Teenage Hotrodders #9

Scot Jackson faces his perennial rival Shifty Gears in the trophy run of a drag racing competition, but when both drivers' engines fail catastrophically off the line, the race takes an utterly unexpected turn. What unfolds is a wild, madcap battle of wills that neither driver—nor the crowd—could have anticipated.

Jeff Parks has struggled with everything—until he scrapes together enough for his first car, a '57 Bel Air, hoping it'll finally be his big break. When he hits the drag strip at the local raceway, though, Jeff quickly learns that raw speed and raw luck aren't the same thing, and his early races become a string of rookie mistakes and mechanical failures. A fellow racer named Jackson offers him something more valuable than sympathy: an invitation to the Rod Masters club, where Jeff discovers that winning comes down to real work—engine rebuilding, tuning know-how, and racing technique—not just buying a fast ride.

Sam rules his friends with an iron fist thanks to his beat-up '55 Chevy—using it as leverage to humiliate anyone without wheels of their own. But when Sam's cruel pranks finally catch up with him on a lonely road, he discovers that the last laugh might not belong to him after all. A satisfying tale of comeuppance from *Teenage Hotrodders* #9, with letters by typeset.

Rick Roberts takes an unexpected tumble at the start line of a wild ice-racing event on a frozen Pennsylvania lake, but what begins as a chaotic behind-the-scenes scramble becomes something far more interesting once he gets his TR-2 Triumph sports car up to speed. While the other drivers battle treacherous conditions and spin out around him, Rick keeps his cool, reading the ice with precision and seizing his moment to take the lead. It's a sharp reminder that on the track—whether frozen or not—brains can beat raw speed.