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 c.h.i.n.k in his technique. The Bug"s been a.n.a.lysing 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 overpa.s.s, 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 c.o.c.kpit, 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 c.o.c.kpit 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 gla.s.ses, helmet. Sweat had fogged up his gla.s.ses 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.