by Jim Cangany
Tension drained away as she released the breath. She’d made the right choice, even if her execution had been less than perfect. “Promise, but I’m a little old for you to be calling me kid, aren’t I?”
“It’s way better than what he calls me half the time.” Brad rubbed the back of his neck. “You need some rest, Gabrielle. Where are you staying this weekend?”
After reviewing a couple of issues one more time and taking a short walk, they arrived in front of her home for the weekend. “Isn’t this Barbara’s motorhome?” With furrowed eyebrows, Brad scratched his chin.
It was an incredible vehicle, more home than motor, and bigger than the apartment outside of Fort Lauderdale Gabrielle shared with her brother, Rafael. Spending the last couple of days in the lap of luxury at the team owner’s expense had done wonders for Gabrielle’s ego and given her the confidence in herself that, all too often, had been missing in recent years. Her boss wouldn’t offer her such an opportunity or accommodations if she couldn’t do the job, even with the PTSD.
“It is, yes.” Barbara came around from the front of the vehicle with an empty wineglass. “For the weekend, I decided to take on a roommate. I was about to turn in, Gabrielle. Why don’t you fill me in on your progress?” She opened the motorhome’s door. “Good night, Brad. I’m looking forward to an exciting day tomorrow.”
“Good night, ladies. Barbara, one question, if you don’t mind. You referred to Gabrielle as your roommate for the weekend. Were you planning on making a driver switch?”
“Let’s just say I like to be prepared for all possible eventualities. After you, Gabrielle.”
When they were inside, Barbara poured herself another glass of wine. “Now then, how did your day go? And don’t try to lie to me. I was a reporter, after all.”
“Better than I expected.” She sat on a couch that lined one wall of the motorhome. “Scott is an excellent chief engineer, and working with Brad will be . . . interesting.”
Barbara raised an eyebrow. “Interesting in a good way or a bad way?”
“A good way.” Gabrielle nodded. “Definitely a good way.” At least I hope so.
Chapter Three
Gabrielle took a deep breath and visualized a beach at sunset, complete with gulls coasting overhead and brightly striped cabanas scattered about, as she gripped the steering wheel. The cocoon-like fit of the cockpit kept her pounding heart from flying right out of her chest. Ten long years, and now she was back on American soil.
In a race car.
“We’re green on the course. Whenever you’re ready.” Brad’s voice in her earpiece was all business.
At the touch of a button, the engine, mere inches behind her, roared to life. She put the car in gear, rolled through pit lane and merged onto the track. The raw power of the engine shoved her against the back of the cockpit and almost took her breath away when she pressed the accelerator.
“Wasn’t expecting so much pickup.” With no other cars in her field of vision, she guided the machine through turn one and eased herself into the line she’d practiced on the scooter.
“Focus on getting comfortable. These are just shakedown laps. We’re bringing you in at the end of lap four for a quick debrief.”
As Gabrielle worked through a set of S-curves, a bright yellow car appeared in her mirrors. It was Jacobsen, the series-defending champion. She held her position and hit the gas once the course straightened. As the next turn came into view, Jacobsen pulled alongside and overtook her like she was driving a cement mixer. By the time she returned to her pit stall, she’d been passed eight times.
And had passed nobody.
“This tub’s as slow as a lawn mower. I was a moving traffic jam out there.” She started to unbuckle her safety harness, but a hand stopped her.
“Easy.” Brad leaned over her. “The car was set up that way for safety. Tell us what you need.”
Five minutes later, Gabrielle fired the engine and pulled back onto the circuit. From the nanosecond she accelerated, the car felt like a completely different machine. The back end gave a little twitch when she punched it after exiting turn four onto the long straightaway. She grinned. Halfway down the straight, she overtook one of her competitors.
“Nice pass. Better, I take it?” Brad’s voice was still all business, but she noticed a trace of approval. When she responded in the affirmative, the old Brad Thomas’s smiling voice came through loud and clear. “We’ve got eighteen minutes left in the session. Unless you want more changes, stay out and get comfortable. We’ll throw in a practice pit stop in a few laps. When you have a chance, get behind someone to see how the car feels in traffic. Now, go have fun.”
“Thanks, boss.” Gabrielle checked her instrument cluster and went to work. As with her hot lap on the scooter, the goal was to settle her body and mind until she became one with the machine. Every bump on the course, every gust of wind, when the car felt it, she felt it, and adjusted accordingly. Before she knew it, the yellow safety lights stationed around the track came on, and her first practice session on American soil in years was in the books.
She’d done it.
By the time she was out of the car and had her helmet off, Brad was at her side with a bottle of water with lemon flavoring, her favorite. She wracked her brain to see if she’d mentioned it in conversation the previous day. Nothing came to mind.
“You used to like this. Is it okay?” Brad held the bottle out to her. He remembered.
“Perfect.” She took a long pull. The cold drink was a sweet companion to her elation with completing her first practice session. She wiped her eyes, hoping the team would think she was wiping away sweat and not tears of joy. “How’d we do?”
“Your hot lap landed you at P twelve. Not bad for your first time in the car. We could tweak a few things to get more speed, but I’m inclined to stay with the current setup for qualifying.”
P twelve. Her fastest lap was faster than only six other drivers, yet Brad didn’t want to change anything. “If we can go faster, why don’t you want to make the changes?”
The crew was wheeling the car to the paddock, where it would go through a nose-to-tail inspection during the hour break until qualifying. Brad guided her to the team’s control stand, where Barbara was seated.
“Well done, Gabrielle. A promising session.” Barbara raised a bottle of water in her direction.
“Barbara and I were talking about our goals for today. Going into the session, we were hoping to simply avoid embarrassing the team, and you. Your performance changed the equation. We can compete today. But,” Brad raised an index finger, “we still need to finish the weekend clean. The current setup will put you in position to compete. You’ll be comfortable, not on the edge.”
Frustration bubbled up inside Gabrielle and smothered her elation. “I’m a good driver. If I can’t race for the lead, what’s the point? Don’t you trust me?”
“This isn’t about trusting you.” Brad ran his fingers through his closely cropped hair. “This is about Chas, his grandfather, and optics. A clean and error-free race today will make the move to replace him permanently that much easier. We can’t win the season championship today, but we could lose it.”
“We’re asking you to be patient. Take today to learn everything you can.” Barbara’s phone rang. “Lovely, it’s Chas’s grandfather. I need to take this.”
“Patience today, okay?” Brad closed his laptop and led the way to the team debrief.
Both Barbara and Brad had mentioned patience, which in the current context made sense. From the lens of ten years ago, though, the request was a knife in the back. The sharpest criticism of her back then was she lacked patience. She wanted to put her car in spaces that weren’t there. Some claimed the crash that took J.P.’s life was the ultimate example of her shortcomings as a driver.
Well, she’d prove to Brad she’d learned her lessons. If they wanted patience, she’d give him patience. At least a little bit.
There was an upbeat vibe among
the crew. Even the bleary-eyed fabrication team members, who’d slept all of three hours, were smiling. The only complaint came from Troy, who mentioned she missed her mark on the pit stop they’d executed during practice.
“We spent the whole preseason working with Chas. He always hit his mark. We can’t do our jobs if we can’t trust her to do hers.”
Brad poured himself a cup of coffee from a carafe. His shoulders were slumped, and he sighed as he added sweetener. The tension in the room increased with each stir of his spoon.
“Fair point, Troy.” He took a drink. The dark circles under his eyes betrayed his cheerful tone. “But, it goes both ways. I re-watched the pit stop three times. She was off her mark by a tire length, at most. I think that’s pretty good for a first attempt and completely within reason to expect you to handle the necessary adjustment like the professional you are.”
Troy blinked a couple of times but kept his mouth shut, evidently sensing the matter closed. Hopefully, that was the case.
Brad spent the rest of the meeting going over the practice session, mentioning points both high and low. At a signal from Scott, he drained his coffee cup. “All right, people. Let’s put this car in the show.”
On the walk back to pit lane, Brad pulled alongside Gabrielle. “I asked Scott to make the adjustment you requested. You’ll have less downforce, so be ready for less grip through the corners. And don’t breathe a word of this to Barbara. And Gabrielle,” he stopped and looked her in the eyes, “with the late switch, there are no expectations. Have fun.”
Fun? She’d been waiting ten years for this moment. She was going to have a blast.
As crew members strapped Gabrielle into her rolling rocket ship, Brad reminded her of the qualifying session rules. There would be a fifteen-minute session in which all cars would be on the track. Every lap would be recorded, and each driver’s fastest lap would be his or her qualifying time. Of the eighteen cars on the track, the fastest nine would advance to a second and final session in a race for the coveted P one spot, the pole position.
Despite Brad’s words, Gabrielle’s goal was to make the top half. It was a long shot, but by making it to where she was, she’d already beaten some majorly long odds.
• • •
“We’re green. Whenever you’re ready. Take a couple of laps to get up to speed. You’ve got plenty of time. Go get ‘em, short stuff.”
Brad’s old nickname for her made her laugh. He’d called her that during their days racing on the junior circuit since he was a foot taller. The fact that she was five three bore no relevance on her life in any way. In fact, one of the things she loved about being a race-car driver was that, with the exception of chauvinists like Troy, the only thing people cared about was her driving ability. Over the past few years, she’d developed a reputation as a driver who took care of her car and raced “clean.” Other drivers could depend on her to race hard but not crash them out.
“You’ve got it, one bite.” She hadn’t forgotten the nickname she’d given him. It was one he’d earned through youthful foolishness. He had a voracious appetite, but Gabrielle never believed the stories that he could eat a quarter pound cheeseburger in one bite. Then one night after a long, hot day at the track, J.P. coaxed him into stuffing an entire burger into his mouth and eating it. An open-mouthed Gabrielle had stared in part horror, part fascination as he made the burger disappear.
From that night on, he was one bite.
Gabrielle pulled out of her pit stall and recited the Serenity Prayer as she motored onto the track. She was one step closer to her goal.
• • •
Brad barked out a laugh and shook his head. Touché.
“Everything all right?” Barbara removed her sunglasses. She was frowning.
“Everything’s fine.” His mind wandered back to the carefree days of short stuff and one bite. They fought each other like cats and dogs on the track but were fast friends off of it. One day, J.P. had even joked Brad and Gabrielle should date since they made such a perfect match. While he’d never had the guts to ask her out—she was way too smart and smoking hot—he loved having her as a friend.
The crash and J.P.’s death brought those good times to a gut-twisting halt.
That was then. Today, Gabrielle was his driver, and he was her team director, nothing more, nothing less. It was their job to work together and put the car in the show.
Other than a few words about the car, Gabrielle was silent during the session. Brad left her alone. Some drivers were chatty. Goodness knew, Brad couldn’t get Chas to shut up when he was behind the wheel. Gabrielle had been that way, too. Now, it seemed to be the opposite. How else had she changed over the years?
Halfway through the session, the number fourteen Thornton Industries machine streaked by. Brad’s jaw dropped at the lap’s time. “You’re currently P seven. Great work.”
When the session ended, Gabrielle ended up in the ninth position. The crew gave her a round of applause as she exited the car. She exchanged a few high fives and went straight to Scott. After a few words with him, the chief engineer nodded and ordered a few tweaks to the front wing. Teamwork was already beginning to develop.
With qualifying ended, the team turned its attention to race preparation. Starting their first race in ninth position, barely twenty-four hours after a major crash, was a success beyond Brad’s most ambitious hopes. Adrenaline flowed through his veins as he gave final instructions.
At the signal from the track stewards, the team pushed their blue-and-white machine to its position on the starting grid. Brad’s phone pinged. The text message made his smile grow wider, but the butterflies in his stomach got busier. His parents had made it in time for the race.
He kept his emotions under control as a high school choir sang the national anthem, but when the announcer called out the most famous words in racing, “drivers, start your engines,” a lump formed in Brad’s throat. He’d made it back.
After a few final instructions from race control, the yellow safety car pulled away. He glanced at Barbara, seated to his left, and held out his fist.
She gave it a light tap. “If she finishes in the top ten, I’m treating the team to dinner. You’ve all worked so hard, you deserve it.”
The field, a veritable rolling rainbow, motored by, behind the pace car. Eight months, and one ill-advised punch, removed from being out of work, Brad was finally seconds away from calling his first race. And no longer had a prima donna rich kid behind the wheel. Not a bad restart to his career.
His mind drifted back to that disastrous afternoon nine months ago. The director of the team Brad was working for had taken ill the night before a race, and the team owner picked Brad to fill the void. Early on, things went fine. The team performed well under him, and the strategy calls Brad made put the car in contention for a top five finish with fewer than twenty laps left in the race.
That’s when things went south. As the team’s driver attempted to make a pass, another car cut him off. To avoid a collision, he hit the brakes. The loss of momentum dropped the car nine positions. They were unable to make up the lost ground and finished in eleventh position.
After the race, Brad confronted the offending driver’s team director about the incident. In minutes, the conversation escalated into a shouting match. Brad, bitterly disappointed in the finish and angry with his counterpart’s refusal to apologize, lost his temper and punched the man.
Justice was swift and harsh. Despite Brad’s sincere apology, he was fired the next day. Over the years, he’d struggled with his temper from time to time, but had never resorted to physical violence. His boss didn’t care. One incident of violence was one too many. In the span of twelve hours, Brad went from the job he’d most coveted, team director, to out of work.
Now, he was back, and he was going to make the most of it.
The pace car pulled into pit lane, and the yellow safety lights winked off. The cars, in nine rows of perfect two-by-two formation, approached the finish line.
“Here we go, Gabrielle. And,” he dragged the word out until the starter flew the emerald flag to get the race underway, “green, green, green.”
Once the field was out of sight, he focused his attention on his computer, which was receiving real-time information from Gabrielle’s car. By the time the cars streaked by to complete lap one, Gabrielle had dropped two positions. Nothing from the car’s telemetry was showing up on the screen to indicate a problem, so he kept quiet. No sense worrying her if it wasn’t anything other than new-driver jitters.
On lap eight, Gabrielle broke her silence. “Got a vibration coming from my left rear.” Her message confirmed whatever problem she was having wasn’t her, but she wasn’t scheduled to pit until lap twenty. He told her not to worry about it until she complained again on lap twelve.
“Pit next lap.” The team burst into action at Brad’s direction. Gabrielle pulled in, and hit her mark perfectly. In fewer than ten seconds, the tires had been replaced and the fuel topped off. Scott held Gabrielle while Troy and Mark did a quick check of the rear end. When they both shook their heads, Scott stepped aside and motioned Gabrielle forward.
By the time she rejoined the race, Gabrielle had fallen to last place, a full lap down to the leader. Brad told Scott to give the tires a close examination and turned his focus to Gabrielle.
“You can make up the lap when the other cars pit. We’re not out of it yet.”
Brad’s promise to Gabrielle came true as, on lap thirty, Gabrielle made her first pass under race conditions. By lap forty-three of the fifty-lap competition, Gabrielle was up to ninth.
With five laps to go, a group of five cars was battling side to side and nose to tail for the lead, while four seconds behind, Gabrielle was in the middle of a three-way duel for sixth. Brad forced himself to stop tapping his foot. If he couldn’t remain calm, he couldn’t expect Gabrielle to do the same.
There was a tap on his shoulder. Barbara’s hand was wrapped around her microphone. “Should we tell her to back off? I—”