As the speedo hit 110mph, Ning spotted the single orange cone in the middle of the broad tarmac straight. She braked hard and, once the nose was past, dropped down into second gear, reached for the handbrake and yanked the steering wheel hard left.
Ning had practised handbrake turns for an hour that afternoon, but her success rate was barely half and dread shot through her body as she grabbed the lever between the two front seats.
The combination of a tight turn and the handbrake threw the back of the car out violently. If Ning got braking and steering right and put power back on at the right moment, the Golf would pivot on its front wheels and change direction in under four seconds. But get the move wrong and she might veer off in any direction, or stall the engine and stop dead in a cloud of tyre smoke.
Twenty miles per hour was a little fast, and Ning didn’t get the steering exactly right. She had to correct the steering to avoid hitting the cone as she straightened up, and there was a nasty moment as the engine choked, but she was gentle on the accelerator and nursed the car back up to cruising speed.
Alfie was in the back and didn’t much mind that Ning was inside his time. After a tough day’s practice the pair had bonded and Alfie screamed and pounded his seat.
‘Nailed it, Ningo!’
The final part of the run took the car off the track, down a single lane, past a line of run-down pit garages and into a car park behind the trashed main grandstand. Cones marked out a winding course, but in focusing on where she was going, Ning failed to see an old lady on the apex of the turn in.
She swerved, but not soon enough to avoid demolishing the dummy and sending a hail of polystyrene clumps against the windscreen. A large white chunk squealed as it got trapped under the car, followed by a loss of traction as it went beneath one of the rear wheels.
After clipping a couple of cones, Ning cut her speed for the final weave across the car park. She stopped at a white line, then threw the car into reverse, looked behind and reverse-parked into a rectangle marked out with bales of hay.
As soon as she’d stopped, Ning cut the engine and gasped as she tugged at her crash helmet. Sweat was running into her eyes as she put the helmet in her lap and looked across at James.
‘Good news, bad news,’ James said, smiling as he showed Ning the face of his stopwatch. ‘The good news is that you were five point three seconds faster than Alfie. The bad news is there’s a ten-second penalty for killing Polystyrene Pauline.’
‘I wasn’t expecting her there,’ Ning explained, sounding a touch indignant. ‘She was in a much harder position than when Alfie did it.’
James showed no sympathy as he took off his six-point racing seatbelt. ‘That’s kind of the point. Pedestrians can crop up anywhere. And don’t worry about it. The competition element is only a bit of fun. You both did good today.’
Ning smiled as she pushed a mound of sweaty hair off her face. ‘You’re a good teacher.’
James had never done anything like this before and was flattered and intrigued by the comment. ‘What makes you say that?’
Ning shrugged, but Alfie answered for her. ‘You get the balance right. Pushing us when we need it, but not so hard that we get pissed off.’
‘And you’re good at breaking things down to explain them,’ Ning said.
The other Golf with Bruce, Leon and Grace inside had finished its final run a couple of minutes earlier. James, Ning and Alfie walked towards them, while fifteen-year-old black shirt Kevin Sumner dashed about collecting the cones.
‘All good?’ Bruce asked. ‘Ready to take us on tomorrow?’
James laughed. ‘We’ll crush you.’
‘Got a people carrier waiting to take you back to campus,’ Bruce said, looking at the trainees. ‘Any volunteers for driving duty?’
All four kids looked at their feet.
‘Now that’s enthusiasm,’ James said, smiling at Bruce.
‘I’m knackered,’ Leon said defensively.
‘It’s not physically as hard as normal training,’ Grace explained. ‘But mentally! Like, you lose concentration for one second and you smash a car into the wall and die.’
‘Guess I’ll have to drive you tired little bunnies home then,’ James said sarcastically. ‘And don’t stay up too late because we’re out here again all day tomorrow and things won’t