The S-bends were ahead, and the three cars were just entering them. Woody looked at his speedometer. A hundred and twenty-five. He wanted to brake, then change down, and take the bends more slowly. Instead, he pressed the accelerator and flung into the first bend as if it wasn't there.
He hardly saw the Mercedes as he went by, taking it on the outside. He was on the inside position on the second bend—the one that was banked the wrong way. The Jag ahead had flung wide and was trying hard to get into position. There was a sharp jolt as Woody streaked past it. But he didn't bother even to look in his rear-vision mirror. He was fourth again. There were three cars ahead, and he knew now that he could pass them. Or rather he knew that he wouldn't hold back from trying. He couldn't explain why it was that his panic had left. It was there in full force a few minutes ago, and now there was not a vestige of it. Instead he was leaning back against the seat. His hands and legs were steady. His brain was clear, and his emotions were under control. His only desire was to go faster and drive better.
"I think I'm going to make it, Randy," he said.
"Never doubted it for a moment," was the reply.
By the fifteenth lap Woody had won back to third position again. Kurt had pulled ahead of Tom Wisdom. Woody had a warm feeling for the two of them. He experienced a warm feeling, too, for the Black Tiger. The roar of her engine, which before had frightened him, now made his heart sing. He loved the way she handled and her enormous gallantry on corners.
He knew that she had it in her to win the race, and he was ashamed that he had penalized her with his own fears.
The last two laps were, for everybody, the most exciting of the race. On the straightaway approaching the hairpin, Woody drew wheel to wheel with Tom Wisdom who looked briefly at him and winked. But Tom wasn't giving anything. He hugged the corner tight—so tight that Woody had to follow him around, for it was too sharp to take wide. Woody drew ahead briefly approaching the right-angle bend after the start-finish line. But he was not sufficiently ahead to pull over and crowd Tom behind him. They took the corner wheel to wheel, but since Woody was on the outside, Tom was slightly ahead when they got around it. Woody had only one more chance to pass—on the S-bends where he had made most of his conquests. But Tom knew those S-bends even better than Woody did. He never gave the Black Tiger a chance. And when the checkered finish flag fluttered down before them, it was Kurt Kreuger first, Tom Wisdom second, and Woody Hartford third.
Rocky was first to greet him when he returned to the pit. "You were wonderful," she said. "Wonderful. Daddy always said you'd make a great driver." And she flung her arms around him and gave him a kiss.
Worm somehow got hold of Woody's hand and kept pumping it up and down.
"I knew what was happening, laddie," he said. "For my money, ye won the race."
When he got free of Rocky and Worm it was to find Mary Jane standing by the car. She didn't say anything. She just smiled and looked very proud.
That night a victory dinner was held at a hotel in Monterey where the dining room had been taken over for the occasion. Woody, Mary Jane, Worm, Rocky, Steve, and Woody's parents attended. It was something of a battle to get into the hotel, for all the drivers who had participated in the race were there. There were perhaps three hundred cars crowded into the parking lot and lining the adjoining streets. The city, in fact, became a racing center for the night, and radio and television men were covering the event in full force.
Tom Wisdom and Kurt Kreuger both grabbed hold of Woody as he entered the hotel lobby.
"You're coming with us," they said, and they dragged him off to a seat at the head table. The Mayor presided at the banquet, and there were officials of the state government and a number of sports-car organizations. Woody couldn't remember how many people he was introduced to by Tom Wisdom, who had taken him under his wing.
"You drove the finest race I've seen in a long time," Tom said. "Kurt and I are both agreed on that. Right before the start, to be honest, I didn't know whether you were going to make it. But you came through like a veteran. You had me plenty worried those last few laps."
"I had the willies all right," Woody confessed.
"Say, Kurt," said Tom. "What were you doing right before the race tearing up all those cigarettes?"
"Me?" said Kurt surprised. "I wasn't tearing up any cigarettes, was I?"
"You sure were."
"Well, if I was, I didn't know about it. But right before the start I'd made up my mind that this was the last race I was ever going to drive in. That's how I felt."
"How do you feel now?"
"Right now," said Kurt, "I think that was the silliest decision I ever made in my life."
The Mayor presented Kurt with the trophy for first place—a cup of such proportions that Worm said afterward it was big enough to boil a haggis in. When Kurt had accepted it and expressed his thanks, he paused for a minute, looked around the room, and said, "Most of you people here tonight are drivers or mechanics or fans who are interested in sports-car racing. It's a new sport in the United States, but it is rapidly developing to the point where it's becoming a national sport. Its long-range results will be better cars, with more safety features and better drivers.
"Some of you guys, like me, have been in the game a long time. We know that it isn't the winner who makes the race. It's all the other competitors who are in there trying to win and their mechanics who put in a lot of unpaid work fixing up their cars. It takes just as much guts to lose a race as it does to win one. What I'm trying to say is that it's the effort that matters and the courage that goes into it. Not the result.
"In this connection, I think there's one driver here tonight who is more entitled to this trophy than I. Before I mention his name, I'll tell you something about him. He's a pretty young guy, and he's been racing something less than a year.
"He didn't drive any well-known make of car. In fact, the car he drove had a hundred per cent accident record. It had been on the track only twice before. The first time its steering went out. The second time the brakes failed and the driver, Jimmy Randolph, was killed.
"Randy believed in that car, and a lot of us were asked to race it after his death. I was one of the people asked, and I refused. I refused because I didn't trust it, and I believed that it might crack up again. A lot of the rest of us turned the car down for the same reasons.
"But one guy didn't turn it down. He probably had the same doubts and fears to overcome that we had. But he had the guts to put them aside and drive the car anyway.
"He drove a magnificent race, despite his inexperience. And he brought a great new car to American tracks. It's hardly necessary for me now to identify either the car or the driver. But I will do so anyway. The car is the Black Tiger and the driver, Woody Hartford—"
If Kurt was going to say any more, he didn't get a chance for fully ten minutes. Cheer after cheer filled the banquet room, and Tom and another man on Woody's left picked him up and stood him upon a chair for everyone to see. Woody's legs were trembling again, but this time he didn't care.
When some order was finally restored, Kurt continued. "Just before this banquet," he said, "without Woody's knowing anything about it, some of the other drivers and I had a meeting with the track officials and those who donated this trophy. We all agreed that while I might have won it by being first, the guy who really deserves to get it is young Woody Hartford. So come right over here, Woody, and take this trophy, for it really belongs to you."
Woody got down shakily from the chair and took the trophy. He didn't know what to say, and for five minutes he didn't have to say anything for the cheering went on for that time. When finally there was enough silence for him to make himself heard, all he could get out was, "Gee. Thanks."
Kurt took the microphone back again. "I think Woody has a lot more to say than that," he said. "But right at the present time, his clutch is slipping. So we'll let him off. We know how he feels anyway.
"Just one more piece of news and then I'll sit down. Most of you older drivers remember a great racing driver who was a friend of Randy's in the old days. His name is William Orville Randolph McNess, commonly known as Worm.
"Those who knew Worm ten or fifteen years ago know that he's been fighting a private battle of his own. I won't go into the details. All I want to say is that between Randy, Woody, and the Black Tiger, Worm seems to have won that battle. At least I heard him cautiously inquiring the price of an XK140 Jag, and I'll be very surprised if at the next event, we don't have to contend with him as well as young Woody."
There was another outburst of cheering at this announcement and Worm's back was thoroughly pummeled to an impromptu chorus of "He's a Jolly Good Fellow."
When it was all over, Woody and Worm met outside beside the Black Tiger. Worm patted it affectionately.
"Tae think," he said, "that I called ye a man-killer."
"You should have called it a man-maker instead," said Mary Jane coming up out of the darkness.