The Outside Groove (26 page)

I ran my practice laps and nailed down a line: In turn one, I'd roll my right tire over the star-shaped crack. In turn two, I'd roll my right tire over a tar blotch shaped like the state of Florida. In turn three, my left tire would split two parallel skid marks. And in turn four, I'd aim for another tar blotch, this one shaped more like New Hampshire. This would be my best route for control and cornering force, my ticket to good exit speed. Drive the line. Drive the line. Drive the line.

I pushed the speed a little, feeling the tires hold.

I drove two laps behind Johnny Savard, in his W
ILLOW
R
IVER
I
NN
car 11, maintaining his speed. Coming out of turn four, I accelerated and tried to take a lap as fast as I could up high, then another down low, knowing T. T. was behind the pit gate with her stopwatch and notebook. I wondered if I was going to be able to run anywhere near fast enough. Or would I bookend my racing career, and kill my college dreams, in another publicly humiliating wreck of sheet metal and rubber? I passed Wade in car 02 midway around but didn't look at him.

I tried another lap at full speed and passed him again. This time, I gave him a quick glance.

He stared straight, shaking his head.

The pit gate swung open. Practice over.

***

The drivers' meeting was the most torturous one I'd endured. I sat on the front bench but as close to the end as possible to escape as soon as Mr. Blodgett was through. The main topic of his diatribe was the Thundermaker drivers' tendency to throw themselves immediately into a race without taking a lap to let the field settle. “If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times,” he said, whapping his leg with his clipboard, “I've never seen a race won in the first turn of a race—or the second! Give it a lap. One lousy lap.”

The one thing different about this Demon's Run drivers' meeting was that I didn't feel like anyone was laughing at me anymore. I was sure no one expected I'd be able to compete with the Thundermakers, but a general sense of hostility swirled around the bleachers regarding the fact that I'd decided to race at all. If drivers didn't think I was acting selfishly by soaking up some of Wade's limelight on the day of his Circuit tryout—and I'm sure many of them did—then they were probably annoyed at the prospect of taking time to dust me out there on the track before getting on with their race.

***

Walking back to the pits, I spotted Jim's wrecker pulled up to my slot with Theo on the flatbed. As I climbed out of Green and pulled off my helmet, I saw a familiar silhouette in the passenger seat of the tow truck cab.

I walked over to the passenger window, nodding to Jim, who sat on the tailgate. Uncle Harvey slumped over to his left and looked blearily ahead, as if waiting for a traffic light to change.

“I couldn't tell you,” I said. “I was afraid you'd try to stop me.”

“I am going to try to stop you,” Uncle Harvey said.

“Why?”

He turned to me.

Bean gave the ten-minute warning for the Road Warrior feature.

“This is not your race to run anymore, Casey,” Uncle Harvey said. “You proved your point long ago, not that you should've had to. You can race. Now get your Warrior ride down—”

“It is so my race to run,” I said, struck by how, every time I'd jumped over one obstacle—my failed Demon's Run debut, the Corkum County enduro, trophies at both tracks—I'd merely encountered another one. Wade and Fletcher's cruel joke. Big Daddy's ultimatum. And now Uncle Harvey telling me to back off.

I looked around, taking in the carnival atmosphere of a race day: the fried-dough stand; families milling about, waving to one another, exchanging Sunday-morning pleasantries; rowdy, beer-drinking spectators on Beer Belly Hill getting a head start on the day's blitzing; an announcer who, in another venue, could actually be a barker trying to lure people into a freak show.

I spotted a group of girls—little girls and older girls, some girls my age—watching me from behind the pit gate. A few of the little ones waved.

I waved back and felt that surreal aura wrap itself around me, like it had when I'd signed those two girls' autographs. I remembered the feel of Green's tires grabbing at the track, the vibration of the Thundermaker engine dancing along my bones. They were strange sensations, but they also seemed somehow ... inevitable. As if every muddy trail I'd ever run with the cross-country team, every geometry test I'd ever aced, every afternoon I'd tutored the lawyers' kids, every Saturday night I'd spent home alone studying, every reckless race up Meadow Ridge Road I'd ever won against Wade, and every kind of race I'd run since then had been leading up to this one.

I stared through the windshield from Uncle Harvey's perspective and looked to the horizon, treetops stretching like low-hanging clouds to the river.
Why does the place I'm so sick of have to be so beautiful?
I wondered.

“You can't win a race in just one lap,” Uncle Harvey said, “but you sure can lose one.”

He'd given me advice before, but that morning his words struck me differently. They seemed almost like a riddle. I saw they could mean two things: race and don't race. It all depended on what race I thought I was running, the one out on the quarter-mile oval with the high-banked turns or the longer, even more perilous race that lay beyond. Way beyond. It was a test—something I used to be pretty good at taking. What was the answer?

“Did you set the tire pressures on Green this morning?”

“That what you call the rig?”

“Did you?”

Uncle Harvey scratched at some green paint on his pant leg. “Old habits die hard. And I know you well enough now to know you're following your own course. I respect that.”

I reached into the cab and hugged him. I gripped him even more tightly as Bean called the Road Warriors to the course for their feature. I held on until the engines passing down pit row to the track gate had all rumbled by. I kept holding another minute until I was sure the gate was closed. I let go and stood back.

“Keep turning left,” Uncle Harvey said. “Take what the race brings you. And be careful.”

I sat on Green's hood and tried my best to listen to the Sharks' rundown on the day's competitors, but I knew there wasn't much point in strategizing. I'd have to keep things simple. Just staying focused would be challenge enough. I noticed Fletcher walking down pit row, and my stomach grumbled—equal parts orange juice and anger. I told my crew that I was ready, that I just needed a few moments alone to get myself together.

“Liar,” Bernie said and gave me the Byam grip. She, T.T., and Tammy walked over to the wrecker tailgate, where Jim sat, hands on his knees, not reading his GED book for a change. He'd pulled on his G
O
C
ASEY
G
O
R
ACING
T-shirt. He looked downright nervous as T.T. plunked down and kind of leaned up next to him.

“Sorry to bug you,” Fletcher said.

I said nothing.

“Listen, Casey, I figured out what happened. I traced it back to Lonnie.”

I stared at the track, where the Road Warriors were running their feature. “Lonnie?”

“Yeah, I don't know why he said that,” Fletcher went on, “that thing about Wade ordering me to ask you to the prom. ” Fletcher paused as the Warriors roared around the near corner. “It wasn't true. It was just something Lonnie made up and said to someone, like a joke. Someone else heard it and, well, you know how these things go. ”

I
did
know how those things went, but what could I say about it? Now that I'd been so cold to this guy who was sweet enough to walk over to my pit, where he definitely shouldn't have been, fraternizing with the enemy. I turned to him. “Lonnie been working on the fuel tank?” I asked. “Lot of fumes around the fuel tank.”

Fletcher smiled and kicked a hunk of asphalt across the pavement. “Sorry about the mix-up. No hard feelings, I hope.”

“I'm sorry, too,” I said, though
sorry
hardly seemed a fitting word to describe the collision of misunderstandings and grudges heaped behind us.

“Good luck today.” He started jogging away.

I watched him and smiled, even though I knew that the Sharks were watching me and that they'd soon give me a ton of crap for acting like a schoolgirl with a mad crush. Fact of the matter was, only the schoolgirl part was false.

“And Dale Scott in the number seven car is your Road Warrior champion,” Bean announced. “Congratulations on a fine run, Dale. And he'll take the checkered flag for a victory lap. Next up, down on the main straightaway, our traditional Demon's Run Independence Day apple-pie-eating contest, followed by the day's special Thundermaker Sportsman—make that Sports
person
—feature, the Firecracker 50. And it's going to be a family affair here for the first time in track history, folks, as Fans' Pick Casey ‘the Lady' LaPlante tries to fend off brother Wade, your Thundermaker defending track champion. We're just about a dozen apple pies away from fifty laps of Demon's Run racing history in the making.”

***

I rolled Green onto the track, and the cars moved into position for the start. As Bean had announced, and as Demon's Run tradition dictated, the Road Warrior Fans' Pick started in the pole position—first car in line, inside lane. Not that it mattered where I started. With the exception of Wade LaPlante Jr., the Road Warrior racer up for the Firecracker slipped to the back of the pack after a few laps and stayed there. Until then, the Fans' Pick was more nuisance than threat. Also per Firecracker tradition, Wade's car 02, the season's track leader, started in the very last position, the “shotgun.”

I ran my line around the track a couple of times behind the pace car, reacquainting myself with the marks I'd try to hit, the various tar blotches, cracks, and skid marks.

I pulled in behind the pace car and took deep breaths, trying not to impulsively jam on the accelerator and rear-end the guy. I glanced once into the packed stands, noticing ten girls holding ten white posters with black letters spelling G-O C-A-S-E-Y G-O-! When, after two laps at various speeds, the pace car cranked to the left and cut into the infield, my heart nearly pounded a hole in my firesuit.

The only advantage I had at the start was that, being in the pole position, if I didn't cross the starting line in first place, then we'd have a false start. Starting on my outside was a black car with yellow number 22 and S
LATTERY
, B
AIRD
& P
ECK
A
TTORNEYS
and scales of justice painted across his hood and front panel. As we rounded turn four and headed for the main straightaway, he gunned his engine, as if trying to get me to pick up the speed. The whole field behind us roared.

I instinctively accelerated. The race wasn't really on yet, but once I'd started matting the gas, I couldn't stop. Two car lengths into the straightaway, I pushed the pedal hard to the floor. Car 22 gunned along with me, holding his nose just inches from mine. The flagman dropped the green. Clean start.

Heading into the first turn, car 22 gave me some wiggle room on the right, so I drifted to the outside as far as he'd let me, and we took the first corners dead even. I braked, hit the marks on my line, and accelerated out of the turn. In the back stretch I still held my position.

I raced car 22 for another two laps like this, nudging him out, working my line in the outside groove. Crossing from turn one to turn two on lap four, I hit my star-shaped crack and glanced across the infield. Wade's car 02 had picked up two positions. I hit Florida and exited. Car 22 held tight.

In the next turn, I hit the skid mark and New Hampshire, but this time I accelerated a half second earlier. I felt Green grab the track and sling us into the stretch. Car 22 dropped in behind me. I'd successfully fought him off.

I drove my line like it was the only thought my brain could hold. I drew and redrew an imaginary white arc against the blacktop in the turns. Connected the dots. Drove.

Aiming for New Hampshire in turn four, I felt a shove from behind. I looked back to see car 08, white with red numbers—and a big cartoon hound dog smiling under the words D
IAMOND
D
UKE
'
S
S
PORTS
B
AR
—working his front end to my inside. I couldn't fight the movement of Green pushing to the outside at the collision, and I rolled over the New Hampshire mark with my left tire instead of my right. Car 08 held his snout to my inside, keeping me from returning to my line. Classic bump-and-run. I couldn't tell if his front tires were up to my rear tires, but I wasn't giving him the benefit of the doubt. I cranked the wheel left and shut the door on him.

He was pesky enough, car 08, to take a knock on his front end as I slid back to the inside track. I lost momentum and was immediately running even with the scales of justice car 22 again.

I ran with car 22 for another lap, watching my inside coming into the turns, making sure I kept the inside track closed. I seemed like I had a better line than car 22. His ride was tight, too: As he tried to accelerate in the corners, his tires pushed up the bank, not wanting to turn. I regained half a car length. Another lap, though, and we were dead even again. The guy must've had the horses under his hood that day, but I was pretty sure I had the tires. I ran with him, sticking to my line like the world dropped off into an abyss on either side. The next time car 22's wheels slid a touch and I got the half-car-length back, I glanced across the infield. Wade was now only five cars from the lead.

From me.

Car 08 came back for another shot at the inside lane, but I closed him down before he tried sticking his nose where it didn't belong. I lost a wheel on car 22 in the process, but I got it back on the next turn. I drove like this—shifting back and forth from my line to protecting the inside—for another few laps before car 08 fell back a car length. He'd pinched his ride and wasted his tires biting his way around the inside—good geometry, bad physics. I fought car 22 for another lap and glanced in my rearview mirror. Car 08 was even farther back, with another car trying to take him on the outside. In the next straightaway, I watched car 08 lose his place—to car 02. Wade “the Blade” LaPlante.