The Motor Club participates in an fuel-efficiency race against Aoshima's Four Wheels Club, and Keiichi learns about "trolls" which work inside internal combustion engines.
Summary
Winter vacation has ended and Nekomi Tech's students and faculty have returned to campus and the warmth of their dorms, except, of course, the Motor Club, whose clubhouse still hasn't been rebuilt since Aoshima previously destroyed it. There, Otaki tallies their earnings from when they had Keiichi fly the restored Shinden aircraft. The ¥25,080 they earned from charging admission was mostly offset by the costs of drinks and the Shinden's restoration, leaving them with only ¥4,530. So, to raise more money, Tamiya has Keiichi work with stuffing envelopes, but he is frustrated at having to do such a frivolous task.
Urd hears Keiichi's despair and appears in view. She uses magic to combine six of the Motor Club's good luck charms into a single super-lucky charm. Urd insists that with it, Keiichi will have no trouble making money, but Keiichi is hesitant to believe it'll work since people will think it looks weird. Nonetheless, Otaki is enamored by the object and offers to buy it off Keiichi, but Keiichi turns down the offer.
A mailman comes along and delivers a letter to the club from the Japan Energy Conservation Society. As the motor club learns, they are holding a fuel-efficiency racing competition to promote energy conservation in transportation, with the eyecatcher being the first prize of ¥500,000!
Tamiya decides that they must win that prize money to rebuild the Motor Clubhouse. Keiichi asks Tamiya why he never mentioned this competition before, and Tamiya and Otaki said they'd never actually heard about it themselves. They take a second look at the envelope and discover the mailman had made a mistake: this invitation was for Aoshima's Four Wheels Club, not the Motor Club! Tamiya rips up the envelope to destroy the evidence, but Aoshima's spies witness the act and report back to him, who says that they should let them join the competition just to humiliate them.
As Keiichi is working on the Motor Club's racing vehicle, Urd asks what he's doing, but upon getting the technical details she tells him that he just needs to leave the job to the "trolls" that power the engine, something Keiichi can hardly take seriously. Otaki says he's going out to grab some aluminum frame material, conveniently forgetting to mention that he is going to steal the aluminium window frames off the Four Wheels Clubhouse.
According to the rules of the competition, each car is given a litre of fuel and must go a fixed distance within a fixed time, and whichever car uses the least fuel is the winner. The Motor Club shows up and passes the inspection test, but so has Aoshima's racing car. He makes a bet with Tamiya where, in addition to the prize money, whichever club wins will take over the loser's clubhouse.
Belldandy is the Motor Club's racer. Keiichi is worried that Aoshima is up to some scheming, but Belldandy reassures him that she'll win, both because she's the lightest driver in the race and that she has a personal connection to every single part of their racecar. However, unbeknownst to them, Aoshima had someone sneak some kerosene capsules into the gas tank of Belldandy's car.
Soon after the race begins, Belldandy notices her car is having engine troubles and has to take a pit stop. Noticing that the engine is black as carbon, Keiichi takes off a part of it and, to his shock, discovers there actually are trolls inside of the engine! The trolls promptly try running away, but both Urd and Belldandy divide themselves into mini-forms and collect them all. They press the trolls for an explanation and are told that they refuse to work when the engine is filled with kerosene, behaving as though they work for a labor union. Belldandy says that the kerosene was an act of sabotage by the "big money men" and convinces the trolls to get back to work.
With the trolls helping Belldandy's car conserve fuel, the Motor Club wins the competition, but the prize of Aoshima's clubhouse is dampened by the fact that it has no window frames since they stole them earlier.
Trivia
- The letter from the Japan Energy Conservation Society specifically cites "ongoing political instability" in the Middle-East as a motivator for the country to look at more fuel-efficient means of transportation. This is all but certainly an allusion to the Gulf War, which was happening during and after the letter was dated in January 1991.