Correct answer is... River Rose and Dawn Hathaway! I was really only chasing first names, so good job, guys!

Personally, I think this chapter and the next one are pretty adorable. I'm hoping you all think so too!

Chapter 34- Racers!

"And how far back are they now?!" Jackson Storm quizzed his crew chief smugly not long later.

"Look! Behind you!" was Ray's response.

"What?!" Storm did as he was told to find Cruz right behind him, so close that they were almost touching.

"Hi!" Fudge waved, giggling.

"Good evening, Storm!" Cruz greeted him mischievously.

"Wait! How did you-"

"Just back here drafting on your butt!" Cruz continued. "Nothing to be concerned about!"

As the two raced past the pits, they could see their friends and family looking proud and excited. Guido was even jumping up and down!

"Like two June bugs on a summer night!" Lightning chimed in while Smokey laughed.

Fudge laughed too and, remembering their conversation in Thomasville, added in a mock serious voice, "Credit to Junior 'Midnight' Moon!"

"When do you want me to break out the dandelions?" Cruz quizzed Fudge. That was the code that she, Fudge and Lightning had agreed on a few minutes prior for when they wanted to overtake Storm. I think you can guess that the code was in honour of a certain goose and his favourite treat! Plus, Smokey was relieved that he got the reference on that one as well!

"When we're ready, I'll let you know!" Fudge assured the yellow car.

The trio shifted from one line to another, which just pissed Storm off more and more.

Cruz laughed. Then she called out, "Hey! Hamilton!"

"Hamilton here!"

"Call out our speed!" Cruz requested.

"Two hundred and eight miles per hour, two hundred and seven miles per hour!" Hamilton reported.

Fudge laughed. Not only was this amusing to her, but she still thought that Hamilton giving speeds sounded weird when it wasn't followed by, "Out of range, out of range, out of range!"

"Would you stop that?!" Storm barked. "You're taking me off my line!"

"Last lap!" Lightning sang.

"Come on, girls!" Smokey added.

"You go, girls!" Sammy cheered them on.

"GO, FUDGIE!" Luigi repeated.

Fudge sucked in a deep breath as they crossed the line with the white flag waving. All of their hard work came down to this. She was ready. "Let's go, Cruz!"

"Uh-oh!" Cruz cried abruptly in a teasing tone. She was still drafting on Storm. "My GPS is saying we have slow traffic in our way!"

"Ohhh!" Fudge exclaimed. "Roasted!"

"No, no, no, no!" Storm shouted. "You are not winning this!"

"Ah! You're angry!" Cruz exclaimed.

"I am not angry!" Storm argued.

"You know", Cruz informed him, "you can use that anger to push through!"

"I SAID I'M NOT ANGRY!" Storm yelled.

Fudge laughed again. She had said the exact same thing in the exact same tone so many times before.

"Now, Cruz!" the sixteen-year-old shouted. "Time to break out the dandelions!"

Cruz didn't need to be told twice. She moved over to try and overtake Storm.

"Oh, I don't think so!" he shouted, also moving over to block her.

So, Cruz shifted back over to the other side, the one closest to the wall.

"No!" Storm yelled, slamming Cruz into the wall with a yelp from the yellow car.

"Fudgie!" Fudge heard both her fathers gasp.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" she assured them hurriedly.

Luckily, Fudge managed to lift both of her legs out of the way in time again to avoid being crushed by either Storm or the wall, but Cruz was being dragged up against the wall for what felt like a long time. She was clearly in pain and sparks flew up behind her. Fudge had to raise her arm to prevent the sparks from hitting her in the face. Thank Chrysler she was wearing her goggles.

"Cruz, get out of there!" Lightning shouted, horrified.

For a moment, Fudge doubted that that would happen. How is she gonna get out of here? she wondered. Then the human girl stopped and thought about the story Smokey told in Thomasville and the video she'd watched on the way to Florida that morning. Another slow grin formed on her face. She had an idea!

"Cruz! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?!"

"What?!" Lightning demanded in a panic. "What are you thinking?!"

Cruz grinned, knowing exactly what she was saying. "Yes I am! Hold on!"

So, Fudge got into a better position for Cruz to do what must be done.

"You don't belong on this track!" Storm yelled at Cruz and Fudge. "Either of you!"

Cruz took a deep breath. "Yes... we... DO!" she and Fudge cried simultaneously.

On the last word, Cruz pushed off the wall to flip over Storm just as Doc had done to another racer all those years ago!


Time seemed to stand still for everyone who witnessed it. For what felt like a long time, Cruz and Fudge were upside-down in the air with a shower of sparks still behind them. Just about everyone had wide eyes and bated breath, watching them. When Lightning had heard Fudge ask Cruz if she was thinking the same thing as she was, he'd had no idea what she was talking about. Now, he could see the incredible move Smokey had described right in front of him. He was amazed! (Even too amazed to worry about Fudge falling off and getting hurt again!) So were the Legends, who hadn't seen this move exhibited in over sixty years. Even so, they could tell it was just as impressive the second time around.


Storm, on the other tyre, wasn't so impressed. He had no idea what they were doing, but it didn't look good for him, which was all he cared about.


As for Cruz and Fudge, it was as if the whole world had melted away. Both of them were in the air. They each felt a rush of exhilaration and adrenaline neither of them had ever felt before. For a brief moment, Fudge closed her eyes. Then she opened them to find the whole world upside-down. It felt like they were never going to come down.


Yet, they did. Cruz landed on the other side of Storm and zipped across the finish line ahead of him!

"I don't believe it!" Bob Cutlass declared. "It's Cruz Ramirez and Fudge Rossi-Topolino for the win!"

"I AM SPEECHLESS!" Darrell Cartrip exclaimed.

Even with the checkered flag waving in front of them, the fireworks raining over the stadium and the cheering fans, it didn't seem real to the two racers.

"Whoo-hoo!" they heard Lightning cheer through the radio.

"Git R done!" Mater added.

"Fudgie! You have won your first race!" That was Luigi. "Congratulations, my little angel!"

"Way to go, ladies! You did it! You gave that moron a good lesson!" That was Sammy.

That was when Cruz started grinning. That had just happened! They'd done it! They had just won their very first race! Fudge, however, felt a strange sense of calm wash over her. It was probably because the weight of their amazing feat hadn't sunken in yet.

"Oh, my God!" the human girl cried. "Did that just happen?!"

"You better believe it!" Lightning confirmed.

It sure did happen and so many people were going wild for it.


"CRUZ RAMIREZ!" Maddy McGear cheered. "FUDGE ROSSI-POPPOLEE!" Rossi-Topolino was hard for someone so young to say. It had taken even Fudge herself a while to get the hang of it too!

"YAY, FUDGE!" Summer whooped, overjoyed to have a fellow human girl win the race.


"Way to go, Cruz and Fudge!" Louise Nash hollered.


"WHOO! YES!" Miss Fritter screamed back in Thunder Hollow.

"Way to go, Frances Beltline and Joy Sweet!" Roxy Rocket cheered.

"GO, SWEETHEART!" Wild Wes hollered.

"Who would've thought Sweetheart had it in her?" Fire mused.

"I did!" Ice insisted. "She's pretty gutsy!"

Benny just clapped and whistled loudly.


"Whoo-hoo!" Lizzie whooped back in Radiator Springs as Red cried. Maybe the race hadn't gone the way they imagined, but in the end, they were happy one of their own had won!


In Thomasville, Herman flapped his wings and honked excitedly. His mouth looked like he was smiling.


"Man!" Darrell Cartrip commented, watching Cruz and Fudge take a victory lap from the booth. "Heckuva win!"

"Yeah", Natalie Certain agreed softly. "Heckuva win."


Only not everyone was so happy.

"NO!" Jackson Storm wailed. "I should be the winner! They're not even real racers!"

"Relax, Storm!" Ray radioed to him. "Can't win 'em all. We'll just have to get 'em next time."

That wasn't what Storm wanted to hear. He just parked there, growling and revving his engine as hard as he could, not saying anything.


"Oh, my gosh!" Fudge couldn't help exclaiming, even though it still hadn't sunken in for her yet. "I've always dreamed of this moment!"

With a soft smile on her face, Fudge remembered a moment from back in Radiator Springs when she was four years old...


Four-year-old Fudge was running around and around and around the Leaning Tower of Tyres.

"Last lap!" she cried ecstatically as she ran around one final time. When she made her way round, she shouted excitedly, "I win! I win!" She jumped up and down.

"What is going on?" Luigi wondered as he came outside with Guido. "Are you okay, Fudge?"

"Yes! Luigi, I won!"

"What? What did you win?"

"I won a race! I won my first race!"

"Did you?" Luigi beamed as did Guido. "Go, Fudgie!"

"I am the best racer the world's ever seen!" the four-year-old human girl declared, throwing her arms in the air triumphantly.

"(I am sure you are!)" Guido picked her up and gave her a big kiss.

"Congratulations, my little angel!" Luigi added, giving her a kiss on his own.

"Thanks!" The four-year-old Fudge beamed with pride, feeling so happy,


Well, if Fudge thought winning that race felt good, it was nothing compared to winning the Florida 500 as a sixteen-year-old. She felt like she'd not only made herself, her family, her friends, Cruz and even Doc proud. She felt like she'd even made her four-year-old self proud. That felt super.

Cruz stared all around her dreamily. The monitors all around highlighted number 95 as the winner! "Listen to the crowd cheering!" she murmured almost subconsciously.

"They're cheering for you!" Fudge proclaimed.

"No", Cruz corrected her softly. "They're cheering for us!"

"Me?" Fudge questioned. "I didn't do anything!"

"Fudge, you helped make my dreams come true!" Cruz pointed out to her best friend. "There's no way I could've done this without you! I think we make a pretty good team! Thank you." She paused and added, "I'm proud to call myself your friend."

Fudge grinned. "I'm proud to call myself your friend too! You made my dream come true!"


The private moment between the two ended as their fellow racers approached them to congratulate the pair.

"Hey, Cruz, Fudge! You were flyin'!" Danny Swervez complimented sincerely.

"Thanks!" the two racers chorused.

"You got some mad skills, Fudge!" his human crew chief, Joey Sparks, added, reaching out to give Fudge a high-five. "You too, Cruz!"

"Thanks!" they repeated in unison, getting the feeling that they would be saying that a lot that night.

"You really had it rolling today!" Chase Racelott chimed in, pounding Cruz's tyre.

"That was cool!" Ryan "Inside" Laney put in, also giving Cruz a pound on the tyre.

"Thank you!"

The other human crew chiefs, Flick Turner and Blake Fitzgibbons, ran up to Fudge. "Nice racin' out there, kid!" Flick congratulated. She high-fived the girl.

"You were great, guys!" Blake chimed in. He, too, gave the young human girl a high-five.

"Thanks!"

"Hey, Cruz!" Bubba Wheelhouse teased. "Your blinker's on!"

"It is?" Cruz checked and groaned. "You got me! Very funny!"

Fudge giggled. "We're gonna be getting a lot of that now", she warned Cruz. "That's what racers do!"

"Racers!" Cruz repeated softly, liking the way the word sounded. "We're racers now!"

The human girl grinned, although it still didn't feel real to her. "I guess we are!"


At the same moment, both young women looked over towards the pits at the car responsible for their win that day. He had taken off his headset and was off the crew chief platform. He had come forward, smiling proudly at them. He was happier for them than he would have ever been winning the race himself. As he saw the look on Fudge's face, for the first time since he'd known her, Lightning didn't see her as his baby sister (though to some extent, he always would). In that moment, he saw her as a strong young woman. He saw her as a racer.

Neither Cruz nor Fudge came right out and said thank you- not right then, anyway- but, based on the smiles on each of their faces, he could tell that was exactly what they meant. Just like how they knew, based on the look on his face, he couldn't be more proud of either of them.

"RAMIREZ! ROSSI!" a fan in the stands yelled loudly.

The two winners looked at the electric stadium, who had begun chanting their names, "Cruz, Fudge, Cruz, Fudge!"

"Go ahead!" Lightning instructed them. "Give 'em some smoke!"

Laughing all the way, Cruz did some donuts, sending up a circular trail of smoke.

"YEAH!" Fudge screamed.

When Cruz came to a stop, neither she nor Fudge could stop coughing due to the smoke. Fudge rolled off Cruz's roof to get down, but she stumbled a little and was unable to walk in a straight line, dizzy from all of the spinning.

Lightning chuckled, approaching them. "You'll get used to that!"

Fudge giggled. "I hope so!"

"Oh! My angel!" Luigi cried.

The Fiat raced forward with Guido and the latter picked their daughter up. He held her close to him and gave her a big kiss. "(Congratulations, angel!)"

"Grazie!"

Luigi hugged her while she was still in Guido's arms. "We are both so proud of you!" he whispered in her ear. "We love you so much!"

"Thanks, you guys! I love you both too!"

"Way to go, Sis!" Sammy hollered, picking her sister up and swinging her around. "Bet you're glad I didn't race now!"

Fudge laughed hysterically. "Thanks, Sammy!"

That was when they were followed by the rest of the Radiator Springs residents and Smokey. Fudge gave them all a warm smile. Although it still didn't feel real, she was happy to have won the race and there were no people with whom she wanted to celebrate more! In fact, just as she had done during her knighting ceremony in London five and a half years ago, when Fudge looked at her family beaming at her proudly, she could swear that she saw Doc there, smiling and looking just as proud as everyone else. Everyone began milling around Fudge and Cruz, congratulating them on their victory and giving Fudge hugs while the two just repeated, "Thanks!" over and over again.

"How was that?" Sarge quizzed Fudge as she removed her helmet and goggles.

"That was awesome!" Fudge exclaimed. "I'm actually pretty calm. I guess it hasn't sunken in yet."

"Dad-gum! That there flip thang you done did was so dad-gum unbelievable!" Mater commented.

"Well, we can thank Doc for that!" Fudge informed him, to which the RS gang all wondered, "Doc? Why Doc?"

"Hud- or Doc, as you called him- did the exact same thing over sixty years ago", Smokey explained. "I told these two ladies about it and I'm glad they listened."

Fudge smiled some more. "Thanks." That seemed to be her and Cruz's word of the night.

"Doc did that?!" Sally asked in disbelief.

"Far out, man!" Fillmore added with wide eyes.

"Shoot! I can't imagine Doc doin' somethin' like that!" That was Mater.

"Hey, Smokey!" Fudge called out.

Smokey looked her way, anticipating a joke. "Yeah?"

"Who did it better?" the human girl teased, cracking everyone up.

However, the laughter was short-lived when someone ordered, "Out of my way! Come on! Move it! Move!"

It was Sterling. Nobody knew what he was going to say, but unless it was an apology, they didn't want to hear it.

I love this part of the movie and I love this chapter! I hope you do too! Let me know!

This chapter's question: True or false. Fudge breaks her arm in the accident in Ride.