New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Chapter 69: Speedway

Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to me, Mr. New Vegas, and you all look extraordinarily beautiful right now. If you like news, then you're gonna love our next segment. Witnesses have reported a huge object or a creature surfacing in Lake Mead earlier today. So far, photos of the so-called 'Lake Mead Monster' are grainy and under-exposed. The headlines today have been brought to you by Vault 21: everything's better when you experience it in a vault. Ladies and Gentlemen, this next song goes out from me to you.

"So, what are we doing all the way out here?" I looked around. We were walking next to a row of garages somewhere well north of the Nellis airstrip. This far north, there was nothing but a whole lot of tarmac, and... were those bleachers off in the distance? There must have been something going on, because I heard the sounds of engines over in that direction as well. At least 5 or 6 car engines, maybe, all running at full tilt.

"We're still on the Homeland, actually. About twenty years ago, my father petitioned Mother Pearl to let a few of us... expand," As we walked by each one of the garage doors, he very calmly and distractedly pointed at each one. "This place used to be called the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, once upon a time. Now, it's the Nellis Annex, and it's where Gearheads like me live."

"Gearheads?" I asked. "What, do you guys... like, not consider yourselves Boomers or something?" Hamilton shook his head, and kept counting garage doors.

"Nah, we're all still Boomers. It's just that us Gearheads... well... we like a different sort of explosion. And we are just... about... here." Hamilton reached down to undo the lock on the garage door where he'd suddenly come to a stop.

"And where is here, exactly?" I still didn't know what his game was, or why he'd brought me all the way out here. He hadn't even said anything else about that secret he'd mentioned earlier, either. He just smiled up at me, and lifted the garage door. When the light from outside hit the only thing sitting in the garage... my jaw dropped. My eyes went wide. I couldn't find the words. I'm sure I must have looked suitably surprised.

It was my car. It was definitely my Corvega. It had to be, but it looked... new. No, it looked better than new! There were no dings. There were no scratches. There were no dents. Every single panel on the bodywork looked smooth and sleek and shiny. The glass in the windshield had to have been replaced, because it was perfect and unmarred - even the doors had glass in the windows now! Not only that, but it looked like it had been given a new paint job. It was still blue, yeah, but a slightly darker shade, and now there were two thick white racing stripes running down the middle of the car. And that wasn't the only new paint, either: as I walked around it, not really believing what I was seeing, I couldn't help but notice a white circle painted on each side of the car, framing a black number 6.

It felt like a million questions were all buzzing around my head. I couldn't think of what to say first.

"You like?" Hamilton asked as I walked around my car, running my hands along the smooth, sleek bodywork. "It's your car, everything is still there. It's just been given a bit of a tune-up. So to speak." I moved my jaw uselessly for a few moments before it finally worked and words appeared.

"I... This... How?" I finally asked. Seemed as good a place to start as any. "This is amazing! But the last I saw, my car was a radioactive wreck. It was just a pile of scrap metal, how'd you fix it?" Hamilton just shrugged.

"Wasn't all that difficult, really. I know my way around a wrench enough that I can build an entire car from the ground up all by myself in eight hours, given the tools and the parts. And if there's one thing we're not short of here on the Nellis Homeland, it's spare parts."

"You rebuilt my car - from scratch - all by yourself? This quickly?!" I was dumbfounded. This was too good of a job for one person to do in two days.

"Nah, I didn't do everything all by myself. Had a bit of help. There's a pack of Mr. Handy robots that help out with any maintenance jobs on the Homeland. They're like Mr. Gutsy's, but the civilian models. I guess you could say they're pretty... handy." I resisted the urge to slap my forehead at the awful pun. Hamilton, on the other hand, just pointed at me with both hands and smiled at me with a stupidly wide smile. "Eh? Eh? Get it?"

"Yeah, no, I get it man. That... I'm sorry, but that pun was awful," I rubbed my eyes, trying to compose myself. Focus, Sheason. You've got more questions. "I'm actually wondering something else: why?" Hamilton looked confused, so I elaborated. "Why would you rebuild my car? I mean, not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything. The work you've done here is... it's just incredible. I never thought my car would ever look this good. But why would you do this for me? I didn't even meet you until last night!" Hamilton shrugged.

"Mother Pearl seems to trust you. She was confident that you'd be able to help us reclaim the Lady in the Water, and she wanted to make sure you were adequately rewarded with more than just a vague promise of aid sometime in the future. Besides," Hamilton shrugged again. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "It's like I told you before at the party last night. Working on this thing has been the most fun I've had in months!" The wild eyed look and the wide grin he flashed were enough to sell me that he was telling the truth about this being fun... but still.

"Seriously?" I felt compelled to ask. Hamilton nodded.

"Oh yeah. Most of the work I do here is just maintenance work. Boring stuff. Replacing worn out brakes, fixing a dead alternator, repairing a broken suspension bush, that sort of thing. It's not often that I'm given the chance to rebuild a car from the ground up like this! Make it better than new? How could I turn that down? Now c'mon, let me walk you through some of the features of your like-new car."

"Features?" I asked. I didn't know if I should be intrigued or frightened. Hamilton grabbed me by the shoulder and rapped a knuckle against the hood.

"As you can probably tell, all the body panels have been replaced. It's all custom bodywork now, made out of reinforced armor plating, with a carbon fiber/titanium weave. You could drive it through a hail of fire from a Browning 50-cal, and not take a dent." As he spoke, I thought back to the Legion hit squad that tried to kill me when I went to Old Lady Gibson's, just outside Novac... and how the .50 caliber Anti-Materiel Rifle just blasted through one side of my car and out the other like it wasn't even there.

"That'll definitely be useful, with the trouble I seem to be getting into lately..." Hamilton laughed at that.

"Yeah, I've heard the radio. I figure, even the 'Indestructible Courier Six' wouldn't mind a little extra armor here and there. Speaking of that," he tapped on the windshield. "All the glass has been replaced and bulletproofed with Polymethyl methacrylate."

"Poly-what now?"

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"Plexiglas. Loyal has been making batches of it in the production facilities underneath Nellis to replace the nose-cone canopy on the bomber. There's enough of it that us Gearheads can use it to make armored windshields for every car in the Nellis motorpool. But that's not the best part. Do you want to see the best part?" Hamilton grabbed me by the shoulder again, and directed me to the back of the car.

"What's the best part?" I asked. He smiled at me, and popped the hood covering the engine.

"Behold, and feast your eyes upon the magnificence," He couldn't help but grin at me as he displayed the engine. And as I stared at it, feeling my eyes get even wider, I could understand why he was so proud.

"Hang on, this... this isn't the same engine as before, is it?"

"No, you're right! The old engine was way too radiation damaged to fix, so I chucked it in the trash and gave you a new one. Now, the old engine was a V6, which I admit was pretty good. 750 horsepower once upon a time, for a car weighing a little over 2 tons, that's alright. Got you from A to B, I'm sure, but it was nothing to write home about. This, on the other hand, is a V10 rotary engine with twin turbochargers. I put it on a rolling road earlier today, this baby now cranks out 475 brake horsepower per ton."

"Hang on, before you go any further," I tried to stop Hamilton before he got too carried away. "Does this still run on microfusion cells, like my old car?" A little part of my brain was screaming at me: why are you worried about practicality? This is great! Let him talk more about how awesome your car is now!

"Oh, yeah, don't worry about that. It still runs on MF cells, but it'll need 10 every fill up now because it's a V10 instead of a V6. Sure, it's going to be a bit thirstier than it was before, but trust me - the next time you and your friends are in this car and you have to outrun a deathclaw or a swarm of angry cazadores, you'll know exactly where all that extra power goes. Now, as for the rest of the details..." When Hamilton started listing off things he'd done to my car, he counted them off on his fingers. "I've uprated the suspension, replaced the old brakes with carbon-ceramic disks, given it some better all-terrain tires, replaced the engine air filters, fixed the AC so it actually works now, installed a new radio in the dash..."

"Hold up a sec - what's that?" While he was rattling on, I was staring into my car - and I noticed that the dashboard had several new buttons I didn't recognize. With a sense of wry amusement, I noticed that the Dinky the Dinosaur figurine that Cass had bought at Novac was now bolted to the dashboard, and the puzzle box I got from The Forecaster at the 188 was hanging from the rearview mirror like a pair of fuzzy dice.

"Oh! Yeah, I almost forgot. I made sure to install several self-defense systems in your car. Let me show you the best one..." He shoved his way past me, opened the door, sat in the driver's seat, and flipped one of the switches. There was a clunk from under the hood, and two panels opened up above the front wheel arches. There was a mechanical whirr and - no. No, there's just no... what? WHAT?

"Are those what I think they are?" I said, my eyes transfixed by the sight in front of me.

"Twin-linked 40-milimeter rapid-fire grenade machineguns mounted in the hood!" Hamilton practically shouted. "Because there is absolutely no kill like overkill!"

After showing me the rest of the features on my car, we found my friends, and Hamilton led us all to the bleachers I'd seen in the distance. Well... I say 'bleachers,' but these were absolutely massive. They could hold several hundred people, easily, if not several thousand. It reminded me a bit of The Ros: an abandoned stadium in the ruins of Pasadena.

"So, is this just what you guys do all day?" I asked. "Build and race cars?" Hamilton nodded. I took a drink from my beer, as I watched the pack of cars below us on the racetrack. There were close to ten or eleven of them now, all racing around on the circuit below us. Inside the circuit, I saw other cars racing each other on what looked like a drag strip.

"Pretty much. The Gearheads are still Boomers, but we like the explosions that go with cars more than anything else that goes boom."

"Wait, what explosions that go with cars?" I asked. I wasn't sure I got it.

"What else is an internal combustion engine - or even a modified nuclear-electric engine - but a series of incredibly rapid controlled explosions? Every Boomer loves watching things explode, don't get me wrong... but the Gearheads? We love the idea of being able to control an explosion in a very specific way. Harness it. Redirect its energy exactly where we want it to go. It's just that mixture of sheer brute force and precision engineering, coming together to create one harmonious whole: a big shouty engine, propelling chunks of metal flying around!"

"You were doing pretty well, right up until the end there," I said with a smirk.

"It... kind of got away from me there, yeah," Hamilton laughed, and pointed down at some of the bleachers below us. "So, do you think your friends are enjoying the race?"

"Certainly looks that way," I said, looking several rows below us at all my friends. Granted, only Cass seemed to be really getting into it. Or maybe it just seemed that way since she was the only one out of her seat. Everyone except Boone was shouting and cheering on the cars, but Cass was leaning on the seatback of the row in front of her to get a better view. "I still don't get why you wanted us to sit all the way up here, though."

"Ah, well, that's... see, there's someone else who wanted to talk to you." I was just about to ask Hamilton what he meant, when another voice sounded from behind me.

"So, you're the infamous Courier Six then, huh?" The voice was deep, with a slow drawl to it. I turned around and got out of my seat just in time to see a man in a cowboy hat, aviator sunglasses, and a leather jacket over his Vault 34 jumpsuit walk down the stairs in my direction. Like Hamilton, he was wearing a necklace made out of spark plugs. I couldn't quite tell how old he was, but I was pretty sure from the few lines I saw on his face and the flecks of grey hairs poking out from under his hat that he was at least a little older than me. He didn't quite have a beard, but there was plenty of stubble.

"Well, people have been calling me that lately, I admit. I prefer Sheason, myself." He looked me up and down, nodding.

"I thought you'd be taller," He said with a smirk, shaking my hand. "Name's Shelby. I heard from Mother Pearl about that stunt you pulled the other day, getting into Nellis. Gotta say, you got some cojones on ya to drive through that barrage of fire. And to come out the other side unscathed? You must have some serious driving chops."

"Shelby is a living legend here on the Speedway," Hamilton piped up. "He's the fastest racer on the Homeland. I've never seen anyone else squeeze so much power out of an engine as he has."

"What can I say," Shelby smirked. "When The Cobra speaks to me, I listen."

"The Cobra?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's what he calls his car, "Hamilton explained. "Everything is hand built, and everything is custom. It's a gorgeous machine."

"Enough about that, It's time to get down to brass tacks," Shelby prodded me in the middle of my chest twice. "I want to challenge you to a race."

"A... a race?" I wasn't expecting that. Shelby nodded.

"Yeah. Before you ask, nothing serious, just a bit of fun. I've been wanting to race against someone with actual talent for a long time, and if you were able to dodge all that artillery in that... car you came here in..." I could tell that when he said 'car' he actually meant 'heap of junk.' "...then I can't wait to see what you're like behind the wheel of a real machine. Besides, it'll give you a chance to put her through her paces."

"Did you know about this?" I asked Hamilton. He did his best not to look guilty.

"Kinda? It... may have been another reason I got your car fixed so fast. I really want to see you two race." He wasn't even attempting to disguise his enthusiasm. I shook my head and turned back to Shelby.

"Alright, what's the catch?" I asked. Shelby and Hamilton looked at each other, confused.

"No catch, man. Just looking for a good race," Shelby turned and looked down at the pack of cars racing each other around the circuit below us. "All the boys and girls here, they like to screw around, have some fun... but none of them know what real speed is. They don't know what it's like to push a car to the absolute limit, to drive it so hard and so fast that it feels like it'll rip apart at any second. If you were able to dodge that artillery fire, then I know you're able to push a car to the ragged edge, and that means I'll finally get a decent challenge. So, what do you say? Three laps around the long road course in about an hour?"

"Well, when you put it like that..." He and I shook on it. "Sure. Sounds like fun. Just so long as we're not racing for pink slips, know what I mean?" I added with a smirk. Shelby laughed.

"Wouldn't dream of it. There ain't nothing on this cursed earth that could part me from my Cobra. See you on the Speedway then," He nodded in my direction, nodded at Hamilton, and started to walk off. I called out after him before he got too far.

"Oh, and by the way," He turned at the sound. "Nice hat." Shelby just laughed again.

"Thanks."

"That's the Cobra, huh?" I asked, getting out of my car after parking it on the starting line to get a better look. Shelby was leaning against his car, obviously waiting for me, and nodded at my question.

"Yep," He patted the hood, obviously proud of his car. "This here's my baby. The missus hates when I call this stunning piece of engineering that, but she ain't here to correct me." Shelby chuckled softly to himself.

I had to admit... Hamilton was right, the car was gorgeous. It was painted a silvery-grey, that glinted in the sun, and there were two racing stripes like on my car, except his were dark blue. Drawn on the hood and coiled around the two racing stripes was a picture of a stylized black cobra snake with red eyes. On the door, I saw a circle with a black number inside just like on my car, only his number was 98. The bodywork was all curves, with an oval radiator grill between the two headlights, a long front-end with a massive ram air scoop mounted in the hood, and a sloping rear, ending in a small upturned spoiler. It was slightly shorter than my Corvega, since it was just a two-door, two-seater; despite that, the Cobra looked like it had roughly the same wheelbase as my own, a four-door with a massive backseat.

"So, are we gonna get started, or are you gonna just stand there, staring at my car all day?" Shelby said with a smirk, getting up off the side of the Cobra. I nodded, sliding into the driver seat.

I took one last look up at the grandstands before I started up my Corvega... and I couldn't help but shake my head. Shelby must have been a celebrity on Nellis or something, because I think every single Boomer who lived here had shown up and was now watching from the massive bleachers. And here I thought my little barbeque had been crowded - there must have been several hundred people up there, all watching, and all expecting a good show.

Nothing like a little pressure.

The V10 in the back of my car rumbled and roared to life, louder and altogether more aggressive sounding than the engine it used to have... and then it was drowned out by an even bigger sounding engine roar. I looked over to the Cobra just in time to see a spit of blue flame erupt from a trio of circular vents in the side of his car, right next to the wheel arches. The engine in Shelby's Cobra must have been absolutely massive, because it sounded like an angry deathclaw alpha fighting a giant albino radscorpion that was on fire.

I was so distracted by the noise, that I almost didn't notice the woman jumping off the grandstands and walk onto the center of the racetrack. The top half of her Vault jumpsuit was unzipped and tied around her waist, seemingly as a way to show off her (very tight) t-shirt and spark plug necklace, and her long dirty blonde hair was tied back in a wavy ponytail. I had no idea who she was, but when I saw the checkered flag in her hands... ah! So that's how we were going to start the race. I was wondering about that.

She came to a stop between our two cars, and raised the flag in her hands high above her head. Shelby and I both revved our engines. I could feel the car straining to keep still under me, tingling and vibrating and I could hear both cars roaring like a pair of vicious animals howling at the moon... it was almost like the very cars themselves were more anxious than the drivers to get going.

The flag dropped. I slammed the car into gear and the race was on.

When I put my foot down in my old car, it built up speed very gradually. It was a predictable surge that started slow, and then the surge would turn into a flood that I couldn't escape. It would build up until the speed pinned me into my seat, and kept me there until I needed to use the brakes. There was always a very obvious transition between 'stationary' and 'speed.'

This time, it felt like there was no transition. As soon as I let up off the clutch, the car burst forward, like it had been shot from one of the Boomers howitzers. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had to physically hold onto the steering wheel just to keep myself from being thrown out of the back of the car. I used to think my old car was fast, but this was a sensation of speed on an entirely new level, that I had never, ever experienced before. It was like a gallon of adrenaline had been dumped into my system.

The absolutely astounding and wholly unexpected acceleration wasn't the most surprising thing, however. When I finally was able to focus on the track - everything was moving so fast, that was surprisingly difficult - and saw that I was coming up to the banking for the first corner, I looked ahead to see Shelby's Cobra at least 3 car lengths ahead of me, taking the inside line of the track.

The amount of lean in that heavily banked set of two joined turns was positively insane, that I didn't dare let up. If I didn't keep myself completely committed into this massive, ridiculous corner, I just knew I was going to spin out... or worse. There was nothing else for it, so I just kept my foot buried into accelerator, only letting up enough whenever I needed to shift up into a higher gear. And as fast as I was going around this giant corner, Shelby's Cobra seemed to be able to go that much faster.

In almost no time at all, the track stopped banking and leveled out; that must mean we were getting close to the Nellis Straightaway, and after that was the hairpin Turn 3. And I only knew that because I'd snuck a glance at a map of the track before the race began. They hadn't let me onto the track itself before the race, so I hadn't been able to get in a sighting lap. That would've made things too easy. Sure enough, I saw a wall of tires blocking off the rest of the oval, forcing us onto the inside track.

Shelby was more than six car lengths ahead of me now, and for a minute, it seemed like there was absolutely no way I could catch up to him... but then I saw something unexpected. The pair of red brake lights in the back of his Cobra lit up, and I saw a puff of smoke come from his tires. Hang on, why was he braking this far out from the corner? Unless... That's it! That's how I could catch up to him! Time to nut up or shut up, Sheason, because if you want a chance of even getting close, you're going to have to out brake him on every single corner.

Shelby must have hit the brakes maybe 200 yards from the entrance of the corner; I waited till I was half that distance. And for as fast as my car accelerated now compared to how it used to be, it was nothing compared to how it stopped. These brakes were fantastic - I don't think I could stop more quickly unless I ran into a tree. The car gripped the tarmac, and I only missed the apex because I still wasn't totally sure of how to get around this circuit.

By the time the pair of us exited the corner, I'd closed the gap considerably. I was right on his tail, and since we were already going into the next turn now, Shelby couldn't use his colossal speed to pull away. Again, he took the inside line of the left hand corner, I saw a flash from his brake lights as he turned into the right hander, and then another puff of smoke from his brakes.

Now, we were on another arrow-straight stretch of the track, running parallel to the drag strip. I was right on his back bumper on the exit of Turn 7, but then he roared off down the straightaway. I tried to remember the map, trying to think of what was coming next... a left hand turn, a banked right hander, another right turn, past a wall of tires, and then it was back onto the oval.

Sure enough, I saw his brakes flash well back from the entrance to the turn. I was able to close the gap, and by the time we got to the banked right hander, I was right in his slipstream. If he kept taking the inside line, and I kept braking later than he did, then I might be able to pass him on the outside, right before the oval...

It wasn't to be. We were neck and neck as we passed the wall of tires, but as soon as we hit the speedway, he was off like a rocket. It was amazing how fast that thing was in a straight line... or, at least, when he didn't feel the need to brake. Then I noticed something else: halfway through the front stretch, right before we crossed the line to start lap 2, I realized that I was actually gaining on him slightly.

That meant by the time the two of us got to the hairpin on the 2nd lap, there was a much shorter distance between us. I kept right on his tail, as close as I dared, waiting for him to make a mistake. At least I was able to hit the apex of the corner this time; the car shuddered as I ran over the red and white lines, perilously close to the gravel surrounding the track.

I practically slid the car through the next two corners, right on Shelby's tail, waiting for my opening. When we entered the straight next to the drag strip this time, we were practically neck and neck - the Cobra was a little ahead of me now, but not by much, which meant...

YES! The Cobra fell back right before the corner, and I just kept on going. I only needed to tap the brakes, and the next thing I knew, I was in front. I took the same line around the banked right hander that Shelby took before on a hunch, and sure enough, he was right behind me breathing down my neck.

Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do when we were spat back out onto the oval. I had my foot buried to the floor, but here, he didn't need to brake. Shelby's car was just that much faster. I tried to block him out, but he passed me on the outside, and just kept going, blocking me out of the inside line and forcing me to take the longer path. When the two of us crossed the line and started lap 3, my front tires were about level with his back tires.

Keep your head, Sheason. You've got one more lap to go. You can still out brake him, and if you can pass him by the hairpin, you stand a chance of winning this. I know he said it was just for fun but... I still want to win.

Shelby fell back, braking well before the hairpin, and this time I had a plan. I spun the wheel, and pulled the handbrake. The Corvega slid across the tarmac, smoke pouring from the back end, but I'd pulled off the tightest turn I think I've ever managed in my entire life. By the time he was exiting the hairpin, I was already passing between Turns 4 and 5.

Even on the straightaway next to the drag strip, I was ahead... but not by much. As soon as he landed on the straight, he poured on the speed and was right there, planted firmly in my back window. He fell back slightly before we approached the banked right hander of Turn 9, but not as much as I was expecting.

Here we go, the final stretch. Shelby was behind me as I passed the wall of tires and we turned into the oval one last time. I had my foot planted on the floor, but as fast as I was going, Shelby was keeping up... and then he was starting to overtake me on the inside. I didn't dare get that close to the gravel on this stretch, and he did, which meant that we were neck and neck all through the final banked curve right before the front stretch.

The finish line was in sight now. The two cars were practically neck and neck; I couldn't push my foot any further down into the floor. And the next thing I knew... we'd crossed the line.

"Who won?" I said aloud, just as soon as I let off the gas and the car started to slow (and quiet) down. "I have no idea!" I looked over to Shelby, who was still keeping pace next to me in his Cobra even though I wasn't even attempting race speed. He was looking at me with the widest grin I've ever seen, giving me the thumbs up.

"And that, my friend, is what they mean by a photo finish!" Shelby sounded incredibly excited. After the race was over, he and I met up, shook hands, and he led me immediately to one of the empty 'driver's briefing' areas on the circuit. Inside was a massive monitor, and displayed on it was a grainy, black and white picture that looked like it had been taken exactly level with the start/finish line.

"Damn," I said aloud, finally making out what I was seeing. "You beat me by a nose." Sure enough, the unmistakable front end of Shelby's Cobra was crossing the line on that image first; the front bumper of my car was just behind his front wheels as he was crossing the line. "Fair and square, that was a good race."

"Good?!" Shelby practically shouted before laughing. "Are you kidding? That was a great race!" I was a bit confused.

"I thought you were looking for a challenge?" I asked. "Seemed like you won pretty easily." Shelby shook his head vigorously, but kept smiling.

"No, I didn't. I haven't had to race that hard in years! No one has ever come that close to beating me in a very, very long time. Hamilton has probably come the closest, with some of those crazy cars he's built, but I've never seen him push a car as hard or drive it as fast as I saw you push that Corvega."

"Well, I've never seen a car eat up straights like yours," I said, honestly. "Seriously - what is under that Cobra's hood? It has to be like a V-a-million engine that runs on brimstone and baby owls or something."

"You're not far off. It's a naturally aspirated V14, built from the ground up to run on JP-8." When he noticed my blank, uncomprehending stare, he explained. "It's jet fuel, basically, refined from kerosene. Loyal found the recipe for it years ago in one of the Nellis technical manuals, and barrels of it are mixed up alongside the diesel that most of the cars in the motorpool run on."

"No wonder I could barely keep up," I said, finally understanding. "I'm surprised it can't take off." Shelby shrugged.

"No wings. Now, listen," he patted me on the shoulder, still grinning like a madman. "I had tremendous fun today. You've got to come back and race me again - maybe on one of the other road circuits, outside the speedway. You are welcome back anytime, mate." The two of us shook hands again.

"Thanks," I said. "I'm definitely going to have to take you up on that. I've never had an adrenaline hit like I had today." I let go of his hand, and looked down to see... "I'm still shaking."

"Y'know what? Here," Without warning, Shelby took off his cowboy hat, and plonked it on my head. "As a memento of you popping your cherry. Enjoy the victory, kid."

"Victory?" I asked, confused once more. "But I lost. We have the photographic proof that I lost." I gestured to the screen, but Shelby just shook his head again.

"The only reason you lost is because I know this track better than the back of my hand, and it was still close enough for a photo finish. If you went up against any of the other Gearheads, I almost guarantee you would just wipe the floor with them," Shelby chuckled softly to himself.

"Okay... but... why the hat?" I looked up, trying to adjust it. It fit on my head surprisingly well. I wasn't expecting that. Shelby shrugged.

"Well, you said it was a nice hat before the race, so you seemed to like it. Thought you might appreciate it, especially if it reminds you of this first race. And... truth be told, I've been looking for an excuse to get rid of that hat for a while."

"Seriously?" I asked, incredulously. This was a really nice hat, now I was really looking at it. "Why would you ever want to get rid of it?" Shelby just smiled and shrugged.

"What can I say, the wife always hated that hat!"