But his enthusiasm only went so far.

He didn't want to endanger a new Ferrari F-3000 in an exhibition race. Which was why he allowed his team of engineers to put a superseded F-2900 engine in the Argonaut, to bring it up to speed with Fabian's Renault.

The phones didn't stop ringing all evening.

People were running every which way in Jason's apartment.

And in the middle of it all, Jason went into his room and made a single phone call himself.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS.

ROME, ITALY (WEDNESDAY OF RACE WEEK).

Illuminated by the diffused orange glow of the setting Italian sun the stadium looked exactly like the famous Roman chariot-racing arena - a gigantic oval-shaped racetrack, flanked on the outer circ.u.mference by mammoth grandstands; all of it built in a faux-Roman style on a stretch of flat reclaimed land on the western coast of Italy, not far from Rome.

The only difference between this and the Circus Maximus of old was the scale.

Each of its two straights was 12 kilometres long - so that it would take the average hover car roughly two minutes to complete each lap, one minute for each straight.

Red neon signs for the 'Circus Maximus Beer Co.' blazed out from the upper flanks of the stadium.

Before a cheering, heaving, thriving crowd of 2 million spectators - all of them fuelled on free beer - two tiny hover cars lined up on the grid.

Fabian's purple-and-gold Renault Tricolore-VII, known as the Ma.r.s.eilles Falcon.

And beside it: the Argonaut, looking resplendent in spanking-new coats of white, silver and blue paint. Plus one new feature: its tailfin was now painted in Lombardi black-and-yellow.

Just before the race, Jason and Fabian posed for photos on the track - the modern-day charioteers standing beside their chariots, holding their helmets, flanked by bikini-clad girls and beer company executives, in front of the baying crowd.

By the look on his face, Fabian was clearly pleased by the extra attention the young Chaser boy was bringing to his exhibition event. That today, August 6, also happened to be Jason's 15th birthday was a bonus - the media had painted Fabian as a man giving a boy the most incredible birthday opportunity ever.

For his part, as he stood beside Fabian, smiling for the cameras, Jason eyed the Ma.r.s.eilles Falcon and its notorious nosewing.

Fabian's car featured a controversial 'bladed' nosewing. Two vertical fins jutted upward from the outer tips of its nosewing, their forward edges as sharp as knives, hence the term 'bladed'. Renault claimed the sharpness was simply aerodynamic. Other racers claimed Fabian used his bladed fins to damage their cars in the rough-and-tumble of racing. For the moment, the fins were allowed by the governing body of racing, the International Hover Car Racing a.s.sociation. But every racer knew - stay away from them.

The photo session ended, and Fabian jumped into his car.

Jason, however, dashed to his pit bay, to the toilet there - an act which made everybody in the grandstands laugh.

The rookie, it seemed, was nervous.

He emerged moments later, strapping his helmet in place. He stepped into the Argonaut, joining the Bug, ready to race.

The exhibition race was an absolute beauty.

As the Ma.r.s.eilles Falcon and the Argonaut shot down the first straight, the delighted crowd did a Mexican Wave alongside them.

The race was twenty laps and at first Fabian took the lead - at times doing playful trick moves to please the crowd.

Jason trailed him doggedly, showing his trademark determination, and during one of Fabian's playful moments, he ducked inside him and overtook him.

Obviously surprised, Fabian gave chase and, after a lap, retook the lead.

But it was to be the first of many lead changes, with Jason entering into the spirit of things - to everyone's surprise, he also performed some daring aerobatics whenever he took the lead: flat lateral skids or the odd corkscrew roll.

The crowd cheered with delight.

But then the race neared its final stages, and the tricks ceased, and when the Argonaut slipped inside the Ma.r.s.eilles Falcon on the second-last turn, it became a flatout - and deadly serious - dash for the Finish Line.

Down the back straight.

Twin bullets.

Into the final 180-degree turn - the Argonaut taking the standard apex, Fabian starting wide and scything inside with the precision of a surgeon, the Falcon's deadly bladed nosewing coming within inches of the Argonaut's own nose - and the two cars ended up side-by-side as they shot down the main straight, kicking up identical yellow sandclouds behind them, before hitting the line together...

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE CIRCUS MAXIMUS.

ROME, ITALY (WEDNESDAY OF RACE WEEK).

The roar of the crowd said it all. They knew who had won. The rookie, Chaser, had got it by half a car-length.

Jason's fist shot into the air as he cruised round the track, waving to the crowd.

Fabian's car came alongside the Argonaut, and Fabian offered Jason the 'racer's salute': a short touch of the helmet with his right hand. It was like shaking hands after a tennis match - you always did it after a match-race.

Jason returned the salute.

The two cars completed a full circuit to a standing ovation, before coming to a halt in the main straight, in front of the VIP box.

Fabian stepped out of his car and shook his head in mock disbelief, as if to say: 'Can you believe that? How about this young guy?'

He went over to the Argonaut just as Jason and the Bug lifted themselves out of the c.o.c.kpit. Fabian went to shake Jason's hand, but Jason's gloved hands instead went to his own helmet. He took it off - to reveal that the pilot of the Argonaut, the racer who had just beaten Fabian in a wonderfully entertaining match-race, wasn't Jason Chaser at all.

Standing there in the middle of the Circus Maximus, wearing Jason Chaser's racing leathers, holding Jason Chaser's helmet, and standing beside Jason Chaser's pintsized navigator, stood Ariel Piper.

Live on international television, Fabian's jaw hit the dusty ground.

'But...' he stammered. 'We had our photo taken before the - '

'Looks like the Jason Chaser who went to the men's room just before the race wasn't the Jason Chaser who came out,' Ariel said. 'Now, Fabian. What was it you were saying about women and hover car racing?'

The crowd was stunned - at first.

Then they roared their hilarious approval.

Ariel could only smile with immense satisfaction.

And far away to the north, at the empty Lombardi practice track, without a journalist, photographer or hovercopter in sight, Jason Chaser stepped into his Ferrari F-3000 and practised - practised, practised, practised - in glorious peace and quiet.

The best birthday present ever.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE POLE POSITION SHOOTOUT ROME, ITALY (FRIDAY OF RACE WEEK).

Jason's black-and-yellow Ferrari F-3000 banked at almost right angles as it blasted in a wide arc around the Colosseum.

Then it executed a quick series of zig-zags through the streets of Rome, before it swung out into the open countryside, onto the final section of the Pole Position Shootout course - a fiendish stretch of track known as the Chute.

This winding S-shaped section of track was actually a long narrow trench dug into the earth, spanned by a mult.i.tude of sponsor-bridges.

The main obstacles in the Chute were four barriers s.p.a.ced out along its length. Built into each barrier was an ultra-narrow gateway - so narrow that a hover car could only pa.s.s through each opening on its side. That the gateways were positioned alternately on the far left and right sides of each barrier made it a brutal driving challenge.

It was hard enough racing through the Chute alone during the Pole Position Shootout - in the Italian Run itself, there were several Chute sections and you had to negotiate them with other racers buzzing all around you.

In any case, the Pole Position Shootout was a time trial - with the fastest driver through the Shootout Course starting Sunday's race in pole position - so racers entered the Shootout Course one at a time.

Each was allowed three runs over the Course, and their best time counted.

That Friday morning, one after the other, each racer entered the Shootout Course.

This was Jason's third run and as he hit the Chute he was flying like a rocket. His previous times that day hadn't been spectacular - but this run was fast.

The walls of the trench rushed by him at astronomical speed, bending left and right and then - whoosh! - he tilted his F-3000 sideways and shot through the first gateway.

Three more banking manoeuvres later, he shot through the final gateway to the roars of the crowd. His eyes flashed to the electronic scoreboard: THE ITALIAN RUN.

POLE POSITION SHOOTOUT.

DRIVER NO. TEAM TIME.

1. ROMBA, A 1 Lockheed-Martin 0:50.005 2. FABIAN 17 Renault 0:50.230 3. LEWICKI, D 23 USAF Racing 0:51.015 4. CARVER, A 24 USAF Racing 0:51.420 5. Ha.s.sAN, R 2 Lockheed-Martin 0:51.995 6. MARTINEZ, C 44 Boeing-Ford 0:52.110 7. IDEKI, K 11 Yamaha Racing 0:52.525 8. TROUVEAU, E 40 Renault 0:52.740 9. XONORA, X 3 Lockheed-Martin 0:53.300 10. RIVIERA, P 12 Lombardi Racing 0:53.755 11. PETERS, B 05 General Motors 0:54.300 12. CHASER, J 55 Lombardi Racing 0:54.841 12th.

12th was good. Jason certainly hadn't expected to win pole. He was just hoping to put in a good performance - and come out of the Chute with his car in one piece. h.e.l.l, if he managed a place in the top ten, he'd have been over the moon.

But 12th out of a total of 28 starters made him pretty happy.

'Not bad,' Sally said. 'Not bad at all...for a first timer.' She messed up Jason's hair. 'Nice racing, Superstar.'

That evening, even though he really didn't want to go, Jason was obliged to attend the official gala dinner for the Italian Run.

If the gala for the Sponsors' Tournament at the Race School had been opulent, then this dinner was in another league altogether.

It was held in the Piazza de Campidoglio - the famous triple-palace plaza designed by Michelangelo himself situated on the Capitoline Hill - and in the blazing glare of revolving spotlights pointed up into the sky, the glittering piazza looked like something out of a fairy tale.

Hover limousines unloaded the cream of Europe's rich and famous - billionaires, movie stars, rock singers, and of course, racers. Gushing reporters breathlessly announced each new arrival on the red carpet.

For Jason, though, it was just another dinner.

'How long do we have to stay?' he asked Sally as they walked through the crush of black-tie-wearing guests, searching for their table, the Bug staying close behind them.

'Lombardi says we only have to stay until the speeches,' Sally said. 'Then we're free to leave.'