Chapter 20

Bud charged into the lead on the far turn and fishtailed into the straightaway, foot on the floor, seeing a quarter-mile of rutted but empty track before him. He glanced up into his rearview mirror and saw nothing but a bullnosed hood and a grinning driver.

The big Chevy hit his car squarely on the bumper and left rear fender, drove him up toward the fence and then bumped him again, smashing against his door with a screech of torn metal. The back wheels broke loose and the car began to spin as the black and silver Chevrolet skinned by, just nicking Bud's fenders as his car did a quick three-sixty and kept on turning, digging furrows in the track.

He sawed the wheel and held on tight as his light car jounced over the ruts and got straightened out, now trailing the whole pack of racers as his back wheels spun, seeking traction. Bud pushed the long shift lever up into second and floored the accelerator, enjoying the scream of his engine and the roar of its open exhaust. In only two more laps, he was back in the mix but still several cars behind the leading pair.

Bud forced the blue car running beside him to go high on the next turn and squeezed between two others on the straight. In one more lap the Chevy with a fancy number 21 on its sides and trunk lid was right in front of him.

On the last turn, with the checkered flag only two hundred yards away, Bud did not slow down but held the pedal hard to the firewall and drove squarely into the front fender of the black and sliver car, smashing them together into the fence. He snapped his transmission into reverse and pulled back, tearing metal, waved to the furious man in the Chevrolet and coasted into the infield and his pit area, his right front fender flapping.

"By damn, Bud," said his boss as he climbed out of the window and took off his helmet. "That was a hell of a thing to do. You could'a killed the sum-bitch." His old Ford's radiator was spewing steam from a broken hose and the hot engine was crackling as it cooled.

"Here he comes," said Ryan's chief mechanic, pointing.

Across the spare grass came a big man in black coveralls, still wearing his helmet and cussing loudly, shaking his fist. Bud moved to meet him, ducked under a wild swing and then hit the man in the face mask with the helmet in his hand. The angry driver staggered back a step or two, spitting blood, and Bud dropped his helmet and drove his fist into the man's belly, dropping him to his knees. Bud was about to kick him when his pit crew dragged him away, and the other driver's men curled around the man coughing and gagging in the dirt.

Within a half hour they got the damaged car hooked onto the tow bar, pried the fenders off the front tires and headed back toward Rockville, with Bud sitting beside the tow-truck driver, still fuming, a can of beer in his hand. "You saw what he did," Bud said, putting his right foot up on the dashboard.

The mechanic nodded. "Still you didn't have to t-bone him like that."

'Why the hell not; teach him a lesson," Bud said, throwing the empty can out the window.

"He's been drivin' a lot longer than you has."

"That don't signify," Bud said. "I was going to win that damn race." He threw the empty can out the window.