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to the pit for a stop-and-go penalty—waiting those endless seconds while the chances of getting back to the lead get smaller and smaller.
    â€œAnd she’s got to stop right on the mark,” Tim said. “If she overshoots the pit, she’ll have to back up. That can cost more valuable seconds.”
    I walked around Brian Nelson to see what he was getting through his camera. If the light gave a good angle, the red flush of excitement on Tim’s face would show up clearly and give more to this segment. Standing at an angle behind Brian, I shot some of Brian’s camera and Tim Becker.
    I frowned.
    Brian’s camera light was not on.
    How could he see anything through the viewfinder if the camera wasn’t on?
    I tapped him on the shoulder. I pointed at the dull light.
    His jaw dropped. “Sorry, man,” he said. “I just got so caught up in watching the race that I stopped paying attention to my view-finder.”
    And at that moment, the roar of a hundred and fifty thousand people was so loud that he snapped his head back toward the track.
    It snapped me back to the track too. Along with my handheld. I had the view-finder so glued to my eye that it was just like another part of my body.
    I saw that in front of us, a car was spinning out of control. Another car slammed into its back end. Then another.
    Three other cars zoomed by. They all separated so quickly that the next car didn’t see the stopped cars until the very last second.
    Into my viewfinder came the next car. Red. Scarlet red. Sandy Peterson’s car. And she had less than a heartbeat to react to the accident.

chapter ten
    I kept filming.
    Sandy swung her wheel hard. Her front fender clipped the back end of the car in front of her. She plowed ahead, smoke rising from her tires. She fought for control and somehow swung the Chevy down to the bottom of the track. Still going, still smoking, she headed toward pit road.
    Yellow flag!
    Sandy was closest to pit road. Her speed was down. Way down.
    She gunned the motor and the car strained to push forward against the tire that burned against the fender.
    More smoke.
    More squealing tires.
    And she was headed right toward us.
    I took my camera away from my eyes so I could look where I was going as I got out of the way.
    I saw that Brian Nelson was watching the action with his mouth hanging open.
    â€œShoot this!” I shouted. Uncle Mike was too busy juggling the in-car cameras and audio to notice that Brian was doing nothing. “Shoot this!”
    I swung my camera around toward the car.
    â€œTim!” I shouted as I searched for the action through my viewfinder. “Give me audio. Keep talking. Give us the play-by-play.”
    My camera would catch the action and his words. Later, we could patch everything together. Now I just needed to record as much as possible.
    The back end of the Chevy swung crazily back and forth as Sandy fought to control a skid.
    She brought the car in perfectly. And I had it all on film.
    As George barked orders, eight crew members shot forward. One of them pushed a giant jack under the car.
    â€œShe caught a break,” Tim said. He spoke quickly, urgently. “This yellow flag lets her come in without losing time to the other drivers. She’s looking at a minute, maybe two minutes in the pit for her crew to fix the damage she just got. That could have put her down maybe three laps under a green flag.”
    The Chevy was already off the ground. Four men attacked the tires.
    With a couple of high-speed screams from their air guns, the single giant bolt on each tire released. Other crew members were ready to pull the tires off and throw new ones on—except for the front right tire where the front fender was pushed in against the still-smoking tire.
    â€œMove it with the hammers!” George shouted. “Move it! Move it! Move it!”
    Two of the crew jumped forward, pounding with big hammers to knock the fender back off the