Racing
the Dream
by
M.T. Bass
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE:
Action and Adventure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
“If
everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
~Mario Andretti
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…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
M.T.
Bass is a scribbler of fiction who holds fast to the notion that
while victors may get to write history, novelists get to write/right
reality. He lives, writes, flies and makes music in Mudcat Falls,
USA.
Born in
Athens, Ohio, M.T. Bass grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated
from Ohio Wesleyan University, majoring in English and Philosophy,
then worked in the private sector (where they expect “results”)
mainly in the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing market. He is the
author of twelve novels, two novellas, and a book of verse. His
writing spans various genres, including Mystery, Adventure, Romance,
Black Comedy and TechnoThrillers. A Commercial Pilot and Certified
Flight Instructor, airplanes and pilots are featured in many of his
stories. Bass currently lives on the shores of Lake Erie near Lorain,
Ohio.
M.T.
Bass Author Links
Website:
https://www.mtbass.net
Blog:
https://www.owl-works.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/owlworks/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Owlworks
Amazon
Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/mtbass
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5270962.M_T_Bass
Racing
the Dream Purchase Links
Author
Web Site Info Page:
https://mtbassauthor.wordpress.com/racing-the-dream-white-hawk-aviation-stories-3/
Amazon
(Kindle Unlimited): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CCSVMSQV
Stories
by M.T. Bass
White
Hawk Aviation Adventure Stories
My
Brother's Keeper
Jungleland
Racing
the Dream
***~~~***
Murder
by Munchausen Sci-Fi Thriller Series
Murder
by Munchausen
The
Darknet
The
Invisible Mind
Motherless
Children
Murder
by Munchausen Trilogy: Books 1-3
***~~~***
Article
15
Somethin'
for Nothin'
In the
Black
Crossroads
Lodging
Untethered
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY
INFORMATION
a Rafflecopter giveawayM.T.
Bass will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn
winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Meet the Author
1. Can you tell me a little about yourself, and how you became an author?
I just kind of stumbled into being an author. All the pieces parts were there, though. When the music conservatory thing didn’t work out for me, I switched over to the English Department and studied creative writing with poet and novelist Robert Flanagan at Ohio Wesleyan University. I wrote verse to help me with my songwriting aspirations. When I flamed out on that and ended up in Colorado, I tried my hand at scribbling out novels and collected my fair share of rejection slips until the eBook craze hit in 2011. Since then I’ve published twelv, with another one on the way next year.
2. What is your book about?
Racing the Dream is the third book in my aviation adventure series and it deals with the revival of pylon air racing in the early Sixties. Hawk returns from being a mercenary fighter pilot in Congo in the previous book. He doesn’t quite know what to do, until his buddies, Father Bob and Sparks, design and build a Formula 1 air racer. There’s lots of flying action and, of course, a romantic angle with Allison, a beach-blonde surfer girl who is also a wing-walker. It was great fun to write.
3. Who is your hero/heroine? Is he/she based on someone in real life?
Hawk is a former P-51 Mustang pilot who served in World War II. He’s been a movie stunt pilot, ran a bush flying operation in Alaska, and fought as a mercenary pilot in the Congo Civil War. He is kind of a conglomeration of most of the fighter pilots I’ve read about (Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson, Robin Olds, etc.). And I’m sure there is a bit of me tucked in there, too. Allison is a new character and it was great fun creating her character. I have a follow-up story in mind for both of them after Racing the Dream.
4. What are your favorite times for writing? Morning? Evening?
I like to write first thing in the morning before I do anything else, like going through my email inbox, reading the news, checking social media, or start moving about the cabin—well, I do get myself coffee first. I like writing when I’m totally refreshed and undistracted. After that, I don’t really care what happens to my day. Not really, but I’ve put the best part of it into my work.
5. Who are your favorite authors? Did they influence your writing, and if so, how?
My five favorite authors are: 1) Joseph Heller; 2) Kurt Vonnegut; 3) Mark Twain; 4) Thomas Berger; and 5) Carl Hiaasen. I think the main thing about them all is that there is a serious vein of humor that runs deeply through their books—and mine, too.
6. Did you have a favorite book as a child? Did it influence your choice to become an author?
My favorite book was Sabre Jet Ace. It’s a biography about Joseph McConnell, Jr., who was the first triple jet ace, flying F-86s in the Korean War. It had no influence on me becoming an author, but it did inspire me to become a pilot.
