Everyone was in a pretty good mood at Moonshine Valley the next day. They all had reason to be: Will had taken over the points lead from d’Lamater as the result of the 17 car’s dropping out – what’s more, Matt had sunk to fourth in the season standings, behind Jack in the 25 and Alan Gustafson in the 12. Telzey’s second-place finish behind Will the night before had also pulled her up in the points – she was now fifth, and while she had a distance to go to catch up with Larissa’s old boyfriend, it wasn’t totally out of reach, now.

It proposed to be a nice day at the little dirt track. Everyone still enjoyed the hanging around and gossiping, and the casual racing. Susan and Telzey as always enjoyed the chance to work on their tans, and Larissa even brought her bikini and lay out for a bit, even though she wasn’t much of a tanning person.

As they were getting set up, the six young people gathered around and basically picked up their discussion where they’d left it off the day before. “You know,” Susan commented, “I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about yesterday.”

“What was that, Susie-Q?” Jack asked.

“About the fact that I’m the only one of us that doesn’t race,” she said. “You’re right, it does make me feel left out a little.”

“That’s easily solved,” Jack teased, “and this is just the place to fix it. Why don’t you drive my car today, and I’ll find some Speedos and stand up next to the flagman.”

“Hey, no fair!” Telzey laughed. “That’s a trick that girls use to help the other girls!”

“I believe in fair and equal treatment for all,” Jack laughed. “Seriously, I don’t have to drive today. This place is just to drive for fun, anyway, and there’s not a better place for you to get your feet wet. All there’ll be in the four-banger class today will be Will, Telzey, Larissa, and you, and I know they’ll cut you some slack.”

“I’m afraid I’d go so slow I’ll embarrass myself,” she said sheepishly. “I’m afraid I’d go too slow, or hurt the car, or something.”

“That’s what being new is all about,” Jack replied gently. “Tell you what. Why don’t you just get in the car and run a few hot laps? Just get the feel for it a little. Then, maybe next week you could race it.”

“Yeah,” Will offered. “If you want to race it next week, maybe we could get my Grandpa to go a few laps with you in the trainer car back home. He can teach you an awful lot in a short time.”

“You know, I ought to do that,” Larissa said. “I’ve been racing for almost a year and there are some things that I still don’t understand very well. I wonder if I could get him to do it for me some day this week?”

“Probably, you’d just have to call and ask,” Chuck said. “I think it’d do you well. I like to have him ride with me in the trainer once in a while, he can catch bad habits and point out stuff I never dreamed of. Susan, I think it’s a good idea.”

“Well, all right,” she replied. “I’ll drive some hot laps but I’m not going to race today.”

“That’s all right,” Jack told her. “If we’re going to do it we probably ought to do it quickly. I think my fire suit and helmet might be a little big for you, though.”

“Mine ought to come pretty close to fitting,” Larissa offered.

In a few minutes, Susan was out in the 25 car, making circuits of the track at a relatively slow pace, while Jack stood out at the flagman’s position. Every few laps he’d wave her in so he could talk to her about what she was doing, and after perhaps twenty laps she was going noticeably faster, although still nowhere close to racing speed. Finally, as a couple other people were getting set up for hot laps, Jack told her to take it back to what passed for the pits at Moonshine Valley.

“I thought you did pretty good,” Telzey told her after Susan parked the car and got out.

“Things seem to happen so much more quickly than they do on the road,” Susan said. “I wasn’t really going that fast, was I?”

Will shook his head. “I wasn’t keeping a stop watch on you or anything, but you really weren’t at racing speed. It takes a while to get worked up to it. Let’s talk to Grandpa when we get back, he can teach you stuff better than any of the rest of us can.”

“Fine with me,” Susan nodded as she began to unzip the fire suit and get back down to her normal bikini. “I at least feel like I know a little bit more about what all of you are talking about.”

*   *   *

On Friday night they decided to go to Mannheim again, mostly because M-50 had a special show that was expected to run late; that would have conflicted with their own activities for Saturday. Once again, they did pretty well on the shorter, flatter track; Telzey pulled out a feature win, a little to her surprise, with Will running second.

Jack and Susan weren’t there at all – they decided to go on a date, instead. Their date, as it turned out, was going to the dirt track races at Meridian Speedway, just sitting in the stands and watching the mayhem on the track. Jack insisted that it was at least partly to give Susan a chance to see how dirt track racing was really supposed to be done and what it was really like, but, as Susan commented, given the chance the apple still doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Someday, Jack,” she said while out on the raft with the rest of the group on Saturday afternoon, “dinner and a movie, OK?”

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of chances when we’re up at Western next fall,” he smirked. “You have to go racing, or watch racing, when there is racing. Movies run all the time.”

“Racers!” she snorted and shook her head in mock disgust. “You guys are hopeless.”

Will knew how to come back to that one. “So how did driving with Grandpa in the trainer go?” he asked.

“Actually, pretty well,” she admitted. “He has to be just about fearless to ride in the right seat of it with me driving, though. And it is kind of fun.”

“Wait till you get out there for real,” Jack smiled. “The next thing you know I’m going to be hearing some sweet voice saying, “‘Jack, Honey, build me a Pony Stock, pleeeeesee.’”

“And you will,” Chuck laughed. “Jack, you might as well get started now. I was out at the junk yard getting some parts one day last week and I saw a Shadow like Telzey has sitting there with a bad engine. That’d make someone a nice little Pony Stock.”

“It’s something to think about,” Jack grinned. “I expect that’s what I’ll be hearing after we get done at Moonshine Valley tomorrow.”

A few hours later, they were all in the pits at Bradford, getting set for the evening’s racing, and getting their qualifying runs in. If nothing else, Mel’s riding with Larissa had done much to improve her qualifying – she turned in the ninth fastest time, which was several spots better than she had been doing.

“You know,” Chuck commented, “we really ought to tear into that car and do some tuning up on it. I think Matt was trying to give you just a car, not a fast car. I think he wanted to be sure he was faster than you.”

“I kind of agree,” Larissa told him. “I don’t want to say it’s the car and not the driver, but I feel like I could be getting more out of it.”

If Matt’s ears were burning at the discussion, he gave no sign of it. The 17 car wasn’t giving him a lick of trouble tonight, and he went out and qualified fastest again. It looked like the quick fix of the fuel filter the previous week had settled the issue.

If there had been any question about it, Matt went out and won the first heat, starting from the rear. The 17 car was running in fine shape tonight; given a little luck he might be able to gain back a little toward the points lead, at least assuming that Austin and Kaufmann didn’t run all that well.

No such luck, at least in the heat races. Will won the second heat in the 89 car, beating out Gustafson in the 12 car. Telzey took the third, with Jack in second right behind her. Matt actually lost a little ground on Will, but held his margin with Alan, so things didn’t change very much. Larissa managed a third-place heat finish in her 57 car, which was about the best she’d done at Bradford. Under the circumstances, no one had much room to complain about the outcome.

The heat races for the other classes went off with the usual amount of fender banging, spins and other incidents; the Vintage racers again put on their fine show in the heats. There was a special trick contest in the intermission, seeing how far a car could coast around the track after a push by another car – the winner went a good lap and a half, surprising everyone, since no one had bothered to practice for the event beforehand.

Finally, it was time for the Pony Stock feature race, to lead off the features. Once again, the fastest finishers from the heats started in the back of the pack, with Matt at the bitter end since he’d had the low qualifying time. Once again, he dived to the outside at the start to pass as many cars as he could. This time it more or less worked; he gained six or seven spots in the first turn, and was leading the race after three laps, while some of the rest of the fast qualifiers worked their way up through the field.

He was pretty much running away with the race when a spin brought out the caution flag with about six laps in the feature to go. The field gathered up and ran several laps; by now, Will was in second, Gustafson in third, and Jack in fourth. Those would be harder to run away from on a restart, Matt thought; he wouldn’t have the slower cars behind him blocking for him.

Finally, they got the one to go flag, and then the green. Matt stomped the throttle early and had built up a little bit of a lead over second place by the time they got to the start finish line, and was building on it in the corner when he felt the engine start to go sour again. It wasn’t that it was cutting out; it just wasn’t running quite right. Any question of that was settled when the 89 car went past him in the third turn, . . . then the 25 and the 12 on the straight . . . and then the 24 at the start-finish line . . . and then, of all things, Larissa in the 57 as he came out of turn two. By then the car was bucking and snorting as it cut in and out. He held on for another lap slowing perceptibly, and then the engine cut out entirely again. Once again, like the previous week, he had little choice but to coast into the pits and mutter bad words under his breath. He had no idea what this would do to his hopes for the points championship, but it sure wouldn’t be good.

With the car stopped behind his trailer, he took off his helmet, climbed out of the seat, and once outside took off his fire suit. Once again he was done for the evening, and it was even harder this week than it had been last week. Three DNFs in a row!

By the time he got the fire suit off, the Pony Stock race was ending, with the Austin kid winning again. Kaufmann was in second, the Amberdon girl in third and Gustafson in fourth, at least according to the score board. While Will went to the Winner’s Circle once again, the rest of the Pony Stocks came back to the pits. Joe Wolsley was parked in the stall next to Matt, and he crawled out after a run that was not very thrilling; he hadn’t been doing as well as last year and still wasn’t sure why. “What happened this week, Matt?” he heard Joe call.

“Don’t know,” Matt admitted. “Last week I thought it was the fuel filter, but even after I changed it, it did the same damn thing again, so that must have not been it. The only thing I can think of is the fuel pump, but that doesn’t make sense. I mean, why would it run fine through the qualifications and the heats, then crap out in the feature?”

Joe shook his head. “Sounds strange to me,” he said as he peeled out of his fire suit. “Could be the pump, I suppose. Maybe it runs all right until something gets too hot. Is it mounted real near an exhaust pipe?”

“Not real near,” Matt said. “And I never heard of a fuel pump acting like that, but I’m just about sure it’s not getting gas.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Joe replied, shaking his head. “I think, just to be on the safe side, that I’d change fuel pumps if I was you. Those electric ones aren’t that expensive. Maybe what you ought to do is to get one of them they put on a Ford truck. They have a reputation for being powerful and not breaking down.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Matt nodded. “Somehow I don’t think that’s it, but I can’t think of anything else to do.”

*   *   *

Given the good finish at Bradford the night before, everyone was happy at Moonshine Valley the next morning. Even Larissa had finished well, in sixth place, the best she’d ever finished in a feature at Bradford. She credited it to the lessons she’d had from Mel during the previous week.

Of course, the big excitement today was that Susan was going to drive Jack’s car in the four-cylinder race today. This was a big deal, and she was nervous about it. Somehow, it didn’t seem quite the same to have Susan running around Moonshine Valley in a borrowed fire suit and helmet instead of a bikini, but she’d made up her mind that she was going to go ahead and do it.

Once again, there were just the same four cars in the four-cylinder class that there had been for much of the season: the 25, with Susan aboard instead of Jack; Telzey’s 24, Larissa’s 57 and Will’s 89. Will had commented that he really ought to just stay parked and leave it a woman’s race today.

Susan wasn’t aware that the other three had gotten their heads together, and made up their minds to take it easy. They weren’t going to give anything to her, but they weren’t going to humiliate her too badly, either. If she could run at something approaching race speed, they’d let her stay close; they’d only really race hard if Susan seemed to be falling way behind.

Even though there were only four cars starting the first heats went pretty well. They didn’t take qualifying times at Moonshine Valley, and chose starting order for the heats and dashes by lot, with every one getting one of the four starting spots in rotation. As it turned out, Susan got the pole in one of the dashes, and in four laps was only passed once, by Larissa, so finished second. That was something to be proud of! Maybe she could be a racer after all!

Feeling just a little bit racy now, when the Feature started an hour or so later, Susan decided to take a risk. She felt like she might be able to steal a spot on Larissa if she went on the throttle early and ducked inside at the start.

It almost worked, but not quite. Larissa turned a little tighter than Susan had been expecting, and all of a sudden she was forced to go a little lower than she planned to avoid a collision. The inside of the track was just marked with a scattered collection of old tires; it looked like she might have enough room to squeeze by, but when Susan got there she had no place to go but cut inside a little farther. Before she could figure out what to do she ran over one of the tires. There was a huge thump when the car hit the tire and leaped high from the impact, and another big thump when it hit the track again. Before Susan knew what was happening, the other three cars had gotten past her again, and the yellow flag came out, mostly so the flagman in the first turn could run out and put the tire back where it belonged, rather in the center of the track where it lay.

Jack was the one that had volunteered to be the flagman, and as the field came around under yellow he flagged Susan to a stop. “Jeez!” he said. “What happened?”

“I goofed,” she said sheepishly.

“Well, no harm done, but maybe you’ll know better than to try that next time,” he grinned. “Better let me look this over real quick.”

He waved the other three cars past as they slowly circulated, and went to the front of the car. He couldn’t see any visual damage, except for a small tire mark on the left side rocker panel. He kicked at the left front tire, which had taken the hit – it seemed to be holding its air and was solid, so as far as a brief inspection could tell, the car was all right. “It seems to be all right,” he told Susan. “But if it steers funny or handles funny, better bring it in.”

“Maybe I’d better anyway,” she said. “That wasn’t real bright of me.”

“Oh, not to worry,” he smiled. “We all make mistakes. You don’t make any progress if you don’t stick your neck out.”

“Even if you’re running slow like a turtle,” she replied as he waved the flag at her to get her back in motion as the field came around again.

It took another lap or two to get everybody back in order and lined up properly, before the flagman threw the green flag. This time, Susan took it cool going into the first corner, and was right on Larissa’s tail, hoping to at least squeeze past Will for a lap or two.

Will, being a nice guy, let her have it. He decided to let her run ahead of him for a couple laps, just so she’d gain a little confidence before he passed her and got down to business. On the third lap, he decided the time had come, and eased into position to try to get past Susan on the inside in the first turn. The way Susan was running he had plenty of room inside, so set her up, went inside her, got the nose of the 89 in front of her – and all of a sudden she wasn’t there anymore.

Jack saw it better than anyone else. All of a sudden the 25 car snapped to the left, hard, like the wheel had just been cocked hard over. Before he could say anything, the car was sideways, then upside down, then rolled again before coming to rest almost right side up with the right wheels sitting on top of the tire barrier. He was already running for the wreck, less than a hundred yards away, when he remembered that there was a race going on and glanced back up the track, to see that the flagman at the start line had thrown the red flag, and the other cars were stopping. That didn’t make him slow down any.

“Susan!” he yelled as soon as he thought he was close enough. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I think,” he heard the voice from inside the car.

“What happened?” he asked as he unfastened the window net and looked inside at her. She seemed shaken, but the roll cage and the five point harness had obviously done their jobs – she was all right, at least as far as he could see.

“I don’t know, it just quit steering,” she said. “I tried to straighten it out but it happened so quickly.”

“Well, come on,” he said. “I think I’d better get you out of there.”

Within a minute the track’s beat up old wrecker was on the scene, along with a couple other rescue vehicles. Susan was indeed shaken and the position was awkward, but with Jack’s help she was soon out of the car and standing up. “Oh, Jack!” she cried. “I’m sorry about your car.”

“Don’t worry about the car, it’s only a car,” he said. “You’re all right, that’s all that matters.”

“But . . . But I tried to steer it,” she sobbed. “It just wouldn’t steer.”

“Not surprising,” Ed Corrin, the track’s owner said; he’d driven the wrecker out there. “Steering went to hell.”

The three of them walked up to the front of the car, to see that Ed was right – the two front tires were pointing in opposite directions. “Broke a tie rod end, sure as heck,” Jack said with one look at the battered front of the car.

“Might have loosened it up when she hit that tire,” Ed opined. “But then it might just have been all ready to let go anyway. Hard to tell.”

Jack helped Ed and the others get the car hooked onto the wrecker. It was a little complicated to get it off of its resting place, with the right side tires up on the barrier, and it was beat up a little more in the process. Now that it was sitting with all four wheels on the ground it didn’t look much better – in fact, it looked far worse than Matt d’Lamater’s 17 car had looked when he’d piled it up a couple weeks before.

Jack and Susan followed along behind the car as Ed towed it back to the pits. Jack was upset but tried not to show it – this had been a darn good car, it had gotten him well up into the points at Bradford, and now it was wrecked and wrecked badly when they were just screwing around. But stuff happened. That was racing, after all, and you had to expect that a car would get screwed up every now and then.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Susan said, looking like she was about to burst into tears. “I don’t know what I can do to make it up to you.”

“Susan, look,” he said quietly. “If Ed was right and that tie rod end was all set to let go anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered whether you or I were driving it, or whether we were here or at Bradford. It still would have been wrecked. At least they have those soft tire walls here and you weren’t going that fast. At Bradford, they’re concrete and the car could have been wrecked even worse.”

“But I was driving it!” she protested. “I should have been able to do something! You had that car up to second in points at Bradford and I wrecked it for you!”

“Susan, the fact that we were screwing around doesn’t matter,” he protested again. “It’s not your fault!”

“But I was the one that hit that tire! That had to have messed it up!”

Jack shook his head. “Maybe and maybe not. We don’t know. I was just as much at fault as you were. I checked the car over and didn’t see anything wrong. I even kicked the tire to make sure it was solid, and it still was, then. You can’t blame yourself for something that most likely was not your fault.”

“Oh, Jack,” she said. “You’re being noble about it, but still, the car is wrecked.”

“So it can be fixed,” he said. “Not today, but it can be fixed.”

“I was the one that wrecked it,” she protested. “I’ll help you out however I can.”

Chuck came out to take over the flagman duties for the rest of the race, while Jack and Susan looked over the car. With Susan so bummed out, Jack didn’t want to be very negative about it, but from the first impression it didn’t look good. She had truly rolled it, one and seven eighths times or so. The roll cage had held and done its job, keeping the roof from collapsing on the driver’s compartment, but to a great extent the roof had been crushed down on the roll cage. Worse, to Jack’s eye, the frame looked a little bent, and that could be nearly impossible to fix successfully.

No matter what the final verdict was, Jack knew he had a lot of work in front of him.