I received a digital copy of the action and adventure novel, Racing the Dream, by M.T. Bass, from Goddess Fish Promotions.
“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.” ~Mario Andretti
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Strap down the 5-point harness in the cockpit of a Formula 1 air Racing plane and join Hawk as he chases victory! First on their amateur make-shift course over Antelope Acres, then on the re-emerging pylon racing circuit in the early 1960s. And finally, as Hawk battles 7 other top-level pilots at the very first National Air Racing Championship event in Reno!
Abandoning the cloth and his African mission, Father Bob returns to his slide rule to design Hawk’s racer. Sparks, his loyal yet surly mechanic, built it and wrenching both on the engine—as well as on Hawk—keeps them at the front of the pack. Home again in Los Angeles from behind the stick of a T-6 Texan as a mercenary in the Congo civil war, air racing is a new aviation adventure for Hawk. Ride along as he tangles with fellow pilots in “uncooperative formation flying” at two-hundred miles per hour a mere fifty feet off the ground!
And then one day cruising home to Van Nuys airport, Hawk spies Allison, a beach-blonde surfer girl, insanely wing walking on the top wing of a Stearman PT-17 bi-plane. He quickly sets his sights on her.
Fly low…Fly fast…and Turn Left…
COVER: This is a cool design and fits in well with the earlier books of the series.
FIRST CHAPTER: Hawk, Scotty, and a few other guys are racing their airplanes at Antelope Acres, their makeshift course, But Sparks isn't too happy when something unexpected happens.
KEEP READING: Probably. Admittedly, I'm out of my element with some of the jargon, but I love the tight writing, the action-filled opening chapter, the characters that are already taking shape in my head. Though the third book in the White Hawk Aviation Adventure Series, this one stands by itself. No mention of Allison yet, but I am sure that is coming. I feel it wise for the author to cement for the reader who these tight-knit characters are before introducing her.
EXCERPT
Chapter 1 — Antelope Acres
I chased Scotty down the long straightaway. Three hundred feet back. A hundred feet off the ground. One hundred seventy knots.
Quick looks at the panel: Thirty-six hundred RPM. Look: engine oil pressure—green. Look: oil temperature—green.
All good.
Banking hard into the “pylon” at W Avenue G and Myrick Canyon Road over the desert, a shadow on the ground to my left crawled toward my British Racing Green colored wing. He had to be outside. You can’t look to the right. It’s just not safe. But the sun was behind us…
I lofted a bit in the eighty-degree turn—climbed twenty feet or so—then quickly dove back down to close another hundred and fifty feet on Scotty, picking up a bit of his wake turbulence.
Rolling out and down the front straightaway, I found smooth air twenty-five feet above his hot red Jensen Cassutt.
We used the crossroads, a pile of rocks, a little hump in the desert sand, and a windmill water pump to set up our three-mile oval course. I knew Scotty from Van Nuys, but the other three guys were new, from other SoCal airports. We were all on “Company Frequency,” one-two-three point four-five. We joined up in a loose formation for a pace lap, then got down to business with a flying start.
Like Henry Ford said, racing began five minutes after the second airplane was built. And that’s where Father Bob came in. There were a ton of modified Cassutts out there. Anybody could buy the design for $20. But Father Bob used his engineering skills to develop and, with Sparks’ help, build White Hawk Redux, an 85 horsepower, Continental C-85 Goodyear racer that we were pushing over two hundred miles an hour.
It was all unofficial because, after fifty years of glorious history, airplane racing fell off the face of the earth for a while in the Sixties. There were no sanctioned races around anymore, so we made up our own course, kicking up dust devils and rooster tails over the desolation of Antelope Acres. Our version of California street drags.
Of course, I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was learning fast.
Around the windmill and up to the forty-foot hump in the sand. I chased Scotty down foot by foot. I knew I could take him.
Only two laps left. It was now or never.
Banking hard into the crossroads, I juiced the power up near four thousand RPM and pulled back on the stick to take Scotty up and outside.
But dammit, I missed him—
In my peripheral vision, a Tweety-yellow racer on my right came toward me.
I flattened my wings and rolled off the power sweeping below him to keep from colliding. But I caught the tornado of his wingtip vortices and involuntarily flipped inverted.
A Joshua tree bloomed overhead in my canopy as I arced upside-down towards the ground at two-hundred-fifty feet. Gravity pulled my shoulders down against the straps of my five-point harness.
Without thinking, back pressure on the stick moved quickly forward to illogically raise the nose with a nudge of left rudder to roll level and maxing out the power…
Stories by M.T. Bass
White Hawk Aviation Adventure Stories
My Brother's Keeper
Jungleland
Racing the Dream
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Murder by Munchausen Sci-Fi Thriller Series
Murder by Munchausen
The Darknet
The Invisible Mind
Motherless Children
Murder by Munchausen Trilogy: Books 1-3
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Article 15
Somethin' for Nothin'
In the Black
Crossroads
Lodging
Untethered
