Hover Car Racer (17 page)

Car No.1 and Car No.55.

The crowd fell silent.

Even the sponsors in the VIP tent lowered their champagne to watch.

This was the big one.

The final.

CHAPTER TEN

THE FINAL:
XONORA V CHASER

The final race of the Sponsors’ Tournament was nothing short of a match-racing classic.

And for a simple reason: it began with a disaster.

In his superfast Lockheed-Martin, Xavier won the dash from the Start Line and on the first left-hand turn of the race, he cut sharply across Jason’s path, clipping the
Argonaut
‘s nosewing, snapping it off.

And so, after one lap, Jason pitted and by the time he came out on Lap 2 with a new nosewing, the
Argonaut
was barely a car-length in front of the
Speed Razor
.

The ensuing chase phase was utterly ruthless.

Just as he had done to Horatio Wong earlier in the day, Xavier hounded Jason.

His every turn was perfect. His adherence to the racing line, flawless. It was, quite simply, superb hover car racing, clinical in its precision. He gained a foot on the
Argonaut
with every lap.

But where Wong had failed, Jason didn’t falter. He fended Xavier off in the only possible way - by driving equally well, his eyes fixed forward.

And with every lap he survived, the crowd roared ever louder. After the nosewing mishap on the first corner, no-one had expected Jason to last more than a few laps. But then, this was the kid who’d survived a 9-lap chase phase earlier in the day.

One lap became five.

The chase phase continued.

Five became eight.

Xavier’s chase continued.

Nine laps…ten…
eleven
…

Jason raced grimly, his jaw set.

Xavier pursued him like a bloodhound - lap after perfect lap - at one stage bringing his nosecone to within five centimetres of the
Argonaut
‘s nosewing…but not past it.

In the end, Jason held the
Speed Razor
off for an astonishing twelve laps before Xavier was compelled to pit.

Jason never recovered the lost time from that first unexpected pit stop.

The effect was brutal. It meant that so long as they went stop for stop - with him
always
pitting second - he was always going to be one lap behind Xavier, always being chased.

And so the race became one endless chase phase - with Jason always running and Xavier always pursuing him ruthlessly, relentlessly, only ever one mistake away from victory.

Not even pit stops helped. Sally consistently churned out 8-second stops, but Xavier’s Mech Chief, Oliver Koch, was just as good.

20 laps passed - and Jason, exhausted and drained, was driving at the edge of his senses.

40 laps - and Sally wasn’t allowed a single mistake in the pits and she didn’t make one.

60 laps - and the Bug was starting to get a strained neck from twisting in his seat to check on Xavier behind them.

80 laps - and Xavier just kept on coming.

Kept throwing his perfect laps at Jason, and Jason just kept on going in front of him, equally perfect, like the mechanical rabbit at a greyhound race, forever just out of reach.

And as the race crossed the 90-lap mark, the crowd rose to their feet, many of the students among them saying that if Jason’s race against Barnaby had been a grudge match, then this was a death match, a race that was going to go all the way to the 100th lap.

And then on Lap 98 it happened.

Something that no-one could have expected.

Both racers pitted: Xavier first, and then Jason, who had to whip all the way around the track before he could dash into the pits for that one last crucial stop.

He shoomed into the pits, and immediately saw that
Xavier was still there
- indeed Oliver Koch was scrambling around the
Speed Razor
like a crazy man while Xavier yelled at him, waving his fists.

And then Jason saw why.

The pressure nozzle on Koch’s coolant hose had broken off, and coolant was spraying everywhere. Koch was now frantically attaching a new nozzle to his hose.

Which meant that suddenly, the
Argonaut
and the
Speed Razor
were back on level terms again.

Sally worked a killer stop - just as Koch got his hose working again - with the result being that both cars shot out from their pit bays at almost exactly the same time, only now the
Argonaut
, astonishingly, was slightly ahead of the
Speed Razor
!

The two cars blasted back out onto the track, and with only two laps to run, the
Argonaut
was in the lead!

It was now a one-minute scramble for the Finish Line.

Jason flew.

Xavier charged.

Shoom!-shoom!

One lap to go and Jason still held the lead by half a carlength.

The crowd leapt to their feet.

Last lap.

Jason’s eyes never left the track.

Left into the sweeper through the city, blurred buildings swooshing by him on either side…

Up and over the cross-over…

Then into the final right-hander, holding the racing line - and Jason saw the
Speed Razor
‘s nosecone enter his left-side peripheral vision, heard the roar of its engines loud in his ears.

The
Speed Razor
was right alongside him! Xavier wasn’t giving up.

The two cars took the final turn side-by-side.

Jason gripped his steering wheel tightly, his knuckles white; clenched his teeth. His bloodshot eyes were wide, on the verge of sensory overload.

Still the
Speed Razor
kept coming…and slowly, gradually, started edging ahead of him!

Jason couldn’t believe it. There was nothing he could do! This was the best he could race and still Xavier was going past him.

And with that, the realisation hit Jason.

Xavier was too good. Too fast.

This race was slipping out of Jason’s grasp.

Xavier was going to win.

And then the home straight opened up before them and the
Argonaut
and the
Speed Razor
rushed down it side-byside at full throttle, before they shot together through the red laser beam that marked the Finish Line and the winner of the race - of the final - of the day - of the whole entire tournament was -

- Xavier.

By 0.003 of a second. Three
thousandths
of a second. And as the two cars glided around the track, slowing, Jason sighed with deep relief.

He’d lost. Lost the final - and for that he was bitterly disappointed - but he was also glad that this day, this long day of racing, was finally over.

Almost every member of the 250,000-strong crowd stayed for the winner’s ceremony.

They clapped loudly as Xavier stepped triumphantly onto the podium to accept the winner’s trophy from Race Director Calder and Jean-Pierre LeClerq.

Jason could only stand behind the podium, behind the 2nd-place-getter’s step, and clap too.

He’d come so far, raced so hard, through four of the most difficult races of his life, and he’d missed out by the smallest fraction of a second.

The applause for Xavier and his team died down, and the announcer’s voice came again over the loudspeakers:
‘
And in second place, Car No.55, Team Argonaut. Driver: Jason Chaser; Navigator: Bug Chaser; Mech Chief: Sally McDuff.
’

Head down with disappointment, Jason stepped up onto the podium.

What happened next made him freeze in shock.

The crowd went nuts.

Absolutely, totally
ballistic
.

The colossal roar that they gave him and Sally and the Bug almost brought down the entire stadium.

Flashbulbs popped, horns blared, people raised their hands above their heads to clap. Even Xavier was taken aback by the strength of their cheering.

But it was true.

The crowd was giving a bigger cheer to the racer who’d come
second
than they had for the racer who’d come first!

Jason was stunned, and at first he didn’t understand why this was happening.

Nevertheless, with the Bug and Sally beside him, he took his place on the second tier of the podium and, dressed in his cool new racesuit, waved hesitantly to the crowd.

The crowd went even crazier at the gesture, started chanting: ‘Jason! JASON!
JASON!
’

It was then that Jason saw his mother down in the crowd. She was crying with joy. Beside her, his father, Henry, was busily taking audio-included digital photographs for their family album.

And in that instant Jason began to understand.

Xavier had won the tournament, and won it well, and the crowd respected that.

While for his part Jason had lost - but he had lost well.

After a staggering 390 laps of racing, at the edge of total exhaustion, he had lost by less than a second to a guy who had creamed every other opponent he had faced - and the crowd respected that even
more
.

Jason remembered something his father had once told him:
It’s not how we win that defines us, Jason, it’s how we lose. Winners come and go, but the racer who goes down fighting will live forever in people’s hearts.

Jason smiled at that as he gazed out over the roaring crowd - the crowd roaring for him.

As he did so, Race Director Calder handed each member of Xavier’s winning team an enormous bottle of champagne, and Xavier shook his bottle hard and popped the cork, sending a geyser of champagne shooting into the air above the winner’s podium.

That evening, the Chaser family - plus Sally and Scott Syracuse - returned to Chooka’s Charcoal Chicken Restaurant for another celebratory dinner.

‘Guess what,’ Sally said as she munched on a burger. ‘I heard that after the winner’s presentation the head of the Lockheed-Martin pro team, Antony Nelson, approached Xavier and asked him if he wanted to apprentice with them at the Italian Run next month.’

‘No way!’ Jason exclaimed. ‘The Lockheed Factory Team. Wow! To the winner, the spoils, I guess…’

‘Don’t you worry,’ Henry Chaser said, seeing his disappointment. ‘Your time’ll come. I don’t think your efforts today went unnoticed.’

‘Yeah?’ Jason laughed. ‘Well, I don’t see the chiefs of any pro teams walking up to us and offering us a run in a Grand Slam race.’

Just as Jason was saying this, a large figure entered the restaurant.

Heads turned, whispers arose - precisely because you don’t often see billionaires in takeaway chicken joints.
It was Umberto Lombardi.

‘Ah-ha!’ the big Italian boomed. ‘Now
this
is my kind of dinner! Three Super Burgers to go, please, madam, with extra cheese! Oh, would anyone else like anything?’

Lombardi sat down beside Martha Chaser. ‘My sincere apologies, Senora Chaser, for intruding upon your celebrations. But I beg your indulgence, I will not stay for long. I do, however, have a serious question for this wonderful young team.’

Everyone at the table fell silent.

Lombardi leaned forward, lowered his voice. ‘I thought you all raced well today. Very well. No other team out there came close to surviving almost 400 laps of matchracing. But you did. More than that. You did that
and you almost won!

‘Now. As you are probably aware, the Italian Run is to be held in three weeks’ time. Up until now, my team has only ever run one car in pro events, but lately I’ve been thinking of expanding the team…and adding a second car.’

Jason felt a tingle race up his spine. ‘Yes…’

Lombardi went on. ‘What I was wondering was this: would the members of Team
Argonaut
like to race the second Lombardi Racing Team car in this year’s Italian Run?’

Jason dropped his fork. The Bug blanched. Sally’s mouth fell open. Henry Chaser stopped chewing. Martha Chaser’s lip started to quiver. Scott Syracuse just kept eating casually.

‘You…’ Jason stammered. ‘You want
us
to race for
you
in the next Grand Slam race?’

‘Yes. I do,’ Lombardi said simply.

Jason swallowed.

This was too much. The enormity of what Lombardi was suggesting rocked through him with the force of an earthquake.

This wouldn’t be like any old School race. Or even like the Sponsors’ Tournament for that matter. This would be bigger - much bigger. This would be a professional race against professional racers, in Italy, beamed live to the entire world.

‘Well?’ Lombardi asked. ‘Do you race?’

Jason looked at the Bug, who nodded once.

He turned to Sally who, still silent with shock, nodded vigorously.

Then he turned back to Lombardi and said, ‘You bet we race.’

And so it was settled.

Team
Argonaut
was going to Italy.