11. Riley
Riley
April - Adelaide International Raceway - South Australia
It’s the next month and the next track, and this hotel didn’t have any two-bedroom hotel rooms or singles that were available next to each other.
Which felt odd being so separated from Mabel after two months together.
“I cannot eat another bite,” Mabel exclaims as she puts her napkin down and pushes her plate away.
“So, you rate the Ruben here?”
“One of the best I’ve had!”
“Favourite sandwich, I gather?”
“Top of the list, for sure.” She picks at a chip on her plate.
“What others make the list?”
“Egg sandwich and a really good salad sandwich. But all have to be soft, fresh white bread,” she states matter-of-factly. “You have a top sandwich list?”
“Club sandwich, for sure.”
“That is a good one.”
“Mabel?!” A familiar voice drifts over us.
“Hey, Shelby!” Mabel stands to hug Shelby, a photographer who covers both two and four-wheel racing.
“Was wondering where you went from the rally circuits. I’ve been covering enduro and been away with them this season. Hey, Riley!” Shelby extends his hand and we embrace in a guy half-hug.
“Hey, Shelbs, want to join us?” I offer. “I’ll sit down for a moment. Have a lunch meeting in a bit so won’t cramp your…dinner.”
“All good. Please sit,” Mabel agrees, gesturing to the empty seat.
“Gathering you got a PR gig with Ghostly Flux?” Shelby directs to Mabel, looking between us.
She laughs. “Infraction32, actually! Riley and I ended up being roommates when I got started this season. The hotel messed up my booking on my first day, and I had nowhere to go.”
I open my arms out in a shrug. “What can I say? Can’t stop helping the hystericals.”
Mabel gasps, and play-hits my arm. “Jerk.” But gives me a smile and an eye roll. “I was not hysterical.”
“Your face told a different story,” I argue.
“Anyway. This hotel we have separate rooms, though. Thankfully .”
Which I hate.
“Some knights are in red and white leather clad armour, hey?” Shelby adds. “How are you enjoying it?”
“I'm really liking it. Enjoyed rally, but this is different. A good different,” Mabel replies.
We catch up with Shelby and invite him to the next motocross track before he needs to run off to his meeting. Walking Mabel to her hotel room, we couldn’t be further apart on opposite sides of the hotel and on different floors.
“Thanks for walking me to my door. You want to come hang out? I'm just going to be working watching TV.”
“Yeah. It’s weird sitting in a hotel room alone now,” I reply, because it’s the truth.
Not just because Kiara would have been in the room with me, but because the last two months, it’s been Mabel and me on the lounge relaxing. That routine happened naturally, but quickly. Is too quickly a bad thing?
Heading to the motocross track with Mabel and the crew came out in force for a great time on the dirt. We have all been caught up doing our own things, it’ll be nice to take the day to hang with everyone.
“So you didn’t get to do anything fun like this when you were doing rally?” Fleur asks Mabel on the shuttle bus from the chair in front of us.
“Nah, I was heading home after every weekend. I didn’t get to enjoy any of the extra-curriculum activities with the teams they might have been organising,” Mabel replied.
“Oh yeah. We have a few of the rally people who want to join in on our days here. Gets hard to coordinate between the two travelling and racing schedules, but we try to do a mid-season or end of season session with some of them,” Fleur recounts. “Have you ever ridden a bike before?”
“I haven’t as yet! Riley said he will stay behind and teach me.”
Taking this as my cue to jump into the conversation, I nod. “We’ll get her loving these sessions soon enough.”
“I’m sure I will! Unless I am crap at it first up. Then I will despise it,” Mabel scoffs, pulling laughter from Fleur and I.
“I’m sure you’ll nail it,” Fleur reassures.
Entering the South Australian MudPit course, the sprawling greens of the mountains are an abrupt but complimentary surrounding for the gritty, muddy, motocross dirt track.
There are a handful of cars and utes already gathered in the car park with the strained barrrppp overlapping sounds of bikes on the course float across the air once we step off the bus.
One of the MudPit owners, Adam Bentwick, is standing by a black ute with a huge grin spread across his face as he watches us all pile out of the bus.
“Bento!” Javi, Shelby, and Cole shout out as they walk up to Adam, using his nickname.
“Heya! I see the season has been treating you lot well,” he beams, shaking everyone’s hand.
“Hey, Bento, this is Mabel. Hopefully, this will be the first of many times she hits the course with us!” I introduce when Bento gets to us.
“Hey, Mabel. Great to have you here. We have some options on the course for first-timers so you can get the feel of things. You’ll be chasing these guys around the full course in no time. ”
“Thanks. Nice to meet you. I think I’m excited?”
“You’ll do well. Who could ask for better teachers?” He gestures around to us all.
Everyone whoops and cheers before moving towards the course.
Bento looks around the group and asks, “Kiara and Sophia not keen to join today?”
Opening my mouth, trying to find the words, I am surprised nothing comes out.
“Bento! Did you receive the new motocross bikes from Rayna? Are those what we'll be on today?” Fleur cuts in front of me and grabs Bento’s arm, turning him away and leading the two of them towards the entry.
“Are you all good?” Mabel asks, resting a comforting hand on my arm.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I shake it off and start walking towards the entry.
She jogs up to my side. “So, do I need to work on hands signals to talk to you? I know it’s loud in the pit, surely it’s louder on the bike?”
“We have some helmet radios, so you’ll hear me loud and clear.”
“Oh, embarrassing. So everyone will hear you teaching me?”
“I got you covered. They have a few frequencies, so they will stay on one and we will be able to talk on our own line.”
“That’s a relief!”
Bumping my elbow into hers, I say, “You’ll nail it. ”
She tries to grin but grimaces instead, causing me to laugh. My laughing jolts her out of her head as I see her body relaxing.
The cool breeze whips through the material of my motocross gear as Mabel and I sit on our bikes on the dirt track.
“You can hear me okay?” I ask.
“Yup. Copy.” Mabel’s voice crackles in my ear. Her helmet nods in conjunction with her reply.
“We are going to take this really slow. Basics first. Don’t focus on the other riders on track. Shut them out and just worry about what you are doing.”
“Okay.” I hear her tentatively agree. Her eyes bounce across her handlebars, the track, the foot clutch.
“Mabel.”
She looks up abruptly, locking my eyes to hers.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?”
“Okay,” she says, her voice sounding more confident.
We spend our time going through gears and building her confidence, moving the bike on the flat dirt terrain until she is shifting gears with little thought process and starting to flow through her turns smoother.
She didn’t fall over, but she put her feet down as soon as she wasn’t happy with how she was going.
This is one of the smaller MudPit courses with a flat track; a junior track which resembles a competition motocross track, but smaller for the kids and novices getting used to everything with some subtle bumps thrown in for confidence building.
There are bush tracks accessible from here, which the crew have gone through today.
A few hours pass and we manage to move on from the beginner flat track to the junior track. There are several kids ripping it up around the track, but everyone is keeping an eye on each other and no paths cross.
Alongside the peak of an incline, we watch the kids’ jumps, and I can’t help pointing out tips to help them improve their landings.
“You seem like you're finally enjoying this?” I remark.
“It’s pretty fun. You’re a good teacher!”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised!” I reply.
“Sorry. You gave good instructions to follow.”
“I’m used to explaining this to kids. I used to work with younger kids when they were starting out in comps and training academy.”
“Explains it.”
Silence falls through my helmet as we watch the kids get more daring with their jumps.
“That kid is really good.”
“Another natural talent.”
“In addition to you?” Her eyes sparkle as she smiles behind her helmet.
“Of course.”
“So humble. You really need to start motivational speaking. You will inspire so many.” Sarcasm is thick in her voice.
“I have been considering. Taking notes from you. ”
“You need no notes.”
The puttering and revving of bikes in the distance draw our attention over to the bush track entry, and we see the crew coming into view.
“Home time. Need any refreshers to head back?” I offer.
“I think I have it,” she fearlessly replies.
“Let’s hop to.”