The next morning, Lightning Dust stood in her blue and gold racing suit on the pit wall, looking up and down the short pit straight at the back of the track.
She’d noticed the top guns of the league, such as Mercedes and Zip Line, going up to the pit wall at Cloudsdale and she thought she’d go and see what they were looking for or sensing. Besides the direction of the wind, which was straight into her face and likely to be a head wind down the start/finish straight, she couldn’t sense anything.
She figured she may as well stay here with her thoughts as well. After the humiliation of the last race, she wanted to prove how good she was and start moving towards the sharp end of the grid.
Focusing her mind again, she replayed some of the details from the flyer’s meeting that morning. They’d discussed the two escape roads at turn one and turn three at length, discussing their use and to give way to anyone currently on track if a flyer had to return to the track from one of the roads.
They’d also introduced a wild card entry in the form of a griffin called Maverick, a local with an apparently good reputation at a nearby club. The possibility of a safety kart being sent out was also discussed, which would require ponies to slow down and not overtake until the green flag was waved at the start/finish line.
When the team went for a quick track run after the briefing, Dust spent a while investigating the escape road at turn one, which turned back on itself around a road island and re-joined at the entrance of turn two. While she was busy learning, Concorde and Rainbow Dash were swanning about talking to Riggwelter and later Maverick, who seemed to be as much in fancolt heaven as Concorde.
“Dust!” Spanner called from the stable, gaining her attention. “four minutes until practice starts.”
Dust nodded, turning away from the wall but waiting a moment for one of the racing karts to be pushed past. As they were racing on solid ground, there’d be a supporting kart race and Concorde’s father Bristol had been obsessively inspecting them, much to the annoyance of the kart’s owners.
Spanner was waiting for her as she entered the stable and he immediately put her mouth guard, helmet and goggles on. Once satisfied they were secure, he picked up his head phones and microphone.
“Radio check.” He said, his voice coming through the radio clearly.
“Working.” Dust said simply, thought she’d prefer not to have him japing in her ear all the time.
“Good. Head to the end of the pit lane and wait for the green flag.” Spanner said, Dust doing so without a word.
At the end of the pit lane, she landed behind what was clearly Maverick in the queue. His suit was mainly white with a thick blue stripe with pink highlights running down his sides, the number twenty five on his flank. Now she had his tail waving around in her face, she realized she didn’t want to get too close to him and get whipped while flying.
Dust leaned around him to see the marshal with the green flag, who soon waved it over his head to start the session.
She followed the flyers ahead out onto the track, feeding into what was actually the exit of turn eight. Here, the track was fairly narrow and with all the imposing walls it felt incredibly claustrophobic.
“Back off from Maverick, Dust.” Spanner said as she followed him around turn ten. “See if you can get in clean space.”
Dust didn’t see what good clean air would do, but seeing as Maverick was weaving slowly to warm up, she just went around him and carried on.
“That works too, I suppose.” Spanner commented. “You’ve got a good gap to Red Rum, Rainbow Dash and Lecieć ahead so just take your time to get used to the track, we’ll work on fast times in half an hour.”
“Right.” Dust replied, having not really paid attention but hoping a response would keep him quiet.
She came out of the turn thirteen and fourteen chicane and headed down the start/finish straight, a wide enough stretch of road for three ponies to fly side by side. Tram tracks crossed the road shortly after turn fourteen, and were covered up as well as possible so any flyers who crashed wouldn’t get anything caught in them.
As she hurtled towards the first corner, she searched down the left side wall for a reference point she’d noticed a few of the racers looking at. It was somewhere after the one hundred meter board, so for this first lap she decided to slow down next to the board instead. The sharp right hoof corner opened up into turn two, so Dust had plenty of track to use but the huge air fence on the outside of turn one looked more than ready to grab her if she made a mistake.
Turn two was just an acceleration zone, leading into a straight that headed to the turn three hairpin. Spanner had told Dust exactly where the slowing point was, but she backed off early again to make sure she’d get through. Mid-way through the corner, she banked over further as the angle she was at would lead to a meeting with the eager air fence.
Turn four wasn’t a problem, though the wall on the exit of the ninety degree corner almost seemed to lunge at her as she went into the shadow of a warehouse in the middle of the circuit. The relatively high walls made it nearly impossible to see beyond the apex of any corner, so she was always flying into the unknown and leaving very little time to react to anything happening on the exit of a corner.
The turn five, six, seven chicane had something else to be more concerned about. The wall was pulled away from the middle of the chicane, turn six, allowing her to see turn seven, but in its place at the apex of the corner was a five foot wooden pole, which was referred to in the flyers’ briefing as a ‘hook’.
Dust approached it carefully, knowing if she caught this ‘hook’, which was bolted to the ground, at speed it would hurt a heck of a lot. The short chicane gave her very little time to bank left, right and left again to negotiate the corner, but at her low speed she had little difficulty dealing with it. It didn’t seem like a piece of track that would permit much speed, but she imagined if she could attack it, she’d gain a lot, even if overtaking was near impossible.
Turn eight appeared to have little room on entry, but opened up as the track swept left slightly into the entry to turn nine. Nine had a huge amount of track on the outside to use, but another air fence was positioned and eager to meet any flyers who made a mistake. From turn eight down into the sweeping turn ten and eleven, Dust was back out in the day light, making the track look less oppressive.
Turn twelve, thirteen and fourteen were more awkward, the three ninety degree corners coming one after the other in increasingly quick succession. It seemed wide enough, Dust felt as she turned into twelve, but the wall on the exit came towards her much quicker then she expected and she had to jerk away from it to avoid hitting it.
As soon as she was away from the wall, she realised she had to get back over for thirteen, which had just as little room, but in order to get good thrust onto the main straight, she had to move back over to the outside of the track and turn as late as possible into fourteen to give herself as much room to accelerate as possible. It was easier said than done as there was very little straight between thirteen and fourteen, but she was already focused again as she went across the start/finish line and onto another lap.
“Keep it up.” Spanner said simply.
“Leave me alone, I’m flying.” Dust retorted.
“Fair enough, I’ll call if anything important comes up.”
***
As she completed more laps, Dust pushed her slowing points further and further, confident her lap times were improving. She’d already caught and passed Red Rum and Lecieć as they trundled along, but Dash was able to keep her distance ahead, even if her team mate was having as much trouble with the turn five, six, seven and turn thirteen and fourteen chicanes as she was.
“Twenty five minute mark, Dust. You happy to start going for fast laps?” Spanner asked, which gave Dust pause for thought. She’d been going quickly as it was and he was suggesting she wasn’t fast enough.
“I’m already going fast.” She said simply.
“You’re five seconds off the pace at the moment.” Spanner informed, making Dust angry. “You’re within the qualifying time but you’ve got plenty of room to improve. Push your slowing point in turn one and try not to slow down so much through the chicanes and you should be in a good position.”
Dust focused herself as she started another lap. The criticism didn’t help, but she would catch up with the mooks who were faster than her. She slowed later for turn one, leaning in hard and taking a second to glance to her right, back down the track as Concorde had frequently suggested to both her and Dash. Lecieć and Red Rum were close behind, which annoyed her as she thrust hard out of the corner as she thought she’d long since lost them.
As she turned into the hair pin after slowing and turning slightly later, she noticed something red out of the corner of her eye. Focusing on it slightly, she saw it was Red Rum, on the inside of the track, coming straight at her and seemingly out of control. By the time she fully realised, Rum had already hit her in the side and the pair of them were rocketing to the side of the track, where they crashed into the air fences.
The pair rolled back onto the track, Red Rum pulling himself out of the tangle of limbs.
“You ok?” He asked Dust, as did Spanner over the radio, who was laid on her back. Her stomach and sides hurt quite badly and she was having trouble breathing after having the wind knocked out of her, but she didn’t panic as she’d been winded plenty of times before.
“We got her.” One of the marshals called as a two of them came out on track. Dust rolled onto her hooves before being helped up.
“Sorry!” Rum called after her before he took off and re-joined the track.
The marshals help Dust off track, the medic immediately coming to check her.
“Take her to the medical centre.” The medic said after a moment.
“I’m fine, just winded.” Dust protested, getting her breath back.
“That was a pretty heavy hit you took and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“I’ll meet you in the medical centre.” Spanner added over the radio, either having heard or knowing what they were doing. Dust sighed, her stomach feeling better but her side still flaring with pain. She’d have to double her efforts now to make sure she didn’t get left behind.
***
Medical checks revealed Dust had sustained a bruised rib in the crash, which took a bit longer to heal then a typical fracture, but she was discharged within thirty minutes of the crash.
Dust wanted to get back out on track as soon as possible, having reviewed her laps in her mind. It would be easier if she didn’t have to deal with the other idiots on track, but she could likely find a reasonably clear piece of track to continue working on her lap times.
“Just a few pointers, Dust.” Spanner said, Dust internally sighing. “You’re taking the chicanes very wide. If you tuck your inside wing in at the right moment, you should be able to straighten them up slightly.
“Your best when you crashed put you twenty third fastest but even right now you’re within qualifying pace.”
“Last?” Dust asked, knowing she'd be at the bottom of the time sheet but wanting confirmation regardless.
“Yes, but there’s plenty of quick improvements you can make.”
“Seriously, what are they doing that I’m not?” Dust said hotly, Spanner slightly taken aback for a moment.
“Come and have a look.” He said after a pause, turning to cross the pit lane.
Spanner stopped as Mercedes glided into the pit lane and past them, followed by Concorde who didn’t react to their presence. Once the road was clear, he quickly walked across and hopped onto the raised area next to the pit wall, where the spotters sat under marquees that were lined up and spaced equally along the wall with the appropriate team’s colours and logos painted onto them.
Dust joined him and looked down the track. From this point, they could see through the turn five, six and seven chicane and back down the back straight towards turn four. Rossi and Typhoon were coming down the back straight, the former darting through the chicane at surprising speed while the latter entered the pit lane.
“How’d he do that?” Dust asked quietly as she watched Rossi head down the pit straight, trying to keep her raising annoyance at bay.
“It’s tricky, from what I’ve been told,” Spanner answered. ”But like throwing your hind out; it’s a skill that you’ll just ‘get’ eventually. Here comes Power Drive, keep an eye on his wings.”
Dust watched as Power Drive came down the straight and into the chicane. He looked slow on entry, but as he turned in to the first left, he tucked in his left wing, almost right against his body. As soon as he passed the first apex, he tucked in his right wing and spread his left wing out fully, the few feathers still sticking out on his right glancing the hook on the inside of the corner. Once past the hook, he spread his right wing out again, coming perilously close to sliding on the track as he tilted and glided into turn nine, where he flapped his wings and quickly accelerated down the straight.
“You were gliding through the whole thing, Dust.” Spanner explained. “Which meant you had to stay further away from the hook. It might be dangerous, but the closer you get to it, the faster you’ll be.”
“How did he do that without losing lift?” Dust asked, slightly in awe.
“Before he entered the chicane, he flapped hard and raised himself about half a meter off the ground, and he was near enough falling all the way through.”
“So he’s basically falling through the corners?”
“I suppose, yeah.”
“Right.” Dust said finally, grabbing her helmet and goggles.
“Don’t forget, you can’t go any higher than two meters.” Spanner reminded her as he made sure her equipment was tight. Dust didn’t answer as she turned, hopped off the wall and glided down the pit lane. A quick glance at the clock next to the pit exit told her she had another hour left, so plenty of time to work on this ‘falling through corners’ thing.