Quick

~ * ~

Quick

Steve Worland

No copyright 
 2014 by MadMaxAU eBooks

~ * ~

PROLOGUE

A tenth of a second.

It’s no time at all.

A finger snap.

An eye blink.

But in motorsport it’s the difference between winning and losing.

Between champion and also-ran.

Between life and death.

~ * ~

The red light disappears and Billy Hotchkiss stamps on the accelerator.

The five-litre V8 thunders as the Autobarn Holden Commodore launches off the Mount Panorama pit straight. Billy knows the beginning of a V8 Supercar race is the best opportunity to move up the grid if qualifying didn’t go to plan—and his hadn’t gone to plan. In yesterday’s shootout for starting positions a light sprinkle of rain at the top of the mountain turned the track slippery halfway through his lap and he ended up fourth on the grid.

Bam.
The big V8 slams into the 7500 rev limit.

Clunk.
Billy thumps the lever forward on the sequential gearbox and his Holden leaps forward. To the right Garth Tander’s Holden Racing Team machine bogs down horribly. Billy cruises past and he’s third before he reaches the end of the pit straight and takes the sharp left turn at Hell Corner.

There’s not too much understeer from the Commodore as he feeds in the power and carries momentum up Mountain Straight, over eleven hundred metres up a steep gradient. Two cars are ahead. Craig Lowndes’ Vodafone Racing Falcon leads Mark ‘Frosty’ Winterbottom from Ford Performance Racing.

Billy can’t let them skip away. They will never be as close as they are right now so he must make the most of this moment if he wants to lead this race by the end of lap one. More people watch the start than any point until the chequered flag falls, which is a thousand kilometres and one hundred and sixty-one laps away. Anything could happen over the next six hours: his car could have a mechanical failure or his co-driver could have an accident. What he does have control over is making sure he leads every lap while he’s behind the wheel. He’s only just turned nineteen but the motor racing world thinks he might be
quick,
that ephemeral quality only the great ones posses, so it’s his responsibility to show them they’re right. He knows his team won’t want him taking stupid risks but then they’ll love the visibility for their sponsors if his car leads at the end of lap one. Of course he can’t
win
the race on the first lap but he just might be able to build himself a reputation, which would help his cause when he attempts the jump from V8 Supercars to Formula One, his ultimate goal.

Clunk.
He ratchets the gear lever forward again, pulls sixth gear doing two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, Sir Isaac Newton prohibiting his Supercar from travelling any quicker up the steep incline. He’s not catching the two cars ahead but then they’re not drawing away either. He knows Lowndes and Frosty won’t just give him first place.

I will need to take it.

As he crests the rise at the end of Mountain Straight, Billy draws beside Frosty’s Falcon. Billy’s only met Frosty once and liked the guy, though he would like him even more if he wasn’t drifting wide as they take Griffiths Bend —

Thump.
The right corner of Billy’s front bumper connects with the left corner of Frosty’s rear bumper. It has little effect on Billy’s Commodore but sets the Ford’s tail wagging. Frosty takes his sweet time to get it under control and loses precious tenths in the process.

Billy sweeps past and now he’s second. He falls in behind Lowndes’ Falcon as they slow to ninety and take the tight left turn into The Cutting. Billy carries good speed but there’s little room to pass through here so he cools his jets and waits for the right moment.

Line astern, the Ford and the Holden sweep towards the top of the mountain, past Reid Park, then down to ‘metal grate’, which is, unsurprisingly, a metal drainage grate at the right shoulder of the roadway, then on to Sulman Park, then McPhillamy Park, tyres scrubbing as the gentle left turn tightens, then tightens again. Over the thunder of twenty-seven V8 engines kicking out six hundred and fifty horsepower apiece he can hear a roar lift from the crowd that lines the track to the right.

Woh.
The steering goes light in Billy’s hands as his Commodore crests Skyline, the highest part of the circuit at eight hundred and sixty-two metres above sea level. He momentarily takes in a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside then plunges into the Esses.

Down and down and down, cold brakes squeal as he turns left then right then left again, the giant wing on the boot of Lowndes’ Vodafone Falcon bobbing and weaving just a metre in front of Billy’s radiator grill. There’s no way past.

This is not the moment.

Clank clank clank.
Down to second gear and ninety kilometres an hour as Billy turns hard right and drops the Holden into The Dipper, the V8 whining as he uses the engine to brake the fourteen-hundred kilogram race car.

Christ, it’s so bloody steep.

Down and down and down. The sedan reaches the bottom of The Dipper and settles.

Clunk clunk clunk.
Up to fifth gear and one seventy along the short straight, then down the box again. On the brakes deep and hard as he takes the sharp left turn at Forest Elbow at a leisurely eight-three kays. Lowndes is still just a metre ahead but not giving anything away. The corner seems to take an age.

Smooth and clean, smooth and clean.

Out of the corner he gets on the power smooth and clean, without any wheel spin, and shoots down Conrod Straight. At almost two kilometres it’s the longest, fastest section of racetrack in this great southern land.

The speed builds fast as he pumps the gear lever: third, fourth, fifth, sixth—two sixty, two seventy kilometres an hour, the speed builds, two hundred and eighty kilometres an hour, still builds, two eighty-five. It’s like space and time have warped, the engine revs pinned to 7500 in sixth. Lowndes’ Falcon is still just a metre ahead. He’s not pulling away. Billy can get him under braking as they exit The Chase. He’s sure of it.

Two hundred and ninety-seven kilometres an hour.

The Chase approaches. It’s a slight kink to the right then a short straight, then a hard left-hander. Billy will need to be the last of the later brakers to pass the defending champion. He’ll drive up the left side then own the corner with track position. Lowndes won’t want to turn in on him and risk a collision on the first lap. He’s too smart for that.

Billy’s Commodore touches three hundred kilometres an hour as The Chase arrives. The road bends right and Billy dabs the brake, wipes off twenty klicks. As the left turn approaches, Lowndes’ Falcon stays to the centre of the track, gives Billy just enough racing room.

This is his moment.

Don’t-brake-yet-don’t-brake-yet-don’t-brake-yet.

Billy waits—and waits—then throws out the anchors and clanks down the gears, aims the Commodore up the left side of the Lowndes Falcon. He draws level, but the race car’s tiny change of direction coupled with a slight nosedive from the heavy braking unsettles the rear of the vehicle and the back drifts to the edge of the track—then over it and onto the grass.

That’s all it takes.

The left back wheel digs into the soft surface and the tail flicks around and spears the Supercar across the track.

Time slows.

‘Christ.’ Billy tries to catch it but it’s over as soon as it begins. Travelling at two hundred kilometres an hour, the giant sedan pirouettes, tyres smoking as rubber grinds on bitumen.

Billy watches Craig Lowndes yank the steering wheel left to avoid the sliding Supercar and round the corner. As the Falcon ducks out of the way Billy glimpses the metal snake of race cars that winds up Conrod Straight.

He can still save this.

He just needs to hit the kitty litter nose first. The kitty litter is a sand trap designed to slow vehicles if they leave the track at The Chase. It works best if a vehicle enters nose first. Billy wrenches the steering wheel, tries to get the nose around.

It doesn’t work.

Time speeds up.

Travelling one hundred and eighty kilometres an hour, the Commodore slides off the racetrack and hits the kitty litter side on.