rezzy, and Rizzy had officially left their Hubelino teams and donned their fuchsia colors for the Draw.

The Raspberry Racers were placed into Group C and finished second with 22 points, enough to qualify alongside three former Fruit Circuit adversaries: the O’rangers, Mellow Yellow, and the Limers. During the main tournament, the Raspberry Racers came away with a silver medal from Team Pursuit after a tense semifinal match against the Limers and a bronze in Curling, following a quarterfinal match where Rozzy got revenge on Sublime, knocking them off the target and securing victory for the Racers. The Raspberry Racers finished eighth overall in Marble League 2018, a solid feat for the rookie team.

The Raspberry Racers had an active offseason in their rookie year as well, with consistency and teamwork paving the way for their victory in the Amazing Maze Marble Race. Members of the Racers who competed with the Bluefastics and Valiant Violets declined to rejoin for the 2018 Hubelino Tournament, wishing the two teams the best of luck as the Racers trained for the 2019 Marble League Qualifiers with a new coach, Berry. The new athletes that joined both teams adopted the same nicknames that the Racers chose, honoring the Racers’ role in building the teams.

The Raspberry Racers competed in 2019 Qualifiers and comfortably succeeded in eighth place, despite a rough start and drama with Team Primary’s fans in the stands. The team soon entered a season in which they would dominate, rise to the top, and never let up. The team was one of three teams that never left the top five during the season; the other two teams were the Hazers and Green Ducks, teams that would consistently challenge the Racers throughout the season for victory. The team rose to significance in Event 2, when Razzy came just short of winning the Funnel Race. A silver medal earned through teamwork in the Gravitrax Slalom, a bronze medal in the Relay Run, and another bronze medal in the Summer Biathlon, elevated the team to the top of the standings. 

The Racers closed out the first half of the season by earning medals in four out of the eight events, practicing unparalleled consistency to stay in the game. Although the Raspberry Racers earned another silver and bronze by Event 12, the Ducks, with their equally consistent finishes, retook the lead with four events to go. Fans likened the power struggle between the two teams to the rivalry between the Limers and the Raspberry Racers, a coincidence made only more ironic due to the Green Ducks’ lime green color. 

Ultimately, Rezzy was the athlete who represented the Raspberry Racers in the Elimination Race. Up to this point, the Racers had yet to earn a gold medal in the Marble League, but Rezzy changed that metric for the better. Remaining as consistent as they had throughout the entire season, Razzy’s bronze-worthy performance in the Sand Rally led the Raspberry Racers to win Marble League 2019 with a total of 216 points and eight medals to their name.

The team, prequalified for the 2020 Marble League, was harvesting raspberries from the Von Neuman Farm in Tumbletown when they received an official letter from JMR, inviting the team to compete in the first season of Marbula One alongside the three other Marble League champions and Fruit Circuit teams. The Raspberry Racers accepted the invitation and submitted Razzy, “Rider In Rose”, and Rezzy, “Framboise Flash”, to represent the team. 

Unfortunately for the Racers, Razzy and Rezzy’s performances were mediocre, as the team finished fourteenth overall with 27 points and no medals. Even the Razzway Grand Prix was not conducted as expected, as it was notorious for the season’s only red flag, which occurred after officials conducted a thorough check of the track, and a fan invasion prior to the race restart. Nonetheless, the Raspberry Racers relished in finishing above the Limers in fifteenth, although they were still disappointed at how they had not translated their Marble League championship into a strong Marbula One performance.

The Racers’ discontent extended into Marble League 2020. Although they won the Friendly Round with much of the same vigor as their championship run, the team was given a sense of “false confidence” after their Balancing silver, Newton’s Cradle bronze, and Hurdles gold obtained by Ruzzy in substitution for Razzy. Blinded by their own success, the Racers fell hard from a decent first half, with consistent bottom-half finishes becoming the norm for the rest of the season. A fitting (albeit heartbreaking) conclusion for the team came in the Marathon event, where Rezzy finished several seconds behind the rest of the field, finishing last. 

In the end, the Raspberry Racers finished ninth overall in Marble League 2020 with 133 points and three medals, directly tying with the Oceanics but finishing ahead of them due to their fourth-place finishes. To many, it seemed as if the Racers’ dream of winning, and the Oceanics’ nightmare of hosting Marble League 2019, had been neutralized. Both teams would receive an invite to Season 2 of Marbula One; Coach Berry, citing Ruzzy’s success subbing in during Hurdles, swapped the “Nimble Thimble” in for Rezzy’s spot, having them race against Razzy. The Oceanics received an invite to host; the Racers, remembering their own disasters at the Razzway, were not surprised to miss out.

The curious friendship budding between the Oceanics and the Racers was on pause for much of Marbula One, where the teams competed against each other to stay out of the basement. The Racers again struggled with circuit racing, with the additional challenge of qualifying for each Grand Prix locking the team out of points automatically in three of the races and placing outside of points in another three. However, the Racers shone in two key moments during the season: with Ruzzy earning a bronze in a contested race at the Arctic Circuit, and Razzy earning a bronze to close out the season at the Midnight Bay Circuit. Once again finishing fourteenth overall in Marbula One, the Racers now did so with two medals and 48 points total.

Instead, it was the Winter Special where the Raspberry Racers demonstrated a return to form for their talents and a moment of sportsmarbship in the final event. Despite being unable to win the invitational, the Racers plowed through their field of competitors up to the O’rangers, the final team standing who could challenge the Oceanics for the overall title. Denying them a win, the Racers secured the Winter Special championship for the Oceanics, giving them a moment of redemption that they had been craving since finishing last in Marble League 2019. The Racers, meanwhile, finished fourth overall with 58 points, thanks to their gold in the Ice Hockey event.

Facing embarrassment for their blue flag moment at the Raceforest in Marbula One, Razzy took their position at the starting gate for the 2021 Practice Race hoping to impress but finished 22nd of 28 teams. Entering 2021 Qualifiers in Group B, the Raspberry Racers were seeing green when they cast all doubt aside, winning the first two events outright and earning a bronze in the next event to secure their qualifying spot in Marble League 2021. Below them in fourth was the Limers, who took advantage of a new qualifying system and a silver in the Wave to qualify for their first Marble League since 2018; the two rivals joined Mellow Yellow from Group A and the pre-qualified O’rangers for the closest Marble League yet.

Yet of the four Fruit Circuit veterans, the Raspberry Racers were consistently the strongest, never leaving the top three of the standings during Marble League 2021. Earning only four medals, all of them during the first half of the season, the Racers made the most out of their top-half results in other events to remain in contention until the very end, where a circuit-style race awaited them. But where the Racers prioritized consistency, there were ten other teams who were also within range of securing the championship instead. Yellup, starting third-from-last in the racing order for Marblocross, clinched the championship with a bronze in the race. Razzy, starting second-from-last in the racing order, finished fifteenth, leading their team to finish as runners-up in Marble League 2021 with 157 points earned overall.

Special thanks to Project Marblearth contributors Piney and Stynth for helping craft the lore of the Raspberry Racers.