There is no crowd. There has not been a crowd in some years. The grandstand went in the first flash and the timing shack went with it, which leaves a technical difficulty the driver has been chewing over ever since: a record nobody clocks is not a record, it is only a fast afternoon.
So he keeps a stopwatch. It is a good one. It survived.
The blower moans, the tank behind the firewall throws that particular green across the cracked tar, the helmet is split from ear to crown and does nothing for him anymore, and the trefoils stencilled along the flanks are less decoration than diagnosis. He straps in. He sets the watch on the coaming where he can read it. He goes.
Somewhere out past the cooling towers the road is still straight. That is all a final lap has ever required.
