Woody made up his mind that the only way he could get over the fear and dread that he now had of racing was to race some more. In fact, he determined to do as much road racing as he could. In this decision he had a willing helper in Rocky, and in the two months after the Hansen Dam race he drove in five events. He was no longer considered a junior driver and had got over some of the thrill of seeing his name in the list of contestants at road-race events. He had even drawn mention in one of the Los Angeles sports columns as an up-and-coming driver with a lot of dash and courage.
When Woody read that paragraph, eagerly pointed out to him by Steve, he wondered how much the man who wrote it knew of his real reason for racing. Far from having a lot of dash and courage, he was always filled with caution and plain fear on the track. He only placed at all in the events in which he entered because he had a natural driving gift—an instinctive combination of judgment and timing that took him through tight spots. But he knew he could do better, a great deal better, if he could get rid of the black fear that settled on him whenever he came to a bend with half a dozen other cars roaring around him.
He wished there was someone with whom he could talk over this problem. He wished he could discuss the way his palms sweated, his limbs trembled, and his mouth went dry even as he sat down behind the driving wheel at the start of a race. He wished he could explain how those symptoms never left him all through the event; how he was filled with dread from start to finish and heartily wished he had never taken up racing.
Once he thought of mentioning it to Steve and went so far as to say he always got the shakes just before the start of a race.
"Shucks, pal, everybody has the same thing," Steve said. "But you get over it, don't you?"
Woody didn't have the courage to say no, he didn't get over it. Other drivers did and took chances and won races. But he, although he seemed to be taking chances, was actually avoiding them and getting through on sheer driving talent. He didn't drive a race with any courage at all. He drove it with nothing else but fear in his mind. If he could find some courage, he might win a couple of times. But fear held him back constantly—fear of being wrapped around a telephone pole or being mangled under the wheels of cars behind or turning over and being pounded to death in his own car.
About the nearest he got to talking to anybody about his problem was one evening when Randy and Rocky had come up to Hermosa Beach and asked him out to dinner. When dinner was over, Randy, who by now was getting along without crutches though he had a slight limp, started talking about racing. He discussed the subject as if it were a philosophy, a mode of living calling out the very best in the character of those who followed it.
Woody had never known him to be so serious before. He wasn't sure whether the conversation was being held for his own benefit or for Rocky's.
"Road racing condenses into a few minutes or hours all the problems, the fears, and the triumphs of life," Randy said, smoothing his fair hair with a thin sensitive hand. "It demands the one thing that no man can get through life without successfully. Self-reliance. There are millions of people quite talented and able who go through life being unsure of themselves. They haven't enough self-confidence to take a risk—to change their jobs, their localities, and so on. They live rather miserably without ever having fulfilled themselves.
"But in racing, such people are soon ruled out. The driver who has no basic confidence in himself will keep coming in last. Either that or he will develop self-confidence. If he remains unsure of himself, he will quit racing. Just as in life, if he remains unsure of himself, he will quit trying and seek some job that offers security rather than opportunity."
"You don't think it is possible to get by on just driving skill alone?" asked Woody. "I mean, suppose there was a man who was just naturally a good driver. But he really didn't trust himself. Wouldn't he still show up pretty well on the track?"
"He would for a while," said Randy, "but after, say, half a dozen races, he'd be fighting himself. He might think he was racing the car ahead. But he'd really be racing the guy within him. One part would be telling him to go ahead and take a few chances and rely on his skill in getting through. The other part would be telling him to save his skin and not take any risks.
"That's where the real testing comes in, of course. But I've seen some good men crack up, fighting themselves like that. They'd have been a lot better off if they never went in for racing in the first place. Unless they win a victory over themselves and achieve self-confidence, they remain miserable for the rest of their lives. They drop out of racing. But they can never be happy."
"What about fear?" said Woody. "I mean you've been in a couple of accidents. Didn't that make you real scared the next time you drove?"
"It certainly did and does," replied Randy. "But self-confidence doesn't mean that a man is without fear. You've got to be afraid, to get any self-confidence that comes from overcoming fear. But some people never make it. They spend the rest of their lives doubting their own abilities.
"The time I cracked up and had my foot amputated, I broke out in a cold sweat whenever I thought of racing again. All my friends advised me to give up the game. On the surface, it would have been the sensible thing to do. But they did not realize that if I quit, it would have been a victory for fear, and I would have to live with it for the rest of my life."
Up to this point Woody had been on the verge of confessing his own fears to Randy. But now he found he could not do so. This seemed to be a battle he had to fight alone. It was one with which none of his friends could help him. He realized dimly that men always fight their battles alone—not just in racing cars but in their daily living. They alone can make the critical decisions, and nobody can help with them.
"How do you feel about the Black Tiger now?" Woody asked instead of mentioning his own fears.
"To be honest with you, I'm scared stiff," said Randy with a laugh. "If I wasn't scared, I might put off racing her for a little while. But if I postponed it now, though other people might say I had good reasons, I'd know that the real reason was fear. And then I might never race again." Woody did say that he was always scared himself when he got behind the steering wheel of the MG. But he didn't say that he remained scared all through the race and deliberately neglected chances to pass other cars because he was afraid to take them. He felt that both Randy and Rocky would be contemptuous of him if he did. And he wanted them both to have a good opinion of him.
A month remained before the Santa Barbara race. It was a pretty miserable month for Woody. He got nervous and a little irritable, which was unusual for him. Both his father and mother noticed the change in him, and one evening his father put down his paper, took off his glasses with a swift decision, and nodded to Woody's mother, who left the room. When she had gone, Mr. Hartford said, "Woody, your mother and I are both worried about you. You're not eating much, and you seem nervous all the time. Is there anything the matter?"
"No," said Woody shortly. Mr. Hartford groaned silently. He could recall a similar occasion in his own youth when his father had tried to talk to him man to man, and he had withheld his confidence. He was hurt that his son should do the same to him now.
"Son," said Mr. Hartford, "I never pry into your affairs. I look upon you as a sensible young man of whom I am proud. But I've lived a lot longer than you. That's a mathematical fact. I don't say I'm smarter than you. But I've just had more experience. Now if you've got some sort of a problem that's bothering you that I, with my experience, can help with, I wish you'd let me know about it."
"It's nothing, Dad," said Woody.
"Is it money?" Mr. Hartford persisted. Woody shook his head.
"Is it Mary Jane? I notice you haven't been seeing much of her lately." Woody hesitated. He missed Mary Jane a great deal. At one time he might have been able to talk his problem over with her. But she was so dead set against racing that all she would tell him would be to give it up. She wouldn't understand that there was more than racing involved in the problem.
"No, Dad," Woody said, "It isn't Mary Jane. It's really nothing at all. I just don't feel well. I think I'll go for a walk." He left the room rather hurriedly, for he wanted to avoid further questioning. When he had gone, Mrs. Hartford came in.
"Did you find out anything?" she asked.
"No," replied her husband. "There's something the matter, but only time will bring it out. The boy has some problem, and feels he ought to keep it to himself."
"But we're his parents," said Mrs. Hartford. "Surely he should be able to tell us."
Mr. Hartford smiled. "Mother," he said, "when a boy decides not to discuss his troubles with his parents, it doesn't mean that he doesn't love them any more. It means that he's becoming a man. I'm pretty proud of Woody. I'd have been just a little disappointed if he'd broken down and told me what was the matter with him."
For two weeks before the Santa Barbara race, Woody spent most of his time working on the Black Tiger. Randy made the deal with Worm, agreeing to pay Woody's wages. Randy and Rocky rented an apartment in Hermosa Beach so they could be near the car, and the Black Tiger was given a thorough overhaul from rear axle to fan belt. In those two weeks Woody became more and more fond of Randy. The man had a buoyancy of spirit and a quick humor that was completely captivating. It was hard to believe that he had any fears at all about the forthcoming race. He spoke of it with enthusiasm and excitement, as if it were something he was looking forward to eagerly.
Woody often wanted to ask him whether he still felt nervous about it, but could not bring himself to do so.
The Thursday before the race, which was to be held over the weekend, they took the Black Tiger out to the salt flats, and Randy let Woody drive her. Woody had once wanted nothing more in life than to be seated behind her wheel. But now that the opportunity was offered him, he sought to get out of it.
"I'm not used to the car," he said. "I might chew up your gearbox."
"Nonsense," said Randy. "Hop in. She's getting maximum torque at six thousand. Rev her up to that before you change. Then change fast and with full throttle. You'll get a real thrill out of it."
When he got going, Woody did get a thrill out of it. For a while he experienced the old exhilaration at his effortless arrowing forward in the Black Tiger, with the landscape around reduced to a blur. The car handled much more delicately than the MG. It was, he told himself, a real racing machine. He glanced at the speedometer and saw he was hitting a hundred and sixty in high. But when he got back and climbed out he was trembling slightly and his mouth was dry.
"How'd she feel?" asked Randy.
"Beautiful," Woody replied.
"One day," Randy said, "you might be able to race her yourself." Woody hoped heartily that that day would never come.
There were two other events before the Black Tiger was due to race at Santa Barbara. In the first, for cars under fifteen hundred cc.'s, Rocky raced the MG, and drove better than Woody had ever seen her drive before. She came up from seventh at the starting line to second when the race was over, and if the race had gone another lap she would have been first.
"This is our day, Randy," she told her father when she got back to the pit. "You're bound to win in the Black Tiger now. I just feel it."
"If I drove like you, I'd feel it myself," said Randy.
The second race was for old-style racing cars and more of a novelty than a sporting event. Woody saw little of it, being busy with last-minute details on the Black Tiger. The car was in tiptop shape. It was still the magnet of attention among the other drivers and mechanics in the pit area. They came over in twos and threes to look over the engine and comment on the streamlining. Tom Wisdom and Kurt Kreuger, old rivals of Randy's who were to race against him again, were there. They were obviously delighted to know that Randy's leg was in good enough shape for him to race again.
Woody overheard Tom say to Kreuger, "If it was a matter of guts alone, Randy would be sure to win. Boy, he's got more guts than all of us put together."
"You can say that again," said Kurt. He looked back at the Black Tiger and shook his big head solemnly. "Hate to say it," he said, "but that car just bothers me. Too new. Too many unknown bugs in it."
Tom nodded his head solemnly, and the two drifted off.
Randy made different pit-crew arrangements for the race than those at Torrey Pines. "Rocky and Worm stay here at the racing pit in case I develop some trouble," he said. "Woody, I'd like you to go out to bend number five and pick a spot by the fence where I can see you as I come out of the bend. Take along that blackboard and a piece of chalk. When I come out of the bend, hold the blackboard well up so I can see it, and chalk on it the number of the lap and my position. If I'm more than sixth or seventh don't bother giving me the position. But if I'm among the first five or so, let me know. Understand?"
"Yes," said Woody. "I'll put the lap number at the top of the board, and your position down below it."
"Swell," said Randy. "The race is for thirty minutes. Toward the end, you can forget about the lap number and just let me know the number of minutes left. O.K.?" Woody nodded and went off to pick a good spot near bend number five.
The Santa Barbara track is laid out roughly in the shape of a horseshoe. The cars travel around the inside of the shoe and then around the outside to complete one lap. But it is a horseshoe that has been badly bent, so that instead of just two hairpins at the feet and a long slow curve at the top, there are a number of near right-angle bends as well.
Woody found a good place behind the snow fence and waited, nerves tingling, for the race to start. Over the loud-speaker he could hear the commentator briefing the crowd on what was going to take place.
"This race," he said, "will commence with a Le Mans start. The cars are parked on one side of the track and their drivers opposite them on the other. When the starter brings down his flag, the drivers will sprint to their cars, jump in, fasten their safety belts, switch on their engines, and get going. The start, then, is a critical moment. A driver who can get under way quickly can get ahead of three or four cars he might not have a chance of passing on the track.
"Well, there they are, all sitting down waiting for the starting flag. There are three veteran Le Mans drivers in this event—Kurt Kreuger in Jag number eight, Tom Wisdom in a red Ferrari, number ten, and Jimmy Randolph in his new Italian job, the Black Tiger, number two. Randy has raced this car only once before and was doing well when he broke a steering knuckle and turned over. He's a great guy to be racing today. But he has every confidence in his car. Here it is. They're off—"
The rest of what the announcer said was drowned in a roar of engines. Woody strained over the snow fence, his eyes on bend number five about a hundred yards down the track. It was a particularly savage bend with buildings on either side and a house dead in front when the driver was halfway around. The house was protected with hay bales. Any car that didn't get around would run straight into them. A further hazard consisted of a thick telephone pole at the end of the bend, where most cars would be swinging wide after making the turn. There were hay bales around that also.
Suddenly there was a roar, and the first car appeared around number five. It was a red Ferrari, number twelve. Then came two more and then a Jag. Then three in a huddle, the one on the outside just missing the telephone pole. Woody began to wonder where Randy was. Suddenly the Black Tiger flashed by in eighth place. Randy, with his newly mended leg, had not been able to sprint over to his car as fast as the other drivers. It was typical of the man that he had made no mention of this additional handicap before the start.
The announcer picked up the rest of the first lap for Woody. Wisdom and Kreuger, old rivals, were battling for third place. Ahead of them was Ben Wedger in a Maserati. There was no mention yet of the Black Tiger. Woody suspected that Randy was still in eighth place. He waited, his eyes riveted on turn number five. Suddenly two cars flashed around it wheel to wheel. The outside car swerved off the shoulder of the track and looked as if it were going to hit the telephone pole. Woody could see the driver fighting to bring it back again. He succeeded but dropped to second place. Then came two more, one on the tail of the other. The first was Kreuger's Jag, number eight. Then Tom Wisdom in his red Ferrari. Then a Maserati, number eleven, and then the Black Tiger. She came around the corner like her namesake, clinging to the inside of the track and passed the Maserati, going full bore as they came abreast of Woody.
"He's fifth now," Woody yelled excitedly. He chalked a big three for the lap number on the top of the board and a big five for Randy's place in the last lap below it.
"They're going into the north hairpin now," said the announcer. "Dave Kingston is still ahead in number twelve, Kreuger and Wisdom are fighting it out wheel to wheel. They've come up to second and third respectively. Wait a minute. What's this. The Black Tiger, driven by Jimmy Randolph, just shot between Wisdom and Kreuger to take over third place. That makes it Kingston, Kreuger, and Randolph in the Black Tiger third. But it's still anybody's race with twenty minutes to go."
Woody forgot about the sign board in his excitement. He leaned as far as he could over the snow fence to see the Black Tiger come around turn number five. There was a tense silence in the crowd, above which he could hear the roar of the engines. He heard the squeal of wheels and the coughing spit of Kingston's Ferrari as he changed down for the bend. Then Kingston was around and after him. Turning the corner in the same instant was Kreuger's Jag and the Black Tiger, wheel to wheel. As they flashed by Woody caught a glimpse of Randy, sitting quite relaxed behind the wheel. There was a slight smile on his face, and then he was gone, headed for the right-angle bend half a mile down the track.
"It's Dave Kingston against Jimmy Randolph in the Black Tiger now," the loud-speaker blared. "Randolph cut in from the far side of the track on bend six to take over the second place from Kreuger. He's battling Kingston now for the lead position. As they pass the start-finish line on the sixth lap it's Kingston, Randolph, Kreuger, and Wisdom.
"Randolph had an overlap on Kingston's Ferrari twice. This is a great race—perhaps the greatest we shall see this year. Here they are going into the hairpin. Kingston is skillfully blocking all Randolph's attempts to pass. He's holding that inside position and has just a little more speed than the Black Tiger on the straightaway. Now they're entering bend number five. It looks as though Randolph is going to take it wide, relying on the cornering ability of the Tiger to take him around—"
Woody didn't have to listen to the rest. He saw it. Kingston's Ferrari hurtled around the bend on the inside with the Black Tiger on its tail. The big Ferrari skidded for a fraction of a second, picked up traction, and hurtled down the straightaway.
But something went wrong with the Black Tiger. The car took the corner wide, and Woody could see Randy fighting to get control. It looked as though he was going to hit the telephone pole, but he managed to miss it by inches. The car came roaring and fishtailing toward the crowd. People scattered like dust before a heavy gust of wind. Woody caught a glimpse of the Tiger hitting the shoulder of the road not a hundred yards from him. Then it leaped into the air, turned slowly on its side, and hit the ground upside down. It slithered bumping and screaming, sparks flying from it, and the wheels spinning, for fifty yards before it came to a standstill.
Woody was over the snow fence before anybody could stop him. Flagmen appeared is if by magic, waving the red accident flags. Woody was conscious that several cars flashed by, slowing down near him, but he had no eyes for them. He ran to the Black Tiger, which lay beside the track, its wheels still spinning in the air.
"Randy," he shouted, "Randy."
"Get back," somebody yelled at him and pulled him by the shoulder. Woody yanked himself savagely free and grabbed the side of the Black Tiger, attempting to right it. Several other men came to help. Together they got the Tiger back on its wheels. Randy was in the driver's seat, but his shape was all wrong. One hand was nothing but a red hunk of meat. It lay on his safety belt, and it was obvious that he had been fumbling with it. Blood dripped quietly from it onto his pants. He was slumped sideways beside the steering wheel but in such a way as to suggest that his back was broken. His head lay on the seat, and his face turned up toward them.
He looked at Woody and attempted a smile, but coughed instead. A little pink foam came to his lips.
"Brakes," he said and closed his eyes.
The ambulance was there in a second, and everybody hustled away to make room for the ambulance attendant. Woody stayed as near as he was allowed and saw a doctor bend over Randy. When the doctor stood up, he didn't say anything. He just shook his head and got back into the ambulance.
Then Woody knew that Randy was dead. The Black Tiger had killed him.
In the weeks that followed Randy's death, nobody made any mention of road racing or the Black Tiger around Worm's garage. There was a tacit understanding that both topics should be ignored. Woody worked harder than ever at his job and tried to put both subjects out of his mind. He saw Rocky only at the funeral, and then she went back to San Diego to live with an aunt. Woody did not know what happened to the Black Tiger. And he hoped he would never hear of it or see it again.
Worm made only one comment on the fatal accident that killed Randy. "Yon Black Tiger is a killer car," he said to Woody. "I told Randy so and tried to warn him against racing it. But he was no a man that ye could warn."
It was not, however, as easy to get away from road racing as Woody hoped. When he went into a drugstore for a hamburger, he found himself eying the road-racing magazines. When he bought a newspaper, the sports pages with their columns on road racing had an irresistible fascination for him. He did not want to look at them. Yet he found that he could not refrain from doing so. Names seemed to leap out of the pages at him—Tom Wisdom, Kurt Kreuger, Dave Kingston. It was strange how out of several thousand printed words on a page, one word would stand out as if it were printed in a different color.
A week after Randy's death, Woody called up Mary Jane and asked her for a date. She sounded neither cold nor very friendly on the phone, and said she was doing nothing that night. Woody asked her out to dinner. When he called for her, he began to realize how much he had missed her. It seemed as if he had been only a portion of himself and now he was made whole again. They spent a pleasant evening, not saying anything about what was past or about any plans for the future. It seemed as if the two of them just wanted to enjoy the present for the moment.
Mary Jane seemed much more grown up to Woody that evening. She talked neither of Somerset Maugham nor of boys she'd been out with while they were quarreling. Woody felt peaceful while he was with her for the first time in many weeks. When he went home, he slept well, and the following day was whistling at his work and much more his old self.
Worm noticed the change and was pleased by it. He was not a man to pry into others' affairs, but he had been worried about Woody, toward whom he adopted an attitude part father and part elder brother.
For the next month things went smoothly in this fashion, and Woody almost managed to forget about road racing and the unconquered fears with which the whole subject filled him.
Then one day the telephone rang, and when he answered it Rocky was on the line.
"Hi, Woody," she said. "How have you been?"
"Pretty good," Woody replied. "How are things with you?"
"Just fine now that—now that everything's settled. I called you up because I just had some wonderful news. Guess what?"
"What?" said Woody and he felt curiously ill at ease.
"The Italian factory that made the Black Tiger had a representative over here to look at Daddy's car. You know there are only three of them in the world. They were worried about the two accidents"—she hurried over the words—"because they gave the car a bad name. You know people have been saying that the car's a killer, and nobody can be found to drive it. Anyway, they've offered to pay the expenses of repairing the Black Tiger, and they'll provide all the new parts needed and everything if someone will race it again over here."
"Oh," said Woody, trying to keep the dismay out of his voice.
"Daddy really believed in that car," Rocky continued. "He said it was the finest he'd ever seen in all the time he'd been driving. I thought that since you'd worked with him on it that you'd like to know the news right away."
"Gee," said Woody. "I'm sure glad to hear it. Let me know if they find a driver, huh? Maybe Tom Wisdom. He was a friend of your father's."
"No," said Rocky. "I asked Tom. But he has the same opinion of the Black Tiger as the others. He says it's a killer—too unorthodox a design to be raced safely. Kurt Kreuger says the same. He won't touch it. But I'll find somebody. Of course, there are lots of people who would do it, but they haven't got the kind of driving flair that the car needs. Anyway, I'll let you know if anything happens."
She sounded a little disappointed.
"Thanks," said Woody and hung up.
"Who was that?" Worm asked when he put down the phone.
"Rocky," replied Woody. "They're fixing up the Black Tiger, and they're going to race her again."
Worm gave him a queer look. "Come into the office," he said. "I've something I want to tell ye. And I might as well tell ye noo."
When they were inside Worm's tiny office and Worm had lit a cigarette, he took a long hard drag at it, examined the glowing end, and addressed himself to the smoldering cigarette rather than to Woody.
"Ye may have been wondering," he said, "for ye are a noticing body, how it was I came to know Randy so well mony years ago. And ye may have heard some remarks pass between us that made nae sense tae ye at the time. Ye'll recall, nae doot, that the first time he came tae the garage here to ask me tae work on his pit crew, he said that that was something I had tae face and I'd do better tae face it wi' me friends."
Woody nodded but said nothing.
"Weel," said Worm, "the fact o' the matter is that many years ago, before ye were born likely, Randy and I were both racing drivers over there in Europe. We raced against each other in the Tourists' Trophy in Ireland and in the Le Mans in France and sometimes in road races that took us frae the Channel ports tae the toe of Italy and back. Clean across the Alps, mind ye, on narrow roads, twisting and curving, through the passes, wi' snow all aroond, and sometimes ye couldna' see tae the end o' yere headlight beam.
"Ah weel, that was when I was young and foolish. Well, there came a time when I was approached by a Swiss company tae race a new car for them in the Le Mans. 'Twas a car ye probably never heard of, for they don't make it any more. 'Twas called an Albinet."
Woody shook his head. The name was completely strange to him.
"Well, 'tis as I thought. Few these days have ever heard of the Albinet, though at the time 'twas the wonder car of the year. Like that Black Tiger noo.
"No tae make too long a tale of it, I agreed tae drive the car, and Randy was in the race too, driving a Bugatti if I remember right.
"Now I don't know if you know anything about the Le Mans. 'Tis held in the city of Le Mans in France, and the roads are blocked off tae form the track. The race is laid down through the streets of the city, and there's every kind of a turn and twist and hill and blind corner and every kind of surface ye can think of to be negotiated. 'Tis a twenty-four-hour race. There's cobbles in some parts and asphalt in others and concrete and all the rest. And sometimes it's raining and sometimes it's dry, so ye've never seen a race like the Le Mans over here, and I hope ye never will.
"I mind I was third on the eightieth lap. There was a Frenchman ahead of me in a Hispano-Suiza and a German in the lead with a Mercedes-Benz. Randy was on my tail, and we were going hell for leather down a cobbled hill with a wall on one side all covered wi' sandbags and houses on the other. At the bottom of the hill there was a sharp right turn and then a sharp turn to the left and up another hill.
"The trick was to change doon and brake hard, drift aroond the first corner, regain traction on the second, and on your way.
"The crowd was as thick as flies along the sandbags lining the wall as I came roaring down the hill. I hit my brakes to change doon, and my foot went tae the floor. The brakes had failed. I was doing a hundred and ten down the cobbled hill when I passed the Italian and tried to make the turn tae the right. The car swung around like an ice skater and hit one of the sandbags. I got doon on the floor and Randy piled intae me. There were five cars in that wreck, and three of the drivers were killed. Four people who were watching from the sandbags died too. Randy lost his foot.
"After that, I swore I'd never race again. And I never have. Randy tried tae get me back driving. He said if I didn't go back I'd be a beaten man all me life. Well, maybe I am a beaten man. But to this day I canna' look at a racing car without being filled wi' mortal fear. When I agreed tae go wi' you and Steve tae the technical inspection, I was trying tae get over some of that fear. I thought it might have left me. But it hadn't. And when I agreed tae work in the pit wi' Randy, it was for the same reason.
"I'm sorry now I did. Randy would hae been killed, nae doot. But I'd have had no part in it." He paused and flicked the butt of his cigarette deftly into a bucket of water.
"Ye'll be wondering why I'm telling ye all this, nae doot," he said. "Weel, it's on account of yon Black Tiger. Mark my words, they'll no find any racing driver wi' any experience that'll undertake tae handle her. Yon car's a killer as I said before. I'm thinking that they'll be asking you. Ye drive well. I've watched ye. Ye drive like I used tae drive when I was racing. I've looked at ye going roond the track and seen meself twenty years ago.
"But dinna make the mistake I made—Randy too. Dinna' go on wi' yere driving until ye've killed seven people just because ye wanted tae drive a new car first past the finish line.
"I'll never forget those people, laddie. Never. And I've a horror of racing now that won't leave me until I've drawn my last breath."
Woody now understood fully Worm's strange reaction to the Black Tiger and his reluctance to be associated with road racing in any way. But there was something else he wanted to know. He remembered how Randy, over dinner, had told him that road racing condensed all the challenges of life into a few minutes. He recalled Randy's saying that all drivers were scared but if a man gave way to fear he would be beaten for the rest of his life.
"Tell me, Worm," he said. "Did you quit racing because of the accident—because of the people you killed though it was not your fault? Or did you quit because you were scared of getting killed yourself? Because you didn't want to take any more chances."
"'Twas the people," said Worm, slowly.
"But they knew the risk they were taking when they came to watch the race," Woody persisted. "They knew a car might get out of control. Yet they came and sat on top of the sandbags."
Worm made no comment on this for a while. He got up moodily from his seat and looked out of the window. "Randy told me that mony a time," he said. "If I face the matter squarely, I quit because I was afraid." The sentence was uttered in almost a whisper.
"I've been afraid ever since," said Worm. Woody felt a deep compassion for him.
Worm's forecast that Woody would be asked to drive the Black Tiger was not long in coming true. A week after her telephone call, Rocky dropped in to see him. She drove into the garage in her MG, and although Worm was delighted to see the daughter of his old friend, it was plain that he was worried too.
"Mind what I told ye," he said privately to Woody. "Dinna' let her talk ye into driving yon Black Tiger. It's nae worth the risk."
Woody and Rocky went to dinner and then for a drive and a talk. For a while nothing was said about the Black Tiger, though Woody knew very well that that was the object of the visit. Rocky was apparently waiting for Woody to bring up the subject, and he was determined that he wouldn't.
Eventually she brought it up herself.
"The Black Tiger is being completely overhauled and repaired," she said. "It will be ready to race again soon. The factory sent a man over to supervise the work. They installed a completely new brake system. The factory man said the car had been dropped on the way over, and that was why the steering knuckle broke and also why the brakes went out. There was just the tiniest rupture in the master cylinder, but with the constant braking during two races the rupture widened and the fluid drained out."
"Gee, I'm glad to hear they found the trouble and the car is being fixed," Woody said.
"We haven't been able to get a driver," Rocky continued. "I'd drive it myself, but it wouldn't be the same thing. They have special races for women, as you know, and to prove its worth the Black Tiger has to be driven in a man's race."
Woody made no reply to this other than to grunt.
"It's the old trouble," Rocky went on. "The car has got the reputation of being a killer. Nobody wants to risk driving it because it's so new. But it isn't a killer at all. I believe what Randy used to say. No cars are killers. New ones may have bugs in them that have to be found out. But that's been true of every car ever designed. Racing finds out the troubles and provides better and safer cars for people to drive.
"Lots of safety features on automobiles today were developed out of experience gained in road racing," she continued. "Four-wheel brakes are one of them. So are rear-vision mirrors and better tires. More people are driving with safety belts on long trips, and that's saving a lot of lives. In the early days of racing, Daddy told me, fly-wheels used to explode and kill drivers. But who ever heard of a flywheel exploding these days? Racing drivers showed how to make better ones. Every time there's an accident on a track, people say that road racing should be banned or that a particular car is a killer. But the automobile industry would not be where it is today if it wasn't for road racing."
Still Woody said nothing. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach because he knew what was coming. The palms of his hands felt moist, and he could feel his heart beating faster. He tried to temporize.
"Why was Randy so interested in the Black Tiger?" he asked.
"Because he said it was way ahead of any other racing car yet designed," Rocky replied. "The factory is planning to put out a small family car based on the Black Tiger engine. It would give about fifty miles to a gallon of gas, could be driven in any climate because the engine is air-cooled. That means no radiator to overheat in summer or freeze in winter. And it would sell for less than a thousand dollars. But all that depends on the Black Tiger being shown to be an efficient engine and chassis design.
"Daddy never said anything to me about it. But I found out through his will that he had put all his savings into the project. He believed in the Black Tiger that much. He used to say he'd spent all his life looking for a perfect automobile and had found it in the Black Tiger. Now his life's work will be wrecked unless we can find someone to drive the Tiger." She looked across at Woody, hesitated, and then said.
"Daddy was very fond of you. He told me that you'd make a great racing driver someday. He said you had a natural flair for it, and the sort of courage that it takes. Woody, I hate to ask you, knowing the reputation the Black Tiger has. I'm only asking because so much of Randy's hopes were tied up in the car. Will you race it—not for me but for him? For all he did for automobile racing and design?"
Woody had his answer ready, but he couldn't get it out. It seemed to him that Randy was nearby and hanging on his answer. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say that he, too, believed the Black Tiger was a man-killer. He wanted to break down and confess that he was scared to death every time he raced a car and that fear, heavy as a shroud, clung to him through every moment of a race. But he could not get the words out of his mouth.
"I'll have to think about it, Rocky," he said feebly.
Rocky brightened immediately. "Woody," she exclaimed, "you're wonderful." And she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
"I haven't said yes," Woody said hurriedly.
"I didn't expect you to answer right away," replied Rocky. "I know you have to talk to your mother and father. But if you explain everything to them, I know they will agree."
"Worm warned me not to race the Tiger," Woody said. Rocky frowned.
"Did he tell you about himself yet?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Daddy always felt bad about Worm," Rocky went on, slowly. "He believed up to the last that all Worm had to do was turn around and face his fear and he would be happy again. He's not happy now, you know. That's why Daddy got him in his pit crew and brought the Black Tiger to his garage for tuning. It wasn't really that he couldn't get the tuning done anywhere else. He thought if he could get Worm back into racing, he would get over his fears. Daddy was always doing things like that for people without their knowing it. He used to say that fear was just a continuing sense of shock. It could be cured, he thought, if faced."
Rocky didn't know how deeply these words affected Woody. He felt that Randy was talking to him; that Randy knew the struggle in his mind and was trying to sort it out for him. He could almost hear the bright, gallant voice, not blaming him but understanding and trying to help him get over his own fears.
"When do you think you'll know whether you can drive the Tiger?" Rocky asked.
"Oh, in about a week," Woody replied.
"Whatever your answer," Rocky said, "I'll always be grateful to you. The others just said no. You at least are willing."
That evening Woody bitterly regretted that he also had not given a flat no to Rocky's request. If he had done so, it would be settled and he would have been saved a lot of mental and emotional turmoil. When he got home he found his father was out of town on business and would not be back for two or three days. Woody would have liked to talk to his father about driving the Black Tiger in the hope that he would be forbidden to race. That would solve the matter by putting the blame for the decision on someone else. Woody didn't feel exactly comfortable at that thought but was looking for a way to escape making the decision himself.
It was no good talking to Worm. Worm would only insist that he refuse to drive the Black Tiger. And Worm was really in the same position in regard to racing as himself. If Tom Wisdom or any of the other drivers he'd met had been around, he would have consulted them for their views. But Woody didn't know where they lived and had no way of finding out.
In the end, desperate for someone to talk his problem over with, Woody took it to Mary Jane. He didn't really think she could help him with it. He already knew her views on road racing. But at least she was someone to talk to. He was too ashamed to unburden himself to Steve.
To his surprise, Mary Jane's reaction was quite different from what he had expected. He told her everything, not sparing his own feelings in any way. Though he blushed while doing so, he confessed that he was scared of racing and had many times missed chances on the track through sheer fear. He said he had been afraid even to talk of his fear and now was in the predicament of being asked to drive the Black Tiger. He confessed that he was mortally afraid of doing it and also afraid of refusing, both because of his reputation and what it might do to his morale.
Mary Jane didn't interrupt once while he was talking. When he had finished, she said:
"Woody Hartford, you're the most mixed-up person I ever met. There's nothing for you to do but drive the Black Tiger. I'm surprised you can't see that yourself."
"What?" cried Woody, amazed.
"Look," Mary Jane continued. "You know how I hated the way you were always spending time and money on Cindy Lou. I still don't see that it's important for one driver to prove he can go faster than another. And I don't see that it's important for people to keep building faster cars. If you were going to drive the Black Tiger just to show that it would go faster than those Ferraris or what-nots, I'd tell you not to be so silly.
"But that's no longer the reason. The reason now is to show that you've got the courage to drive the car even though you're afraid of it. That's a very important reason. It's much more important than all that stuff about developing safer cars and so on.
"You've just got to drive the Black Tiger. That's all there is to it. Otherwise you won't be Woody Hartford any more. And the person I'm interested in is Woody Hartford."
Woody was stunned.
"You really mean you think I should drive it?" he asked.
"Certainly. I wouldn't want to have anything more to do with you if you didn't. If I was afraid of it, I'd drive it. You don't have to win. All you've got to do is try to win and show that you're prepared to take the same chances that other drivers in the race accept.
"I used to say that all your interest in racing and racing cars was juvenile. So it was. All you were interested in then was the speed and the roar of the engines and the glamour. But now it isn't juvenile at all. You're growing up. If you race the Black Tiger, it will show that you've grown up enough to be called a man.
"And," Mary Jane concluded, "when I get married, I want it to be to aman, even if he does have to spend the rest of his life in greasy overalls."
The biggest opposition to Woody's driving the Black Tiger came from Worm. Woody had thought that both his mother and father would be dead set against it. They did not, indeed, welcome the prospect. Woody decided to tell his father about it when they were alone and again to explain all his reasons fully. When he had finished Mr. Hartford said, "Woody, is this what has been on your mind all the time?"
"More or less," Woody replied.
"I see why you didn't feel you could discuss it with me. In any case, discussion is rather futile. There are some things people just have to decide by themselves and this is one of them. I don't pretend that I like the idea of your driving that car. I wish there was some honorable way out of it. But there isn't. You'd better let me tell your mother, though. I think I can explain the situation better than you.
"This is where being a parent is really tough," he added with a faint smile. "My whole instinct is to forbid you to race—to protect you from danger. But I know that would be the wrong thing to do. Son, promise me that.... Well, I was going to say promise me that you won't take any unnecessary chances. But that would be silly. Promise me that if the car shows any serious defects before the race, you will have sense enough to realize that you don't have to go through with this."
"I promise," said Woody. "The car will be in perfect mechanical condition. Otherwise the deal will be off. I'll go over it myself, and I'll get Worm to help me."
Worm was furious when Woody told him. His face went white, and for a while he was unable to say anything. When he did he called Woody a fool and a lunatic and said he wouldn't have anything to do with the Black Tiger and would not help Woody in any way.
"I'll not be a party tae ye killing yere foolish self," he stormed.
This was a heavy blow. Woody didn't really know enough about the mechanics of racing cars to check the Tiger over thoroughly. He waited for Worm to calm down and then decided to tackle him again.
"Worm," he said, "you don't understand about me and the Black Tiger. I'd like to explain to you."
"There's nae explanation for a mon deciding tae drive a car that's only been in two races and has had an accident each time, other than lunacy," Worm snapped.
"Well, maybe it is lunacy," replied Woody. "But Dad doesn't seem to think so. And neither does Mary Jane."
"Ye mean tae tell me yer father is going tae let ye drive yon man-killer?"
"Yes," said Woody. "Because I explained the reasons to him."
"And what might be yere reasons?" Worm demanded.
"There's only one! I'm afraid. I'm afraid to drive any racing car. I became afraid the first race I was in when I nearly hit a telephone pole, and I've been scared ever since. I was even more scared after the Black Tiger—after Randy was killed in the Black Tiger. And the only way for me to get my courage back is to drive the car in a race. That's all."
When he had finished, Worm's long pale face was a study. He opened his mouth to say something and then snapped it shut without uttering a word. He stared at Woody in silence for several seconds and then walked out of the office where the conversation had taken place. He stayed away for several minutes, just standing outside the garage with his thin hands on his hips and staring at his feet. Then he fished for a cigarette, lit it, took a puff on it, threw it away, and came back into the office.
"Gie me yere hand, laddie," he said. "I'm ashamed of meself. Ye've got more guts than I have, for ye're doing the thing I should have done meself fifteen years ago. If I'd driven in just one more race after that accident, I'd have been a happier mon today. Instead, I've been fifteen years wi' a nightmare. Ah, well. 'Tis never too late tae mend, they say. I'm wi' ye in this. I'll go over yon Black Tiger wi' a fine-tooth comb and a magnet. I'll do more than that. I'll take it out on the desert roads wi' ye and test it meself. I'll corner it and brake it and pour the coal tae it until I've driven oot any bugs there are in it meself, or me name is not William Orville Randolph McNess of Aberdeen.
"Have ye told yon Rocky that ye'll race the car?"
"Not yet," said Woody. "She's in San Diego."
"Weel, get on the phone and tell her noo. Dinna' worry aboot the charges. I'll stand them meself. The Hieland Scots, ye understand, are a generous race of people, and 'tis one of the main faults in them."
When Woody in the next few minutes called Rocky to say he'd drive the Black Tiger for her, she was jubilant. She said she'd bring the car up the very next day so that there would be ample time to check it and test it before the Pebble Beach race, which was the event in which it would be entered.
It was not long before the news that the Tiger was to be raced again reached the sports columns. And Woody found himself a combination of hero and lunatic over night. One Los Angeles evening paper devoted half a page to an article and pictures of the Black Tiger. A reporter interviewed Woody for the story, and the gist of the article was that Woody was prepared to stake his life to show the car was the fastest and safest racing machine ever to come into the country.
Other columnists dredged up stories of other "wonder cars" that had been wrecked and scrapped as unpractical. Woody was asked to lecture at the local high school on racing and road safety and was voted by the Junior Chamber of Commerce as the young citizen most likely to succeed. Some papers tried to draw a likeness between him and some of the old-time racing greats like Barney Oldfield, and all in all, he got more publicity than he ever would have thought likely in his entire life.
Worm was as good as his word both in checking and testing the car. He closed down his garage for a week to devote his time to the Black Tiger. He crawled all over it, with Davie'sProblems and Principles of Internal Combustion Enginesopen on the workbench for ready reference. And then, one Saturday, he and Woody drove the Black Tiger out to a deserted piece of highway in the Mojave desert to give it a thorough road test.
The piece of road selected was an old highway now replaced by a modern four-lane thoroughfare. Because it was old, and therefore full of turns and twists, it was ideal for the purpose, and the Highway Patrol gave permission for the tests to be held.
The Highway Patrol also co-operated in not saying anything about the tests, so Woody and Worm had the strip of road, three miles long, to themselves. They worked out a route, partially on the disused road, partially across a desert track, so they had a rough circle to represent a race track.
"I'll put her through ten laps, laddie, just tae see how she handles," Worm said. "You stay here and time me wi' the stop watch. It's aboot three miles aroond, which is average for race tracks here in California."
Woody nodded, and Worm got into the driver's seat. His white face seemed even whiter, but his thin hands were quite steady as he buckled on his safety belt. Then he put on his crash helmet and adjusted the goggles over his eyes. He squirmed around in the seat, feeling the controls with his feet. He switched on the ignition and fired the Black Tiger up. Woody caught a glimpse of his eyes behind the goggles. They seemed big, and there was a dullness that suggested fear. Worm turned his head slowly and looked full at him. Then he gave Woody a wink, made monstrous by the glass shield of the goggles, took a deep breath, and let out the clutch.
The Black Tiger roared into life and shot down the old asphalt road. Woody grinned. It had been a bigger struggle for Worm, he knew, to drive the Black Tiger, than it would be for him. And Worm had made it.
Worm's first two laps were anything but impressive. He seemed to be driving with such extreme caution that it would not have been difficult to keep up with him in a much less powerful car. But when Worm passed Woody for the third time, he took one hand off the steering wheel, waved, and hit the accelerator. It seemed to Woody as if the Black Tiger was melting in the sun, it disappeared from view so fast. There was a corner about two hundred yards from the starting place, and Worm took this without even skidding his wheels. He reappeared over the top of a hill and plunged down again, the Tiger roaring its enjoyment of the game. As he flashed by again, Woody saw that Worm was driving like Randy used to. He was sitting well back in his seat, almost lolling there. His hands held the steering wheel in a light grip. And there was a smile on his thin face.
Worm did more than ten laps. It was fifteen before he stopped the Black Tiger, unfastened his safety belt, and climbed out of the seat.
"How did I do?" he asked.
"Gee," said Woody, "I was so nervous about you that I forgot to use the stop watch."
"Nervous about me!" exclaimed Worm. "Why, laddie, I was driving cars wi' twice the horsepower of yon Black Tiger before ye were born." But he gave Woody another of his rare winks, and his face was beaming. He looked, in fact, quite young again.
It was now Woody's turn, and he got behind the wheel and fastened his safety belt. "There's nothing wrong wi' her that I can find," said Worm. "She corners better than any car I've ever handled. The main thing is tae get the feel of her. Take her aroond slowly at first till ye know how fast she turns when ye pull the wheel over. Change doon and try tae make her slide on corners. Find oot when she breaks out of a slide. Take it easy at first. We've got all day. Make her do what you want her tae do—not what she wants tae do. That's the whole secret of driving."
Woody looked along the low slim hood in front of him and at the dashboard with its telltale dials. Tachometer. Speedometer. Oil-pressure gauge. Water-temperature gauge. Gas gauge. Each was a separate dial. He slipped the gearshift into low and started off.
His confidence had been restored to some extent by watching Worm, but he took the first two laps slowly, studying the reactions of the car. She seemed all power and eagerness. Corners taken at sixty-five miles an hour on the asphalt didn't bother her. She slipped smoothly in and out of gear but seemed to be constantly straining to go faster.
On the fourth lap of the makeshift course, Woody decided to let the Tiger go all out. He flashed passed Worm, his engine roaring, changed down at the first corner at the bottom of a dip, was around and over the top of a small hill before he realized it, and headed down a quarter mile of straight at the end of which was a right-angle bend onto the desert strip. Woody hit his brakes, changed down again for the bend, then stamped hard on the accelerator. The Black Tiger screamed off the asphalt onto the dirt strip of the desert, broadsided for a second, righted herself, and was off again.
Five laps, and Woody felt that he knew the car. He also felt more sure of himself. There were one or two moments when his old panic threatened to return. But he managed to fight it down. He did well for eight laps going full bore around the course. The Black Tiger was certainly all that Randy had ever said of it. Acceleration in all four gears was instant and powerful. She cornered without any fuss. He never had to fight to get her under control after a full power drift around a bend. One touch of his foot on the accelerator and she came out straight as an arrow.
And yet Woody was conscious of being tense all the time. He couldn't lean back in the seat relaxed like Randy and Worm and become, as they did, part of the engine. There was a tiny spark of uneasiness and distrust in the bottom of his mind all the time.
He was waiting, he knew, for something to go wrong; for the steering to go out or a tire to blow. He couldn't quite trust the Black Tiger—couldn't quite shake out of his mind the thought that it was waiting to spring some unsuspected trap upon him.
When he was through with the trial runs, Worm said, "Weel, laddie, how did she handle?"
"Fine," said Woody. "Fine. I just hope she'll hold together."
They both looked at the sleek black lines of the car. Even in the hot desert sun they seemed menacing.
Woody had a bad headache and a strong suspicion that the meager breakfast he had eaten that morning was not going to stay with him very long. He wished he could go away somewhere out of the bright, merciless sunlight and be quietly sick all by himself. It occurred to him that if there was just half a chance of getting away with it, he'd sneak off into the crowd on the other side of the snow fence and disappear among them. But that was impossible. Someone would spot him and he would be brought back again for the sacrifice.
For that's exactly what he felt like—a sacrifice that was about to be offered to a god called the Black Tiger for the edification of a lot of worshipers who called themselves sports-car fans.
Woody was sitting on the grass on one side of the starting area of the Pebble Beach racecourse. Across the track from him was a row of cars facing outward as if they were in a parking lot. Among them was the Black Tiger. They all seemed to be grinning malevolently. The Black Tiger was sixth in line, and there were twenty-two cars in all drawn up for the Le Mans start of the fifth event. That was the race to which he was committed—the race in which he was to be given his chance to recover and demonstrate his courage; the race in which he was to prove that the Black Tiger was, despite its record of accidents, a first-class racing machine.
Woody was glad of one thing. Mary Jane wasn't nearby, nor were his father and mother, nor Rocky, Steve, nor Worm. His mother and dad were somewhere in the mass of spectators with Mary Jane. Rocky, Steve, and Worm were in the pit area forming his pit crew. He was glad they weren't with him, because in their presence he had to keep up a pretense of confidence. And right at that moment he hadn't a hairsbreadth of confidence in his whole body.
It had been tough trying to hide his fears all morning while four other races were run. He had become so nervous with everybody wishing him well and fussing over the car that he could hardly do a simple little thing like adjust his racing mirrors to get a clear view of his rear and two rear fenders.
Worm, he was sure, had noticed that he was nervous. But Worm hadn't said anything, and Woody was glad. Worm had just busied himself checking the ignition and the spark-plug gaps and taping the headlights.
When Rocky had asked him how he felt, he'd replied, in a voice that didn't sound like his own at all, that he felt fine.
Then Rocky had suggested that he look over the map of the track. But try as he would to memorize it, none of the details would stay with him. He told himself that it didn't matter anyway. He'd had enough racing experience to know that what the track looked like on paper wasn't at all what it was like when you drove over it. Turns that seemed like slow curves turned out to be pretty sharp. And there was no indication of whether they were banked or not.
Furthermore, the map of the track didn't have anything to say about road surfaces. It didn't say anything about trees, and the Pebble Beach track was studded with trees. There were a lot of hills on it too, and most of the corners leaped up suddenly at you from behind a clump of trees or beyond the brow of a hill. That much he learned from talking to the other drivers. It was, they all agreed, the most difficult track in Southern California. Or as they put it—the sportiest.
Tom Wisdom was sitting beside Woody in the sun, looking at his driving boots. He had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, but it had gone out.
"Got a match?" he said, turning to Woody.
Woody said he hadn't without even looking through his pockets. He wished he hadn't been asked. He just wanted to be left alone right at the present moment.
"Feeling a little shaky?" Tom asked. His voice was friendly, and he smiled in a kindly way as he put the question.
Woody decided to abandon all his pretenses. "I sure am," he said. "If I could get the heck out of here and disappear for five years into China, I would."
Tom laughed. "You wouldn't be alone," he said. "Look at Kurt over there." Kurt Kreuger was squatted on his heels carefully taking a cigarette to pieces. Even at a distance of several yards, Woody could see that his hands were far from steady.
"Kurt always tears paper when he's keyed up," Tom said. "I smoke cigarettes that have gone out." He took the dead cigarette from between his lips, examined it with a smile, and flicked it onto the track.
"We've three or four minutes yet," he said. "Did you look over the track?" Woody nodded.
"It's pretty rough," Tom continued. "But remember, it's just as rough for the other boys as it is for you. There isn't much I can tell you at this point that would do any good. But remember, when you jump into your car, fasten your safety belt. Don't take off without doing that." He lapsed into silence, got out another cigarette, found an old match folder with one last match, took a puff or two, and looked down toward the starter.
For the next two minutes it seemed to Woody everything around became very quiet. The row of cars on the opposite side of the track looked as grim as gladiators about to enter an arena. Woody eyed the Black Tiger, and in that moment he hated her. She seemed both impersonal and cruel to him. A cricket started a shrill chirruping in the grass behind him, and he experienced a sudden flush of irritation at the sound. The sun beat down bright and merciless on the asphalt before him. The starter stood talking to two other men. He seemed cheerful and untroubled, and Woody conceived an enormous dislike of him. Why didn't he just drop his flag and get it over with? Why stand around there chewing the fat when everybody was sitting with his nerves on edge?
The loud-speaker blared suddenly. "One minute to go," the announcer said. "I'll count out the seconds. Fifty-five. Fifty. Forty-five...."
It's coming now, Woody said to himself. Just a few seconds more. He felt suddenly panicky, as if he were paralyzed and wouldn't be able to run to his car. Kurt Kreuger was still shredding a cigarette.
"Twenty-five. Twenty. Fifteen," said the announcer. Suddenly it was time. The big green flag in the starter's hand came down, and Woody found himself sprinting on wobbly knees over to the Black Tiger. He was hardly in the seat before a Jag beside him started with a roar and shot off down the track. He saw Tom Wisdom and Kurt Kreuger take off while he was still fumbling with his safety belt. Two more cars roared by, and at last he got the belt fastened. He switched on the ignition, pressed the starter button, let out the clutch, and roared away himself. His hands and arms were trembling violently. He wanted to be sick, and he could hardly see. He denounced himself as a fool for having ever got into the race. But there was no getting out of it now. He couldn't call into the pits. He couldn't get out of the car. He had to go on.
The first lap Woody did in a kind of nightmare. Turns appeared unexpectedly before him, and he took them, fighting down a rising panic. Cars roared by, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, and he let them go. His only concern was to get around as many times as was necessary and then get out of the Black Tiger and leave it and never see it again.
Actually, in the first lap, he lost only two places. In the starting line-up he had been sixth. At the end of the first lap, he was eighth. He caught a glimpse of Worm as he passed by the start-finish line after the first lap. Worm was holding up a blackboard with the figure 8 upon it. Woody was surprised. He had been sure more cars than that were ahead of him. The news served to steady him a little. He pushed down on the accelerator and concentrated on a Mercedes ahead. It was green and had a big twelve on the back. He could scarcely see the top of the driver's helmet, and he did not know who he was. But he decided he would try to pass.
The distance between the two cars diminished slightly. Woody pressed the accelerator down farther. The Black Tiger's note changed to a piercing scream. Woody could feel the car pick up speed, and the Mercedes seemed to be drawn toward him. Then he saw the tail light flash red and knew the driver was braking for a corner. Woody touched his brakes also and in the same moment changed down.
Something inside of him said, "Now," and the voice sounded like Randy's. Woody stomped on the accelerator and pulled over to the right. He went by the Mercedes in a flash and found a sharp corner ahead. He braked again, changed down to second, and hit the accelerator once more. The rear end of the Black Tiger slewed around as he turned the steering wheel. But she straightened out like a champion and was off down the straightaway in a second. In his rear-vision mirror Woody caught a glimpse of the Mercedes he had just passed. It was gaining on him. Ahead was a sharp hill, and he could not remember what was beyond. He left the car in second and accelerated. The Black Tiger roared, breasted the top of the hill, and there ahead were three cars in a huddle, braking for what must be a sharp bend.
On either side of the track, perhaps ten feet from the shoulder, were 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."