It had taken not one, not two, but three short cuts to do the impossible: they had overtaken Xavier!
Xavier charged, threw all he had at Jason, trying to retake him. But now that he was in front, Jason wasn’t going to let go of his lead.
He and Xavier fought all the way around the track, but when they hit the Start-Finish Line seven minutes later, it was Jason in the lead.
The 16th and last elimination of the race would be Xavier Xonora.
Now there were only four racers left, and with six laps to go, they alone would fight it out to the finish.
But not before one last pit stop at the end of Lap 48.
Jason knew this pit stop would be his last chance to catch up to Barnaby - who by this time was now almost 40 seconds ahead of him.
‘Sally!’ he called over the radio. ‘This is your moment!’
‘I’ll be waiting,’ came the reply.
Jason wound through the land-bound section of the course, until finally he beheld Hobart.
He swept into the city and dived into the pits - - saw the usual buzz of activity, Mech Chiefs running every which way, pit machines rising and falling, electric lights everywhere blazing.
He saw the other three racers still in their pit bays, their Mech Chiefs working away already, halfway through their stops:
Barnaby.
Krishna.
Ariel.
And then, just as Jason swung the Argonaut into its pit bay, there came a loud dying whine from somewhere above him and all of a sudden…
…every single electric light in Pit Lane went out!
Pit machines froze in mid-air.
Computer monitors crashed to black.
Everyone looked about themselves in confusion.
Sally, now standing beside the Argonaut, swapped a look with Jason.
They didn’t even need to say it out loud.
Power failure.
Manual pit stop.
Jason and the Bug were out of their seats in seconds, and by hand they attached six fresh magneto drives to the Argonaut while Sally added coolant and compressed-air cylinders, also by hand.
The other teams obviously hadn’t practised manual stops much - if at all - and they just stood in their pit bays, confused.
Barnaby yelled at his Mech Chief, swearing, pointing, telling him to hurry up.
Krishna deduced that he had to help his Mech Chief, and so he leapt out of his car.
Ariel did the same - and while she may not have practised manual stops as well as Jason’s team, of the other three racers, she did the best at it.
As he screwed on his mag drives with a cordless drill, Jason heard Ariel’s Mech Chief yell to Ariel: ‘ - can’t explain it! A virus just hit us like a goddamn anvil! Ripped down our firewall! But it was so powerful, it spread into the wider system and brought down the entire Pit Lane power grid!’
In the end, the big winners from the unexpected power shutdown were Ariel and Jason.
Having entered the pits in 3rd place, Ariel shot back out onto the track in 1st place!
Krishna shot out next, in 2nd.
Barnaby was the biggest loser - perhaps because he hadn’t got out of his car for the whole of the manual stop, choosing instead to simply abuse his Mech Chief. As such, he came out of the pits in 3rd place…
…a single car-length ahead of Jason Chaser.
Game on.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RACE 50
LAP: 50 OF 51
RACERS LEFT ON TRACK: 4
With two laps to go, Jason hammered on the heels of Barnaby Becker.
In a funny way, Jason felt confident now.
Xavier was out of the race, as were those racers like Cortez and Wong who had tried to take him out. And now he had Barnaby in his sights.
And he knew Barnaby’s weakness - right-hand hairpins - and there were plenty of those coming up. Through the Chicane…into the icebergs.
Jason lined up Barnaby.
Got himself into position behind him.
The best option was at the very end of the iceberg section, at a hairpin turn inside a tunnel carved into the last iceberg.
They weaved through the icebergs, Jason coming closer and closer to Barnaby - looming ominously. Then they hit the last iceberg, and Jason made his move, ducked inside
Barnaby, expecting him to take it wide, as usual… …only Barnaby didn’t do that at all.
Instead, he took the hairpin perfectly, and cut Jason off…
…and held his position!
Jason was shocked.
That wasn’t supposed to happen! his mind screamed. Barnaby never took hairpins like that - not even in the
most recent race, Race 49.
He must’ve got lucky, Jason thought, and he prepared to take Barnaby at a right-hand hairpin up in the land-bound
section of the track.
But again Barnaby confounded him - taking that hairpin perfectly as well, and thus fending Jason off again. ‘How are you doing this, Barnaby!’ Jason asked aloud.
‘How do you know…?’
He cut himself off.
At that moment, like a sledgehammer-blow, it hit him… …and it broke his heart.
Dido.
Flashback:
Jason and Dido that morning, sitting on the clifftop watching the sun rise. And Jason telling Dido how he planned to beat Barnaby that day:
‘ We’ve found a chink in his technique. The Bug’s been analysing his racing manoeuvres on video-disc. Barnaby’s weak on right-hand hairpins - that’s where he gets sloppy; he goes too wide, so you can cut inside him…’
Then another recollection struck Jason.
The time he had told Dido about his nightmares and his greatest fear: having his tailfin taken out. Then, the very next day, Horatio Wong had ruthlessly taken out his tailfin, almost killing him and the Bug.
His greatest fear at the time had come true.
And the event had all-but taken Jason over the edge, shattering his race confidence.
Oh, Dido…he thought. You didn’t…
But the evidence was clear. Whenever he told Dido something, his enemies seemed to know it the following day.
Dido was in league with Barnaby and Xavier.
Jason’s brain returned to Race 50.
The Argonaut screamed across the Start-Finish Line and started the last lap, Lap 51.
Ariel was leading.
Krishna was in 2nd place.
Then a gap.
Then Barnaby in 3rd.
And Jason in 4th.
Race 50 had essentially become two races: one between Ariel and Krishna for the win; and another between
Barnaby and Jason for 3rd place.
But as far as Jason was concerned, Krishna and Ariel didn’t matter - however they finished, it didn’t affect him
on the overall Ladder. All he had to do was beat Barnaby to get to New York: as things were, 3rd was as good as 1st
in this race.
* * *
Down the Southern Ocean Straight, through the Chicane for the last time.
He was still all over Barnaby, probing for a way past. Into the iceberg section.
Jason thought about taking the three Clashing Bergs routes, but figured his luck there couldn’t last. Better to hang onto Barnaby’s tail - he could still take him.
But he couldn’t take him in the icebergs.
Barnaby held him out, sometimes just by flagrantly taking up all the track, blocking Jason’s path.
Northward, back towards Tasmania.
Then into the land-bound section.
More hairpins, and belying his previous efforts, Barnaby took them all beautifully - but now Jason was charging, pushing Barnaby on every turn, the two cars almost side-by-side.
As Jason and Barnaby fought in the central region of Tasmania, ahead of them, Ariel Piper - having flown a near-perfect race - crossed the Finish Line five seconds ahead of Varishna Krishna, taking 1st place.
But Barnaby and Jason
were still racing.
And with Ariel and Krishna coming 1st and 2nd, everything was still on the line for the two of them - whoever won this tussle would go to New York.
Screaming with speed, they came roaring over the magnificent Tasman Bridge, approaching the last corner of the race - a sharp left-hand hairpin underneath a freeway flyover - and Jason made a sudden inside move on the turn…
…and he got him!
As the Finish Line swept into view, the Argonaut‘s nose inched in front of the nose of the Devil’s Chariot.
‘Noooo!’ Barnaby yelled.
And then he did something totally unexpected.
Panicked and desperate, Barnaby rammed Jason hard - driving both of their cars across the nearest set of demag lights.
Jason fought with his steering wheel, but to no avail - he saw his mag levels deplete with shocking speed.
Luckily for him, the same thing was happening to Barnaby’s car. It, too, was losing all its magnetic power.
At which point Jason saw where he was heading - straight for a big concrete pylon that supported the freeway bridge above them.
With a terrible shriek, the Argonaut glanced off the pylon and flipped up onto its side, ending three-quarters sideways, lying up against the next concrete pylon.
The Devil’s Chariot performed a similar crash, but it finished right-side-up, resting on the roadway, pointing backwards.
Both cars just sat there, under the concrete overpass, smoking and still.
‘You okay?’ Jason yelled to the Bug, both of them hanging sideways in their seatbelts.
The Bug said he was.
Jason was all right, too, but the forward half of the Argonaut was now resting on its side up against the pylon, so Jason couldn’t get out of the cockpit even if he tried.
‘Bug! Pro rules! Driver over the Line. You’ve got to get to the Finish Line! Here!’
Jason removed the Argonaut‘s steering wheel - fitted as it was with a transponder. Pro rules dictated that if a car couldn’t cross the Line, a racer could still finish the race by having either himself or his navigator carry his transponder-equipped steering wheel over the Line.
Jason offered the steering wheel to the Bug. ‘Run! Run!’
The Bug’s eyes boggled for a moment, then he unbuckled his seatbelt and literally fell out of the cockpit, dropping clumsily to the ground. Then he stood up, took the steering wheel from Jason, and ran.
Down the highway.
As fast as his little legs could carry him, down the last 500 metres of highway.
The crowd gathered to watch the final race of the season had never seen anything like it.
There was the Bug, running down the finishing straight, his little legs pumping, his round bespectacled face pink with exertion, clutching a steering wheel in his right fist.
Trapped in the cockpit of the Argonaut, Jason could only watch him run.
‘Go, Bug! Go!’
Vmmmmmm.
Just then, an ominous thrumming sound came to life beside Jason.
Jason turned - to see the battered and dented Devil’s Chariot lift up off the asphalt and resume a hovering position. It seemed wounded, broken. But it was working.
Slowly, it pivoted in mid-air and Jason saw Barnaby at the controls, his face set in an evil grimace.
Jason snapped round - and saw the Bug still running down the road.
Barnaby hit the gas.
* * *
The Bug ran. Hard.
He was hardly built for speed: short legs, little pot belly, big glasses, helmet. Sweat had fogged up his glasses by now, but he kept on pounding the pavement anyway.
The crowd was now on its feet - but silent. Stunned into silence.
And then everyone saw it.
Saw Barnaby Becker’s battered Devil’s Chariot come lurching down the highway behind the Bug…
Chasing him to the end.
It wasn’t trying to run him down. Far from it. It was trying to beat him to the Line. After all the racing, all the pit stops and overtaking manoeuvres, it had come down to this. One racer on foot, the other in the air, in his dented, broken car.
And as all could see, even at their wildly differing speeds, they would hit the Line almost together…
Then, a man’s voice in the crowd yelled, ‘Go Bug! Go!’
The voice of Henry Chaser.
And as they watched this bizarre contest, the rest of the crowd joined in.
‘GO BUG! GO!’
‘GO BUG! GO!’
The Bug’s little legs pumped up and down.
The Devil’s Chariot gained speed.
Jason could only watch, helpless in his seat.
The Bug ran over the giant white letters painted on the road just before the Finish Line - ‘START-FINISH‘ - just as the Devil’s Chariot roared up behind him, accelerating…
…coming closer and closer and closer…
…and the Bug saw the Line - the actual Finish Line, a thick white band stretching across the road in front of him - and as the roar of the Devil’s Chariot filled his ears and rushed alongside him, he dived…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RACE 50
LAP: 51 OF 51
RACERS LEFT ON TRACK: 4
It would go down in Race School history as one of the most bizarre photo-finish photos ever.
It depicted the Bug, frozen in mid-air, diving over the Start-Finish Line, the Argonaut‘s steering wheel held in front of him in his outstretched hands - while the Devil’s Chariot hovered, also frozen, in the background of the photo, its body blurred with speed…and its nose a bare ten centimetres short of the Line.
Thanks to the Bug’s little legs, Team Argonaut had beaten Barnaby Becker by less than a foot.
Afterwards, Henry Chaser would ask if he could have a copy of the photo and the School gave him one.
It now hangs in the Chaser family living room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pandemonium reigned in the pits after the consequences of Race 50 became apparent.
Jason leapt out of the Argonaut and threw his fists into the air. Sally caught him, also jumping for joy.
They knew the score.
The results of Race 50 had changed the Race School Championship Ladder dramatically.
It now looked like this:
INTERNATIONAL RACE SCHOOL
CHAMPIONSHIP LADDER
AFTER 50 RACES
DRIVER NO. CAR POINTS
1. XONORA, X 1 Speed Razor 313
2. KRISHNA, V 31 Calcutta-IV 305
3. PIPER, A 16 Pied Piper 285
4. CHASER, J 55 Argonaut 284
5. BECKER, B 09 Devil’s Chariot 283
6. WASHINGTON, I 42 Black Bullet 283
7. WONG, H 888 Little Tokyo 278
8. SCHUMACHER, K 25 Blue Lightning 275
Suddenly the Top 4 looked very different.
Barnaby and Isaiah Washington had both dropped out of it completely, replaced by Ariel - who with her 10-point win had leapt up from 6th to 3rd - and Jason, who had gone from 5th to 4th with his 8 points for coming third.
Along with Xavier and Krishna, Jason and Ariel were going to New York.
Almost as pleasing to Jason was the result that Barnaby Becker and Isaiah Washington wouldn’t be going anywhere.
But then something else happened - ripping Jason from his thoughts.
Dido ran into the pits.
She spotted Jason, smiled with joy, and hurried over to the Argonaut.
* * *
Dido threw her arms around Jason…
…but Jason didn’t hug her back.
She noticed his lack of response immediately, and drew away. ‘What’s wrong, Jason? You did it. You made the Top 4. You won your ticket to the New York Challenger Race.’
At first, Jason didn’t speak. Truth be told, he actually didn’t know what to say. He’d never had someone so brazenly betray his trust before.
For a long moment, he just looked at Dido - scanned her eyes, her face, s
earching for something…anything. Something he could trust, something he could believe in.
But he found nothing there.
Both the Bug and Sally saw at once that something was very wrong - but they kept their distance.
‘Jason? Are you okay?’ Dido asked.
‘I have something to tell you,’ Jason said, ‘something very personal…’
‘Yes,’ Dido said gently.
‘…so I hope when you relay it to Xavier and Barnaby, you tell it to them word-for-word.’
The blood drained from Dido’s face.
The Bug spun in disbelief. Sally McDuff turned, too.
Dido stammered, ‘Jason…I…what are you say - ‘
‘I know what you did, Dido,’ Jason said. ‘You were feeding them everything I told you. About my fears. About my strategies, like overtaking Barnaby on hairpins. Stuff I never told anyone else. You were probably also updating them about my health. I’m also now wondering about some of those late nights we had before important races - like in Italy. I’m wondering if you were keeping me out late.’
Dido fell silent.
By now Sally was staring daggers at her. The Bug’s mouth was just gaping open in shock.
Jason went on: ‘Even that time in the coffee shop, when Barnaby hit on you and you blew him off, I bet that was a set-up, too.’
As if in reply, Dido bowed her head.
‘So when you see them next time,’ Jason said, ‘tell them this from me…Jason Chaser is back. Back to full strength. Which means the next time we’re all on the same track, they’re going down. As for you, Dido, please leave. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.’
Dido clutched her face, then turned and ran away.
Steely-eyed, Jason could only watch her go.
In the immediate aftermath of Race 50, questions were asked about the catastrophic power failure that had occurred during the final pit stop on Lap 48.
Race Director Calder led the investigations…