3. WASHINGTON,I 3. WASHINGTON,I.

13. TAKESHI, T.

12. CHASER, J 12. CHASER, J.

5. PIPER, A 12. CHASER, J.

7. DIXON, W 2. BECKER, B.

9. SCHUMACHER,K 9. SCHUMACHER,K.

15. [BYE] 2. BECKER, B.

2. BECKER, B.

But now it all came down to one race and two racers: Xavier Xonora and Jason Chaser.

And they couldn't have been more different.

First there was Xavier who with his bye in the first round and his two soft victories in the quarters and semis, had raced only 25 laps in the course of the entire day.

Then there was Jason, the very last racer to qualify for the tournament and the driver who had partic.i.p.ated in the three most gruelling races of the day. During those three races, two of which had gone the full 100-lap distance, he'd racked up an astonishing 290 laps: 2 hours and 20 minutes worth of racing.

The two cars lined up on the grid.

The Speed Razor and the Argonaut.

Car No.1 and Car No.55.

The crowd fell silent.

Even the sponsors in the VIP tent lowered their champagne to watch.

This was the big one.

The final.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE FINAL:.

XONORA V CHASER.

The final race of the Sponsors' Tournament was nothing short of a match-racing cla.s.sic.

And for a simple reason: it began with a disaster.

In his superfast Lockheed-Martin, Xavier won the dash from the Start Line and on the first left-hand turn of the race, he cut sharply across Jason's path, clipping the Argonaut's nosewing, snapping it off.

And so, after one lap, Jason pitted and by the time he came out on Lap 2 with a new nosewing, the Argonaut was barely a car-length in front of the Speed Razor.

The ensuing chase phase was utterly ruthless.

Just as he had done to Horatio Wong earlier in the day, Xavier hounded Jason.

His every turn was perfect. His adherence to the racing line, flawless. It was, quite simply, superb hover car racing, clinical in its precision. He gained a foot on the Argonaut with every lap.

But where Wong had failed, Jason didn't falter. He fended Xavier off in the only possible way - by driving equally well, his eyes fixed forward.

And with every lap he survived, the crowd roared ever louder. After the nosewing mishap on the first corner, no-one had expected Jason to last more than a few laps. But then, this was the kid who'd survived a 9-lap chase phase earlier in the day.

One lap became five.

The chase phase continued.

Five became eight.

Xavier's chase continued.

Nine laps...ten...eleven...

Jason raced grimly, his jaw set.

Xavier pursued him like a bloodhound - lap after perfect lap - at one stage bringing his nosecone to within five centimetres of the Argonaut's nosewing...but not past it.

In the end, Jason held the Speed Razor off for an astonishing twelve laps before Xavier was compelled to pit.

Jason never recovered the lost time from that first unexpected pit stop.

The effect was brutal. It meant that so long as they went stop for stop - with him always pitting second - he was always going to be one lap behind Xavier, always being chased.

And so the race became one endless chase phase - with Jason always running and Xavier always pursuing him ruthlessly, relentlessly, only ever one mistake away from victory.

Not even pit stops helped. Sally consistently churned out 8-second stops, but Xavier's Mech Chief, Oliver Koch, was just as good.

20 laps pa.s.sed - and Jason, exhausted and drained, was driving at the edge of his senses.

40 laps - and Sally wasn't allowed a single mistake in the pits and she didn't make one.

60 laps - and the Bug was starting to get a strained neck from twisting in his seat to check on Xavier behind them.

80 laps - and Xavier just kept on coming.

Kept throwing his perfect laps at Jason, and Jason just kept on going in front of him, equally perfect, like the mechanical rabbit at a greyhound race, forever just out of reach.

And as the race crossed the 90-lap mark, the crowd rose to their feet, many of the students among them saying that if Jason's race against Barnaby had been a grudge match, then this was a death match, a race that was going to go all the way to the 100th lap.

And then on Lap 98 it happened.

Something that no-one could have expected.

Both racers pitted: Xavier first, and then Jason, who had to whip all the way around the track before he could dash into the pits for that one last crucial stop.

He shoomed into the pits, and immediately saw that Xavier was still there - indeed Oliver Koch was scrambling around the Speed Razor like a crazy man while Xavier yelled at him, waving his fists.

And then Jason saw why.

The pressure nozzle on Koch's coolant hose had broken off, and coolant was spraying everywhere. Koch was now frantically attaching a new nozzle to his hose.

Which meant that suddenly, the Argonaut and the Speed Razor were back on level terms again.

Sally worked a killer stop - just as Koch got his hose working again - with the result being that both cars shot out from their pit bays at almost exactly the same time, only now the Argonaut, astonishingly, was slightly ahead of the Speed Razor!

The two cars blasted back out onto the track, and with only two laps to run, the Argonaut was in the lead!

It was now a one-minute scramble for the Finish Line.

Jason flew.

Xavier charged.

Shoom!-shoom!

One lap to go and Jason still held the lead by half a carlength.

The crowd leapt to their feet.

Last lap.

Jason's eyes never left the track.

Left into the sweeper through the city, blurred buildings swooshing by him on either side...

Up and over the cross-over...

Then into the final right-hander, holding the racing line - and Jason saw the Speed Razor's nosecone enter his left-side peripheral vision, heard the roar of its engines loud in his ears.

The Speed Razor was right alongside him! Xavier wasn't giving up.

The two cars took the final turn side-by-side.

Jason gripped his steering wheel tightly, his knuckles white; clenched his teeth. His bloodshot eyes were wide, on the verge of sensory overload.

Still the Speed Razor kept coming...and slowly, gradually, started edging ahead of him!

Jason couldn't believe it. There was nothing he could do! This was the best he could race and still Xavier was going past him.

And with that, the realisation hit Jason.

Xavier was too good. Too fast.

This race was slipping out of Jason's grasp.

Xavier was going to win.

And then the home straight opened up before them and the Argonaut and the Speed Razor rushed down it side-byside at full throttle, before they shot together through the red laser beam that marked the Finish Line and the winner of the race - of the final - of the day - of the whole entire tournament was -

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

- Xavier.

By 0.003 of a second. Three thousandths of a second. And as the two cars glided around the track, slowing, Jason sighed with deep relief.

He'd lost. Lost the final - and for that he was bitterly disappointed - but he was also glad that this day, this long day of racing, was finally over.

Almost every member of the 250,000-strong crowd stayed for the winner's ceremony.

They clapped loudly as Xavier stepped triumphantly onto the podium to accept the winner's trophy from Race Director Calder and Jean-Pierre LeClerq.

Jason could only stand behind the podium, behind the 2nd-place-getter's step, and clap too.

He'd come so far, raced so hard, through four of the most difficult races of his life, and he'd missed out by the smallest fraction of a second.