Disclaimer, as before: Cars, its characters, and all related indicia belong to Disney and Pixar. Henry is mine.

Another dawn, and another predictable argument about the cultural merits of The Star-Spangled Banner as interpreted by Jimi Hendrix. There had been no news that night from Doc's clinic, although the gathered townsfolk had watched as the lights in the clinic stayed on well past midnight and into the wee hours. Red had not been called back for another dousing, though, which they took as a positive sign.

Everyone was sleepy this morning. Even the Sarge's relentless hut-two-three-four pace seemed to be lagging: Fillmore's eyes were barely open at all.

Flo yawned enormously, coming out with a tray of oil-cans for the breakfast crowd. "Hoo-ee, 'scuse me, fellas. I swear, I am too old to be stayin' up all night."

"You're not old, baby," Ramone explained, "you classic. Hey, here come the lovebirds."

Sally and Lightning appeared from the Cozy Cone's office. She didn't bother to serve the Lincoln Continental breakfast unless she had guests, and Lightning no longer really counted as a guest per se. Slowly they rolled up to Flo's, and greeted the others.

"Any word from Doc?" Sally asked, accepting a quart of oil. "Thanks, Flo. –I stayed up as long as I could, but…"

"Not a one, honey. We're all in suspense here."

Lightning yawned too—it was contagious. "…What about the Mustang? Anybody seen bumper or light of him since yesterday night?"

Nobody had. Not even the Sheriff, who rolled in from his speedtrap looking for breakfast and the morning's gossip. "Doc woulda told us if it was bad news," he said, comfortably rocking on his springs. "He always lets y'know straight out. In fact, I remember this one time…"

Whatever Doc had done that one time was not to be told; for, out of the distance on the way to the fields, a very familiar witless mooing and a ground-shaking rumble approached. The Sheriff's eyes went wide. "Oh, no," he said, "not again—" and then the tractors were upon them.

Lightning had still not quite got used to tractors, and couldn't help laughing as the idiot things careened here and there, bonking into things and occasionally tipping over, all the time going "moo" as if it were something of vital importance for all Radiator Springs to hear. One of them wandered into Ramone's place and was very quickly escorted out again by the Impala, waving a can of pink spray paint and yelling curses: another one had a go at eating the Leaning Tower of Tires, but Guido and Luigi managed to dissuade it with gestures and shouting.

"Oh no, Lightning, they're going for the motel!" Sally reversed in a spray of road-dust and headed back to her livelihood, just in time to see a tractor attempt to climb one of the cones and tip onto its enormous back wheels, hooting. Lightning couldn't stop laughing even as he hurried to help Sally corral the others; down Main Street he could hear Mater whooping and swinging his tow cable in a makeshift lasso.

Well, thought Flo, as chaos reigned, that sure is a helluva way to wake up.

"Hey, man," DJ hissed to Boost. "Wake up, yo."

The Eclipse wasn't really sleeping. "Wsfgl," he said, authoritatively. Beside him, Wingo stirred. "What up, DJ?"

"The door, man! That rusty-bumper ol' tow truck left it open when them things went by! C'mon!"

"What about these boots, dude? We ain't goin' far with this shit on."

"We can, I dunno, scrape 'em open with somethin'! C'mon, dude, I ain't stayin' around to run no more obstacle courses in the desert!"

Boost blinked and looked around. "Damn, yo, DJ's right. Let's book."

One by one the tuners limped out of the impound, ignoring the commotion of the tractor rampage, and stared at one another. "Uh…"

"Going somewhere?"

They lurched around in clumsy circles. There was that beat-up old Mustang, sitting there bold as brass in the middle of the road, watching them.

Boost sneered. "What's it to you, oldtimer?"

"Watch your mouth," said Henry, mildly, "it might grow on you. What are you, anyway?"

DJ and Wingo shared a glance. Boost sneered further: he was limited by his carbon-fiber hood, but he was trying. "I'm an Eclipse, ya dweeb. What are you, blind?"

"Ah. It's hard to tell under all that junk." Henry circled him, inspecting the custom lights, the violet-silver paintjob, the NOS cylinders. "Do you even know what this crap does to your engine? And you, with the ladder on your butt. I think you're a Civic under there, but it's hard to tell…and you, friend, will not be going fast enough to need even one wing, let alone a whole stack of 'em."

Wingo stared at him. Who did this idiot think he was? He didn't even have chrome rims!

"…ah, yes, and you would be the rolling jukebox." Henry paused beside DJ. "Cute. D'you know, if you hadn't paid for all this to be installed, you might actually be able to run efficiently? Not, of course, that the Scion was ever meant to be a…what is it? Tricked-out hoopty? Or are you lot whips? I can never remember."

All three Road Hazards stared at him with their mouths open.

"Let me guess," Henry said. "You're street-racers."

"We're the Delinquent Road Hazards, man!" Wingo snapped. "We dangerous."

"If you drive like you look, I'd say that's a certainty. Let me explain something to you, kids. It isn't—and it never has been—what's on the outside that makes you fast. You can bore it and stroke it and bolt on hemi heads—oh, sorry, no room for that—and blow nitrous till you're laughing like a demolition truck, but none of that is going to make you a good racer. Those tires, for example."

Boost had got over the worst of his astonishment. "Listen, man, who the hell you think you are? You ancient history. You ain't even got LEDs."

"Those tires," Henry continued, as if he hadn't spoken, "not only look like the things on Model Ts, but they're useless. You hit one chunk of gravel at speed and you're looking for a tire shop."

DJ already knew this to be true, but kept his mouth shut. There was something disconcerting about the way the dark-red car kept prowling around them, as if they were prey and he was hungry.

"Spoilers and ground-effects," went on Henry, "are all very well if you're producing enough lift to actually need the downward push. You won't be. Even on a highway you can't go that fast for more than a few miles before you have to get through traffic. That stuff's for serious racers, not for street wear."

"So what's your point?" Wingo demanded. "You tryna bore us to death or somethin'?"

"Is it working?" Henry looked brightly curious. "Actually, no. I'm just trying to work out what it is about you three that has your friend so very attached to you."

Boost cut his gaze sideways to the others, and then looked back at him. "Whatchoo talkin' about, oldtimer?"

"Your friend. 'Snot Rod.'" They could all hear the inverted commas clang into place around the name. "You'll be happy to know that he's out of danger."

They all spoke up at once. "The hell you know about Snot Rod, man?" "What danger?" "Who are you anyway?"

Henry laughed. "I'm the guy he told his real name to. Go on. If you limp fast you might make it to the clinic before they finish rounding up the tractors."

The Road Hazards shared another huh? glance, before turning almost in synch and heading up the street at a fast limp, boots clonking against the asphalt.

He watched them go. That had felt good. In fact, he'd been feeling good—if exhausted—ever since Doc had sent him on his errand. When he'd returned with the cooler, he'd followed the Hudson into the clinic, and helped him clear away the tarp and wipe the Barracuda down; then he'd watched as Doc set up a complicated drip-feed of the clear liquid he'd brought in vials from Flagstaff. Drop by drop, the stuff fed into the Barracuda's fuel lines.

"That'll do the trick," Doc had said, sitting back and watching. "Now it's up to him."

Henry, too, had watched. Through the night, they'd both watched: and around three in the morning Doc had taken Snot Rod's temperature and nodded, slightly, and he'd known the Cuda would be all right. The drug was completely gone by four-thirty, and Snot Rod had started shivering a little in the cool air of the clinic: Doc had sent him for blankets, and when they'd pulled one over his roof and another over his hood, he'd opened his eyes a little and tried to smile.

The doctor had drifted off a little while later, and Henry had followed, still tired from the breakneck trip to Flagstaff. When they woke it was to the strains of the dual reveille.

"Thanks for your help, son," Doc had said. Henry had been almost surprised.

"…you're welcome." He had scuffed at the asphalt with a tire. "Thank you, too."

Doc hadn't asked "for what." He knew, well enough.

Now, having heard the tractors on their way, he had nipped out of the clinic and gone to have a look at the other tuners—and found them still asleep with the impound door wide open. This, he'd thought, could be worth the watch. They hadn't disappointed him.