The problem had to be in the fuel system, Matt thought the next day as he stared at the 17 car in the garage the next day at home in Paddington. There had to be some reason it wasn’t getting fuel late in the race. About the only thing he could think of to do was to change everything out again, from the injectors on back. That was going to be a major pain in the butt and he didn’t have the parts he needed to do all the work today, but at least he could get started and get the rest at work tomorrow.

He wasn’t aware that his problem had already been fixed while he’d been in the rest room during the Sportsman race the night before, when Larissa had switched gas caps on him again.

Well, he could skip the fuel cell, he thought. It’s not likely to be there. No, on the other hand, maybe there’s something floating around loose in there that was blocking the fuel pickup from time to time. Not likely, but you never knew. Better change that too, he thought.

He was so deep in concentration on the frustrating problem that he didn’t notice someone walk in the open door, so gave a start when he heard Ashley’s voice saying, “Hello, Matt.”

“What are you doing here?” he snarled. “I thought I told you I wanted you out of my life.”

“You did,” she said softly. “Matt, I came to apologize. You were right. I never should have done that to you. I was wrong, and I know it.”

“You sure were,” he nodded, still upset at her presence.

“Matt, this is very hard for me to say,” she said, searching for words. “I guess I’m too used to getting my own way. I guess I don’t realize that other people have things they want, too. You reminded me of that. It was the hard way, but I guess I deserved it.”

“Because I gave you a spanking?” he smiled.

“Well, yeah,” she shrugged. “Matt, I know this might be hard for you to believe, but that’s the first time anyone ever spanked me to punish me for what I did. In fact, it’s just about the first time I’ve really ever been punished for anything. I want to thank you for it.”

“You want to thank me for giving you a spanking?” he said, surprised to hear the words.

“Yeah,” she said. “I realize I deserved it. While I was lying on my belly last night after I went home, I guess it got me thinking. Matt, either you’re the first person that’s not afraid of me enough to do something like that, or else you’re the first person that cared enough about me to do what needed to be done when I screwed up. So, yeah, I’m thanking you.”

“Well, I guess,” he said, surprised and at a loss for words. “What really yanks my chain though is that you treated Larissa and me like we were your toys. The result is that Larissa is gone, and I guess I don’t blame her.”

“I know,” she replied softly. “And I’m sorry about that, too.” She let out a long sigh and continued, “But maybe I’m not entirely sorry. Like I said, you’re the first person that’s not afraid of me or cares about me enough to bring me up short when I need it. I’ve . . . I’ve never had that before. I don’t know how to deal with it. People either like me or hate me, but somehow they don’t seem to care about me. It’s nice to find someone that does.”

“Do you mean what I think you’re meaning?” he asked, really surprised now.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” she replied. “I don’t know if it’ll work, Matt. In fact, the odds are against it. But I’d like to try.”

“I’m not going to wreck Telzey for you. You can forget about it right now,” he said.

“Yeah, that really was kind of stupid of me, wasn’t it?” she replied. “I guess that’s the kind of thing I deserve a spanking for, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” he nodded. “It’s dangerous enough and hard enough out there to be fooling around like that.”

“I should know,” she said. “Especially after wrecking Chuck’s car. He should have spanked me right then, but he was too afraid of me. I couldn’t expect him to do it now.”

“Hold it!” he said in astonishment. “You’re asking me to give you another spanking, for that?”

“If you feel like I deserve it,” she said. “My butt still aches from what you did to it last night, but if you feel like I need it again, I’ll pull up my skirt and let you go at me right now. Or, if not now, whenever you think you need to.”

“Not now,” he said. “It had to be hard enough on you to tell me that. But Ashley, if you screw up again, you’re not going to be able to sit down for a week.”

She let out a smile. “Now, that’s what I expect out of a man, not the boys I’ve known.”

*   *   *

Another week went by, and it was Saturday night at Bradford Speedway again.

It was getting along in the summer now; the sun wasn’t hanging quite as high in the sky when the heats got under way. Telzey had taken a good long nap in the afternoon, and felt a lot better than she had the previous week, when she had still done well driving Larissa’s car. Now that she was back in her own car, she felt as ready as she’d ever been to give the car the kind of driving that it deserved, and her fastest-qualifier position proved it, at least to her.

There was a minor irritation – she knew her grandparents weren’t in the stands to see it. They were there most Saturday nights. She tried to spend at least some time with them each week, although it was more fun to hang out in the pits with her friends. But they’d had something come up, and wouldn’t say what, so hadn’t been around all afternoon. She didn’t worry about it much; it wouldn’t be the first time they’d had something come up. Susan had been nice enough to bring her out to the track, and hanging out with Jack had been at least part of the reason why.

She’d felt that the 24 car was darn good all along, but when they’d done their private test-and-tune session last Sunday, she’d decided to mess around with it a little, just to see if it could be improved. From watching NASCAR she’d always known that tire pressures could be critical, but she’d always just more or less stuck with what Ray had recommended and let it go at that. But that afternoon, with the time to mess around with it, she’d changed the tire pressures some, and as luck would have it, found a little more speed where she’d thought there was no more to be had. That taught her a lesson – never be satisfied with just good enough. Now, she was going to see how it worked out in the real world.

Once the Invocation and National Anthem were out of the way, Ray waved the first Pony Car heat out onto the track. As fastest qualifier, she was starting at the rear of the field, and as always had to get to the front. There was really no way to plan what would happen, she just needed to be on her toes and do what needed to be done when the time came.

The field made their normal warm-up laps, then the flag stand gave the white flag, for one lap to go. Telzey edged forward a little, trying to keep up nice and tight with the field in front of her, but not so tight that she’d be in trouble if something happened up ahead.

The field came around again and accelerated toward the green. As always, there was a crowd going into turn one, but it appeared that there was an opening on the inside, so Telzey pointed the green and white Dodge with the red “24” on the side into it. It turned out to be a pretty good one; she gained about three spots hugging the inner rail and was running fast when she came out onto the back stretch.

The previous week she’d learned a bit about running high, when Larissa’s car had been happier running up there. As soon as she could she let the car drift up the track with the intention of passing some of the slower cars on the high side in turns three and four. They turned out to be running even slower than she thought; it was a drag race down to the start/finish line to lead the first lap, but she did it by half a length and just kept her foot in it after that. Last to first in one lap! Even d’Lamater didn’t usually do that!

From then on it was all over but the shouting. She could tell from the scoreboard that Gustafson was in second in his 12 car, but as she was coming out of turn two on about the seventh lap, she swung her head to look out the corner of her eye to see that he was just entering the turn. That meant that she had a quarter of a lap on him, which meant that either he was having trouble or she was flying – or both.

Alan didn’t close on her any in the closing laps; she just pulled away, and was running all by herself when she finished. It wasn’t her first heat win at Bradford, but it was the first one that she’d checked out and ran away from the field. Either the tire pressures had helped, or she was really, really on it tonight!

As the rest of the field pulled into the pits, she headed toward the winner’s circle. This would make a neat photo to e-mail to her folks. She’d sent them enough others that it might not seem like such a big deal, but this was Bradford, the home track, after all. She pulled into the winner’s circle, hit the kill switch on the door post, took off her helmet and unbuckled her belts, to get out for the photo.

“And the winner of our first Pony Stock heat at Bradford Speedway tonight is our young rookie, Telzey Amberdon,” the announcer’s voice came over the loudspeaker – she could hear it now with the engine off and her helmet gone. She’d heard it often enough before for other drivers, but it was special for her to be the one he was talking about.

“Jason is going to head down to Telzey with the portable for a quick interview,” the announcer continued, “because we have a special surprise for Telzey tonight.”

That was strange, Telzey thought. They didn’t usually do interviews with the heat winners, just with the feature winners. “I wonder what that’s all about?” she said to the photographer. She looked back at the pits, to see that several people were heading her way – Will was among them, he was out of his car, and he was in the second heat. What was happening?

“Most of you Bradford regulars know that Telzey’s parents have never seen her race, either here at Bradford, or anywhere else,” the announcer continued, “because they’ve both been serving in the Persian Gulf since before Telzey started racing. Ladies and gentlemen, give a big Bradford Speedway welcome to Bradford’s own Staff Sergeant Sheila Amberdon and her husband, Sergeant First Class Mitch Amberdon, Telzey’s parents, who just arrived from the airport!”

“Oh, my God!” Telzey screamed. “Mom! Dad!” She started running for the gate from the grandstand out onto the track, just as her parents emerged from it. There wasn’t anyone in the cheering crowd who was going to mind about the proceedings being held up for a few moments for the tearful group hug in the middle of the track, right on the start-finish line.

“Oh, God, Telzey,” her mother said. “We got here just in time to watch the whole race. You did great, kid!”

“I never thought my little girl would grow up so quickly, but that really looked great,” her father said. “You really made me proud.”

There was a little more hugging and some sweet kisses before the photographer said, “Let’s get this photo so we can get thing under way.” Telzey led her parents over to the 24 car, where several other people were waiting, like the Austins, Mel and Arlene among them, Larissa, Susan, Jack, and his parents. It was a huge group shot of Telzey and her friends.

“You better go do your victory lap while you get your tears under control,” Mel suggested. “I’ll herd everyone back to the pits.”

“Take your time,” Will said. “I gotta get back in my car.”

“Me, too!” Larissa grinned. “We’ll talk in a few minutes.”

That was all it took to reduce the competent, confident race driver to a mass of shaking nervousness as she got in the car. She had trouble finding the switches to start it, and was sure she didn’t remember how to drive it. Once she got going, though, holding the flag out the window, she realized that yes, she still knew how to do it.

A few minutes later she pulled to a stop in the pits. Kayla was there, with her mother, who had a camera with her – the fun wasn’t over yet. There were introductions, thanks, and a special celebration that went on for quite a while.

The Street Stock heats were well under way by the time Telzey got a chance to talk with her parents one on one. “It’s wonderful to see you back,” she said. “When are we going back to Ft. Bragg?”

“I’m afraid that’s the bad part, Punkin,” her father said. “The answer to that is, ‘Not soon.’”

“Dad?”

“We’re just on leave,” her mother said. “They let us come back to clear up some things here, but we’ve got to go back to the Gulf in two weeks.”

“Oh, Mom!” she said. “It can’t be! You’ve been gone so long!”

“Afraid so, Honey,” her father said. “It’s what they pay us for. It could be a lot worse. Besides, it looks like you’ve made good use of your time. From what your grandparents tell us, you’ve made friends here like you never have before, and I can’t begin to tell you of how proud we are of your racing. It’s something I always wanted to do and never had the chance, and now you’ve done better than I ever dreamed I could do.”

“We’re just going to have to make do with seeing you for a few days,” her mother told her. “We’re at least going to be stationed at the same place for a while, and it’ll still be in Kuwait, so it’ll just be hot, dirty, and dusty, but not particularly dangerous.”

“Yeah, but Mom! Dad! How long this time?” she asked in alarm.

“Probably a year,” her father said. “And I’ll have to tell you the truth, it may not be the last time, although we’ll probably get a good break before we have to go back again.”

“There’s a bright side,” her mother said. “It means that not only do you get to finish out your racing season here, you’ll get another year.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Telzey replied sadly, the reality striking home.

“Come on,” her father said. Let’s go get a hot dog and a Coke, and you can tell us all about it. You can get yourself pulled together. You’ve got a feature race in a little while, and we want to watch you win it.”

“OK, Mom, Dad,” she said. “I’ll do my best.”

Celebrations with her parents were hard to come by, so they had to make the best of what they had. The scene in the winner’s circle after the feature race as Telzey again had her photo taken with her parents was proof of it.