DASH

It’s a late afternoon in the West Australian Wheatbelt in 1961. The sun hammers the dry land, heatwaves rippling off cracked bitumen. A dugite snake glides across a dirt road, tongue flicking, searching  for shadow. In the distance, a  low rumble builds. A Holden FJ bursts into view; dust trailing, tyres humming with tension. The snake vanishes beneath the car. No brake. The Holden screams past, engine howling, cutting the bend like it owns the road. Inside, a driver shifts gears with precision. The speedo needle strains.

Up ahead, a school bus rounds a slow bend. The Holden doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t slow. The bus swerves just enough. Kids inside press their faces to the glass, half-terrified, half-awestruck. “Wow,” one whispers.

The bus stops. A boy – Colin – jumps off and runs to a waiting car where his younger siblings crawl over the backseat. Their mother, heavily pregnant, tries to contain the chaos of the boys' playfighting. In the front, their Danish grandfather mutters in frustration, drives away, mopping sweat with a kerchief. The back door bursts open as Colin leans against it. The mother turns - “Sit down!” But it’s too late. The door flies wide, Colin slips out of sight, the car jolts. For a second, everything is still. Dust hangs in the light.

The clock reads: 4:30 PM.

Not far away, the Holden enters into a corrugated steel shed, glowing in the last of the day’s light. A sign above the shed door reads Pederick Engineering. Inside, it’s a meticulously organised, part junkyard altar; tools hanging like relics, welding sparks flaring from the bench as some other staff are focused on their work. Peter, Harley’s wiry mechanic and oldest friend, wipes his hands and nods toward the Holden’s front end. “There’s something not right about that left brake,” he says. “You can feel it shuddering down the line.” Harley steps out and breathes deep. “Maybe we take the brakes out altogether,” he grins. “They’re getting in the way.” Peter snorts. “You wouldn’t survive a school bus head-on.”

They pop the bonnet. Heat shimmers off the steel. From the open office window, Cheryl, warmly, leans out, file in one hand, phone on long cord in the other. “Harley! The Davies boys are chasing their silo bins again. Say it’s urgent.” Harley doesn’t turn. “Next Thursday means next Thursday. That does mean this Thursday. Like I said.” Cheryl pauses. Her voice drops, but the tone cuts. “Betty called. Again. That’s twice this week.” Harley doesn’t look up. Peter catches the flicker, a small chisel hitting an old wound, but Harley just says, “Let’s get the Jag sorted for Caversham. She needs finesse. The Holden can go to Kellerberrin. That climb’s all bite.” A clean slick looking jaguar sits down the end of the shed. “Still reckon the Holden’s got more soul,” Peter mutters. “Mean little mongrel.” “Different tools. Different jobs,” Harley replies, already moving. “C’mon. Two pints waitin’ in town, and I need to order new calipers before the shop shuts. Can’t keep rebuilding the old ones forever.”

Across town, Isabel clocks off from the hospital; steel-nerved, soft-spoken, ready for a quiet Friday. But a dusty family Ford screeches to a halt out front, doors flinging open. A boy, five, lies limp in the backseat - pale, bloodied, barely breathing. His mother’s panic slices through the heat. Isabel moves without hesitation, grabbing a gurney, doctor in tow. Inside, the boy’s pulse is weak, blood oozing from his ear. “No x-ray,” the doctor mutters. “Ambulance is three hours away.” Isabel doesn’t blink. “He’s seizing…there is brain bleed. We could lose him in under an hour.” The doctor hesitates. “It’s over 200 k’s. Road’s rough.” Isabel storms into admin, rips open the phone book, dials. “Pederick Engineering,” Cheryl answers, breezy. “Cheryl, I need Harley.” “They knocked off twenty minutes ago, love. Can it wai—” But Isabel’s already hung up.

Harley and Peter step out of the Holden and onto the pub veranda. Warm afternoon light floats through Wagin’s main drag. Locals drink middies out front, deep in farming politics. Peter goes to light a cigarette. Harley adjusts his collar. Then; “Harley Pederick!” They turn. Isabel is striding across the car park, dust swirling behind her, face set like stone. “I need you to drive a boy to Perth. Right now. He’s dying.” Peter half-laughs, until he sees her eyes. Harley freezes. The air tightens. “There’s an ambulance—” “There’s not.” she cuts in “There’s no time. I wouldn’t ask if there was another way.” Her tone softens. A small crack in the armour. “I know you don’t trust us anymore. I wouldn’t either. But this kid… he doesn’t have time for our grudges.”

In the hospital corridor, the doctor is trying to reassert control. “We need to wait. Transport like this isn’t safe.” But when he locks eyes with Harley walking towards him, something shifts. There’s history between them; unspoken, unfinished. The doctor hesitates, not out of protocol, but because he knows this man. Harley doesn’t flinch, doesn’t trust him. Tension rises. “You’re not a paramedic, Harley. This isn’t a race, it’s a life. We’re monitoring his vitals closely. The ambulance is equipped, and the paramedics are trained for this. I strongly advise that we wait, there’s no need to take unnecessary risks.” Isabel steps in, calm and clear: “its Rapid cranial pressure. If he seizes again, we could…we will lose him.” That lands. Harley adjusts. “Take the back seat out of the Holden” Peter’s already moving. The doctor makes a last-ditch effort: “If you take the boy, you could be liable. What happens if he dies in your car?” Then, firmer: “You’re talking about a custom race car transporting a critical patient. Any sudden jolt—” Harley cuts him off. “Speed’s the only thing that’ll save him.” 

The clock reads 5:30pm

FLASHBACK: To 1936, Wagin: Harley was born under dry summer heat and shallow breath. Asthma rattled in his chest like loose bolts. His parents, Cliff and Jessie, did what they could. Cliff rigged an old oxygen tank beside Harley’s bed. The hiss of air became the soundtrack of his childhood.

Harley hated feeling weak. He was stubborn. When Jessie said, “You don’t leave the table until you eat those vegetables,” he sat there all night. Fell asleep in the chair. She gave up first. He never ate vegetables again. Outside, he tried to keep up; footy, races, chasing dogs. Always falling behind, doubled over, chest tight. But he never stopped. He didn’t want sympathy. Just to run. To win.

Then came the night everything changed. His chest collapsed. Lips blue. Cliff didn’t wait. He wrapped Harley in a blanket, threw him in the truck, and sped toward the hospital. The engine roared. The tyres spat gravel. Harley gasped, until Cliff rolled the window all the way down. Cold air hit. Harley leaned out. One breath. Then another. Clearer. Deeper. Cliff glanced over. The boy was breathing. Smiling. They never made it to the hospital. From then on, Harley knew: motion meant life. Speed wasn’t danger. It was freedom. It was armour.

In the months that followed, his breathing steadied. The mask disappeared. The craving for speed didn’t. It grew. Cliff’s shed became Harley’s church. Sparks flew. Tools clattered. On the wall: a poster of Sir Donald Campbell’s Bluebird. Beside it, Cliff’s own sketch; not for glory, just the build. One clear day, Cliff handed Harley a surprise: a deep blue billy cart shaped like Bluebird. “Built it for you,” he said. “Simple’s best.” Harley jumped in and tore around the yard. Down the driveway and back. Dust flying. Cliff stood in the shadows, arms crossed.

JUMP BACK TO THE DASH: Outside the hospital, the air is still. The sun hangs low, shadows loom across the car park. The Holden idles, its back seat stripped bare. Colin’s mother stands nearby, clutching her coat, younger children huddled beside their grandfather. No one speaks. Peter helps Isabel ease Colin into the rear, blankets folded beneath him, a large oxygen cylinder placed in the front and tubing line sent into the back and double checked. The boy barely stirs. Isabel’s hands are steady, but her jaw is tight. Peter steps back, glances at Harley. “It’s not built for this,” he mutters. “It’s a race car… what about the brakes?”

Harley doesn’t answer. He stands still, one hand on the roof, eyes locked on the boy through the glass. Across the car, the mother watches, a storm of hope and fear behind her silence. A memory flickers; a small baby, breathless in a hospital bed, and the doorway Harley never crossed. Isabel shuts the door. The mother doesn’t speak as they pull away, just watches as her son disappears in the back of a machine never built for fatalities. Harley shifts into gear. In the mirror, Colin’s pale face frames Harleys rearview mirror.

Inside the hospital, a radio crackles behind the front desk. A clipped voice cuts through the static, firm and disbelieving: “You’re sending a dying kid with a Speedster?” Staff exchange glances. The nurse stays silent. The doctor stands near the window, arms folded, watching the road. The voice returns: “We’re sending an escort. He won’t make it through the city without us.” Doubt creeps in. No one says it, but it’s clear; they’ve bet everything on Harley Pederick. And no one knows if that bet will hold.

Back in the car, as the patrons from the pub all stand on the edge of the beer garden with “Good Lucks!” being yelled out, Isabel finally speaks, quieter now. “What about the brakes?” Harley glances her way. His voice is low, but resolute. “We only need some of them.” 

6:30 PM. The Mercy Dash begins.

FLASHBACK To 1946, Wagin: In the dim kitchen of a weatherboard farmhouse, Harley and his best mate Haymesy sit eating dinner, bare feet swinging under the table. From down the hall, Cliff’s voice calls out, flat and practical: “Off to the horse races. Back late.” Jessie follows behind, handbag in hand, already halfway out the door. The screen door bangs shut behind them. The boys freeze. Forks mid-air. Eyes wide. A beat; then they look at each other.

The garage door flies open. They roll back the tarp on Cliff’s prized 1948 Ford. It gleams under the low workshop light; chrome, promise, danger. Not a word spoken. Just breathless urgency. Then, ignition. The engine coughs to life. Tyres spit gravel. The Ford launches down the red dirt road, headlights cutting through the dark. Sunset above, open land ahead. Harley’s hands grip the wheel like it’s an extension of his spine. Haymesy whoops from the passenger seat. Speed, dust, freedom.

But the high doesn’t last. As they return, the porch light is already on. Harley kills the engine. They coast the car silently to the top of the hill. Panic creeps in. Cliff steps onto the porch. Waiting. No yelling. Just a long, unreadable stare that cuts sharper than anything he could say. Harley meets it. Doesn’t flinch.

CUT TO: Sixteen-year-old Harley at the Wagin police station, applying for his licence. Tells the officer his old man is outside to take him for the test. The cop doesn’t even look up, just passes over the paperwork. Said Harley had been tearing around the backroads for years and hadn’t hit anything. That was good enough. Licence granted. No test needed.

CUT TO: The vast flat of the Nullarbor. Harley and Peter, 18 years old streak across it in a buttery yellow Holden FX they rebuilt from scratch; a bush hoon’s prized machine. They take turns behind the wheel, never stopping, even refuelling at speed. A jerry can sat next to the boot, eyes fixed forward, dust trailing like smoke. They’re not chasing anything. Just charging. Staying in motion. Somewhere near halfway, a jolt. Engine dies. Fuel shortage.

Peter doesn’t speak; grabs the wrench, jumps out the car and under the bonnet. Hold steady. Peter re-adjusts the newly installed SU electric fuel pump. It can’t keep up with the three big carbys we added. Two quick twists, and a tap on the bonnet to say go. The engine screams back. Peter whoops. Harley’s eyes stay locked, alive in the chaos. This is the place he breathes. Control and chaos, stitched together by motion and dust. 

JUMP BACK TO THE DASH: Inside the Holden, Isabel works in silence. Her hands move with calm precision, checking Colin’s pupils, adjusting the oxygen line, keeping him stable as the car rattles across uneven road. Harley watches her through the rear-view mirror. Her focus is absolute, but her jaw is tight. In the front seat, Peter casually reaches for a cigarette. “Put that away” they snap in unison. Harley taps the oxygen tank wedged between the seats. Peter again has to put his cigarette away.

After a long stretch of engine hum and tension, Harley finally speaks, voice low, curious. “How’d you know it’s head trauma?" Isabel doesn’t look up. Doesn’t pause. Just keeps working. “I’ve seen it before.” A beat. Nothing but road noise. “Didn’t know enough or act fast enough, that time.” She finishes adjusting Colin’s head, then rests her hand gently on his chest. “I don’t plan on second guessing myself ever again.” Nothing more is said.

FLASHBACK: Summer, 1951. The Katanning town pool shimmers under a brutal sky. Harley and a few mates lounge shirtless on the grass, sunburnt and half-cut, scanning the swimmers with idle curiosity. They’ve come for trouble, not training; but one girl slices through the water with startling grace. No splash, no show. Just clean lines and control. Harley watches, transfixed. “Who’s that?” he mutters. One of the boys shrugs. “Betty Boulton.”

Months later, they’re dating. Under a warm night sky, they lie on a picnic rug at the Katanning drive-in. The screen flickers across their faces. Betty reaches over, rubs the back of Harley’s neck in slow, absent circles. She doesn’t speak much, doesn’t need to. Her stillness grounds him. For a boy raised in noise, in motion and grit, her touch is the first thing that ever slows him down. Harley exhales. Long. Deep. At ease.

CUT BACK TO THE DASH: The Holden tears through the arvo light, engine straining, road heat rising in waves. In the back seat, Colin stirs, just a flicker, a noise in his throat. Isabel’s hand stays firm on his chest, steady and present. Harley catches the movement in the mirror. 

A long stretch of cracked bitumen unfolds ahead. A large wheat truck crawls across both lanes. Harley doesn’t slow. Doesn’t blink. He swings into the right lane without hesitation. Up ahead – chaos. A roadblock. A long line of cars crawling through a one lane access. No way through. Harley doesn’t flinch. He takes a breath. “Hold on.”

In one brutal move, he jerks the wheel and smashes through an old gate, the Holden bursting off-road into a paddock. Grass explodes. Dirt spits skyward. The FJ barrels through the wheatfield, bouncing, sliding, but Harley finds the lines, keeps it smooth. Isabel clamps down on Colin, holding tight, teeth clenched. They tear past the stunned traffic queue. Drivers watch slack-jawed as a Holden FJ blurs through the field like it belongs there. Then, another fence. Harley spots a gap and guns it. The car jolts back onto the bitumen, tyres squealing as they slide into place, back on the main road like nothing happened. Isabel exhales, rattled but impressed. Peter glances over his shoulder, then to Harley. Shrugs. “Well… alright.” Harley’s locked in. No music. No small talk. Just machine and moment. The road curves, he flows with it. Loose hands. Exact lines. And now, Isabel sees it clear: He’s not reckless. He was built for this.

FLASH BACK: 1956, Fremantle Port: Harley and Peter stand at the edge of the docks, staring into the yawning mouth of a sea container. Inside: a white Jaguar E Type rolls out, shaped like a space ship from another world; all elegance and speed. It’s Harley’s latest prize. Business has been good, and this is the reward. Something sleek. They drive straight onto Stirling Hwy. The huge DIngo Flour sign on one side, the ocean glistening on the other. The Jag purrs low, then growls – Harley opens it up. The car answers like it’s alive. Peter grins, trying to play it cool, but the feeling is undeniable. Two mates glance at each other then open her up.

Later that night, they pull into the Snake Pit in Scarborough; the unofficial battleground of Perth’s street racers. Headlights pierce the dark, engines throb like threats. Harley slides the Jag into the lineup and races. Wins. Effortlessly. But the loss stings someone in the crowd. Shouting. Fists. A crowbar raised. Glass shatters.

Sirens and flashing lights. Peter yells, “We need to go!” Harley doesn’t flinch. Drops it into gear and tears off. Dust kicks up behind them, red and blue lights flashing in the mirrors. They blast through the backstreets, engines screaming, until the city gives way to silence. Coastline. Escape. Breath.

They got away. Barely. Peter’s lighting a smoke and a hoot!. This wasn’t a thrill - it was a fix. He needed it. He guns the Jag once more and flies toward the edge of the city, like there’s nothing behind him worth slowing down for.

CUT BACK TO THE DASH:  Under a lone gum tree in the Wheatbelt, two police bikes idle in the dust. The sun leans low, casting long shadows across the bitumen. Senior Constable Ward finishes scribbling on a charge pad as a pulled-over ute coughs back to life. The driver offers no apology, just a tired nod, and rolls back onto the highway.

Ward turns to his partner, Probationary Constable Rudd, who’s still straddling his bike. “You can’t outrun these,” he says, tapping the engine of their new looking bikes. “So why try?” Rudd smirks as the ute vanishes into the shimmer. “Still reckon blokes like that have something to prove.”

Ward doesn’t respond. He adjusts his sunglasses, eyes scanning past the fenceline, reading the land like a seasoned farmer reads cloud. “Let’s head back to the radio box at the Halfway House Pub. Check in before dark.” Rudd swings a leg over, the pair rolling forward, engines low, steady.

The road falls quiet again. But there’s a tension in the stillness now; like the atmosphere’s holding its breath. Something’s building out there. Just beyond the line of sight.

FLASHBACK SEQUENCE: Harley and Betty have just moved in together; young, married, and full of hope. He builds them a house on the edge of Wagin with his own hands. Corrugated iron, clean lines. Betty paints the kitchen yellow and plants lavender and rosemary out front. For a moment, life feels slow. Simple. Solid.

Harley throws himself into work; not just driving, but building the engineering business. He teaches himself complex engineering and does large scale farming equipment, long hours in the shed becoming skill. Within a year, he’s welding giant silos and tanks for farms all over the Wheatbelt. Business booms. Betty’s pregnant. They walk the main street after Sunday service, hand-in-hand, popular in town and very happy. A Holden car goes down the main street and takes all of Harley's attention. A “Le Mans Race” poster sits just over the top of his father’s old poster of Sir Donald Campbell as Harley focused on tech drawings in front of him of engine parts.

Back in Wagin, after a Sunday service, the Jaguar arrives, parked just outside the church. It gleams. It growls. Harley’s Jag is here, and word spreads fast through the crowd. Locals gather, grandmothers, footy lads, even the priest. Harley starts giving joyrides up the S-Bend, the tight winding road just out of town.

He drives like it’s a race. Wheels spin, the Jag carves corners like it’s dancing. Passengers scream, laugh, beg him to ease up; but every single one steps out grinning, high on speed. It becomes a local ritual. Everyone remembers their Sunday joyride in the Jag. Except Betty. She watches from the church steps, arms folded. She sees it in his eyes, that quiet, consuming obsession no joyride can cure. Not smiling. Not fooled. She knows exactly what’s developing inside her husband.

CUT BACK TO THE DASH: The Holden barrels forward, engine straining, tyres humming, every bolt alive with tension. Harley’s eyes never leave the road. Isabel sits behind him, lips tight, one hand resting on Colin’s chest. Then, a blur. A full-grown kangaroo bounds onto the bitumen. Harley jerks the wheel left. Gravel kicks up, dust explodes. The car skims the edge of a tree line, riding the soft shoulder in a controlled slide.

Harley holds the line. One clean countersteer, and the Holden snaps back onto the tarmac like it never left. Peter swears under his breath, shaken but impressed. They crest a small rise, and there it is: a single-lane bridge under construction. Cones. Workers. A Ford Falcon rolls into view from the other side, angled to cross first. The Falcon hesitates, then accelerates; trying to beat them. Harley doesn’t yield. He pushes harder. Peter shouts over the engine. “Harley, no! Don’t be a bloody idiot!” Isabel doesn’t yell. She just braces, wide-eyed and nowhere to go. “He’s going for it,” she says, quietly to herself. In the Falcon, the other driver panics. “He’s not stopping? I’m already on—he’s gotta stop—”

But Harley won’t. The Holden roars forward. All the workers look up and take a step back. Both cars charge the narrowing lane. At the last second, Harley edges ahead — clean, brutal — slicing onto the bridge first. The Falcon clips a cone, skids, slams the brakes, then throws it in reverse and yanks out of the way just in time. The Holden clears the far end, trailing dust. Peter sits white-knuckled. “You’re out of your mind.” Harley doesn’t answer. He’s locked in. He’s not just carrying a boy. He’s chasing a finish line no one else can see.

FLASHBACK SEQUENCE: Harley stands on a podium at the Caversham “6 hr Le Mans” main event. Sweat still clings to his skin, a gold trophy raised high, a massive smile and an engrossed crown all around. The Jaguar gleams beside him, a weapon of speed and beauty. A commentator shoves a mic forward, joking about the Jag’s top speed and rumoured brake issues or lack of. Harley grins; sharp, dry. The crowd erupts in laughter. Flashbulbs pop. He’s the king of Caversham. Off to the side, Betty watches from a folding chair, calm but unreadable. One hand rests on her pregnant belly. Their son Michael, fidgets beside her, toying with a Matchbox car. He looks up, waiting for his father’s attention. All he gets is a distant nod. Harley’s there, but not really. Even in triumph, something in him is unreachable. 

Back in Wagin, Harley’s energy is focused, but only on machines. The business has grown. Silos, tanks, machinery work booked months ahead. He’s built the best engineering outfit in the district. On the surface, it looks like success. But Betty feels the widening silence. Harley’s love is physical, momentary. His presence slips through her fingers. A son stands at the edge of his world, not in it.

Then Janis is born. Small, strong. For a moment, things feel whole again. But within weeks, Betty senses something isn’t right. Janis cries without reason. Sleeps in fits. Her skin flushes, then pales. Betty brings her to the doctor. “Just a bug,” they say. “She’ll be fine.” Harley doesn’t come with her. He’s under a car, chasing a contract deadline. The doctor gives a soft smile. “Nothing to worry about. Just a fussy one. Take her home, get some rest.” Betty nods, but something in her tightens. At home, the baby won’t settle. Betty stays up all night, watching her breathe.

A few days later, they’re back. Betty’s eyes are ringed with fatigue. Janis is listless now; too quiet. The same doctor checks her vitals, shrugs. “Still no signs of anything serious. Might just be colic. Some babies take time to settle.” Betty grips the edge of the table. “Something’s wrong,” she says. “I’m her mother. I know.” She asks Harley to come next time. He doesn’t. “Big job due,” he says, not looking up. Betty pleads, standing at the shed door, Janis asleep against her chest. Harley’s already vanished into noise and work. Tools clatter. Welding arcs. The silence between them grows louder. She walks back to the car, jaw clenched. Janis gets worse. Nights blur into each other. Betty brings her in again, now firm, angry. The staff go through the motions again. More tests. More waiting. Harley shows up late, uncomfortable in the waiting room. He doesn’t like hospitals. Doesn’t like stillness. Betty watches him tap his foot. Tap, tap, tap — anything but be here. The Doctor comes out again, looking clearly frustrated with the repeating visits.

CUT TO THE DASH – NIGHT IS CREEPING IN: The last of the daylight slips behind the scrub. Shadows stretch long across the road. Inside the Holden, tension is thick. Harley keeps his eyes on the horizon. Isabel checks Colin’s vitals again. The boy is hanging on, barely. “How’s he doing?” Harley asks, quiet. Isabel exhales, emotion cracking through. “He’s still alive. And that’s a miracle. His poor mother… his poor father. Can you even imagine?” A beat. Then she realises who she’s talking to. Harley’s jaw locks. His foot presses harder on the accelerator. The needle climbs past 100mph.

The silence turns sharp. Isabel looks away, guilt rising. Harley says nothing. But the car answers for him; louder, faster, more brittle than before. They’re tearing through the empty highway now, swallowed by bush on both sides. No towns. No lights. Just dark. Suddenly, black. The headlights cut out. No warning. No flicker. Just darkness swallowing the road whole. “Jesus!” Peter yells, scrambling to get in under the dash of the car. Isabel’s voice drops to a whisper. “Oh my god.” Moonlight spills in faint patches, but the bitumen vanishes in between. Harley doesn’t slow down. He grips the wheel tighter.

Peter’s down at the fuse box, trying to make sense of the blackout. He flicks his lighter on. Then he sees it: a dugite, thick, slow, coiled through the dash wiring. It bumps a loose terminal, the headlights flick on just for a flash. Peter freezes, mutters, “Oh.” “What?” Harley barks. “Nothing,” Peter replies, hand hovering over the writhing shape. No protection. No plan. Just instinct. The car keeps roaring forward. Peter reaches in, bare-handed, feeling for the dislodged line. His face is pale. The dugite brushes past. 

FLASH BACK: Janis worsens. Betty returns to the hospital alone, pacing the corridors, begging for second opinions. Nurses reassure her, doctors deflect, nothing helps. One quiet night, Janis stops breathing. Betty is the only one there. She holds her daughter’s small, still body, sobbing through shallow breaths. She calls Harley from the ward phone. It rings out, unanswered in the cavernous engineering shed. Hours later, Harley finally arrives. He stops just outside the hospital room, staring through the door frame, unable to enter. Betty is curled on the bed, clutching their daughter. Their son sits in the room unsure of who to turn to. He never holds Janis again.

At the funeral, Harley is stone-faced. Afterward, he disappears into the shed and stays there. He begins rebuilding a Holden from scratch, not for racing, not for pride, but to escape. Welding at all hours. Eating from tins. Sleeping on an office chair. Peter visits. Tries to draw him out. But Harley barely speaks. Every piece of grief is channelled into bolts, steel, structure; the things he can fix. The things that can be controlled. The rest; his marriage, his surviving son, the life outside, is left in silence beyond the shed door. Too guilty to face.

CUT BACK TO THE DASH: Two cops — Constable Ward and Constable Rudd — are just pulling up to the radio box beside the post office in a roadhouse of Bannister, they flick their bikes off and finally get their helmets off their head when they both stop in their tracks, a distant sound. heads turn. Something’s coming. No lights. Just sound. A low, rising growl in the dark, like the bush itself is waking up. They slowly rise from their stools, squinting into the black.

Then, a Holden FJ comes screaming out of the night like an apparition, engine howling, no lights, no warning, just raw noise and speed. It flies straight past the road house, tyres clutch the road as it shoots past the roadhouse curb, a millimeter closer he would have been up in the air. Ward and Rudd just stare, mouths half-open. Then, like clockwork: action. Goggles on, boots stomped into place, bikes kicked to life. Sirens shriek into the stillness as the cops tear after him. From the porch of the Halfway House pub, a few drinkers sit outside, watching the commotion and the Holden Fj just tear past them all. One mutters, “I think that was Harley Pederick.” Another stands and downs the last of his beer as he walks back inside “They ain’t catching him then.”

Inside the Holden, Harley glances into the rearview as they leave the streetlights and back into blackness. A loud siren getting louder. “Peter, I need lights. real soon, mate.” Down in the footwell, Peter’s wrist is twisted between a cluster of wires and the thick, unmoving body of a dugite curled around the fusebox. “Where’s the head?” he mutters, not moving. “What head?” Harley fires back. He tugs gently, finds the connection, and sparks the circuit. Light explodes onto the road again, harsh and flickering. Peter exhales and slides back up into his seat. “Don’t worry about it.”

The cops are close now. Ward comes up the side, shouting across from his bike. “PULL OVER!” All three in the car look at him. Isabel freezes in the back seat, staring at the officer as they fly alongside them. Harley doesn’t flinch. “Pete, we need fuel. Can you make it happen?” Peter takes another deep breath, spins around, and pulls a small jerry can from behind his chair. “Here we go.” Harley grins, presses harder on the pedal, and gives the cop a lazy wave.

The Holden barrels forward, one tail light now blinking every few bumps. The chassis rattles like it’s barely holding together. Peter leans half out the window, wind roaring past his ears, and pops the fuel latch open with a clink. Behind them, Ward and Rudd slow, their eyes adjusting; and in disbelief, they watch Peter begin to pour fuel into the tank at 160 kilometres an hour, arm stretched, fingers hooked in for balance. “He’s refuelling…” Rudd mutters. “Jesus Christ.”. The Holden roars on, not a race car now, but something closer to myth. Something furious and grieving and absolutely alive.

FLASH BACK: Harley is back on the racing circuit, louder, faster, and more celebrated than ever. It’s the late 1950s, and he’s winning everything from bush sprints to club championships. The Holden and the Jaguar both carry his name. Local papers crown him a rural legend. Business is booming. People stop him in the street. But at home, the wheels are coming off.

One night, he arrives home late, stinking of oil and dust. Betty is drying plates at the sink. She doesn’t yell, just speaks quietly, sharply: “Putting a roof over our head is one thing, Harley. But being here is another. We never see you. You’ve got a son, remember? This family can’t keep up with you. No one can.” Harley stands there, unable to reply. He knows she’s right. But he doesn’t know how to slow down. Before he can say a word, the phone rings; the workshop. He answers without thinking. Betty leaves the room without a sound. The gap widens. 

In public, Harley is a champion. In private, he’s absent. He drives harder, works longer, says less. At home, Betty folds uniforms alone. Michael eats dinner across an empty table. One night, she’s just gone. No argument. No tears. Just a handwritten note on the counter beside a plate of cold food. It reads: You always provided, Harley. A roof, food, even that bloody car. But you’re a ghost. And we needed you.

Harley finds it in the morning. He stands alone in the silence. Then folds the note exactly along the original creases and puts it in his pocket. The next day, he’s back on the track. Helmet on. Foot down. Filling the silence with noise.

CUT BACK TO THE DASH: The final stretch. Perth glows faintly through a break in the trees; close enough to feel. But the Holden is struggling. In the back, Colin yells in confusion, blood trickling from his ears. Harley grips the wheel, white-knuckled, chasing seconds. Peter yells over the roar, eyes wide. “Stop the car! Jesus, you can’t force it like this. Don't you feel the car struggling! She’s boiling over. You can't just ignore …” And then – it pops.

The engine shudders. Chokes. Vapor lock. Steam blasts from under the bonnet. The Holden loses power, coughing into a slow, rolling crawl before finally dying on the edge of the road in front of a big sign saying “Darling Ranges” and the city blinking in the far off distance. Peter explodes: “Stop! You’re killing it! Too much Harley!”. Harley doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. The car is dead. For once, the man built on control, speed, momentum, is frozen. Peter throws the door open and dives under the hood, cursing, desperate. “She’s gone. You cooked it.”

In the back, Isabel is out of options. Colin seizes softly; lips grey, breath fading. Harley just sits there, blank, adrift. Memory fractures the moment: His daughter Janis in his arms, so small. Michael, waiting alone. Betty’s hand resting gently on his head. The shed. The silence. A boy once gulping fresh air out a car window, alive with wonder. All of it crashing through him. Then, no bravado, no urgency, Harley reaches into the backseat and lays his hand over Colin’s chest. He doesn’t squeeze. Just rests it there. Present. The boy’s jaw softens. A breath escapes, slower. Harley stays with him. Fully. For the first time in years. An honest presence.

Peter is inside the bonnet, jaw tight, sweat pouring. The vents are clogged; dust, straw, debris packed in like cement. “No airflow,” he mutters. “She’s cooking alive.”. Peter starts to remove the whole grill and gets as much out of the way of the engine as possible, quickly unwinding bolts with his tools and sheer force. 

Inside the Holden, Harley doesn’t move. His hand stays on Colin’s. The boy’s breath stutters, then eases, faint, but still there. Around them, the car ticks and creaks in the heat. Steel expanding. Groaning. Settling. It sounds like the phone ringing in the shed the night Janis died. He remembers the call. The cry for help. Betty begging him to come. The ache in her voice. And his own silence, cold, stubborn, unreachable. The unbearable weight of choosing what he knew he could control over where he might fail. Of turning away from the one place he was truly needed. Now, there’s no engine to rebuild. No distraction. Just breath, fading in a child’s chest. His hand doesn’t flinch. It stays. For the first time in years, Harley doesn’t run from the guilt of having no solution. He lets it crush him. And in that wreckage, he stays.

Peter finally climbs back into the passenger seat, sweaty, hands blackened. He sees Harley’s hand still resting on Colin’s chest and pauses, something subtle shifting in him. He shuts the door gently. Settles in. A different kind of silence. “She’ll hold,” Peter says. Nervously waiting for Harley to start the car. Then, after a beat: “If anything we should be at least lighter now” It lands. Not as a joke, but a bridge. Harley nods, quiet and honest. The car starts easily. Then shifts the car into gear. They move forward. Not faster. But steadier. Isabel watches Harley. Something’s changed.

Harley comes down into Armadale Road, tyres catching on the edge of the bitumen as the Holden enters the southern suburban stretch. He barrels through the Southwest Highway intersection. No hesitation, and flies into the heart of the city’s outer sprawl. Traffic thickens. Then; flashing lights ahead. A full police escort waits, lined and ready at a controlled intersection. Bikes roar to life and sweep in around him. Without a word, Harley eases back. Lets them take point. For the first time on this journey, he yields. Patrol bikes move forward, blocking lanes. The road opens in front of them like a runway.

Harley holds 80mph. He sits right behind the lead bike, dead-centre in the slipstream, the Holden coasting steady, perfectly in line. It’s almost peaceful. Shepperton Road unfurls ahead, a direct path to the city. For a moment, there’s order. Then; Colin flinches in the backseat. A twitch of pain, a sound in his throat. Harley catches it in the mirror. He looks around the police bikes around him. “One last push guys, hold on!” Harley says right before he slams down his foot. The Holden launches forward and he breaks free of the pack. The escort is left scrambling behind, bikes struggling to keep pace. But Harley’s already gone. The FJ rips through the busy streets of Perth, cutting past cars, blurring between lanes. The dash is back on.

People on the street watch in disbelief as the Holden flies past, a streak of speed and steel slicing through the late-day traffic. Then: St Georges Terrace. The engine echoes off the walls. Glass buildings stretch above them. In the backseat, Colin stirs. Eyes half-open. He looks up through the window, dazed but calm. The buildings glow. The city hums. It’s like a dream; hallucinatory, beautiful. He takes a deep breath. Somehow, he knows he’s here. He’s made it. His body relaxes and he looks at Isabel. “Hello mate, you're nearly there…you're nearly there, can you feel my hand?” she says with relief. A small hand grasps Isabel's hand. A tear breaks free from her eyes. She made the right choice.

The climb to Kings Park begins. The car creaks, groans, pushed beyond design. Peter wipes sweat from his brow. Isabel’s hands tremble as she finally sees the hospital. Harley shifts down. The engine bites back. One last surge of power. Sirens scream off the walls, echoing through the Terrace. The sound jolts Colin again; a faint moan, a stir of life. Isabel tightens her grip on his small hands. They're almost there.

They crest the final rise. The city flares open in front of them. Harley rounds the last bend. The brakes stutter. The Holden shudders. Then, they roll hard into the hospital entry. One final turn. One last breath from the machine. The car stops. Doors explode open. The trauma team’s already there. Colin is lifted from Isabel’s arms and whisked inside. No time for thanks. No time for words. The boy disappears behind glass. They made it.

Harley stays in the driver’s seat, stunned; not in triumph, but in stillness. The Holden’s engine ticks softly as it cools. Around him, the world moves: nurses rush, police dismount, the trauma team vanishes with Colin. But Harley doesn’t move. He did it. But not alone. Not this time.

Peter finally steps out of the Holden. Shaky, exhausted. lights a cigarette with shaking hands. A few cops gather near the bonnet, wide-eyed. “Mate,” one mutters, “can we see under the hood?” Peter exhales, then pops it open. The engine hisses and steams. It’s held together by burnt oil, some fencing wire in there too.. A nurse shakes his head in disbelief. “How is he still alive?” Isabel hands over Colin’s belongings. She glances at her wrist. 

7:55 p.m. One hour and twenty-five minutes. 229kms travelled.

Harley slumps behind the wheel, silent, hollow, unraveling. Then Isabel returns. Tears in her eyes. “He made it.” The words land heavy. Relief; human, wordless, ripples through her and Peter. Harley opens his eyes. Something in him softens. He gets out. Walks to a payphone tucked near the hospital entrance. The coins rattle in his hand like bones. He inserts them slowly, carefully. Betty answers. Her voice hits like a punch wrapped in silk. He stammers. A long pause. Then something cracks. The tears come; sudden, raw, unstoppable. A man finally shows real emotion, alone in a telephone box, finally feeling it all.

It won’t fix everything. It won’t save their marriage. But it’s the first time Harley has reached out; not with hands, not with speed, not with fixing, but with the part of himself he’s always kept locked away.

A man known for going fast finally slows down enough to feel the rawness of everything he’s been outrunning: the grief, the guilt, the silence between him and Betty, the ache of losing a daughter, the weight of never showing up the way he should have.

Morning. The engineering shed slowly fills with light. Cheryl clips a newspaper headline: “Boy Rushed 229km in 1.5 Hours.” Pins it on the wall above the workbench.

CUT TO: 1964 - Harley sits on a grassy hill with his son, watching Bluebird glide across Lake Dumbleyung. Not racing. Not distracted. Just there. Present. The prize Jaguar is gone. Sold. Almost forgotten.