Page 101 of Jackrabbit

“Flag’s about to go,” Beau said as all the others on the stand noticed too and pushed forward. “Shiny side up, Colt.”

Colt snorted. “No shiny side on this beast.”

The green flag dropped, and the cars shot into the race.

By lap twenty-two, Colt had moved up two spots. But he’d been in P4 for several laps, and Beau could tell he was getting frustrated by the way P3 kept parking in front of him and not letting him pass.

“Kid’s stuck,” a woman muttered, and he turned to see the suit had sidled up next to him and shoved another coach out of the way. “Right speed, but no room.”

Beau didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Colt was about to answer for him. He watched Colt move to the wall—a massive, daring gap of air—and then the car twitched.

“Watch the entry,” Beau whispered as he gripped the railing until his fingers ached.

Colt kept the car straight, deep into what everyone else would consider the danger zone where he should have been braking. Then—snap.The mustard-yellow nose plummeted toward the apron. It looked like a mistake. Like a wreck in progress. Beau had one long, agonizing moment where he smelled smoke and blood and charred skin. Just a flash. Then he gritted his teeth and reminded himself of the fifty clean runs he’d watched Colt do yesterday.

It wasn’t recklessness.

It wasn’t a gamble.

It was skill.

“—gonna lose the rear,” the suit was saying when the sounds of the race filtered back in.

He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. Colt rotated on a dime, his rear tires hunting for grip but never breaking loose. He squared the corner so perfectly that by the time the veteran in front of him realized what was happening, Colt was already three car-lengths ahead on the straightaway.

Beau slapped his open palm against the railing. “Yes! Good boy, Colt. Perfect.”

The suit blew out a long whistle and looked down at her stopwatch. She’d rolled the sleeves of her shirt up, her forearms leanly muscled and covered in tattoos. “That wasn’t a stock car move. That was an open-wheel line. He just out-braked a twenty-year vet using a car that weighs thirty-four hundred pounds.”

She looked at Beau with sharp, blue eyes. “You’re teaching him how to drive a Formula car in a tin box, aren’t you?”

Beau worked his jaw, his heart still thundering against his ribs from the sheer terror of watching Colt almost clip the inside curb. "I'm teaching him how to win," Beau grumbled. "The car is just the tool."

By lap forty-two, the suit had stored her tablet and was leaning so far over the railing that Beau was worried he’d need to pull her back. The air was crisp and sharp, and the Camaro was a yellow blur under the lights. He’d made it to P2 and had been stalking the veteran from Vegas in the #65. They were coming up fast on a group of lapped traffic, and Beau’s eyes narrowed as he spotted the camo Fox Body with a target on its hood.

“Kendrick’s a lap down,” Beau warned, his voice tight. “He’s driving like he’s got a point to prove. Weaving. Stay high and give him room.”

Colt’s breathing was ragged and pained, but his line was tight, his car steady.“He’s blocking the fucking line. Trying to hold us up so the 65 can’t lap him. What an asshole.”

It was true, too. “I know. But be smart. Don’t let him—”

Beau’s sentence was cut off as the scream of tires against asphalt split through the sounds of the crowd. Kendrick had tried to pinch the #65 into the wall on Turn 4. It was a dumbass move born of pure, bruised ego. Couldn’t bear to be lapped. The veteran tapped Kendrick’s bumper, and the camo car snapped. It didn’t just spin; it over-corrected, slammed into the outside wall, and bounced back into the middle of the track. Right into Colt’s path.

“WRECK.” Beau smashed the talk button just as every other coach and spotter did the same. “COLT—”

___

“—WRECKING!”

Colt watched Kendrick’s car spin into the wall and bounce back like a fucking tennis ball, and his heart stuttered. The impact was like a bomb of fiberglass and oil. The #65 slammed into Kendrick’s side, and the two of them became a mangled, smoking barricade that Colt was headed right for.

Beau’s voice in his ear was an anchor, stern with iron command.“THEY’RE DOWN! GO LOW, COLT!APRON! APRON!”

He couldn’t see the nose of his own goddamn car, nothing but a wall of white smoke and aerosolized oil he was hurtling toward at 90 mph. But he could hear Beau, and there was nothing he trusted more in this world than Beauregard Moore.

Every instinct he had told him to stomp the brake. He didn’t listen. G-forces hit his ribs like a sledgehammer as he yanked the wheel left, and thank fuck for the KT tape that was holding him together. The pain was louder than the sounds of rending metal, slamming into his whole torso as he pushed his already-fucked muscles to the limit. The car lightened as he hit the apron—the flat, forbidden part of the track. But he still couldn’t see shit, and—

CRACK.