From his c.o.c.kpit, all Jason could see was the wide gla.s.s-like corridor of Plexigla.s.s stretching away from him before it banked steeply to the left into the forest of city buildings.
And then - tone, tone, ping - the start lights went green and the two cars shot off the mark and the crowds in the stands roared.
Two cars.
One enclosed track.
Hyperfast speeds.
Flashing sunshine.
Blurring walls.
The Argonaut and the Pied Piper banked and swerved as they rushed like a pair of bullets around the track, ducking and swooping and missing each other by inches as they jockeyed for position.
Out of the corner of his eye on his right side, Jason glimpsed the red-and-white nose of the Pied Piper shooting around the track alongside him.
After five quick laps, there was nothing in it.
After ten, they were still side-by-side.
Jason"s concentration was hyper-intense, eyeing the speed-blurred track whizzing by him.
Round and round they went, zipping over and under the figure-8 track, at some times side-by-side, at others on each other"s heels, swapping the lead but never by more than a couple of car lengths.
The crowd was captivated.
And then suddenly like a horse throwing a shoe, Jason unexpectedly lost a magneto drive and although more than anything he didn"t want to pit first, he peeled off into the pits.
Ariel stayed on the track, shooting off on the next 30-second lap.
The crowd gasped.
Jason had 30 seconds.
He hit the pit bay. The Tarantula descended.
7 seconds...8...
The Pied Piper zoomed through the city section.
New mags went on. A splash of coolant.
The Pied Piper zoomed over the cross-over of the figure-eight.
13 seconds...14 seconds.
"Sally...!"
"Almost done...okay! Go!"
And Sally cut short the stop and the Tarantula withdrew into the ceiling and Jason hit the gas and blasted out of the pits just as Ariel came screaming round the final turn, hard on the Argonaut"s heels - now only several car-lengths behind it!
This was cla.s.sic match-racing, the part of the race known as the "chase phase".
The Pied Piper (no pit stops) was hammering on the tail of the Argonaut (one stop), chasing it down. If Jason made even the slightest mistake and Ariel got her nose a millimetre ahead of him, it was race over.
And it only had to be a single millimetre - microchips attached to nosewings of both cars would start screaming as soon as they detected one car to be a lap ahead of the other.
Jason had to hold Ariel off until she was forced to pit.
But she didn"t pit.
She just kept chasing him.
Charging after him.
Hunting him down, taking each banking turn perfectly, gaining with each lap. Hauling him in metre by brutal metre.
After one lap, she was two car-lengths behind the Argonaut.
After two: one car-length.
And after three laps, she had crept inside a car-length!
It was relentless. Ariel was throwing everything at him, taking every turn cleanly, searching for a way past him, giving him the race of her life.
On the fourth such lap, Jason"s lead became half a car length.
Hold your nerve...he told himself. Hold your nerve...
Five laps. Most chase phases ended around the fifth lap, with either the pursuer pitting, or the runner crashing out.
Six laps.
And Ariel came alongside him!
She"s trying to force you into an error.
Seven laps.
Now it was side-by-side racing!
Jason kept his eyes fixed forward - if he dared to look sideways, he imagined he could see Ariel"s eyes inside her racing helmet.
Eight laps, and the crowd rose to their feet.
Eight laps! Jason"s mind screamed. How long is she going to keep this up? When is she going to pit!
Then on the ninth lap of the chase, he saw the Pied Piper"s red-and-white nosewing creep into his peripheral vision.
No! She"s gonna take me!
The crowds started cheering.
Never give up. Never say die.
And as they roared down the main straight, commencing Lap 20 - the tenth lap of the chase phase - Ariel peeled off and vanished into the pits.
The crowd burst into applause - Jason had just survived a nine-lap chase, almost double the average. An incredible feat of concentration under pressure.
And with Ariel finally off his tail, he gunned it.
Ariel"s pit stop was near perfect, and she came back out onto the track slightly ahead of Jason, but now on the same lap.
Lap 40 went by - and there was nothing in it.
Another chase phase took place between Laps 50 and 55, but Jason survived that.
Around Lap 81, Jason had his own chase phase, but Ariel fended him off determinedly.
Then Ariel tried again when Jason pitted on Lap 90, but there was no dice there.
Which meant that after 96 laps and 48 minutes of superb match-racing, it was now a flat-out dash for the line over the last four laps.
The two cars whipped round the track, banking with the corners like a pair of missiles, matching streaks of blue
and red.
With three laps to go, Jason was exhausted, his nerves and reflexes extended to the limit. He didn"t know if he
could keep this up.
Two laps to go, and his eyes began to blur...and Ariel crept ahead of him.
60 seconds of racing left.
Into the city section, and Jason jammed his thrusters all the way forward.
The Argonaut roared across the overpa.s.s and rocketed into the right-hander at almost 90 degrees to the earth and in doing so, gained a metre on the Pied Piper.
The two cars screamed out of the final turn, commencing the last lap, the Pied Piper less than a metre in front.
Jason clenched his teeth. Gunned it.
His head was beginning to spin.
Through the city buildings, banking hard - the Pied Piper just a red shape ahead of him - the roar of the crowd
invading his thoughts.
Over the cross-over and towards the final right-hander, all pedals and levers and dials in the red. And then, in a fleeting split-second instant, Jason saw it.
Saw Ariel make a mistake.
She was taking the last turn too wide. The very last turn - the 200th corner of this nerve-shattering, reflexburning race.
And so, calling on his last reserves of energy and skill, Jason pounced.
He started the turn wide and cut sharply inside Ariel - and as they took the turn together, the Argonaut swooped inside the Pied Piper...
...and came fully alongside it...
...and the two cars shoomed down the final straight together, and after 100 laps of the most intense matchracing imaginable they crossed the Start-Finish Line almost perfectly side-by-side and the winner was -