Hover Car Racer (35 page)

And, of course, at the very end of each lap, at the end of the superlong and superfast Hudson River Straight,
Liberty’s Elbow
loomed. It was the final challenge for every racer - pitting one’s body against one’s desire to win. As had happened to Jason in his dream, it was not uncommon for drivers to knock themselves out taking the Elbow, allowing their desire to win to overcome their good sense.

There was also one extra feature, unique to this race, known as
The 15-Second Rule
.

In short, every racer had to stay within 15 seconds of the lead car. As the leader passed underneath each bridge, a timer was initiated. After 15 seconds, the ion waterfall on that bridge flicked from gold to red - and the gap in the waterfall closed, turning it into an impassable wall of ions. Meaning if you failed to stay within 15 seconds of the leader, you could physically go no further. You were out of the race.

At this point in the Masters, since there were only eight contenders left, the scoring system also changed.

For the final two races, the winner still got 10 points.

The 2nd placed racer, however, now only got 8 points; 3rd got 6 points; 4th: 4 points; 5th: 2 points; and the last three drivers, nothing. Those racers who DNF’d - Did Not Finish - still got a flat zero points.

For Jason, the situation was clear.

Sitting on only 8 points, a full 8 points behind the leaders in the series, he needed a good finish in this race - top two at least - and he needed some of the other racers to finish poorly or not at all.

But if he’d learned anything this year, it was that in hover car racing,
anything could happen
.

As daylight broke on Saturday, Manhattan Island had essentially become one gigantic stadium.

Enormous crowds swarmed all over the outer banks of the East River, the Harlem River and the Hudson River, all facing inwards. While on Manhattan itself, New Yorkers had commandeered every piece of available viewing space - from parks and buildings to the major freeways that ringed the edges of the island: the Henry Hudson Parkway, West St and the FDR - all looking outward.

And the subject of their collective gaze: The eight humming rocket cars hovering above the waves of the East River, in the shadow of the mighty Brooklyn Bridge.

Jason and the Bug sat hunched in the
Argonaut
, eyeing the river stretching away before them.

Fabian’s
Marseilles Falcon
sat on their left and Trouveau’s
Vizir
- Jason had discovered that it was named after Napoleon’s horse - on their right.

‘Anything can happen…’ Jason said aloud.

It was about to.

The lights went green and the race began.

CHAPTER THREE

NEW YORK CITY, USA (SATURDAY)

RACE 3: THE PURSUIT

LAP: 1 OF 120

Eight cars. 120 laps. On one very short track.

To Jason, the three rivers of New York resembled one continuous watery trench, flanked by hills of roaring spectators and spanned intermittently by sweeping bridges, from which cascaded the spectacular golden ion waterfalls.

The first bridge after the Brooklyn Bridge was the Manhattan Bridge, but since it was so close to the Brooklyn, its waterfall wasn’t initiated till Lap 2. But the next bridge, the colossal Williamsburg Bridge, like the first turn of any race, was a crunch point. Its golden waterfall was most certainly active - and by the time the eight racers reached it, they had to be in single file in order to pass through the narrow opening in its curtain of golden ions.

The surface of the East River rushed under the nose of the
Argonaut
as Jason threw every lever forward, banking with the leftward bend in the river toward the tiny gap under the Williamsburg Bridge.

He saw the bridge, saw the gap, saw all the speeding cars around him and wondered:
How the hell are we all going to fit through?

But in the moment before the bridge was upon them, all eight cars converged like the teeth of a zipper and roared -
shoom-shoom-shoom-shoom
- through the narrow gap.

But then as he shot through the gap in the waterfall in the middle of the field, Jason saw that one car hadn’t quite made it through.

It was the second US Air Force driver, Dwayne Lewicki, in his modified F-55 fighter, Car No. 23.

Trailing two cars behind Jason, Lewicki’s car emerged on the other side of the waterfall, seemingly all right - but it wasn’t.

Lewicki must have clipped the ion curtain.

Slowly, painfully, inexorably, his car peeled away to the right in a soaring downward arc, before it came to an abrupt jarring halt in the Dead Zone in front of the spectators on the eastern shore - out of the race.

‘Game on,’ Jason said.

Jason roared around the track - all but overwhelmed by the intensity of the racing.

This was unlike anything he’d experienced at Race School. Cars whizzed across his nose at reckless speeds. Racers bumped and pushed each other. And the crowd, it was always there, always around him, roaring, cheering, almost…well…
baying
for blood. It kind of felt like an old Roman chariot race.

The two Renault drivers, Fabian and Trouveau, had obviously decided to make Jason’s life hell. All round the first lap - and then the second and the third - the two Frenchmen badgered Jason, the pair of them taking calculated swipes at both his tailfin and his nosewing, zeroing in on the
Argonaut
with their bladed nosewings.

Every time they cut in, the New York crowds booed.

And every time Jason evaded their thrusts, the crowds cheered. He held them off doggedly.

But it was only a matter of time till their attacks did some damage and on Lap 6 they did.

At Liberty’s Elbow, the two French cars cut across the bow of the
Argonaut
in such a way that Jason either pulled out of the turn or lost his nosewing.

He pulled out of the turn - and decelerated - and watched as the field raced away from him.

‘Damn it!’ he yelled. ‘French bastards!’

He gunned the
Argonaut
once more, and shot off in pursuit - now chasing the 15-second rule.

At each bridge now, he saw a giant digital countdown, telling him how far ahead the leader was (of course, it was Alessandro Romba).

Jason hit the Start-Finish Line at the Brooklyn Bridge eleven seconds behind Romba. Close. But okay.

But in a race like this - by its very nature, tight and close - that kind of lead could only be regathered in the pits or with the help of a crash.

In the end, Jason would benefit from both.

Pit stops in a collective pursuit race were pre-set - so as not to allow cheap knock-outs when someone pitted. In this race, they were pre-set to take place every 20 laps.

At those stops, Sally performed like a genius. And it was she who hauled in Alessandro Romba’s lead - in stops on Laps 20, 40, 60 and 80 - in one of those stops, hauling in three whole seconds.

And then things started to get interesting.

LAP: 105 OF 120

Romba was still in the lead, in his silver-and-black Lockheed-Martin.

The USAF pilot, Carver, was in 2nd in his blue F-55. Then there was a pack of four - among them, Jason.

Last of all, in 7th place, came Jason’s quasi-team-mate in the Lombardi Racing Team, Pablo Riviera.

Riviera was languishing in last place, having woefully botched a pit stop on Lap 100, and was now travelling along only just inside the 15-second mark.

And so, in a moment of desperate insanity, he took on the second meat grinder - since it afforded the single
greatest gain on the course. It could turn a 13-second deficit into a 3-second one.

He didn’t know - or perhaps he didn’t have the skill or the nerve to know - that in order to overcome the meat
grinders of New York, you had to take them at absolutely full speed: 810 km/h.

But entering a tight iron tunnel no bigger than a garage door at close to the speed of sound is a bit harder than it
sounds.

Riviera shot into the meat grinder at a cool 750 km/h. The long dark cylindrical tunnel enveloped him. And then the tunnel around him began to iris shut, its gigantic iron cleaves squeezing inward with a loud mechanical clanking, like a giant industrial python suffocating its prey.

And in a moment of clarity, Riviera realised he wasn’t going to make it.

He screamed.

The meat grinder squealed with rust as it closed around him.

Its shrieking walls sheared off the tips of his wings first…then they crushed his side air intakes…and his tailfin…and…

The crumpled remains of Riviera’s F-3000 was spat out the other end of the meat grinder, battered and unrecognisable; it tumbled into the river, the only thing that had survived: the driver’s reinforced safety cockpit.

Riviera was alive - just - and only because of the supersolid construction of his car (and the fact that the meat
grinder didn’t squeeze all the way inward). Not in any way because of his own skill.

Now only six drivers remained in the race.

NEW YORK CITY, USA (SATURDAY)

RACE 3: THE PURSUIT

LAP: 110 OF 120

Two separate battles were now taking place on every lap.

Romba and Carver for the lead.

Jason and the two Renault drivers for 3rd. And trailing behind them, only just managing to keep inside the 15-second rule, the General Motors factory team driver, an older Australian driver named Mark Skaife in car 102.

In fact, the 15-second rule performed an admirable service: it kept all of them bunched close together - within striking distance - so that when the chance came, every driver was in a position to strike.

Then the chance came.

When two things happened at once:

First, Angus Carver tried to overtake Alessandro Romba as they roared up the side of Ward’s-Randall’s Island on Lap 110. Carver tried to sneak inside Romba, but Romba held his line stubbornly and as they hit the left-hander at the top of the island, they collided - badly - and separated, lurching wildly in either direction,
both of them
hitting the nearby demag lights.

The other thing that happened (at the exact same time) was this: as they shot up the East River behind the two leaders, Fabian and Trouveau, working together, boxed Jason in on the left-hand side of the track, so that when they hit Ward’s-Randall’s Island, Jason had only two options: crash into Ward’s Island, or go left - toward the second meat grinder.

Jason went left. And he accelerated. Gave it everything he had. He’d seen the meat grinders enough on TV over the years and every year the commentators said the same thing: you couldn’t beat them at anything less than top speed.

So he hit the gas and rushed round the base of Ward’s/Randall’s Island and beheld the entry to the second meat grinder.

It looked tiny.

Really tiny.

This would be like firing a bullet into a keyhole. The
Argonaut
rushed toward the tiny opening. Its speedometer topped 800 km/h…

805 km/h…then 810 km/h before -
VOOOOOOM!

The
Argonaut
blasted into the tight cylindrical tunnel - and immediately the tunnel began to iris inwards. Jason leaned forward in his seat.

The Bug looked up at the rapidly ‘collapsing’ tunnel all around them.

Then the irising walls were so close, they started sparking against the
Argonaut
‘s wingtips and Jason thought his car was almost certainly going to die when -
whoosh
- they blasted out into dazzling sunshine again and found themselves…

…in the lead.

With only ten laps to go.

The Bug exclaimed something.

Jason smiled. ‘I’m telling Mum you swore.’

But the jackals weren’t far behind.

Because of their collision, Romba and Carver were cactus, and they were quickly swamped by Trouveau and then Fabian and then Skaife. (Romba and Carver would ultimately duke it out for the still-important 2 points available for the 5th placed racer, fighting right up until they were both eliminated by the 15-second rule - in the end, Romba outlasted Carver.)

Meanwhile, up front, it was Jason against the rest - and with ten laps to run, he now had a golden opportunity
to win the race!

And from that moment, with adrenaline coursing through his entire body, Jason flew nine of the best laps of his life.

The two Frenchmen couldn’t believe that he’d come out the other side of the meat grinder. They charged with a vengeance.

It was Trouveau - needing the points more than Fabian - who charged harder, and when he stormed through the first meat grinder on Lap 115, he was suddenly hammering on Jason’s tail.

The last four laps of the race would be four of the toughest Jason had ever experienced.

Trouveau hounded him.

But Jason took every turn perfectly.

Well, almost every turn. On each lap, Trouveau gained on him at Liberty’s Elbow. The French driver seemed to know it was Jason’s weak point - it was as if he could
smell
Jason’s fear. He knew that Jason took it gingerly, frightened of the G-forces, frightened of knocking himself out.

And as they commenced the last lap of the race - Lap 120 of 120 - Trouveau was travelling almost alongside the
Argonaut
.

And deep in his heart of hearts, Jason knew what Trouveau was going to do.

Trouveau was going to take him at the Elbow.

Up the East River, following the safe route now. Into the narrower Harlem River, under all the bridges spanning it - before blasting out into the Hudson, down its long wide straight, hitting top speed, before suddenly,
she
came into view.

Lady Liberty.

Jason saw her and grimaced.

He knew the score - the Bug had done the math after Romba and Carver had been eliminated: an 8-point 2nd-placed finish wouldn’t be enough to beat Carver on the overall ladder. To go through to the next race, Jason needed the full 10 points. He needed to win.

Death or glory,
he thought.