Katsuo Tsukiko

Katsuo Tsukiko (つきこ かつお Tsukiko Katsuo) is the Lead Pilot for Syncline R/I for the F12000 season. Her racing style is usually aggressive and also involves baiting or harrasing her opponents. However, she also has a secret team strategy alongside her teammate, Hal Erikson.

Early Childhood (2191–2205)
Katsuo was born to Natsuki and Takara in a secluded home outside of Nikko. She was raise in a rather secluded environment, being home schooled and only leaving the house on special occasions. When talking about her early life, Katsuo seems very happy with how she was raised, but will sometimes try to avoid certain subjects.

One subject that seems to cause particular trouble is the death of her father, Tsukiku Takara, in 2198. Though she doesn't seemed phased by the mentioning of it, she will refuse to talk about how he past away. A much stranger example of things that she won't talk about is her parents' respective occupations. This has caused many rumors of her parents being criminals, a theory often supported by Natsuki being a known felon in the late 2170's. Katsuo, however, stresses that her mother had changed her ways sense then, and that she was just too young to care enough to ask what they did for a living.

Because of her separation from the outside world, Katsuo would drive junior AG craft for children in her past time, using the caves nearby her home as her track. She claims to have spent up to five hours a day flying around. She would also be taken to see the local AG league, which held races monthly. When the FX300 formed in 2197, her family vacationed for a year on Makana to see the races, the first time that Katsuo ever went more than 50 miles away from her home.

Pre-AG Career (2205–2210)
On her fourteenth birthday, Katsuo was given her first car by her mother, a customized Lotus Elise with parts from an F7200 Icarus craft. It was a hand-me-down from Natsuki, and served as both an automobile and AG craft. As the legal driving age had lowered just a few years prior to make Japan the youngest driving country in the world, Katsuo was allowed to drive along the winding roads. She would often spending all night in her new car, finally growing old of her old childhood home.

Her skill on the road attributed to her reputation as one of the fastest drifters in the country. Her nickname, Obake (ghost), was said to be thought of by many different people, and thus the name was bound to stick. However, possibly because she raced almost exclusively in the underground scene, she never had any mainstream success, and was instead a figure with the “it crowd” of drifting, who where among the unofficial experts of racing in Japan.

Not long after she made her way into the scene, she was accused of being a law breaker by many, most commonly being called a robber. The source of the allegations were from now ex-Interpol agent Officer Hideki Nakamora, who claimed to have evidence of her committing criminal activities. Dispite being wanted by the Japanese federal government in 2207, Hideki's reputation meant the general public, and ever local police, believed Katsuo to be innocent. Instead, she became somewhat of a figure for rebelling and questioning authority, on top of never being convicted for a crime.

2210 was the year Katsuo would move to Mars with her Fiance, Etsuki Ryouta, and his sister, Irisu. Katsuo pins her reasoning as driving the roads of Japan so much that she desperately wanted a new playground to drive in, and the still developing planet had the most lenient traffic laws, as well as the most diverse racing scene. While settling in her new home, Katsuo ran into Nikole Malina Carole, who she was a long time friend of. After confronting Nikole out of admiration and having a brief conversation, Nikole offered to have Katsuo try out to pilot for Syncline R/I, her Nikole's new team of affiliation. After reaching the triple digits in a zone simulation before making a collision, Katsuo was accepted immediately to pilot for the team, and was later joined by her friend, Hal Erikson.