Hover Car Racer (14 page)

The crowds had come out in force: 250,000 people in the stands alone, while experienced locals watched the city section of the track from rooftops and open office windows.

Jason, the Bug and Sally arrived in Pit Lane at 7:30 a.m. to see the area bustling with activity. Jason noticed right away that quite a few of the other teams wore brand-new team uniforms, their cars and even their racing boots spit-polished for their big day in front of the international sponsors.

And suddenly Jason felt self-conscious in his race clothes: his old denim overalls, workboots and his battle-scarred motorcycle helmet.

His father was supposed to be with them - he had wanted to experience the tension of Pit Lane with his boys - but at the last moment, Martha had stopped him, saying she needed him to help her with the strange project that had kept her locked away in her caravan the past day and a half.

The tension in the air was palpable.

This was no ordinary day’s racing at the Race School. There was more than Championship Points at stake here.

Careers could be made or lost today.

Then Jason saw Ariel in her pit bay and he waved. She saw him, but didn’t return the gesture. Nor did she look him in the eye.

At 8:45 a.m., a televised ceremony in Pit Lane saw the drawing of the race order. Each first-round race was given a number and Jean-Pierre LeClerq drew the numbers out of a hat.

The first race of the day would be…

Chaser, Jason v Piper, Ariel.

Their race was scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m., but before it was to take place, at 9 o’clock, there was scheduled a ‘Parade of Racers’ in front of the main VIP Grandstand, situated on the Start-Finish Line. And as he looked at the slickly-uniformed teams around him, suddenly Jason didn’t feel like being ‘presented’ to the assembled sponsors in his old denims.

But he had no choice.

And so the Parade of Racers went ahead and he stood there in front of the world, flanked by flags and banners and with the TV blimp soaring in the sky above him, in his crappy denims…and he had never felt more embarrassed in his life. He hated every minute of it.

Then, mercifully, the parade ended, the crowd roared, and the track was cleared for the first race of the day.

Sally prepped the
Argonaut
and the Tarantula.

The Bug worked on pit schedule strategies - in between peering fearfully out at the packed grandstands outside.

Jason just sat on his own, centering himself, preparing to race.

The clock ticked over to 9:20 and a loudspeaker boomed with the Race Director’s voice: ‘Would racers Chaser and Piper please take their positions on the track! Five minutes to racetime…’

Jason got to his feet - just as his parents, both of them, ran into the pit area, his mother calling, ‘Jason! Doodlebug! Wait!’

She carried a large laundry bag in her hands. Breathless, she arrived at Team
Argonaut
‘s pit bay.

‘Mum!’ Jason said. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get them done sooner,’ Martha Chaser said, still puffing. She opened the laundry bag - - to reveal a beautiful set of leather racing uniforms. Blue. Silver. And white. The colours of the
Argonaut
.

They were full-body uniforms, with the gloves and racing boots seamlessly attached. And the design was
cool
. Mainly white, it looked as if the wearer of the uniform had dipped his arms and legs in blue paint - and as a nice touch, the blue sections were edged with sparkling silver. Each bore the number ‘55’ on the left-hand shoulder.

There was one uniform for Jason.

A smaller one for the Bug.
And a third one…for Sally McDuff.

Martha handed Sally hers: ‘I made sure yours has a little extra support in the chest, dear.’
And then Henry Chaser pulled out his surprise: two medium-sized boxes with ‘
SHOEI
‘ written on the outside.

‘No way…’ Jason said.

He opened his box, and extracted from it a brand-new navy-blue Shoei racing helmet.

The Bug also got one, although his was white. And since she didn’t need a helmet, Sally got a blue baseball cap with ‘
Argonaut 55
‘ embroidered on it.

Martha said, ‘After I watched you all win together on Thursday, the only thing I could think of was: what a great team. But every great team needs to
look
like one. So I got some material, bought some race car magazines to check the current styles, and spent the last day and a half determined to make you look like a team.’

Jason gave her a big hug. So did the Bug. ‘Thanks, Mum!’

‘Come on, boys,’ Henry Chaser said. ‘Better get into those suits! You’ve got a race to win.’

A few minutes later, Team
Argonaut
strode out onto the track, into the sunshine, in front of the roaring crowd, dressed in their spanking new racesuits, Shoei helmets dangling from their hands, eyes fixed, game faces on.

Ariel Piper’s team were already on the track, waiting beside the
Pied Piper
.

‘What is this?
The Right Stuff
?
Armageddon
?’ Ariel’s navigator said wryly.

Jason nodded to Ariel as he slid into the cockpit of the
Argonaut
.

‘No friends on the track, Jason,’ Ariel said.

‘Whatever you say, Ariel.’

RACE 1:
CHASER V PIPER

The two hover cars sat side-by-side on the grid, the
Argonaut
on the left, the
Pied Piper
on the right.

From his cockpit, all Jason could see was the wide glass-like corridor of Plexiglass stretching away from him before it banked steeply to the left into the forest of city buildings.

And then -
tone, tone, ping
- the start lights went green and the two cars shot off the mark and the crowds in the stands roared.

Two cars.

One enclosed track.

Hyperfast speeds.

Flashing sunshine.

Blurring walls.

The
Argonaut
and the
Pied Piper
banked and swerved as they rushed like a pair of bullets around the track, ducking and swooping and missing each other by inches as they jockeyed for position.

Out of the corner of his eye on his right side, Jason glimpsed the red-and-white nose of the
Pied Piper
shooting around the track alongside him.

After five quick laps, there was nothing in it.

After ten, they were still side-by-side.

Jason’s concentration was hyper-intense, eyeing the speed-blurred track whizzing by him.

Round and round they went, zipping over and under the figure-8 track, at some times side-by-side, at others on each other’s heels, swapping the lead but never by more than a couple of car lengths.

The crowd was captivated.

And then suddenly like a horse throwing a shoe, Jason unexpectedly lost a magneto drive and although more than anything he didn’t want to pit first, he peeled off into the pits.

Ariel stayed on the track, shooting off on the next 30-second lap.

The crowd gasped.

Jason had 30 seconds.

He hit the pit bay. The Tarantula descended.

7 seconds…8…

The
Pied Piper
zoomed through the city section.

New mags went on. A splash of coolant.

The
Pied Piper
zoomed over the cross-over of the figure-eight.

13 seconds…14 seconds.

‘Sally…!’

‘Almost done…okay!
Go
!’

And Sally cut short the stop and the Tarantula withdrew into the ceiling and Jason hit the gas and blasted out of the pits
just as
Ariel came screaming round the final turn, hard on the
Argonaut
‘s heels - now only several car-lengths behind it!

This was classic match-racing, the part of the race known as the ‘chase phase’.

The
Pied Piper
(no pit stops) was hammering on the tail of the
Argonaut
(one stop), chasing it down. If Jason made even the slightest mistake and Ariel got her nose a millimetre ahead of him, it was race over.

And it only had to be a single millimetre - microchips attached to nosewings of both cars would start screaming as soon as they detected one car to be a lap ahead of the other.

Jason had to hold Ariel off until she was forced to pit.

But she didn’t pit.

She just kept chasing him.

Charging after him.

Hunting him down, taking each banking turn perfectly, gaining with each lap. Hauling him in metre by brutal metre.
After one lap, she was two car-lengths behind the
Argonaut
.

After two: one car-length.

And after three laps, she had crept
inside
a car-length!

It was relentless. Ariel was throwing everything at him, taking every turn cleanly, searching for a way past him, giving him the race of her life.

On the fourth such lap, Jason’s lead became half a car length.

Hold your nerve
…he told himself.
Hold your nerve
…

Five laps. Most chase phases ended around the fifth lap, with either the pursuer pitting, or the runner crashing out.

Six laps.

And Ariel came alongside him!

She’s trying to force you into an error.

Seven laps.

Now it was side-by-side racing!

Jason kept his eyes fixed forward - if he dared to look sideways, he imagined he could see Ariel’s eyes inside her racing helmet.

Eight laps, and the crowd rose to their feet.

Eight laps!
Jason’s mind screamed.
How long is she going to keep this up? When is she going to pit!

Then on the ninth lap of the chase, he saw the
Pied Piper
‘s red-and-white nosewing creep into his peripheral vision.

No! She’s gonna take me!

The crowds started cheering.

Never give up. Never say die
.

And as they roared down the main straight, commencing Lap 20 - the tenth lap of the chase phase - Ariel peeled off and vanished into the pits.

The crowd burst into applause - Jason had just survived a nine-lap chase, almost double the average. An incredible feat of concentration under pressure.

And with Ariel finally off his tail, he gunned it.

Ariel’s pit stop was near perfect, and she came back out onto the track slightly ahead of Jason, but now on the same lap.

Lap 40 went by - and there was nothing in it.

Another chase phase took place between Laps 50 and 55, but Jason survived that.

Around Lap 81, Jason had his own chase phase, but Ariel fended him off determinedly.

Then Ariel tried again when Jason pitted on Lap 90, but there was no dice there.

Which meant that after 96 laps and 48 minutes of superb match-racing, it was now a flat-out dash for the line over the last four laps.

The two cars whipped round the track, banking with the corners like a pair of missiles, matching streaks of blue
and red.

With three laps to go, Jason was exhausted, his nerves and reflexes extended to the limit. He didn’t know if he
could keep this up.

Two laps to go, and his eyes began to blur…and Ariel crept ahead of him.

60 seconds of racing left.

Into the city section, and Jason jammed his thrusters all the way forward.

The
Argonaut
roared across the overpass and rocketed into the right-hander at almost 90 degrees to the earth and in doing so, gained a metre on the
Pied Piper
.

The two cars screamed out of the final turn, commencing the last lap, the
Pied Piper
less than a metre in front.

Jason clenched his teeth. Gunned it.

His head was beginning to spin.

Through the city buildings, banking hard - the
Pied Piper
just a red shape ahead of him - the roar of the crowd
invading his thoughts.

Over the cross-over and towards the final right-hander, all pedals and levers and dials in the red. And then, in a fleeting split-second instant, Jason saw it.

Saw Ariel make a mistake.

She was taking the last turn too wide. The very last turn - the 200th corner of this nerve-shattering, reflexburning race.

And so, calling on his last reserves of energy and skill, Jason pounced.

He started the turn wide and cut sharply
inside
Ariel - and as they took the turn together, the
Argonaut
swooped inside the
Pied Piper
…

…and came fully alongside it…

…and the two cars shoomed down the final straight together, and after 100 laps of the most intense matchracing imaginable they crossed the Start-Finish Line almost perfectly side-by-side and the winner was -

- the
Argonaut
.

By the tip of its nosewing.

The official winning margin, taken from the digital radio transmitters on the nosewings of the two cars, would later be recorded as 0.04 of a second - four hundredths of a second - in favour of ‘Chaser, J’.

Physically exhausted and emotionally spent, Jason returned to the pits.

Around him the tournament continued apace; the next pair of racers already lining up on the grid, getting ready to go.

The
Argonaut
slid into its bay - steaming - the acrid smell of overheated magneto drives wafting through the air all around it.

Jason and the Bug stepped out, removed their helmets from their sweaty heads - to be at once embraced in the arms of Sally McDuff and their proud parents.

‘You are one gutsy little racer, Jason Chaser!’ Sally exclaimed. ‘I thought she had you in that first chase phase.’

‘Me, too!’ Henry said. ‘Nine laps! You held her off for nine laps! I’ve never seen anything like it! How did you do it?’

Jason offered a wry glance to Scott Syracuse, standing nearby: ‘Never give up. Never say die.’

With that, Jason’s parents let him be, allowing him and the Bug to slump into their chairs in the rear corner of their pit bay.

Syracuse came over. Looked at Jason and the Bug, exhausted, their hair all sweaty and tousled.

And he smiled.

‘Nice racing, boys,’ he said. ‘Very nice. I haven’t seen a racer hold his nerve like that for a very long time, Mr Chaser.’