Part 42 (2/2)
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
NEW YORK CITY, USA (FRIDAY) RACE 2: THE MANHATTAN GATE RACE.
12 racers. 250 gates. 3 hours. 8:59 a.m.
The twelve remaining racers in the Masters Series sat poised on the square-shaped Start-Finish Line, three to a side, pointing in the four cardinal directions - their initial starting direction determined by lot.
Then the clock struck 9:00 and - bam - the lights went green.
They were off.
Jason had drawn an east-pointing grid position - the most sought-after were the northward ones, since the key point-scoring area was in the mid-to-north section of the island - and while all the racers around him blasted off to the east and then turned north, he just swung around completely on the spot and - at the Bug's instruction - darted due south down Fifth Avenue, heading for the southern half of the island.
But one other driver also headed south, staying close behind Jason.
Fabian.
And as Jason weaved his way southward, whizzing through the picture-postcard gates at Was.h.i.+ngton Square Park, the World Trade Center Memorial and Wall Street, it quickly became apparent that Fabian hadn't just followed Jason southward.
Fabian was following Jason everywhere.
Every single time Jason turned for a new gate, Fabian turned after him.
'G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Bug!' Jason yelled. 'He's tailing us! He doesn't trust his own navigator, so he's using our raceplan!'
'Tailing' in a gate race (in the southern hemisphere it was called 'sequencing') wasn't unheard of: it was technically within the rules, but it was also regarded as a cheap and cowardly way to race.
All the way down Manhattan, the crowds cheered the Argonaut on...
...cheers that became boos as the purple-and-gold Ma.r.s.eilles Falcon shot by a split-second later.
Through more gates at the south-western corner of the island. Every time the Argonaut pa.s.sed through an archway, that gate emitted a shrill electronic ping: Bing! Bing! Bing!
The Bug's raceplan was near perfect - plotted to pa.s.s through the maximum number of worthwhile gates while by-pa.s.sing those that offered only minimal points for inordinate effort.
And all the while, he kept Jason close enough to the pits for necessary mag replacements and coolant refuellings.
By the time they took their second pit stop at the 1-hour mark, the Argonaut was sitting on an incredible 750 points - and in the lead!
Unfortunately, Fabian - because he was following exactly the same course - was on the same number of points and thus sharing the lead.
But then Jason did something unexpected.
He went south again, this time taking the superfast route down the FDR.
He was going for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. And the prized 100-point gate at its end.
Fabian visibly doubted whether or not to follow, but in the end, he did.
In hindsight, it was a very canny plan - take on the tunnel with six full-strength mags, a full tank of coolant and no distractions.
The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel came into view, and without missing a beat, the Argonaut shoomed into its yawning maw, closely followed by the Ma.r.s.eilles Falcon.
A minute later, Jason emerged at the turnaround at the other end of the long tunnel - the Brooklyn end - to be met by the roars of the crowd gathered there, and he banked hard, swooping through the 100-point gate...
Bing!
...before he roared back into the tunnel to start the return journey.
But while Jason was plundering the southern areas, others were progressing well in the northern half of the island.
Chief among them were the two USAF racers: Carver and Lewicki.
They were gate race specialists, the US Air Force priding itself on its pilots' abilities to most efficiently navigate any course.
Word was, Carver and Lewicki's Air Force navigators trained on state-of-the-art computer navigation simulators for ten hours a day, so that optimal race-plotting became almost second nature to them.
But when it was revealed at the 1-hour mark that at 740 points each, they were both ten points behind the leaders, Jason and Fabian, the crowds and the commentators went wild.
The television commentators - with the help of their own course-plotting computers - immediately a.n.a.lysed Jason's possible raceplans based on his course-plotting so far.
'Check this out,' one of them said. 'From the start, Chaser went south, while everyone else went north. Now, he's coming back north, where the streets aren't as congested with other racers anymore, and he's stealing solid 20-point gates on his way. And now look here - he's just jumped onto the Henry Hudson Parkway, still heading north. Now where could he be heading? Okay, here comes the computer's a.s.sessment of his plan: what the h.e.l.l - ?'
The same thing happened on every other sports channel.
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