Matt was positively fuming when he climbed from the 17 car. He tossed his helmet into the car, but that wasn’t enough to stifle his anger. “Damn it!” he swore. “I changed the damn fuel pump. What is the matter with this thing?”

“What happened?” Ashley asked, hardly less furious herself, but not at the car.

“Stupid thing crapped out again,” he said. “It can’t be the fuel filter, it can’t be the fuel pump, I changed those. I even drained out the gas and put fresh gas in it. There really isn’t a hell of a lot else it could be. Hell, I don’t even think I’m going to come back next week if the damn thing won’t run for a full feature. There goes any hope of the points championship, maybe a better ride next year, too.”

“Oh, hell,” Ashley snarled, feeling a little sick in the stomach at his announcement. “You had such a perfect chance tonight, and you wasted it. You were neck and neck with that little twerp lap after lap, and you just damn blew it.”

“I tried to get past her,” he said. “Damn, I tried everything I could think of, but just couldn’t quite get it done.”

“I don’t damn mean that,” Ashley swore again, forgetting in her anger that she had yet to tell Matt what she wanted him to do to the little middle school bitch that had wrecked her back in the spring. “You were right next to her, lap after lap, and you didn’t take the chance. Hell, you could have put her into the wall where she belongs time after time, but no! You had to race her!”

“Put her in the wall?” he replied hotly, still angry over his finish. “Why would I want to put her in the wall? She was racing me clean, I’ll give her that.”

“You could have put her in the wall because I wanted you to!” Ashley screamed. “After the number she pulled on me last spring, she deserves to get pounded flat. Hell, and I thought you were man enough to do it! I guess I was wrong, you’re just a weasel like the rest of them.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” Matt frowned, realizing this was going into country that he hadn’t expected.

“She wrecked me!” Ashley said in fury. “She just got a fender into me when I was driving Chuck’s car, spun me around and slammed me into the wall. She wrecked me and then Chuck blamed me for it. The nerve of that little bitch, and the nerve of him, too.”

“What race last spring?” Matt said, confused. “I didn’t know you had ever been in a race car.”

“Just the once, in that Powder Puff race back in the beginning of the season,” Ashley replied hotly, remembering again the humiliation of slamming into the wall and having to get out of the destroyed race car while that little brat went on to win the race.

“Oh, that,” Matt shook his head. “Big deal. I was watching that, I guess I never realized that you were the driver. A bunch of us were watching it, we kind of laughed at it. We all agreed that you made the dumbest move a woman could make trying to wreck her. She never touched you, Ashley!”

“Never touched me?” she screamed. “Of course she touched me, you idiot! She slammed into me and put me into the wall!!!”

“There’s no way she did,” he replied firmly. “I don’t know what you were thinking, but you made a dumb ass move and you paid for it.”

“But Matt! I was there! I ought to know what happened! She spun me! But no, you’re a wimp and a creep like everyone else, kissing her cute little ass and not listening to me. You could have at least paid her back for me! That’s all I ever wanted, for you to slam her into the wall good and hard!”

All of a sudden things that hadn’t made sense to Matt made a lot of sense in an instant. His hand shot out, and grabbed Ashley’s wrist. “Hold it,” he said. “Is that what you wanted out of me?”

“Of course it’s what I wanted out of you,” Ashley spat back, all sense of caution gone now.

Matt’s grip firmed up on her wrist, to the point where it was painful. He felt her trying to pry his fingers away from her hand, without success, as he looked her straight in the eye. “Let’s get this straight,” he said. “You hung around me for weeks, trying to split me up with Larissa, and then came on to me up at my house, and now tonight, just so you could get me to wreck someone that hadn’t done anything to me?”

“Why, hell yes,” she swore. “What the hell else did you think I’d ever want out of a grease monkey like you?”

All of a sudden Ashley’s world spun around her. She felt her being jerked hard by the wrist, felt his big arm go around her waist, felt her feet being lifted off the ground. “Put me down!!” she yelled, but it didn’t do any good. She felt a rough hand lift her skirt up past her waist – then her rear end exploded in pain as he brought his big hand down on it with all his strength. Since she was wearing a thong, for practical purposes there wasn’t even the thickness of cloth to protect her bottom from the blow.

“Ow! You son of a OWWWW!” she squealed as a second blow landed. “OWWWWW! . . . Put me OWWWWWWW!”

But he wasn’t stopping, not that lightly. This stuck up broad deserved all the spanking he could give her. “What makes you think you can use me like that?” he yelled, not stopping swatting her bottom for an instant.

“Because . . . OWWWWW! . . . I can!”

“Yeah, right,” he said. “Sure you can. And you see what it gets you, don’t you?” He gave her bottom one final swat, then tossed her to the ground, her skirt still up around her waist. She squirmed sideways, if for no more reason than to get off of her stinging fanny. “Get out of here,” he snarled. “Don’t you ever pull that stuff on me or anyone else again or I’ll show you what a spanking is all about.”

*   *   *

As he pulled into the winner’s circle, Jack made a mental note that he was going to have to do something very, very nice for Telzey for loaning him her car. This was one awesome Pony Stock! It ran at least as well as the old 25 had run before the accident! Those rare 1.22 gears in the transfer case just gave it something a little extra in the straights, so long as he was able to run a high line and keep his speed up, just like she’d told him. That was something he hadn’t been able to do in the old 25! D’Lamater had tried him several times during that battle toward the middle of the race, but had never been able to get past him.

He hadn’t really noticed the 17 car drifting backward, just that at the end of the race he wasn’t battling with him any more, and in fact was a little surprised that it was Will who was trying to make a run on him at the end of the race. As he slowed up, he looked at the scoreboard, and saw that Will was second – he’d known that – but that the 12 was in third, and his new 25 was fourth! Considering that Larissa had been driving it and she didn’t consider herself the fastest driver in the field, it had to be a pretty awesome car, too! Telzey had driven Larissa’s 57 car to fifth spot, but the 17 wasn’t even on the board. Apparently his car had crapped out again.

After all the hassles of the past week, it was just about impossible to ask for a much better finish. He’d gained a few points on Will, but only a few – just one position, not really enough at this point in the season for it to matter.

He pulled into the winner’s circle; it was especially nice to get out of the car this time, to pose for the photographer and to show off the checkered flag. He saw Susan standing near the pit gate, and waved to her to come over to him to join him in the picture. He knew she’d been feeling terrible about the old 25 car all week long and she needed to have a little share of this victory to feel good about. Although she hadn’t been a lot of help, she had done everything she could in the last day to get the new 25 car going – it was a shame in a way that he hadn’t been able to run it, but somehow he didn’t think that it would matter.

Susan came running over, still spattered with paint from where she’d been brushing primer onto fresh welds the night before, her arms spread wide and a big grin on her face. It may have been only another race in a weekly series to him, but it was a big deal to her – and that made it a big deal for him to see her so happy.

The photo was quickly taken; the photographer handed him the checkered flag to take around the track for the victory lap. Telzey had quite a car here, he thought – maybe one of these days she’d be the one carrying the checkered flag on the victory lap.

All too soon he had to pull into the pits; the moment of victory was past, and the Street Stocks were taking the track. There’d been enough time for his friends to get into the pits and to get out of their cars, and there was a crowd of them waiting as he pulled in. There was a lot of excitement, a lot of mutual hugging.

“Boy, that really worked out well!” Larissa said with a huge grin. “That new car of yours is awesome, Jack! I was a while getting the feel of it, but that was my best finish here ever! Thanks for letting me use it!”

“I saw on the board that you did pretty well,” he grinned. “Telzey, was the 57 as bad as Larissa was saying it was? You had to have driven the wheels off of it!”

“I think it needs help,” she said. “I felt like I was right on the edge all the time. I just got lucky there at the end.”

“Still, a fifth place finish!” he smiled. “Hey, if you’d been in the 24 tonight and driving that well, you might have won it.”

“I don’t feel in the slightest bit sorry,” she smiled. “After this week, you deserved to win.”

“Well, the least I can do is buy Cokes and hot dogs all around,” he replied, starting to peel off his fire suit in the humid heat of the summer evening. “You guys are all awesome friends, the way you pitched in last night.”

A few minutes later they were over at the infield concession stand, still exuberant over the way the Feature had turned out. “You know,” Chuck said as they plopped down at a picnic table, “I’ve been thinking about it. Even though Larissa did a heck of a job with the 25 tonight, you still probably need to tune on it some, right?”

“I don’t know how it could be done much better,” Jack said. “I mean, the way she drove it. But yeah, I wouldn’t mind having a little more time to work on it.”

“Right,” Chuck said. “And the 57 car needs help. Telzey did a whale of a job with it, but I think it’s cranky enough that it had Larissa a little scared of it.”

“Try a lot scared of it,” Larissa said. “I never felt comfortable in it the way I did in the 25 car. That was like a dream by comparison.”

“I thought it handled like a hog on roller skates,” Telzey grinned. “to steal someone else’s description. Just about everybody could pull me out of the corner. The only time I felt like I was going about right was when I was running way up high so I could keep the revs up.”

“I think it needs a different gear set, along with some work on the handling,” Chuck smiled. “And we know it’s a major job to change out the gears in a Cavalier. Anyway, what I’m thinking is, why don’t we talk to Dad to see if he’ll let us use the track here tomorrow? We can get a good night’s sleep, skip Moonshine Valley tomorrow, and work on tuning the cars up right here. We can run the 25 and the 57 against the 24 and the 89 to tell us just how well we’re doing.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea,” Telzey said. “I love running Moonshine Valley, but I think we’ve got more important things to do, like sleep in tomorrow morning.”

“I’m with you if anyone is,” Will agreed. “Jack, I feel like if I’d had a full night’s sleep I could have gotten you there at the end.”

“Could be,” Jack said. “Larissa, you’re not going to mind missing Moonshine Valley tomorrow, are you?”

“I’m going to complain when we’re going to get some of the bugs out of the 57? No way!”

“All right, it’s settled,” Chuck smiled. “I’m not going to mind getting a decent night’s sleep, either.”

The plan-making was interrupted at that point by a commotion off in the pits. A couple people were yelling, but it was too far off and there was too much noise from the Street Stocks to be able to make out the details. “Wonder what that’s all about?” Telzey said to no one in particular

“Probably someone’s upset about getting someone else’s fender in the side back in the pack,” Will observed. “That’s racing. Things happen.”

*   *   *

They were still exulting in the victory and the way things had gone, and were making plans for the next day, when Matt d’Lamater came up to the table where they were sitting. “Hi, Larissa,” he said softly. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“I guess,” she said warily, still stinging from his treatment of her, leaving her to get it on with that Ashley creature weeks before.

“I mean, alone,” he said nervously.

Pure ice crept into her voice. “I’d really rather not,” she replied. “Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of my friends.”

“All right, then,” he said, taking a seat across the table from her. “Larissa, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just want to apologize to you. It was all a big mistake.”

“You’re darn right it was a mistake,” she snarled. “I saw you belly to belly with her. Some mistake, all right.”

“Belly to belly?” he said quizzically.

“Yeah, up in your garage a couple weeks ago,” she said. “She was sitting on the fender of your car, her skirt up around her waist. The two of you were kissing while you were getting it on.”

“That didn’t happen,” he said. “Well, not like that, anyway. She came into the garage and came on to me, real hard. She pulled me up against her and started rubbing me and kissing me. I told her to cut it out, that I had a girlfriend that I respected too much to let that happen. I finally, well, I won’t say I threw her out, but I helped her pretty firmly.”

“It didn’t look like that to me,” she replied. “In fact, it looked like it was the opposite.”

“I guess it might have if you glanced in at just the wrong time,” he shrugged. “If you’d stuck around another thirty seconds you’d have seen me helping her outside.”

“Oh, damn,” she said, thoroughly deflated. “Matt, is that really what happened?”

“Yeah, it is,” he said. “Larissa, I’m sorry I let it come to that.”

“I warned you,” Chuck spoke up. “I told you she was a snake with legs.”

“Larissa said you told her that,” Matt replied. “I figured it was just because you’d broken up with her. I thought no one could be that bad. I just found out I was wrong. She’s just as damn bad as you said she was. No, worse.” He turned to Telzey. “She wanted me to put you in the wall over that thing from last spring. She just can’t believe that she was at fault and I still don’t think she does.”

“I sorta knew that,” Telzey nodded. “It was just a racing thing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought at the time, too,” Matt agreed. “She apparently doesn’t think so. I wouldn’t put it past her to try and get back at you another way.”

“That’s her problem,” Telzey said. “I keep hoping that any day my parents will call and I’ll be heading home.”

“Anyway, Larissa,” Matt nodding, turning back to her, “I am truly sorry that this came between us, and I want to apologize for anything I may have said or thought. I know you’re with Chuck now, but if there was any way we could get back together. . .”

“I don’t think there is, at least now,” Larissa said. “Chuck and I have covered a lot of ground together in the past few weeks. Matt, I don’t know how to say this, but while I liked you a lot, I guess I was using you too. I mean, to get into racing. I always wanted to give it a try, and so far it’s worked out pretty well. But I never really thought we had much of a chance in the long run. I mean, I’m going to college, and probably will have a future elsewhere. You’re probably going to just be a mechanic around Paddington someplace who races on the weekends.”

“Well, I’m sort of hoping for a little better,” he said. “But yeah, you’re probably right. I’m not a college type and never figured I would be. But can we still be friends?”

“Sure, Matt,” she smiled. “I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

“Yeah, I am too,” he said, “but maybe it was never meant to be.” He shook his head and smiled. “Tell you what. Just to show I’m not angry with you guys, the kielbasa chili dogs are on me.”