Need for Speed Read Free Page A

“Five cars are racing—so that means the pot will be like . . .”
    â€œLike five grand?” Tobey said, finishing the sentence for him, and then adding a bit soberly, “Believe me, I know.”
    * * *
    It was Tobey’s car on the lift in the garage’s first bay. Built in 1968, the Gran Torino fastback was a somewhat ordinary vehicle at its inception, though, like Tobey, many enthusiasts had embraced it as a platform for competing either legally or on the streets.
    Tobey’s Gran Torino was well-known to street racing fans in upstate New York and indeed throughout the country. He’d installed a rebuilt 5.4 liter aluminum big block engine in it with fuel injection and a supercharger. Huge headers, exhaust pipes, and twin mufflers were added to the package, along with a six-speed manual transmission and an especially heavy-duty clutch. The car sat on four radial drag-racing tires, mounted on old– school mag wheels, and had cobalt blue acrylic paint covering its body with white racing stripes added tastefully along the sides and atop the hood.
    The paint scheme and the striping made the car look both unusual and elegant, but most important, it was fast. Stripped of any needless or extra weight, it could go from zero to 60 mph in under six seconds, astonishing for such an ordinary design. What’s more, its suspension had been improved through the skills of Joe Peck and Finn, so that it cornered like a dream, and was also excellent at drifting—that manner of taking a turn not in the usual way, but by oversteering so that all four wheels temporarily lost traction, allowing the car to go into a turn sideways in a kind of high-speed controlled skid. In the world of underground racing, a driver’s talent at drifting spoke volumes about the driver himself. Tobey was one of the best in the country at it.
    That was one of the reasons Tobey was so well-known in the street racing community. All those years, from crash ’em cars to present, he had put to good use. He had an instinct about driving, almost a sixth sense. When he started his car, he felt it become a part of him, like some fighter pilots say when they climb into their airplanes.
    And he’d always raced for fun. But now, after the visit from the man from the bank, he knew he might have to start racing for something more.

Two

    IT WAS SATURDAY night.
    Traditionally, many of Mount Kisco’s teenagers would cop some beer and head for Pride Rock for a drinking party.
    But something else was going on tonight. Something somewhat secret. And it was happening at the Mount Kisco Drive-in Theater.
    The sign at the drive-in’s entrance was slightly misleading. It announced a car show, a ten-dollar entry fee, a BBQ, and some raffles. But something else was going to happen here. Something the cops hadn’t been tipped about. People had started gathering inside the drive-in shortly after dark. Though scenes from
Bullitt
, one of the best car chase films ever made, were being projected on the drive-in’s huge screen, the crowd wasn’t on hand to watch movies, either.
    They were there to see a real street race.
    Or at least the beginning of one.
    * * *
    The drive-in’s parking lot was jammed with spectators by the time Tobey arrived.
    It was close to 11:00 p.m. and there was a drunken county fair atmosphere around the place. With everyone in good spirits, the crowd gladly parted to allow his Gran Torino to get through.
    Inside his highly customized car, Tobey and his crew were tuned in to Monarch’s show on Pete’s iPad. They were about to get a big surprise.
    The underground host had a caller on the line.
    â€œWord is out that the De Leon is going to be held in New Hampshire this year,” the caller said. “Is that true, Monarch?”
    â€œ
You’ll
never know,” Monarch snapped back at him. “Because you’d just tip off the cops—and no one wants that.