Tightened everything.
Twelve seconds.
“That's one.”
Dale Prescott stared from the crowd.
His expensive scanner had never even pointed him toward the problem.
Owen had found it with his ears and confirmed it with a flashlight.
Garrett clapped sarcastically.
“Lucky.”
Owen didn't answer.
He moved to the carburetor.
The Grain of Rice
The carburetor bowl came off.
Owen inspected the float.
It looked normal.
Then he pressed it at a particular angle.
Something moved.
A tiny piece of old gasket material fell free.
Smaller than a grain of rice.
The debris had jammed the float open.
That meant gasoline had been pouring into the engine.
The cylinders were flooded.
The motorcycle could never start.
Owen held up the tiny fragment.
“This is why she flooded.”
Nolan Briggs pushed forward.
“I checked that float.”
“You checked it assembled,” Owen said.
Then Owen calmly explained the exact problem.
He even gave the technical bulletin number from memory.
Nolan's face changed.
He knew Owen was right.
The crowd had stopped laughing.
Two problems.
One remained.
The Invisible Failure
Owen slid beneath the motorcycle.
He found the ground strap.
The bolt was tight.
The wire was intact.
Everything appeared perfect.
But Owen scraped his thumbnail across the connection.
Green oxidation.
Corrosion had formed between the metal surfaces.
The resistance was enough to weaken the ignition spark.
A modern diagnostic system might never have revealed it.
But Owen didn't need a computer.
He needed sandpaper.
He pulled a small strip of emery cloth from his pocket.
His father had carried one every day.
Owen cleaned the connection until the metal shone.
Then he tightened the bolt.
He slid out from beneath the bike.
“Bad ground.”
He looked at Garrett.
“That's three.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
The timer was still running.
Eleanor Graves
A woman stepped through the crowd.
Her name was Eleanor Graves.
Sixty-eight years old.
Retired chief engineer from Harley-Davidson's powertrain division.
Thirty-one years of experience.
Four patents.
She had designed and tested engines that had gone into thousands of motorcycles.
She had watched Owen from the moment he touched Black Fury.
Now she stepped toward the motorcycle.
She checked the timing.
Correct.
The carburetor.
Correct.
The ground connection.