"Title Run" Sample Chapter

Three closed wheel cars might have had enough room to make it through turn three side by side with some fender rubbing, but not three open-wheeled formula cars. At close quarters in a formula car the worst case accident happens when you get your wheels interlocked with another car. It's a critical mistake that guarantees someone is going to get airborne, and Tanaka made it at 150 MPH.

His left front wheel got into Stefan's right rear, and when their two tires touched, the result was instant and terrifying. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the front of Tanaka's car launch into the air as Stefan spun toward the grass infield. I held my line in the high groove out of turn three and had a split second to check my mirrors before turning into four. What I saw was a mental snapshot that I never forgot. Tanaka's car was completely inverted and on its way back to the hard asphalt upside down. Stefan's car was spinning in the infield grass. That was all I had time to take in as turn four rushed toward me and I banked the Swift into a low line and then on to the front straight. The yellow flags were already out and waving furiously as I passed the Start/Finish line. It had to be bad.

I was sure that Tanaka had come down squarely on his head and I stopped myself from thinking about what the marshals were going to find back in turn three if he had. I caught up to a slowing DaSilva, lifted off myself and tried to see something of what was going on behind me in my mirrors. It was useless and I had to wait until Raul and I came around again to turn three. The corner marshals were fast and they were already standing out on the track surface slowing us right down to a crawl and directing traffic around the pieces of shattered black fiberglass. I told myself not to look but I did. I had to know.

What remained of Tanaka's car had somehow come to rest right side up. It was little more than a ball of black wreckage. Its engine and gearbox had been torn off as a single chunk of twisted metal and were sitting 50 yards away from the shattered cockpit. All four wheels, both wings and all of the bodywork was scattered in a field of debris that looked exactly like a plane crash. Which, at the speeds we were doing, it had been. But the most incredible image was of Hiro Tanaka, alive and in one piece, limping toward the ambulance with the help of a marshal. I immediately began looking for Stefan's bright blue # 7 car but it was nowhere to be seen. That could only mean that the tiny Frenchman had recovered from his spin and was back in the race somewhere behind me and Bennedetto.

This all happened on lap 33 and brought out the Ferrari pace car again. As we all formed up in single file, I looked back over the field behind in my mirrors and saw with satisfaction that Stefan had survived and was back in the pack in sixth place. It took ten laps under yellow before the wreckage was cleared and the pace car pulled off as we exited turn four. Allan was ready.

"Going green. Going green."

This time I was too close to Raul to create a gap so I just tucked underneath his rear wing and waited for him to nail it. I planned to race him down into turn one and see who lifted first. The starter waited until we were almost past his box before waving the green flag and Raul and I both buried our right feet at the same moment. It should have been a neck and neck drag race down the front straight but it wasn't even close. DaSilva's yellow car just streaked away with an incredible surge of power, actually breaking its rear tires loose as it clawed for traction. For a moment I thought that my engine had died, but it was pulling clean and hard, even leaving Bennedetto behind.

It made no sense. All of the cars in the Formula Atlantic series used the same Toyota engines. Properly maintained, they're bulletproof and although some are better than others, no modifications are allowed to ensure that they all make close to the same power. That's why the racing in the series was so close. But DaSilva's car was performing like it had double the power of anybody else, which I knew to be physically impossible. All the cars were inspected before every race to make sure that no one was running a trick engine, but somehow Raul had the kind of power that left everyone behind in the space of a few seconds.

There was absolutely no way to stay with him. All I could do was watch Raul easily pull out five car lengths going into turn one, hold that gap through two, and then disappear into the distance. By the end of that lap and the next, his lead was almost half a mile, the length of the main straight.

I was stunned. I'd driven a strong tactical race and worked myself up from 14th to second, keeping a little in reserve for the final five laps where I was sure that I could hunt down Raul and challenge him for the win. My tires weren't great but I had enough left in them for one last charge. Without Tanaka as a blocker, Raul would have to defend his lead all by himself. I'd seen him in that position before and he tended to become nervous and erratic under pressure. I was counting on it to give me an opening.

None of that carefully planned strategy mattered now. DaSilva just flat drove away from me.

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