Free Dirt Bomb by Fleur Beale

did that for an hour or so, but it got boring when there was no challenge in it. Any idiot could knock over road cones. I went back to trying to look ahead of where I was driving, back to trying to keep my eyes on where I wanted to go, trying to keep my head upright instead of leaning into the corners. That was meant to help. It didn’t seem to, any more than the other rules did. I nearly gave up. Run after run, I sent cones flying, and notjust one or two either. I slowed right down to a crawl. Got right through, but — hold the champagne — you could do it with eyes shut at that speed. Robbie and Buzz were lying on the ground when I got back from that one. I kept trying. Nothing felt different, and concentrating like hell was no fun.
    Buzz climbed into the car after a run where I’d only hit three cones. ‘Good work, Jake my man. You went faster than a crawl that time.’
    He took off, belting up the paddock. He jammed on the brakes, slid smack into the first corner, went wide so that he left the next eight cones standing because he zapped past them on the outside. Right at the end, he barreled back into the course and flattened the final cone.
    Robbie shook his head. ‘Fast but not tidy.’
    Buzz wasn’t worried. ‘We’re here to have fun, my men. Fast is fun.’ He sat on the car door and swung his legs over. ‘Try it, Jake. It’s a blast.’
    What the hell. I floored the gas and took off with a roar of exhaust. Yes! I was laughing, fighting the car, turning into the bends with brakes screeching. I sent cones flying at every turn.
    Robbie and Buzz were cheering when I got back. ‘Told you,’ Buzz said.
    Robbie jumped in, fired up the engine, crunched into first gear, blipped the gas, spun the wheels, then powered off.
    Buzz shook his head. ‘Mate, we could be needing a new gear box.’
    We heard every single gear change. I pictured littlepieces of metal flying off the cogs every time Robbie messed up a change. I drove so much better than he did — almost as good as Buzz did, I reckon. It just proved what a bit of practice could do.
    Which led me right round to thinking about whether or not I wanted to beat Buzz at the slalom. I didn’t have to think long and hard about that one: yes I did, I so absolutely did.
    I watched him carefully when he did his next run. Robbie was yabbering away beside me about how good Buzz was and how he was going to practise so he could beat him. I said yeah and good on yo u to make him think I was listening. My mind was on Buzz. He was getting slightly faster, but he never did a run without knocking over at least half the cones. I tuned into what Robbie was saying and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Me too, bro. Tell you what, though — I’m going to beat the both of you.’
    Robbie said, ‘Yeah, right! Slow and sure never won a slalom, bro.’
    No, but fast and furious when you didn’t know what the hell you were doing wasn’t getting us far either.
    I went back to following the rules. They went back to mocking me. I so wanted to floor it, to screech into the turns, to feel the car judder as the wheels lost traction, but I didn’t. The only way to get better than Buzz was to learn how to do it properly. I just hoped that bloody article was right, because I was going to look a proper wally if I kept up my granny-driving and never got any better.
    Then, suddenly, things changed. I stopped feeling like I was fighting the car. The gear changes flowed better, the turns felt smoother. I was still hitting more cones than I missed but, yes! I was getting somewhere.
    After about ten more attempts, I did a run where I only hit one cone. The next time I got through with every cone untouched. I wasn’t going the speed the others were driving at, but I wasn’t crawling either. The guys watched me come back, hands on their hips, thinking-type looks on their faces.
    ‘Okay,’ Robbie said, ‘so what’s the secret?’
    ‘Well, it’s like this. You have to …’
    Buzz turned to