THE INTERNATIONAL RACE SCHOOL HOBART, TASMANIA.

But before Jason and Xavier were to depart for Italy, there were still almost a dozen school races to be run.

While the Race School was very proud to have two of its racers invited to compete in a Grand Slam event, it was made very clear to both Jason and Xavier that while they were away in Italy, the School season would continue without them.

Which meant they would do well to put as many compet.i.tion points as possible in the bank before they left. This was less of a problem for Xavier, who was currently leading the School Compet.i.tion Ladder by a clear 30 points.

For Jason, it was tougher. As runner-up in the midseason tournament, he had garnered a solid 18 points (the tournament being worth double points), lifting him to 7th on the overall Compet.i.tion Ladder. But Italy would take him away from the School Compet.i.tion for eight days, forcing him to miss three whole races. And Italy aside, he was still mindful that he had to finish the School season in the Top 4 to get an invitation to the New York Challenger Race in October.

He would have to do some catch-up when he returned from his adventure in Italy. But h.e.l.l, he thought, it was worth it - it wasn't every day a rookie like him got a ride in a Grand Slam race.

G.o.dd.a.m.n, he was excited.

Early one morning, a few days after the tournament, Jason went for a walk by himself out across a gra.s.sy headland overlooking Storm Bay. It was a place he went to be alone, to think and to breathe, away from the frenetic world of racing.

Someone was waiting for him at his spot.

Ariel.

'Hey,' Jason sat down beside her.

'Hi there,' she said.

Jason hadn't seen her since the day of the tournament, the day he had beaten her, the day after she had - 'You raced well in the tournament, Jason,' she said.

'I almost had him. Almost.'

'Jason, I couldn't believe you stuck with Xavier for as long as you did. No-one did,' Ariel said. 'And after all those races before. You just never give up.'

Jason bowed his head, said nothing.

Ariel said, 'You know, I was cheering for you by the end. Sure, after you beat me, I went back to my room for a while and yes, I cried some. But after a while, I switched on the TV and saw that you were still in it, beating everyone. So for the final, I went back out there and sat up in the back of one of the grandstands and watched.' She turned to him. 'I was proud of you.'

'Thanks.'

'I also felt I let you down by what I did the night before. With that a.s.shole Fabian.'

Jason looked at her. 'Ariel - '

'No. Don't say anything. I was stupid. I shoulda known better. He told me everything I wanted to hear, but he was only after one thing. Jason, you've been the only person who's been good to me this whole time at Race School. I hope you can forgive me and be my friend again.'

Jason was silent for a long time.

Then he said, 'You never let me down, Ariel. So we never stopped being friends. Except, of course, out on the track.'

And with that Ariel gave him a big hug.

The next twelve races went by in a blur.

Knowing he needed to bank some points before he went to Italy, Jason had solid finishes throughout: four 3rds, three 2nds and even two wins - although it had to be said that both of his wins came on days when Xavier Xonora decided to take a rest and sit out the race.

This fact actually bothered Jason.

He realised that he had only ever beaten Xavier on one occasion - in Race 25, and even then, it had been in pretty incredible circ.u.mstances, after he'd taken the very nonpercentage move of skipping his final pit stop.

In any case, his results catapulted Team Argonaut up the Compet.i.tion Ladder and by the time it came for him to leave for Italy, the Ladder looked like this: INTERNATIONAL RACE SCHOOL.

CHAMPIONSHIP LADDER.

AFTER 37 RACES.

DRIVER NO. CAR POINTS.

1. XONORA, X 1 Speed Razor 266 2. KRISHNA, V 31 Calcutta-IV 235 3. WASHINGTON, I 42 Black Bullet 224 4. CHASER, J 55 Argonaut 217 5. BECKER, B 09 Devil's Chariot 216 6. WONG, H 888 Little Tokyo 215 7. SCHUMACHER, K 25 Blue Lightning 213 8. PIPER, A 16 Pied Piper 212 Xavier was way out in front. Sitting 31 points ahead of his nearest rival, he could sit out three more races and still not lose the Number 1 spot.

Jason was in fourth position - but with a bunch of quality racers nipping at his heels. After missing three races, he'd almost certainly drop out of the Top 4.

But that was a battle to be fought another day. It was time to go to Italy.

CHAPTER THREE.

VENICE II, ITALY (MONDAY OF RACE WEEK).

The whole of Italy was positively buzzing with excitement when Jason, the Bug and Sally stepped off Umberto Lombardi's private hover-liner at the main wharf of Venice II.

It was as if hover car fever had gripped the entire nation.

Gargantuan images of Alessandro Romba blared out from building-sized hover-billboards along the coast - pictures of the world champion holding cola cans or driving sports hover cars.

Multi-coloured banners fluttered from every lamppost - either in the colours of the Italian flag or of some racing team. People danced in the streets dressed in the colours of their favourite teams, sang, drank and generally had a great time.

The week of the Italian Run was Party Week in Italy.Magazines and newspapers and TV talk shows spoke of only one thing: La Corsa. The Race.

Bookmakers did a thriving trade, offering odds on every available result: the winner, the top three finishers in order, any-order multiples, or even just a racer finishing in the top five.

The world champ and local hero, Alessandro Romba, was the talk of the town. His victories in Sydney and London had every race fan wondering if he might be the first racer ever to complete the Golden Grand Slam - winning all four Grand Slam races in the one year. Indeed, he had not even been cleanly pa.s.sed in a Grand Slam race this year. He appeared on the talk shows and every Italian loved him like a son.

The French racer, Fabian, was also doing the media rounds. On one occasion, Jason saw him being interviewed on a racing show.

The interviewer was asking Fabian about what he had seen at the Race School in Australia.

'There is a lot of talent down there,' Fabian said. 'A lot of talent. And the two students who have come here are two of the best young drivers there.'

'And what about the female driver at the Race School?' the interviewer asked. 'Much fuss was made of her enrolment. What did you make of her?'

Fabian's eyes glinted meanly.

'She was, quite frankly, a non-event. She was defeated in the first round of the tournament, quite comprehensively as far as I could tell. Call me a dinosaur, but I personally see no place for women in hover car racing.'

Watching at the time, Jason had scowled at the TV.

But then to his surprise the eyes of the media - always hungry, always looking for new fodder - soon fell upon the two young racers who would be making their Grand Slam debuts in the Italian Run: Xavier Xonora and him.

Xavier seemed to take the media attention in his stride. Perhaps it was his experience as a royal figure. Perhaps it was the slick public relations machine of the Lockheed-Martin Factory Team selecting the right talk shows for him to go on. Perhaps, Jason thought, Xavier was just made to be a superstar.

The media (especially the society pages) portrayed him as the dutiful protege, the sharp-eyed student who would be watching and learning from the master, his No.1 in the Lockheed-Martin Team, Alessandro Romba. His goals were modest - 'I'd just love a top ten finish' - and within a few days he was being hailed as the heir apparent to Romba as the heartthrob of international racing.

Jason had a tougher time of it - just seeing himself portrayed on TV, on magazine covers, in the papers was scary enough.

The media had latched onto his youth. Even though he would be 15 on Wednesday, he was portrayed as a brilliant young upstart, the 14-year-old wunderkind - but despite that, still ultimately a boy venturing into a man's world.

He was a curiosity, an oddity - like the bearded lady at the circus - and he didn't like being that.

At the first news story that claimed he was out of his depth, he wanted to write a letter to the editor. After the twentieth one, he just fumed silently.

He wished Scott Syracuse was there, but his teacher had stayed back at the Race School - he did, after all, have other students to watch over in their School races. Syracuse had said he would try to get to Italy for the race on Sunday.

Jason hoped he would make it.

Although the Italian Run actually began in Rome, Team Argonaut was based in Venice II, since the entire ca.n.a.l city belonged to Umberto Lombardi.

Jason was staying at the Lombardi Grand Hotel, in a suite that turned out to be the third-best apartment in all of Venice II. The best one, of course, belonged to Lombardi himself. The second-best went to Team Lombardi's No.1 driver, Pablo Riviera.

In any case, Jason's apartment was bigger than most of the houses he knew. Wide and modern, with ultra-expensive hover-furniture, it featured panoramic views of both the Adriatic Sea and Venice II's astonishing recreation of St Mark's Square.

The week stretched out before him: Today was Monday.

The official Pole Position Shootout session would be held on Friday, on a tight mini-course up the spine of central Italy. That would be followed by a gala dinner on Friday night.

The Italian Run itself would be held on Sunday. For most racers, this lead-up week would be filled with practice sessions on the course itself, some sponsors' events, and a few invitation-only galas put on by individual teams.

Importantly for Jason, the lead-up week gave him time to meet the members of the Lombardi Racing Team. For while he would be racing with his regular team - the Bug and Sally - they would all be supported by a fully equipped engineering and technical team from Lombardi, known as 'E&T'.

Most significantly of all - and a little sadly for Jason - this would be the first time that he would not race in the Argonaut.

No, in this race he would be flying in a brand-new Ferrari F-3000 emblazoned in the Lombardi Team colours of black-with-yellow-slashes.

Compared to the little Argonaut, the Ferrari F-3000 was a beast of a machine: bigger, faster and meaner. A far newer Ferrari, it had roughly the same bullet-like shape as the Argonaut, only it was sleeker, more streamlined.

Once Jason had dreamed of driving an F-3000, but now that he was here, he kind of wished he'd be racing in the Argonaut.

But he shook the thought away as he gazed at the chunky F-3000.

He and his team had four days to tame this beast.

For the first two days of Race Week - Monday and Tuesday - Jason practised in his new F-3000 under the intense glare of media hovercopters and the paparazzi's telephoto lenses. A crush of journalists was always waiting outside the gates of the Lombardi training course outside Venice II.

On the Tuesday, he met Pablo Riviera, the No.1 driver for Lombardi Racing and liked him immediately. Riviera was a 26-year-old Colombian driver. Young and talented but not quite a top-tier racer yet, Riviera was generous in his advice: 'The best tip I can give you,' he said, 'is to go to bed early. Training will weary you, but dealing with the media will wear you out entirely. Trust me. And the only thing that matters is to be ready on race day.'

But then, on the Tuesday afternoon, as Jason and his team were leaving the training track in his hover-limo, he saw that the a.s.sembled media crowd at the gates had tripled in size.

And this media mob was literally bubbling over with excitement when the hover-limo came to the exit gates.

The crowd of journalists and camera crews jostled the car - forcing it to stop - shouting questions at Jason with more force than usual.

And then, beyond them, he saw the reason.

There, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, stood the French driver, Fabian.

Jason and the others stepped out of the limo.

'Jason!' the reporters yelled. 'Jason! Over here!'

'Jason! How do you respond to Fabian's invitation!'

Jason frowned. 'Invitation? What invitation?'

Fabian stepped forward theatrically, his French accent oily-smooth. 'Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen. Please! Leave young Jason alone. This is all very new to him.'

The crowd of hacks took a collective step back and fell silent.

'Jason,' Fabian said with more familiarity than Jason liked, 'my personal sponsor, the Circus Maximus Beer Company, has decided to stage an exhibition race tomorrow at sunset, in their newly built Circus Maximus. It is to be a one-on-one match-race between me and an opponent of my choosing. We are calling it Fabian's Challenge...'

The media crowd was hanging on Fabian's every word and Fabian knew it.

He went on innocently: 'I just happened to mention on television this afternoon that I would love to race against the determined young driver everyone is talking about. You. What do you say, Jason? Do you want to race?'

Every microphone in the media throng swung to Jason's lips.

And in that instant, the world froze for Jason.

Later, he wouldn't even remember the words coming out of his mouth - but he heard them quite clearly as he saw himself on every news channel on TV later that afternoon.

'You're on,' he'd answered to Fabian's challenge.

The rest of that afternoon and evening was spent talking on the phones with Lombardi and his E&T technicians.

Far from being angry at Jason's acceptance of the challenge, Lombardi loved the idea of one of his drivers partic.i.p.ating in an exhibition race against Fabian.

'Jason! I may be rich, but my team - in the broader scheme of the racing world - is a mid-level team. Pablo is good, but he too is mid-range. Certainly not good enough to attract the attention of someone like Fabian. But you! Yes! Lord, think of the publicity such a race will bring!'