In my WIP time travel story the protagonist needs to get a hold of an extremely fast vehicle in order to send a package back to the past, so he decides to steal a drag racer car. He has no ability with weapons, isn't very strong or fit and his friends are against the idea. How does he do it?
Why would he do it? Are you suggesting that this "extremely fast vehicle" can travel through time faster than a less than extremely fast vehicle? How far does he have to go? You do know that drag race cars only carry enough fuel to drive a quarter of a mile, and then get back to the pits -- right?
If my suggestion doesn't answer your question it's because I'm not sure I understand it. It's one of those questions that seems to have such a simple answer, I feel I must be wrong. Question: How does he steal a drag racer's car? Answer: By stealing it. If he can't beat up or threaten the owner (which personally even if he could I think it would be boring), he should be able to use cunning. Make some kind of distraction, I lean towards getting some unwitting people involve in the distraction, . The simple one would be to instigate a fight, like a the main character tells another tough guy that the car owner hit on his girl friend and they get into a fight, and during the fight the main character steals the car... with a little bit of time i think you can come up with something more clever than that, but the idea is... most car thieves don't beat up the owners to get the cars.
There are high performance sports cars that can go as fast as a dragster; it just takes them a little longer to get that fast. But they can maintain high speeds for a long time, can corner, etc. The 50 Fastest Supercars by Top Speed Probably a little easier to drive than a dragster, too. BTW, I have driven a few high-end (but not that high end) sports and performance cars. It's not as easy as you would think. A big part is getting settled properly, then getting used to the very responsive, very sensitive controls. And most are manual transmission, so if you've never driven a stick, you're lost. In my town we have Maserati, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Aston Martin, McClaren plus the usual Lexus, Cadillac and Land Rover dealerships. Obviously, some wealthy people live here. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. But the rich folks here don't worry too much about some types of appearances. I was delivering a radio commercial to a client at one of those dealerships, and there was a guy in dinghy cut-offs and a dirty T-shirt, grass all over his blown-out sneakers, dickering for a six-figure sports car. Turns out he was a high-up of some NYSE brokerage firm. So, if you are properly credentialed, it would not be too hard to get a test drive no matter how you are dressed. When I was shopping for a used car recently, I took them out for test drives with just a photocopy of my license left at the dealership. Probably not that simple for a $200k or $300k car, however. Did you ever see "Scent of a Woman?"
Can your MC use the drag racer on the spot? Because it would be quite difficult to transport to another place... If not you should really consider a "normal" high performance sports car. I would prefer some sort of clever an funnz snitching. There are many more thinkable setups for street-going cars than for dragsters. Like your MC disguises himself as a hotel employee who parks the cars of customers - and drives away. Or a false police officer who confiscates the car for hunting down a criminal.
