Freestyle Frenzy!

If you ever need to find Mudslide, just follow the mud.

That Saturday afternoon, the mud led across the Garage to Mudslide’s bay. There was a puddle right beside it. There was always a puddle beside Mudslide’s bay. Nobody had ever seen him bring one in.

Mudslide was rolling one front tire through the puddle, very slowly, the way he did everything. He turned a little, rolled back, and turned again. Wherever his tire went, it left a line.

Then Nitro came around the corner at top speed, because top speed was the only speed Nitro had.

SKREEEEEE!

He stopped one inch from the puddle. Blue sparks fizzed off his tires.

“Whoa! What are you DOING?”

“Art, bro,” said Mudslide.

Nitro looked at the puddle. He looked at Mudslide. He looked at the puddle again. “That’s... mud.”

“That’s what I said. Art.”

Torque rolled down off the big lift to see. She had been up there giving her crane arm one last check. It was the long arm that folded up behind her cab. It could lift a monster-truck tire and set it down without a sound.

She looked at the puddle. The lines weren’t just lines. There was a circle, with rows of tiny marks all around it and a little ramp in the middle.

“It’s the Rumble Bowl,” said Torque.

“Practice,” said Mudslide. “For tonight.”

Big Stomp rumbled over and peered down at the puddle. “Huh,” he said. “That’s actually kind of amazing.”

Just then the Command Screen lit up on the wall, and a notice rolled across it, one glowing word at a time. Freestyle Frenzy. Tonight. Sixty seconds each.

Every engine in the Garage revved at once. Freestyle Nights were the best nights of all, because every truck got a whole minute on the floor to do anything it liked.

“Okay, crew,” said Big Stomp. “Sixty seconds. What wins freestyle?” He didn’t wait for anyone to answer. “Big landings! The bigger the better!”

“Speed,” said Nitro. “Speed wins freestyle. Speed wins everything.”

“Knocking stuff down,” said Smash, while the Garage’s little automatic brush buffed her armor until it shone. “Always has.”

“Flips!” Bounce came boinging across the floor. “More flips, more points! And tonight I’m doing a quadruple backflip. That’s four whole flips. All on my own!”

Torque lowered her crane arm. “Have you landed a quadruple in practice?”

Bounce’s springs sagged, just a little. “I’ve landed three and three-quarters.”

“And the last quarter?” asked Smash.

“I land on my roof.” Bounce sprang right back up. “But in a COOL way!”

Mudslide didn’t say anything. He just dipped his hood at his puddle.

Then everybody looked at Torque.

Torque had spent the whole day on everybody else’s runs. She had tuned Nitro’s engine until it purred. She had checked all four of Bounce’s springs, twice. She had planned Big Stomp’s run down to the second.

She had not planned her own run at all.

“What about you, Torque?” asked Big Stomp. “What wins freestyle?”

Torque thought about it. She thought about big, and fast, and smash, and flips, and mud. She was not the biggest truck in the Garage, or the fastest, and she had never once flipped on purpose.

“I don’t know yet,” she said.

That was a very strange thing for Torque to say. Torque always knew.