Dead-Axle Ridge
Twelve-year-old scrap sorter Jesse Vance knows the exact difference between mild steel and brittle cast iron by the spark color off an abrasive wheel. But when a predatory equipment dealer slaps a repossession tag on his grandfather's vintage South Bend metal lathe, scrap knowledge alone cannot stop the flatbed wrecker from hauling away the heart of Vance Salvage. Jesse stakes everything on an unsanctioned Fourth of July downhill derby down the treacherous, four-mile switchbacks of Dead-Axle Ridge.
Teaming up with Rory Chen, a sharp-eyed feed-mill mechanic with an unyielding grasp of vehicle kinematics, Jesse builds a low-slung gravity racer from combine trailing arms and salvaged grain-auger bearings. When a high-speed rollover in an abandoned limestone quarry shatters the front end forty-eight hours before race night, the pair must rebuild stronger, true their own high-carbon kingpins, and engineer dual-scrub brakes capable of surviving thirty-eight miles per hour on unbanked mountain blacktop.
Facing a factory-built carbon-fiber racer and the unforgiving shale drop-offs of the mountain pass, Jesse must trust Rory's geometry and his own hands to survive the descent and keep Pop's shop alive.
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A short preview from Dead-Axle Ridge.
The Repossession Tag
The cutting torch hissed low and blue against the rusted flange of an International Harvester combine drum. Jesse Vance leaned over the tip, watching the flame lick away scale until the mild steel glowed cherry orange. When he tripped the oxygen lever, sparks flew in a singing cone that bounced off his leather apron and died in the coal dust between his work boots.
"Mind the hose, Jesse," Pop Vance said from the tool chest. He did not look up from the cast-iron casing he was cleaning with kerosene. His voice had the dry rasp of forty years breathing grinding grit and river damp. "Slag burns through rubber before you smell it."
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