Saturday's NMA 450 race at Thunder Valley in Lakewood, CO was no exception. After getting the holeshot in each heat, Lenart never looked back. Although last year's champion, Tyler Biggs, stayed within striking distance for the first fifteen minutes of the final race, he never had a legitimate opportunity to make a pass and ultimately finished almost thirty seconds behind Lenart. His second sweep in four race weekends, the victory gives Lenart a sizable lead in the points over his closest challengers, Biggs, and fellow rookie, Alex Herrera.
What makes Lenart so good? In a word, commitment. Once he straddles that bike, he is all in. His focus seems to narrow to the track, the machine, and his own body. Nothing else appears to penetrate his calm concentration, not even the existence of the other riders and machines, around which he seems to navigate as if they were mere flotsam and jetsam.
[…]
Three
Owen
I blew it big time with Lucy. As soon as she realized I'm into her, she couldn't get away from me fast enough. I can't blame her. I'm not exactly her type. By which I mean the brainy, educated type.
For example, I read her last article about me and I had to look up a bunch of words. (Thank god for online dictionaries. I'm not sure I'd know how to find a word in a paper one. I remember them teaching us how to alphabetize in school, but I'm damned if I could do it now.) Did you know that flotsam and jetsam refer to items either lost or thrown overboard from a ship? Also, although I am apparently not completely uncommunicative—that's what taciturn means—it's not clear to me what the opposite is. Do I talk too much? Not enough? Just right?
And now I sound like fucking Goldilocks.
Anyway, she made it plenty clear she wants nothing to do with me and it was obvious my clumsy pass at her made her uncomfortable, so I figured she would ask her boss at the magazine to send another reporter in her place. I mean, at this point, I'm sure when she thinks of sexual harassment, I'm the face she imagines.
Which is why I am surprised as fuck when I come around the corner to where our trailer is parked and see her standing there under the canopy between the team manager, Paul Gordon, and my best-friend-slash-mechanic, Darnell Lewis. Her back is to me, but I'd recognize that mass of almost-black hair and gorgeous ass anywhere. She's talking to the two of them about something, and the way she's waving her hands around tells me it's something she's pretty excited about.
My heart starts racing. I didn't think I was ever going to see her again, but here she is. What am I supposed to do now? Do I just walk up to her and pretend none of that awkward shit happened, or do I apologize for making a dick of myself and promise to never do it again?
Except, I can't apologize in front of Paul. Because he's going to wonder what I'm apologizing for and I can't think of any explanation that's not going to get me in hot water. Paul is over the moon that MotoRacer has sent us our very own reporter. It's a signal that, after five years of fielding mainly crappy-to-mediocre teams, he's arrived. And if he thought I did anything to endanger his moment in the sun by offending said reporter, my ass would be grass.
Now, I don't want to say that this would be the fuck-stupidest move he could make because I am the reason he's got a team that's any good, but it would be the fuck-stupidest move he could make. I get along great with Cody Mack, Paul's other rider, who runs in the 250 class, and he's got potential, but right now, he's strictly a middle-of-the-pack rider.
Middle-of-the-Pack Mack. Damn, now I'm not going to be able to get that out of my head, which means I'll probably say it out loud to someone and it'll get back to Cody and hurt his feelings.
But back to the problem at hand. Pretend it didn't happen is the only option.
I stroll up, hoping I look more relaxed and casual than I feel, and overhear Paul saying, "He's a great rider, sure, but he couldn't do it without this caliber of team behind him."
Paul obviously hasn't noticed me yet, because I don't think he'd be quite that openly self-important in my presence. Like Lucy said in her article, I don't brag about what I can do, but I know my worth. I know without me, Paul's team would still be limping along, hoping to stay relevant enough to keep their current sponsor, Mad Maxx—Monster and Red Bull's smaller, more obscure competitor—or attract another one for next season.
But he's right about one thing. It isn't all about me.
I cut through the little group they make and sling my arm around Darnell's neck. It's a bit of a reach, because the dude's 6'5" and built like an apartment complex. "Damn straight," I announce cheerfully. "I sure couldn't do it without this guy."
Paul's face goes carefully blank. He doesn't want Lucy to know he didn't mean for me to hear that, but I can tell she's already connected all the dots just fine.
It's completely true that I couldn't do any of this without Darnell. He's the best damned motorcycle mechanic I've ever known, which is funny because motorcycles have a lot of small parts, and his hands are just as huge as the rest of him. That doesn't seem to get in his way, though. Darnell can work magic, even on a machine any other rational mechanic would give up on as a total loss.
It's also true that Darnell has been my mechanic since I switched from BMX to motocross when I was sixteen. And when Paul recruited me to join the Mad Maxx team, I told him that Darnell and me were a package deal. Paul grumbled, told me he already had great mechanics on staff, but I stood my ground. I wouldn't be racing at all today if it wasn't for Darnell, and I wouldn't trust anyone else to maintain any machine I'm going to ride.
Lucy knows Darnell was with me before I got onto the NMA circuit, because she's done her research. The flicker in her eyes tells me she also knows that I overheard Paul dissing me and that I'm getting my digs in by praising the one person on his "team" who wasn't his choice.
Paul clears his throat, knowing he has to say something that won't make him look like a total asshole. "Darnell has been a great addition to the team." It sounds like he's squeezing out the words like the last bit of toothpaste in the tube. "But we have a lot of other great people."
Well, I can't disagree with that. I even like most of them. And even Paul isn't all bad—if he was, I wouldn't have joined the team no matter how much money he offered me, and believe me, it wasn't that much—but he's definitely all about stroking his own dick…er, I mean, ego. But I am lucky to have gotten a ride on this team, because there's a lot of talented riders out there who either have to pay to play, the way I used to, or who can't race at all. So I don't want to make too much out of Paul's need to pump himself up at my expense.
On the other hand, I don't see any reason not to pump up my main man while I have an opening.
I give Darnell's neck a friendly yank and grin at Lucy. "Do you know how I met this guy?"
There's no way she could know, though, because it's not a story I've told anyone before.
As I expect, she shakes her head. "No. Only that he's been your mechanic since you started in motocross." She gives me a penetrating stare. "Is this on the record?"
"You bet your ass," I pop off, then immediately regret it. But she just keeps giving me this calm, expectant look, so she probably doesn't realize that I'm visualizing the ass in question. Naked. Doggy-style. At least as long as she's looking me in the face, she won't notice that my dick's trying to salute her, so the sooner I get on with it, the better.
I release Darnell so he can stand up straight again. This is going to take a few minutes, and I don't want him to wind up with a crick in his neck.
"On my sixteenth birthday, I used a fake ID to get into a bar. Darnell was the bouncer."
"And he had to throw you out?" Lucy asks, her eyebrows raised.
Chuckling, I shake my head. "Nah. I don't even think he noticed me at first. I was just sitting at the bar with a Shiner, minding my own damn business. But then this hot chick comes over and starts flirting with me. I'm thinking this is pretty cool—like maybe I'm not only gonna get my first beer, but my first lay on my birthday—and then her big, ugly skinhead boyfriend comes out of
the bathroom, takes one look at her trying to climb into my lap, and decides it's my fault." I slap Darnell on the shoulder. "This guy saved my life."
"I was just doing my job," Darnell says with a modest shrug. "Besides, I'd been wanting to kick that racist shithead's ass for months, but my boss told me I couldn't knock his teeth in for calling me a 'coon'. You gave me an excuse."
We've had this discussion before. He always plays down his role in that little drama. But I know how close I came to being in traction or dead. That guy was big, strong, and he legit wanted to kill me. Lucky for me, Darnell was bigger, stronger, and just as motivated.
Lucy's listening with interest, her expression caught between a smile and a wince, so I'm doing something right. Paul, meanwhile, is giving me a disapproving dad look, not that I have much experience with that, which means I can't tell if he disapproves of my sixteen-year-old behavior or the fact that I'm stealing his thunder by telling the story at all.
"Anyway, before the cops get there to haul our good buddy Nazi McDouchenozzle off to jail, Darnell takes a good look at me and susses that I'm probably not twenty-one. Which means if I stick around, I'm gonna get arrested, too. He made some excuse to his boss about getting me medical treatment because I got kicked in the ribs pretty hard and it looks like I'm having trouble breathing. Both of which were true." I shake my head, remembering how dumb and helpless I was. "But instead of taking me to the hospital, he asks me how I'm getting home, and I tell him I rode the motorcycle I bought with my birthday money. He perks up and asks me to show him, so I take him around the corner where I've parked it. He takes one look at my Yamaha dirt bike and starts laughing."
"That must've hurt," Lucy observes.
Damn, I didn't mean to make her feel sorry for me. "Nah." I wave my hand to indicate it was no big deal, even though at the time, it did kind of sting. "I knew it was a piece of crap when I bought it; that was the only reason I could afford it. But I had big plans to fix it up so I could race it that season, which is what I told Darnell. He asked me if I knew anything about engines, and I told him I didn't but I figured I could learn from a book or something. He starts laughing again—and mind you, I'm getting a little ticked off by now—but then he tells me he'll help me do the repairs as long as I promise not to show my face in the bar again until I'm twenty-one. And the rest, as they say, is history."
"That history being that I ended up doing all the repairs." Darnell's voice is dry.
I hold up my hands in surrender. "Guilty as charged. Admit it. As soon as you saw how bad I was at anything mechanical, you didn't want me coming anywhere near the bike."
"True." He grins at Lucy. Who's smiling again. "He can always tell me what's wrong if there's a problem, but he's a godawful mechanic."
"I'm not a mechanic at all," I say agreeably. "But I don't need to be. I got you. And the thing is, he took that piece of shit Yamaha and not only made it run, but made it run better than it would have when it was new. And he's done that with every bike I've had since—tuned it to where it's better than it was from the factory."
"Within the rules, of course," Darnell adds, because we've been questioned more than once over the years as to whether the modifications he's made to my machines are legal or not. People are damned suspicious when you keep setting lap records and winning every race.
"I wouldn't have hired you otherwise," Paul pipes in piously.
A few nasty retorts pop into my mind, but I stuff them down. I've already had my fun, and I'm hoping Lucy will give Darnell a nice little write-up in her next piece. Every bit of success I've had I owe to him. He deserves his five minutes of fame every bit as much as I do.
The loudspeaker squawks and a staticky voice announces, "Riders for the first 450-class qualifier round should make their way to the pre-grid now."
"That's me," I say. "Better go get my gear on."
"Thanks for telling me that story," Lucy says as I start toward the motorhome to change into my racing suit. "It was entertaining. And…enlightening."
I don't have time to wonder what she means by that, but I feel her eyes on my back until I'm all the way inside the motorhome and shut the door behind me.
Four
Lucy
Maintaining professional detachment would be a whole lot easier if Owen Lenart were not so fine. And now, I’m learning, a pretty decent guy under the cocky, hyper-masculine exterior. I'm not here to lust after him. I'm not even here to like him. But I'm finding it hard not to do both. Especially after that story he told me.
I don't think he realizes how much he gave away about himself with it. He'd probably be horrified if he did.
It's obvious that there's tension between him and Paul Gordon, the team's manager and Owen's putative boss, and the root of it has to do with who's responsible for the team's sudden change of fortune. Gordon thinks it's him; he's the one who saw Owen's talent and hired him, so obviously, the lion's share of the credit is his. Owen disagrees because he knows Gordon's team would still be stuck in mediocre obscurity without him.
The journalist in me can see both sides. Equal time, yo! The woman in me? She thinks Owen's closer to the truth. And that story about how he and Darnell Lewis met only makes her want to take his side a little more.
I know Owen dropped that tale because he wanted to poke a hole in Gordon's claim that it's the team that's made Owen successful. “Look,” he's saying, “I forced him to hire my mechanic and I'm the one who's winning races.” He wants me to understand that he thinks he and Darnell would kick ass no matter where they landed.
But whether that's true or not, what he really revealed to me is how much he wants Darnell to get the credit he's due. Let's face it, in Owen's shoes, most racers would downplay the role of anyone else in their success. They'd want to take all the credit, all the glory. Owen…doesn't. He wants Darnell to have some of it. Even a lot of it. And he's even willing to admit there's something related to this sport that he sucks at.
That's remarkable.
And as I watch him climb into the team's motorhome to put on his racing suit, I can't help thinking how fucking hot a little humility is.
Of course, it doesn't hurt that he has the finest ass I've ever seen.
Owen's in the winner's circle again, but for the first time since I started covering his meteoric rise, he's not in first place. During yesterday's heat, his motorcycle developed a flat tire a few minutes from the checker, leaving him with a disappointing fourth place finish. But I've never seen him finish less than first when the three heats are averaged out, so I expected him to easily top today's standings with a win this morning and this afternoon. He pulled off the win in the morning heat, no problem, but he had to settle for second overall to Tyler Biggs after what I can only describe as an uncharacteristic mistake in the final heat.
The race started the way most of them have: with Owen getting the holeshot and then comfortably holding the lead from the point forward. He's a wizard off the line; I've never seen him make it through the first corner in anything but first position. This afternoon's heat was no exception.
But about ten minutes into the twenty-minutes-plus-two-laps race, he crashed. Not hard enough to hurt either himself or his bike, but in slow motion while trying to make a pass on a rider he was lapping. Getting around a much slower rider is a maneuver I've seen him execute with ease more than a hundred times. That rider, having been shown a blue flag, is even supposed to get out of his way and let him by, making it that much less of a challenge. So I don't know how to explain the fact that he somehow took the inside line a little too sharply into the corner and wound up laying down his bike.
Except, possibly, for the fact that I'm pretty sure he caught sight of me in the crowd.
Okay, it's probably all in my head. I am probably making way too much out of the fact that I saw him turn to look at me right before he went down. I mean, realistically, it's unlikely it was me he was looking at. Maybe something behind me or beside me caught his attention and distracted him.
> That said, my money's not on that explanation. Because I felt his eyes meet mine through the mud-spattered lenses of his goggles. I felt those eyes, filled with heat and promise even though I couldn't actually see them, all the way down to my girl parts.
Or it's my imagination. My wishful thinking.
Either way, I'm feeling guilty as he steps up onto the second-place podium and takes a bow next to Biggs. He looks happy enough—and he did manage to climb back from nearly last place to a few seconds from the lead after taking his spill, so after that one mistake, he rode the race of his life—but I can't help feeling responsible for the fact that he's not on the highest pedestal where he belongs.
Feeling a little sick, I slip out of the crowd that's watching the festivities and cheering. Second place is really not the end of the world, I remind myself. He has four wins and two second place finishes; he's still leading the points for the championship by a comfortable margin.
Problem is, I just can't shake the feeling that I'm responsible. That my presence is affecting the outcome.
Reporters are supposed to report; we are not supposed to insert ourselves into the action. It's like the prime directive in Star Trek, only for journalists. But I know, somehow, that I've broken this cardinal rule. I've become part of the story, not an observer of the story.
Which means I need to ask my editor to pull me. Today. Before I decide I'd rather risk my professional principles than not have Owen Lenart in my life.
I reach a quiet spot in the paddock beside a coffee stand that's shut down for the day and pull out my cell phone. My fingers shake a little as I swipe the screen, enter my lock pattern, and open my contacts. I pull up my editor's phone number, and my thumb hovers over the call button, but I hesitate because I really can't think of any way to explain why I need to be pulled off this assignment that isn't monumentally embarrassing and also likely to wind up with me not getting any future assignments from MotoRacer, either.
Holeshot: A Motocrossed Romance Page 2