My Ultimate Sign-in System Made Me Invincible

Chapter 759: A Moment Of Celebration

Liam unbuckled his harness, pulled the steering wheel off, and set it back on its column. He pushed himself up out of the cockpit, stepped onto the halo, and stood tall above the gray car.

The roar from the main grandstand hit him like a wall. Sixty thousand people were on their feet, screaming and waving flags. Liam raised one gloved fist into the glare of the floodlights, and the crowd got even louder.

He jumped down from the car straight into a crowd of gray team shirts. The Halden mechanics had rushed the low fence of parc fermé, and they pulled him into a tight pack. Hands slammed into his shoulders and helmet. Pete threw both arms around Liam’s neck and shouted over the noise.

"Unbelievable, mate! Absolutely unbelievable!" Pete yelled, his face bright red under the lights. "You did it! You actually did it!"

Liam pulled off his helmet and balaclava and took a deep breath of the warm night air. He laughed and patted Pete on the back. "The car was solid, Pete. Every single lap."

The crowd of mechanics parted as the champion walked across parc fermé. He had already taken his helmet off, and his dark hair was damp with sweat. He looked tired, but his eyes were steady. He held out his hand.

"Incredible driving," the champion said.

Liam took his hand, and the champion pulled him into a short, firm hug.

When he stepped back, he looked at Liam with a crooked grin and shook his head. "Was that really your first race?"

"First official one," Liam said with a small smile.

The champion let out a dry laugh. "You raced like you had ten titles in your pocket. That move on the last lap was clean as glass. Most drivers would have put us both into the wall."

"You left me the room," Liam said. "Thanks for the fight."

"You earned it, kid," the champion said, tapping Liam’s chest with the back of his knuckles. "Don’t come back next year. Give the rest of us a chance."

They walked into the cool-down room under the podium together. The third-place driver, a young European, sat on a bench with a cold towel around his neck. When Liam walked in, he froze and stared at him like a ghost had just walked in wearing a racing suit.

On the big screen on the wall, the replay of the last lap was playing. The champion stood in front of it with a water bottle in his hand and watched Liam pull out of his tow, brake beside him, and take the corner around the outside without touching him.

"Look at that braking," the champion said, pointing his bottle at the screen. He watched it a second time, then turned to Liam and shook his head slowly. "Perfect balance."

Both drivers knew Liam could do impossible things. But driving a race car was something people spent years learning, and today he had shown them that the same rule didn’t apply to him.

***

The door opened, and the three drivers walked out onto the podium high above the front straight.

The crowd below exploded again. Thousands of phone lights covered the grandstands like white sparks. Liam stepped up onto the top step and rested his hands on the rail.

The speakers crackled, and the American national anthem played across Yas Marina. Liam stood straight and watched the flags rise against the night sky. When it ended, the British anthem played for Halden Racing. Down at the bottom of the podium stairs, Pete stood with his eyes shining in the lights.

An Abu Dhabi official in a white kandura stepped forward with two attendants carrying the trophies. He gave a respectful nod, shook Liam’s hand, and handed him the tall gold winner’s trophy.

"Congratulations, Mr. Scott," the official said with a calm voice. "An extraordinary performance."

"Thank you," Liam said, and he lifted the trophy high above his head.

When the constructor’s trophy came out for the winning team, Liam stepped down from the top step, walked to the side rail, and waved down at Pete.

"Get up here, Pete!" Liam called.

Pete blinked, pointed at his own chest, and shook his head. "No, no, mate! That’s for the bosses! I’m just the engineer!"

"You set up the car and you called the pit stop," Liam said with a firm voice, pointing at the stairs. "Come get your trophy."

The crowd caught on and started chanting Pete’s name. Red in the face, Pete jogged up the metal stairs. Liam handed him the trophy, and Pete took it with shaking hands, his jaw tight as he fought back tears. He held it up to the mechanics gathered below, and they roared.

Then the bottles came out. The champion didn’t wait for the countdown. He popped his cork with a loud snap and fired a cold stream of foam straight into Liam’s face.

Splash!

Liam wiped his eyes with his sleeve, grabbed his own bottle, and sprayed it right back at the champion’s chest. Pete caught some of it on his team polo and laughed as he shielded the trophy with his arm.

Liam lowered his bottle and looked up at the glass boxes above the pit lane. Yanxia was pressed against the glass of the Bellemere suite, jumping up and down and waving her little checkered flag with both hands. Beside her, Elise had her camera pointed down at the podium, and Matt was pumping both fists in the air like he had won the race himself.

As the spray settled, a former driver in a clean suit stepped up to Liam with a microphone and a wide grin.

"Liam Scott, winner of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix!" the interviewer shouted, and his voice echoed across the grandstands. "Nobody saw this coming. From the back of the grid to first on your debut, with no practice and no qualifying, in a midfield car against the best in the world. How does a race like that happen?"

Liam took the microphone. "The car was amazing. The Halden crew gave me a setup that was balanced from the first corner to the last. The pit stop was their fastest all year, and Pete kept me calm on the radio. The credit belongs to the people in that garage. They built a car that could win."

The crowd cheered for the team.

"We saw the moves, Liam," the interviewer said with an eager grin. "The whole motorsport world is watching. Will we see you on the grid next season?"

Liam gave him a small, polite smile. "No. I just came to try it and see what the engineering was like. It was a good day, but once is enough."

A huge groan swept through the grandstands, followed by laughter from the paddock below. The interviewer laughed too, shook his hand, and let him go.

***

Down in the Halden garage, the party was already going when Liam came back. Mechanics were spraying water across the floor, and the team principal was hugging every tire technician in sight.

The back doors flew open, and Liam’s friends poured in.

Yanxia ran ahead of everyone, her little sneakers squeaking on the garage floor.

"Papa!" she cried.

Liam dropped to one knee, and Yanxia threw her arms around his neck so hard she almost knocked him over. He caught her and stood up with her on his shoulder.

"You didn’t lose!" she yelled right into his ear, waving her flag against his hair. "I told you to drive fast, and you drove very fast!"

"Of course I didn’t lose," Liam said, and he tapped her nose.

Matt pushed his way to the front and grabbed Liam by the shoulders. "Are you out of your mind? You went around the outside on the last lap! The outside! That guy has won four championships! Do you know what LucidNet looks like right now? It’s going crazy!"

"He gained every place on the grid," Harper said, reading from his tablet. "And he set the fastest lap of the race on the very last lap."

"I have the whole thing on video," Elise said, holding her camera up to catch Liam and Yanxia with the car behind them. "Your onboard footage is going on the channel tonight. People are going to lose their minds."

Alex leaned against the front wing with his arms crossed and a broad grin. "I told Matt you wouldn’t crash. He was sweating on lap thirty."

"I was not sweating," Matt said. "I was concerned."

"You were shaking," Kristy said, walking past with a paper cup of soda.

Liam spent the next twenty minutes moving through the garage and shaking hands with every mechanic and engineer he could find. He stopped to thank the front jack man, who was still grinning from ear to ear, and he listened to what each of them had to say about the race before he went out the back to change.

***

Later that night, the celebration moved to Mia.

The yacht sat lit up at her berth along the marina wall, her deck lights reflecting off the dark water. Music drifted out of the main salon, where the Halden mechanics and Liam’s friends were working through a huge buffet.

Liam stood by the bar on the upper deck, looking out at the city lights across the water. A Bellemere staff member in a dark suit came quietly up the stairs with a slim leather folder.

"Mr. Scott," he said softly. "The marina gate is completely backed up. Over four hundred people have asked to meet you tonight."

Liam took the folder and flipped through the long list of names. He closed it after a short look. "It’s been a long day. Please decline them politely and pass on my apologies." He paused and tapped three lines with his finger. "Except these three. Bring them up one at a time."

The staff member nodded and went back down the stairs.

The first guest arrived five minutes later. It was Arthur Halden, the elderly British owner of Halden Racing. He walked with a wooden cane and wore a sharp navy blazer, his white hair neat against his collar. He stepped onto the deck with a warm smile.

"Mr. Scott," Arthur said, holding out a weathered hand. "What you did today, I don’t have the words for it. You put our name at the top of the world."

"The car was fantastic, Arthur," Liam said, shaking his hand. "Your people deserve all the praise. They built a wonderful car."

Arthur looked at him with an honest, hopeful look in his eyes. "I know you have the whole world to run. But I have to ask. Name your terms, any salary and any schedule you want. A full-time seat is yours next season if you want it."

Liam smiled and shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, Arthur. But I came here to see what racing felt like from inside the car. Once was enough for me. It was a wonderful day, but my work is somewhere else."

Arthur sighed, but his smile stayed. "I expected as much. I still had to try. You gave this old man the best afternoon of his life. Thank you, Liam."

"Thank you, Arthur," Liam said, and he walked the old man back to the stairs.

The second visitor came up with a quick, confident stride. It was Whitlock. He wore a simple linen shirt with the collar open and held a glass of sparkling water. He looked completely relaxed, far from the boardrooms where they usually met.

"You really don’t do anything halfway, do you?" Whitlock said with a short laugh as he leaned on the deck rail. "I flew halfway around the world to watch you turn a Sunday drive into the biggest story on the planet."

Liam laughed and leaned on the rail beside him. "I didn’t plan it that way. The team had an empty seat, and I wanted to drive."

"Well, you drove," Whitlock said, and he took a sip from his glass. "Half of Wall Street has spent the last two hours trying to work out if Nova is buying the sport."

"It was just a race, Whitlock."

"With you, nobody ever believes it’s just a race," Whitlock said with a faint smile. "They look for grand plans even when you’re just having fun. But it was brilliant to watch."

They talked for a few more minutes about his flight and the weather before Whitlock shook his hand and headed back down to the marina lounge.

The last visitors were brought up by a guard. A middle-aged man in a faded polo shirt walked onto the deck holding the hand of an eight-year-old boy. The boy wore a red racing cap covered in old badges and held a pair of worn karting gloves tight against his chest. They both looked nervous, and their eyes went wide as they took in the yacht.

The father cleared his throat. "Mr. Scott, I can’t thank you enough for letting us come up here. We never imagined this."

"Welcome," Liam said warmly, and he stepped forward to meet them. He looked down at the boy and smiled. "What’s your name?"

"Leo," the boy said quietly.

"I bought our grandstand tickets six months ago," the father said, and a proud smile broke across his tired face. "Back when nobody knew you were coming. After you announced it, people offered me seventy thousand dollars for our seats. Brokers called my phone day and night."

Liam looked at him with interest. "That’s a lot of money to turn down."

"It is," the man said. "We’re not rich. But Leo races karts every weekend. He saved his allowance for a whole year to help pay for these tickets. I promised him we were going to the season final, and a promise to my son is worth more than any check."

Liam knelt down on the deck so he was eye to eye with the boy. "You drive karts?"

Leo nodded fast, and his shyness started to melt away. "In the cadet class. I’m number fourteen."

"Do you like the fast corners or the heavy braking zones?" Liam asked.

"The braking zones," Leo said, and his eyes lit up. "You can pass people if you brake late and hold the inside line."

"That’s exactly what I did today," Liam said with a big smile.

He reached into his pocket and took out the white and gray gloves he had worn in the race, still marked from the steering wheel. He took a pen from the bar, signed his name across the cuffs, and put them in Leo’s hands. Then he signed the brim of the boy’s red cap.

"Keep practicing those braking zones, Leo," Liam said as he stood and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. "Maybe in ten years, you’ll be the one driving for Halden."

Leo held the gloves against his chest with both arms, his face shining. "Thank you, Mr. Scott! I will! I promise!"

The father shook Liam’s hand for a long moment, and the guard led them back toward the gangway. Liam watched them walk down the dock until they were gone, then went back down to his friends with a smile on his face.