Without a moment’s hesitation, Varron leaned far over the side of the car, and seizing an iron handhold, he peered underneath.
As he pulled himself to his seat again, he shouted to Stanley Downs:
“Get down off the track. We’ll have to lose a minute or two! Not more! Hurry!”
Stanley did not ask what was the matter until he had steered his car to the inside of the track, in front of the judges’ stand. He had not quite stopped when Varron was on the ground, a pair of pliers in his hand.
Under the car he dived as it came to a standstill, and there was a minute’s work with the pliers. Then he came out, leaped into his seat, and shouted to Stanley: “Go—like the deuce!”
Up shot the Thunderbolt to the track again, and it was going as fast as any of them, almost at once. It was not till the speedometer told that once more they were doing a hundred miles an hour that Varron volunteered any information as to what had been wrong.
“Connecting rod loosened,” he explained. “It had been done purposely, for there was a nut wedged where it would prevent the thing being found out at first. I never saw anything more infernally cunning. Somebody got at the car while we were having our pictures taken. That’s the only time it could have been done, for I’d looked her over just before that. The connecting rod was all right then.”
“We’ll talk about that after the race,” said Stanley shortly.
The delay had given Burnham a start on the Thunderbolt of a whole lap—two miles.