Where Is Steve Hernandez, The Demon Racer From Sunnyvale, Calif.?

You're kidding. That's Tiny Tim in the Sunnyvale nursery school Christmas play

It's Steve Hernandez, all right, and the flint would melt out of any Scrooge's heart at the sight of him. Pale and frail, his long-lashed, liquid eyes fixed obediently on his father, he stands with his little arms clasped behind him while around him roars the purposeful clutter and clatter of the pits. His mother is adjusting the fit of his jacket, Dad is going over the tactics for the next race, the tight-jeaned adolescents are talking about their latest auto crashes as they tinker with their carburetors, chicks in checked shirts are chewing gum and spinning Yo-yos, the announcer is threatening damnation to racers with inadequate mufflers, but the loudspeaker only churns up further the sound waves spitting and rattling and booming off the track.

"It's time to go, Steve," says Dad, and he taps the great red crash helmet with the No. 16 on it. "That's the number he wore at Berryessa," says Dad as he tightens the straps. 'That was the first time I let him really race; he'd just been around the track before. That was last February, and we'd just got him the kart for a Christmas present. He was only 7, and we were scared they were going to ask for his birth certificate. Once later on they did, and they wouldn't let him race because the minimum age is 8, and, man, was he mad."

"He's a good boy," says Mom, "and he gets good marks in school. But, boy, has he got a temper."

Did Steve win his first race?

"He sure did," says Dad. "He just took off and flew."

"He always wins!" cries Mom. "At least he always comes in first, second or third, one of those. The house is full of trophies. He loves cups, but now he has so many sometimes he prefers to get ribbons. We had some shelves built for my husband's trophies when he was racing motorcycles, but we've had to move them all away. Steve's trophies take up all the room."

"I raced four years, and I got 21 trophies," says Dad. "Steve's only been racing a year and he's got 57."

"Fifty-eight," Steve corrects him from somewhere under the immense black goggles that leave nothing of his face to be seen but the thin white point of his chin.

"You're counting the one from Snow's Grand Prix that they haven't sent us yet. Oh, we've got them from all over. We've raced Steve up and down the San Mateo peninsula and all over—Lodi, Watsonville, why we've been all the way to Oroville."