He glanced at the board. Two ninety-four. Six more laps to go. Three minutes more. He risked a look. The nearest car was the blue, way back at the last corner. Third place for Sig Carter.
He rode into the turn, Lariotti four laps ahead.
There was no increase in motor noise as a dark blue car passed him. It went faster than any car can go. Yet it seemed to drift along.
When he saw the familiar wave of the hand, he knew that it was Steve.
Whitey Edison made his bid to pass Lariotti. The redhead was a shade too high. Whitey tucked his nose between the inside rail and Lariotti’s deck. It was a tight fit. He saw the movement of Lariotti’s head and he fed the gas to it as the orange car tried to run away from him.
Faster and faster and faster. High whine. Roar. Flat smack of wind. Hammering vibration. He felt as though he were being hurled from an enormous sling.
He clung tightly, not letting Lariotti move out ahead. By staying where he was, Lariotti had to take a wider sweep, move a fraction of a mile an hour faster.
But Lariotti kept building up the tempo.
On the west corner Whitey sensed that both cars were going into it too fast. To brake would be quick death.
He saw Lariotti’s inside wheels lift. Two inches off the macadam they poised, began to lift further. Lariotti’s head disappeared suddenly as he went downstairs. The orange car bounced, hurling fragments in all directions, a sideways roll and an enormous end for end bounce off the top rim of the banked corner.
His face a mask of steel, Whitey held the car on the edge of control, and when he returned to the same corner, he noted, almost absently, the smoke drifting up from the place where Lariotti’s car had disappeared.
He made the east comer, the grandstand a flowing bank of misty color on his right. The checkered flag flashed down and he lifted his foot, letting the compression brake him in a last slow circuit before he coasted up in front of the stands.
He had to be helped from the car. And when he was out he could barely stand.
They were gathered around him. Judges, officials, drivers, pit monkeys, people who had come over the fence.
“How’s Lariotti?” he asked.
“O.K.,” someone said. “Banged up a little and scorched, but O.K.”
Whitey turned and looked into Bob’s face and he knew that everything was all right again between them.
Sig stood near him, hand outstretched. Whitey looked down at the man’s lean hand and slowly grasped it.
“Welcome home, boy,” Sig said softly.