Running Wide Open by Lisa Nowak Read Free Book Online

how to get his car to stop “pushing.” I would’ve told him to take a hike, but Race didn’t seem to mind giving away his secrets.
    “If you want help with your set-up,” he said, “you should ask Kasey—she’s the brains behind this operation—but you can compensate for the car being tight by changing the way you drive it.”
    “I can?”
    “Sure.” Race pulled a sketchpad out of the top of his toolbox then drew a diagram of the track, showing the guy how to enter the corner to compensate for the way his car was handling.
    I shook my head and walked away. Why would he want to help the competition like that?
    We waited some more. It got dark, and then cold. My uncle’s class lined up for their big finale, but a string of crashes in the race before it caused another delay. A spicy odor hung on the wind—a scent I wouldn’t normally associate with cars.
    “What’s that smell?” I asked Kasey.
    “Wild mint. There’s a big patch of it in the infield off turn three.” She handed me a cup of hot chocolate she’d gotten from the concession stand. “So are you having any fun tonight?”
    “It’s been a thrill a minute. I can hardly wait to do it again next week.”
    Kasey laughed. “The waiting can be frustrating,” she admitted. “Especially when the officials can’t seem to get their act together and restart the race after a wreck. But you’ll like it once you learn more about the sport and start meeting people. Racing gets in your blood. You’ll see.”
    I sincerely doubted that.
    “You’ll also see that your uncle isn’t nearly the chump you seem to think he is.”
    I blew on my hot chocolate. “I never said he was.”
    “You didn’t have to. The fact that you’ve ignored him the whole evening has spoken volumes.”
    I studied Kasey through the steam that wafted from my drink and dissipated into the night air. Didn’t she know I could do a lot worse than ignore him?
    “He’s a good person, Cody, and he’s only trying to help.”
    Right. Like the guy from Big Brothers and Sisters back in junior high who blew me off every week with some asinine excuse. Or my English teacher last fall. He’d acted like my best buddy because I could string a few coherent sentences together, but the first time I actually asked him for something, he couldn’t spare two minutes of his precious time.
    “I don’t need any help,” I said.
    * * *
    The waiting continued. I lit another cigarette. Boredom had forced me to burn through nearly an entire pack that evening. I’d have to be careful. The twenty I’d snuck out of Dad’s wallet the night before I left Portland wasn’t gonna last long, and there was no way in hell I could beg money off Race for smokes.
    Finally, the chief steward waved the Sportsman class onto the track. The cars waited on the front stretch while the announcer blazed through a rapid-fire series of introductions for each of the drivers. This time Race was in the last row of a pack of fourteen cars. The guy in the black Camaro was right beside him.
    “If Race qualified so good, why’s he at the back?” I asked.
    “They run an inverted field here,” Kasey said. “It makes for a better show when the faster drivers have to work for a win.”
    The flagman waved the green flag and, as Jim had predicted earlier, the cars tried to slam through the first turn all at once. Row after row, they rushed into the corner two and three wide. It was amazing that no one bit it.
    After the first couple of laps the chaos sorted itself out. The slower cars settled into position, and the faster ones worked their way forward. The black #1 Camaro, which had slipped ahead of Race at the start, began to snake its way to the front of the pack. Race was right on his ass. It got a little dicey a couple of times when the two of them came up on slower cars that were engaged in a battle of their own. Some of those guys wouldn’t give an inch, and the black Camaro, like an overpowered bulldozer minus the scoop,