Page 25 of Fast

I have to give it to the guy. He has speed and stamina. However we place today, I want to shake his hand. His name is JJ Smith, he wears the number seventeen, and I think he’s running solo. He has no team next to his name, no place in the racers’ paddock. He must be fairly local if he managed to race without a garage to support him. Just bringing his bike would have been difficult without a team if he’s coming from out of the county or from out of state.

By the three quarter point of the race, our positions seem locked.

Atlas and Smith are battling it out for the first place. I’m behind them, ready to pounce if they make the tiniest mistake.

Lev and Fox are fighting for the fourth place behind me. I’m sure they’re both waiting for their opportunity to overtake me if I fuck up, and I have no intention of giving them that satisfaction.

The air on the racetrack has gotten heavier; the humidity has increased since the race started and I feel a bead of sweat trickle down my spine inside my race suit.

The smell of a race is very distinctive, rubber, exhausts, adrenaline. A new scent, however, invades my nostrils; that typical earthy, wet smell that precedes the rain.

Fuck. I hope the weather holds just a little longer. Changing bikes now could be a fatal mistake and give the racers behind me a golden opportunity to take my spot and fuck me over.

Racing on a wet track with the wrong bike and the wrong tires can be just as risky, though.

Accidents can happen in the blink of an eye at these speeds, and the racetrack becomes like a slip ‘n’ slide in record time.

I shouldn’t have hoped for the weather to hold. Murphy’s Law is a real thing, I swear.

The second I think we’ll be able to finish before it starts raining, the first few heavy drops start falling in front of me and pepper the top of my helmet.

These last few laps are always super fast, and the rain doesn’t change that.

No one seems to want to take the risk to change bikes at this point, so I need to be extra careful.

The rain can be a wild card and cause accidents. The racers behind me will be ready to exploit any opportunity to pass me.

Atlas is having the fight of his life at the front. The new guy, Smith, doesn’t seem intentioned to give him an inch. He’s a pro at facing every corner and curve at full speed, leaning into them with remarkable agility.

A BMW without a race assigned number comes out of nowhere, cutting in front of me right before I’m about to enter the narrowest part of the track.

It’s a miracle we don’t collide, but my front wheel slips on the wet asphalt and I have a split second to decide whether to riskhitting another driver or run into the gravel trap that borders this section of track.

The Super Bikes League has made a name for itself for being one of the most dangerous competitions in the world; one of the main reasons is the lack of air fences in some of the racetracks we compete on.

Thankfully, the gravel trap has had the desired effect of decreasing my speed; so when I lose my grip on the handlebars and fly off my bike, my race suit and my helmet are enough to protect my vital organs.

I hit the asphalt hard, however, and the wind is knocked out of me. It takes me a second to get back up—just onto my knees. My legs are shaking too much to support my weight right now—but I wish I had stayed down.

Everything happens so fast that as I watch the events unfold, my brain struggles to decode what I’m seeing.

The unmarked bike travels at breakneck speed and hits another bike. It’s the number seventeen. Smith doesn’t see the other rider coming until it’s too late and he flies off his bike in a similar way to how I just did.

The difference is that I avoid a collision by the skin of my teeth, while the direct contact at such high speed throws him off like a rag doll.

Smith must have a guardian angel because rather than hitting the ground, or being run over by another racer, he ends up hitting a giant inflatable can of energy drink that belongs to one of the sponsors. The air in the prop acts de facto as an air fence, absorbing the shock of the hard impact.

His bike, however, is still skidding on the asphalt, posing a threat to all the other riders.

My eyes follow the guy who hit Smith, who’s speeding diagonally through the track in an attempt to get away, and cuts in front of Atlas.

My brother swerves to avoid him, to no avail, and struggles to control his motorcycle on the slippery track.

He would have probably been ok and able to come out of the narrow funnel, but Fox chooses that moment to try to overtake him.

His BMW advances in the exact moment when the other Beamer cuts in front of Atlas and there’s nowhere for my twin brother to go, but off of the track.

I watch in horror as his bike skids out of control and Atlas is thrown off at high speed.

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