pine trees, with barricades of hay bales among them. There was no room
to get through the cars ahead, and the Mercedes was now pressing on his
tail. Woody braked and skittered around the corner on the heels of the
three cars. Then he saw, just for a second, a gap in them. It was about
a foot wider than the Black Tiger. No more.
"Here goes," Woody said to himself and opened the throttle. The effect
was as if a jet engine had been added to the Black Tiger's power plant.
She literally leaped through the gap. There was a slight bump, and he
knew that he had touched the rear fender of one of the cars. But other
than that he got away clear. The Mercedes that had been challenging him
was left in the melee of cars he had just passed.
Ahead now the road was straight but ran over a series of hills. Woody
recalled that stretch and knew that there was perhaps three-quarters of
a mile of it with a series of S-bends, followed by a hairpin at the end.
"Give her the gun," the voice inside him said again. It was still
Randy's voice. Woody opened the throttle, his foot pressed to the floor
board, and the Black Tiger flung down the track. Woody looked at his
speedometer. One hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty, one hundred
and thirty. He saw a Jag ahead and flashed past so close he could,
for a second, feel the warmth of the other's exhaust. He was doing a
hundred and forty plus when he entered the S-bends and braked down.
On the first bend, the Black Tiger nearly turned over. She seemed to
crouch over on her side, and Woody's foot slipped off the accelerator.
But then she recovered, veered a little under his unsteady hands at the
wheel, and shot off for the next bend. Woody decided to straighten that
one out. He would cut the corners on it and take the risk that there
might be a car ahead hidden from him. There wasn't a car ahead, but on
the third of the S-bends, which lay just over the top of a hill, there
was one right in the spot he was aiming at.
Without knowing quite why he did it, Woody changed down to third and,
reacting instinctively, pulled the Black Tiger over and hit the gas.
She went by the car--a Jag--in a cloud of dust.
Then came the hairpin. If Woody had not changed down on the last S-bend
he would certainly never have made the corner. As it was he had to hit
his brakes until all four wheels screamed their protest. But he managed
to claw around the hairpin.
The next time he passed the start-finish line he saw Worm again for a
brief flash holding up the blackboard. On it was a big figure 4.
For the next four laps Woody held his position, neither passing anybody
nor being passed. But he became more familiar with the track. Bends no
longer appeared unexpectedly before him. He found the reason why he had
nearly turned over on the one S-bend before the hairpin. It was banked
in the wrong direction so that the weight of a car cornering on it was
thrown downhill.
This piece of knowledge tucked into his mind he determined to put to
good use if he could get within passing distance of the Ferrari ahead.
If he could get on the near side of the Ferrari on that S-bend, the
driver would either have to let him by or run the risk of turning over
in making the corner.
It took him two laps to get into position for the try. All the while
he studied the driver's tactics. He belonged to the close-cornering
school. He went into all his bends as near to the inside as he could,
and only skidded away from that position when he was most of the way
around. If he did that on the first S-bend, he wouldn't be able to do
it on the second, for he would have skidded wide, Woody told himself.
That would give him an opportunity to take over the inside position and
pass.
The plan worked to perfection. The driver of the Ferrari took the first
S tight in against the corner and went wide for the second. Woody
saw his braking lights flash and a gap just big enough for him to
get through on the inside of the track. It would be there for only a
second. But Woody jammed his foot down hard on the accelerator and shot
through. When he passed Worm again, the figure on the blackboard was 3.
Now a curious reaction set in. Woody had started the race in panic and
had somehow fought that down, becoming too absorbed in the driving to
think of anything else. But now he thought of Randy. In his two races,
Randy had always done well until he got to second place. Then the Black
Tiger had gone out of control.
His fears and distrust of the car, which had for a while left him,
began to return, though he fought against them. He knew who was
ahead--Kurt Kreuger in his Jag and Tom Wisdom in his Ferrari. They
were the same two that Randy had been killed trying to pass. Woody's
heart started to pound, and unconsciously he took his foot off the
accelerator. The Black Tiger seemed to slump as if it had hit a patch
of thick glue, there was a loud roar, and the Ferrari, which he had
been at such pains to pass, buzzed by him. He was back to fourth place
again.
A Mercedes and a Cad-Allard were coming up behind him. Only the fact
that they had to slow down for the corner ahead prevented their passing
him. Woody felt his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. The
muscles of his legs seemed to go rigid, and he felt he had no control
over his feet.
Somehow he got around the corner, and somehow he kept his foot down on
the accelerator when he hit the straightaway, but his heart was not in
it. He was afraid again, and this time he knew the fear was going to
remain. He recalled how he had nearly turned over on the S-bend and
how he had skidded broadside around one corner, and the spirit went out
of him. The Jag passed him easily and so did the Mercedes, the driver
flashing him a puzzled look as he went by.
Then Randy said something to him--or so it seemed. He said, "Relax.
Lean back. You can't drive all crouched over the wheel." Woody leaned
back against the seat. The feel of it on the back of his shoulders gave
him comfort.
"You passed those boys before," said Randy's voice. "You can do it
again. Try it on the S-bends. Go full bore and trust to luck. You're
driving a better car than you think."
The S-bends were ahead, and the three cars were just entering them.
Woody looked at his speedometer. A hundred and twenty-five. He wanted
to brake, then change down, and take the bends more slowly. Instead, he
pressed the accelerator and flung into the first bend as if it wasn't
there.
He hardly saw the Mercedes as he went by, taking it on the outside. He
was on the inside position on the second bend--the one that was banked
the wrong way. The Jag ahead had flung wide and was trying hard to get
into position. There was a sharp jolt as Woody streaked past it. But
he didn't bother even to look in his rear-vision mirror. He was fourth
again. There were three cars ahead, and he knew now that he could pass
them. Or rather he knew that he wouldn't hold back from trying. He
couldn't explain why it was that his panic had left. It was there in
full force a few minutes ago, and now there was not a vestige of it.
Instead he was leaning back against the seat. His hands and legs were
steady. His brain was clear, and his emotions were under control. His
only desire was to go faster and drive better.
"I think I'm going to make it, Randy," he said.
"Never doubted it for a moment," was the reply.
By the fifteenth lap Woody had won back to third position again. Kurt
had pulled ahead of Tom Wisdom. Woody had a warm feeling for the two
of them. He experienced a warm feeling, too, for the Black Tiger. The
roar of her engine, which before had frightened him, now made his
heart sing. He loved the way she handled and her enormous gallantry on
corners.
He knew that she had it in her to win the race, and he was ashamed that
he had penalized her with his own fears.
The last two laps were, for everybody, the most exciting of the race.
On the straightaway approaching the hairpin, Woody drew wheel to wheel
with Tom Wisdom who looked briefly at him and winked. But Tom wasn't
giving anything. He hugged the corner tight--so tight that Woody had to
follow him around, for it was too sharp to take wide. Woody drew ahead
briefly approaching the right-angle bend after the start-finish line.
But he was not sufficiently ahead to pull over and crowd Tom behind
him. They took the corner wheel to wheel, but since Woody was on the
outside, Tom was slightly ahead when they got around it. Woody had
only one more chance to pass--on the S-bends where he had made most of
his conquests. But Tom knew those S-bends even better than Woody did.
He never gave the Black Tiger a chance. And when the checkered finish
flag fluttered down before them, it was Kurt Kreuger first, Tom Wisdom
second, and Woody Hartford third.
Rocky was first to greet him when he returned to the pit. "You were
wonderful," she said. "Wonderful. Daddy always said you'd make a great
driver." And she flung her arms around him and gave him a kiss.
Worm somehow got hold of Woody's hand and kept pumping it up and down.
"I knew what was happening, laddie," he said. "For my money, ye won the
race."
When he got free of Rocky and Worm it was to find Mary Jane standing
by the car. She didn't say anything. She just smiled and looked very
proud.
18
That night a victory dinner was held at a hotel in Monterey where the
dining room had been taken over for the occasion. Woody, Mary Jane,
Worm, Rocky, Steve, and Woody's parents attended. It was something of a
battle to get into the hotel, for all the drivers who had participated
in the race were there. There were perhaps three hundred cars crowded
into the parking lot and lining the adjoining streets. The city, in
fact, became a racing center for the night, and radio and television
men were covering the event in full force.
Tom Wisdom and Kurt Kreuger both grabbed hold of Woody as he entered
the hotel lobby.
"You're coming with us," they said, and they dragged him off to a
seat at the head table. The Mayor presided at the banquet, and there
were officials of the state government and a number of sports-car
organizations. Woody couldn't remember how many people he was
introduced to by Tom Wisdom, who had taken him under his wing.
"You drove the finest race I've seen in a long time," Tom said. "Kurt
and I are both agreed on that. Right before the start, to be honest,
I didn't know whether you were going to make it. But you came through
like a veteran. You had me plenty worried those last few laps."
"I had the willies all right," Woody confessed.
"Say, Kurt," said Tom. "What were you doing right before the race
tearing up all those cigarettes?"
"Me?" said Kurt surprised. "I wasn't tearing up any cigarettes, was I?"
"You sure were."
"Well, if I was, I didn't know about it. But right before the start I'd
made up my mind that this was the last race I was ever going to drive
in. That's how I felt."
"How do you feel now?"
"Right now," said Kurt, "I think that was the silliest decision I ever
made in my life."
The Mayor presented Kurt with the trophy for first place--a cup of
such proportions that Worm said afterward it was big enough to boil
a haggis in. When Kurt had accepted it and expressed his thanks, he
paused for a minute, looked around the room, and said, "Most of you
people here tonight are drivers or mechanics or fans who are interested
in sports-car racing. It's a new sport in the United States, but it is
rapidly developing to the point where it's becoming a national sport.
Its long-range results will be better cars, with more safety features
and better drivers.
"Some of you guys, like me, have been in the game a long time. We
know that it isn't the winner who makes the race. It's all the other
competitors who are in there trying to win and their mechanics who put
in a lot of unpaid work fixing up their cars. It takes just as much
guts to lose a race as it does to win one. What I'm trying to say is
that it's the effort that matters and the courage that goes into it.
Not the result.
"In this connection, I think there's one driver here tonight who is
more entitled to this trophy than I. Before I mention his name, I'll
tell you something about him. He's a pretty young guy, and he's been
racing something less than a year.
"He didn't drive any well-known make of car. In fact, the car he drove
had a hundred per cent accident record. It had been on the track only
twice before. The first time its steering went out. The second time the
brakes failed and the driver, Jimmy Randolph, was killed.
"Randy believed in that car, and a lot of us were asked to race it
after his death. I was one of the people asked, and I refused. I
refused because I didn't trust it, and I believed that it might crack
up again. A lot of the rest of us turned the car down for the same
reasons.
"But one guy didn't turn it down. He probably had the same doubts and
fears to overcome that we had. But he had the guts to put them aside
and drive the car anyway.
"He drove a magnificent race, despite his inexperience. And he brought
a great new car to American tracks. It's hardly necessary for me now to
identify either the car or the driver. But I will do so anyway. The car
is the Black Tiger and the driver, Woody Hartford--"
If Kurt was going to say any more, he didn't get a chance for fully
ten minutes. Cheer after cheer filled the banquet room, and Tom and
another man on Woody's left picked him up and stood him upon a chair
for everyone to see. Woody's legs were trembling again, but this time
he didn't care.
When some order was finally restored, Kurt continued. "Just before this
banquet," he said, "without Woody's knowing anything about it, some
of the other drivers and I had a meeting with the track officials and
those who donated this trophy. We all agreed that while I might have
won it by being first, the guy who really deserves to get it is young
Woody Hartford. So come right over here, Woody, and take this trophy,
for it really belongs to you."
Woody got down shakily from the chair and took the trophy. He didn't
know what to say, and for five minutes he didn't have to say anything
for the cheering went on for that time. When finally there was enough
silence for him to make himself heard, all he could get out was, "Gee.
Thanks."
Kurt took the microphone back again. "I think Woody has a lot more to
say than that," he said. "But right at the present time, his clutch is
slipping. So we'll let him off. We know how he feels anyway.
"Just one more piece of news and then I'll sit down. Most of you older
drivers remember a great racing driver who was a friend of Randy's in
the old days. His name is William Orville Randolph McNess, commonly
known as Worm.
"Those who knew Worm ten or fifteen years ago know that he's been
fighting a private battle of his own. I won't go into the details.
All I want to say is that between Randy, Woody, and the Black Tiger,
Worm seems to have won that battle. At least I heard him cautiously
inquiring the price of an XK140 Jag, and I'll be very surprised if at
the next event, we don't have to contend with him as well as young
Woody."
There was another outburst of cheering at this announcement and Worm's
back was thoroughly pummeled to an impromptu chorus of "He's a Jolly
Good Fellow."
When it was all over, Woody and Worm met outside beside the Black
Tiger. Worm patted it affectionately.
"Tae think," he said, "that I called ye a man-killer."
"You should have called it a man-maker instead," said Mary Jane coming
up out of the darkness.