The route from Gyrfalcon to the final checkpoint near the edge of the Central region lined the entrants up so that they would merely skim the fringe of the traffic system. If they had no reserves left to change their course, it also, probably not coincidentally, put them under the system's direct observation so that they could be intercepted before they traveled very far out the other side.
Rafaela couldn't help feeling surprised, as the scout shot through the final checkpoint, and she received her official placement. It wasn't that she'd doubted the system's accuracy, it was just that she'd spent the last leg of the race waiting for the next unexpected event, and instead everything had proceeded just as the core system had predicted. She glanced at the plump fairy on the screen, who was waving a tiny triangle cloth that had the word victory written along its length.
"You really won!" she agreed laughingly.
