Part 37 (1/2)

And if he - just maybe - won the New York Challenger Race, he might race again in a pro event: for the winner of the Challenger got an automatic 'exemption invitation' to partic.i.p.ate in the Masters.

That said, there was one prize handed out that evening which Jason felt he had played some part in.

For one prize eluded Xavier's table - the prize for Teacher of the Year. It was a peculiar omission, as many would have credited Xavier's winning efforts to Zoroastro's superior instruction.

But then, not a few officials at the Race School still recalled Barnaby Becker's disgraceful acts during the Sponsors' Tournament - and they secretly thought Zoroastro had played a part in that.

Which was why the prize for Teacher of the Year went to Scott Syracuse.

Last of all, and rather fittingly, the night ended with the four racers who would represent the Race School at the New York Challenger Race - Xavier, Krishna, Ariel and Jason - called to the stage to receive a standing ovation from their family and friends.

A week later, Jason found himself sitting once again on a gra.s.sy headland, watching the sun rising over the ocean. With him were Sally and the Bug, also gazing at the dawn.

Suddenly - vroom! - a police hovercopter roared by overhead, invading the view.

It flew away to the left, out toward the spectacular skyline of New York City.

Jason eyed the dense collection of towering skysc.r.a.pers, swooping suspension bridges and countless lights of Manhattan Island.

And his eyes narrowed.

PART VII: CHALLENGER.

CHAPTER ONE.

NEW YORK CITY, USA.

New York City, glorious in the Fall.

Rust-coloured leaves littered Central Park. The Chrysler Building glittered like a diamond. The Brooklyn Bridge floated high on its new hover-pylons. And the Twin Pillars of Light - the pair of light-shafts that rose from the spot where the Twin Towers had once stood - soared into the sky.

And with the Fall, came the race teams.

Because in the Fall, for one week, the largest city in America was transformed into a series of the most incredible street circuits in racing.

Fifth Avenue became Race HQ, with the Start-Finish Line set up outside the main entrance to the Empire State Building. Super-steep multi-levelled hover stands lined the broad thoroughfare.

The pits were situated in Sixth Avenue, parallel to Fifth - racers reached them by branching off Fifth Avenue at the New York Public Library and running southward behind the Empire State Building.

Filling the air above the avenues and streets of New York City was a phenomenon peculiar to Masters Week: confetti snow.

It filled the concrete canyons of the city - a beautiful slow-falling rain of white paper. In celebration of their racing carnival, New Yorkers hurled tiny pieces of shredded paper out of their windows, creating a constant - and stunning - mist of white confetti that floated down into their streets. The roads themselves had to be cleaned each evening, since by the end of a given day they would be three inches deep in the stuff.

Today was Monday - it was a general preparation day. Tuesday would see the running of the Challenger Race - widely regarded as a showpiece for the world's upand-coming drivers. Wednesday was Parade Day - when all of the 16 racers who had qualified for the Masters would travel down Fifth Avenue before the adoring crowds.

Then on Thursday, it would all start, one race per day over four sensational days, with the number of racers reduced by four every day. It was kind of like a Last Man Drop-Off, but over the whole series of races - after each race, the last four-placed racers on the leaderboard were eliminated - until only four racers took part in the fourth and final race.

On Thursday, Race 1: The Liberty Supersprint - a tight lap-race through the streets of New York, with a short section of track that whipped out and around the Statue of Liberty. It was here that the racers had to negotiate the sharpest turn in the racing world, a 9-G hairpin corner known as Liberty's Elbow. It was not unknown for racers to knock themselves out on this notorious bend.

Friday, Race 2: The Manhattan Gate Race - 250 gates set amid the labyrinthine grid of New York streets.

Sat.u.r.day, Race 3: The Pursuit - a collective pursuit race in which the drivers raced in circuits around Manhattan Island. Its main feature: bridge-mounted ion waterfalls - glorious but deadly curtains of ionised particles that fell from each of Manhattan's many bridges; the waterfalls nullified all magnetic power in any hover car that strayed through them. The final turn of every lap of this race was Liberty's Elbow; the Finish Line: the Brooklyn Bridge.

And then, on Sunday, came the final race of the series, Race 4: The Quest. The longest race of the Masters, it took racers away from Manhattan Island, up the rural highways of New York State and through the great underground water-caverns to Niagara Falls on the Canadian border. There, each racer had to grab their 'trophy' - an item they had sent there earlier in the morning - and then bring it back to New York City. The first racer across the line with their trophy won.

Jason loved it. Every year, he would sit at home and with his dad beside him, watch every minute of the Masters Series on TV over the course of the whole week.

He'd always dreamed of coming to New York to watch the Masters in person, but it was a long way and tickets were terribly expensive and his family had never been able to afford it. The closest he'd come to seeing it was staying with his cousins in New Jersey and watching some of the races from a distance.

But now, now he was here, in New York (albeit staying with those same cousins in New Jersey), racing in the Challenger Race - with an outside chance of partic.i.p.ating in the Masters.

h.e.l.l, he thought, even if he bombed out of the Challenger, he'd hang around for the Masters festival just for the chance to watch it up close.

This, for Jason, was fantastic. This was a dream come true.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE CHALLENGER RACE (TUESDAY) 15 MINS TO RACE START.

The start-gates stretched across Fifth Avenue. Like School races, the Challenger Race didn't have a pole position shootout. It gave everyone an equal start.

Cars entered their gates from behind, getting ready to race.

Jason eyed the other racers - the best from their respective leagues, regions and schools.

Markos Christos - from Greece, in his car, the Arion, numbered 12 in honour of the twelve labours of Hercules. Christos was the first-placed driver in the European Satellite League, a sub-division of the International Pro Circuit.