fasttrack chapter 1

"Fast Track" Sample Chapter

As the laps mounted, I used my knowledge of the track to get into a rhythm with car, making all of my motions as smooth as possible allowing the Mustang to find its cornering and braking limits. I was also getting updates from Herb every time I passed the pits. He held up a pit board telling me how many laps were complete, my position, and most importantly how far ahead the next car was. In the next 11 laps I narrowed the gap to the leading group from 4 seconds to just under 1.

The Mustang turned onto the main straight and then put its power down without a twitch as I accelerated up through the gears building speed for the start/finish line and the beginning of lap 13. I was now close enough to mount an attack for third place. I checked Herb's pit board as I flashed past, saw the gap down to half a second, and focused all my attention on catching and outbraking the Camaro that was now right in front of me by the end of the straight. Just as I came over the rise before turn one I was stunned to see, out of the corner of my eye, a white Corvette inching up on my inside. Where had he come from? Then I realized that I had been so focused on closing the gap to the leaders for the last few laps that I had forgotten to check what was happening behind me. That was what mirrors were for. It was a rookie mistake, and I knew it was going to cost me fourth place.

As things turned out, it cost me a lot more than that. The Corvette had the inside line for turn one, but I was determined that he was going to have to outdrive me to keep it. I left my braking to the last possible moment, and eased the Mustang into the corner right on the limit. I had successfully outbraked the Corvette, but left him no place to go except into the side of my car. He tapped me surprisingly gently behind the rear wheel, but it was enough to spin the Mustang fully around, off the track, and on to the sand on the outside of turn one. I came to rest in a cloud of dust, engine dead, facing the wrong way.

I'd just thrown away 11 laps of hard work. I quickly restarted the engine and put in first gear, but then had to wait for about half the field to go by until I could rejoin the race. Finally, there was a gap and the corner workers waved me away. I smoked the Mustang's rear tires furiously as I got back on to the track and began to build up to racing speed again. As my hot sticky racing slicks were now covered with sand and dirt, I knew that it would take at least another lap to clean them off. It took more. By the end of lap 15, the tires were biting again and then I came past the pits where I had the real damage confirmed from Herb's pit board. The spin had dropped me from fourth place to fifteenth.

One part of me felt like just pulling off and parking it right there. Half the race was gone, I was down in fifteenth, and the leaders must have been almost a full lap ahead. And I was mad at myself. It's never a good idea to do anything that requires a lot of skill and concentration, like driving a race car, when you're mad. On the other hand, if you can turn the anger into cold determination, it can work for you. I knew that's what I had to do, for myself and for the two guys waiting in the pits who had put everything into getting this car ready for me. I owed them. I hate quitting and I don't much like losing either. There were 15 laps left. Winning was out of the question, but there might be enough time to at least put up a good show.

I had spent the first half of the race in deep concentration, being careful and trying not to make any mistakes. Now I had to take some chances. I knew that I hadn't yet pushed the Mustang consistently to its limit, using maximum revs on every shift, braking deeply into every corner, getting the power on earlier, and taking cornering lines that would use up every inch of the road. I began to do all of that every lap from then on, throwing the Mustang into corners, sliding out of them with the power full on, catching and passing anyone I could anywhere there was an opening. I was driving more on nerve and adrenaline than with my head, which was why I missed every one of Herb's pit signals for the next 14 laps.

What finally woke me up was the white flag being waved as I blasted past the start finish line, which indicated that I was starting the final lap left of the race. I was closing on the same white Corvette that had pushed me off earlier. This guy I had to catch, and I wanted to do it in the Corkscrew. I was hard on the Corvette's tail as we came up fast to the top of the hill, then he braked early and moved quickly to the left to prevent me from diving inside of him as we entered the corner. Nice guy. We went in nose to tail, dropped down into the middle of the corner and exited side by side on to the back straight.

If I was going to get by it would have to be in the final corner. My brain was in control again and I lifted slightly to let him in front of me through the fast kink leading up to the final left hand turn, and then put my foot down hard and darted to the inside taking the line for the corner. To hold the inside line I had to lock up all four wheels under braking, which started the Mustang sliding sideways as we entered the corner. I quickly grabbed second gear, steered into the skid, gave the Mustang full throttle, and exited the last corner almost sideways, with the Corvette right behind. Payback. The Mustang snapped straight and it then became a drag race with the Corvette to the finish line. Both our engines screamed well past maximum on every shift, but the Mustang held its ground and took the chequered flag no more than a foot ahead of the charging white Corvette. And then the Mustang's engine let go in the biggest possible way.

There was no warning, just a loud metallic bang, the engine stopped dead and everything instantly went white, as if I was in a plane that had suddenly flown straight into a cloud. The cockpit of the car filled with thick white smoke, stinging my eyes and nose. I couldn't even see the steering wheel, much less the road ahead. Blind and powerless, I was still moving at well over 100 miles an hour as I felt the rear end of the Mustang starting to spin around. At this point I was no longer a driver, just a passenger along on an wild uncontrolled ride to the nearest wall. Definitely not a good feeling. I stood on the brakes and braced myself against the steering wheel, praying that I wouldn't hit whatever was out there. Or at least that it would be something soft.

The car seemed to be slowing, but I knew that it couldn't just keep on sliding and eventually come gently to rest. There was too little road left and too many guardrails and barriers. Then the impact came, like a huge fist in my back. Full stop. Everything was suddenly very quiet and still. My first impulse should have been to get out. Instead I sat motionless, not from injury or fear but out of simple respect for this car that we had spent months building, and that I had now smashed in a second. It had given all it had in the race, and then wrecked itself protecting me. It had done everything Herb told it to. The Mustang sat spent, crippled and deathly silent. All of this went through my mind in a few moments, but it felt like an hour. Sitting there seemed the right thing to do until the acrid white smoke from the engine brought me back to my senses.

Back to Books