Chapter 13
“Try to release the anti-roll bar as you exit the turn.”
Jimmy’s instruction crackled through Mack’s earpiece and she cringed in frustration. For the second practice day in a row, Mack’s speeds were abysmal.
She’d vowed to show up fresh and friendly, but instead she arrived twenty minutes late because she’d forgotten to put her Nomex in the washing machine the night before.
Like her clothing, the day stank. The crew treated her with an icy tolerance she knew she deserved, and the car didn’t seem to think she was worthy either.
For the last hour, she’d plugged through the same pattern: run a dozen laps before coming back into the pits so the crew could make adjustments to the car, Janet would offer her opinion on what Mack was doing wrong, then she’d go back out to run laps.
This time, Mack held her tongue and tried everything, but nothing worked.
Somehow her speeds kept getting slower. Gusting winds swept the track, and Mack lifted her foot off the accelerator in turns two and four to keep from smacking the outside.
On her last run, she’d hardly managed two hundred fifteen, which would not only keep her out of the race, but create unsafe conditions for other drivers on the track.
Which she knew because more than one driver had screamed at her spotter, and in one case, directly at her while Mack caught her breath on pit lane.
Meanwhile, Leo was running in the top five, making practice look like a lazy amusement park ride.
She knew she owed him an apology for yesterday, and yet she ignored him in the garage that morning, as immature as her ten-year-old daughter when she didn’t get her way.
Mack suspected he’d be kind and forgiving, and she didn’t want his absolution.
Did not deserve it. She’d managed to avoid him before practice, but shamelessly watched him on track, admiring his consistent, steady laps.
Back on track once more, her hands hurt from gripping the wheel, her hips ached with the unfamiliar reclined position, and she’d sweat through her fire suit so thoroughly she could feel the moisture pooling in her ass crack.
Mack held her breath as she steered into turn two, grimacing as she pushed left as hard as she possibly could, her wrists sore from the previous day’s effort.
The back end of the car pulled hard to the right, the front end wanting to go directly into the wall.
As she headed down the back stretch of the track, Jimmy’s voice crackled over the radio.
“How’s it feel?”
“Almost lost the back in two but also have push. Understeer still there.”
The line buzzed with the quiet line of the open radio. “Better or worse than yesterday, or can you tell?”
Mack wrestled the high-strung car through another two turns before radioing back, “I’m trying not to hit the wall on every turn. Car wants to go straight.”
Jimmy’s resigned voice filled her ears. “Come on in. Remember the pit limiter.”
Ducking into pit lane, she pressed the button that automatically slowed her to the sixty-miles-per-hour speed required by pit lane rules.
A blue plastic placard attached to a long metal pole identified her pit box, and she pulled in, overshooting her marks by a foot.
She raised her hands in apology to the crew, and Jimmy signaled for Mack to kill the engine.
The sudden stillness echoed louder than the low rumble of the big engine, and Mack’s ears continued to ring despite the protective earplugs she wore.
Jimmy frowned down at her. “There’s no way you’re feeling understeer after all the changes we made.”
Mack scowled up at Jimmy even as her face flamed inside her helmet.
She knew she’d acted like an unforgivable jerk the first day, but goddammit, she understood the mechanics of racing.
“I know what push feels like. I’m telling you, this thing wants to drive right into the wall.
My arms are crossed just to make the turn. ”
Jimmy put his hands on his hips, his weathered face stern as he leaned over the cockpit. “That’s enough for today.”
“What? There’s another hour of practice left!”
“Get out of the car.”
Too exhausted to put up an argument, Mack unclipped the steering wheel and disconnected the communication and hydration cords, her arms wobbling with fatigue.
She plopped on the lip of the aeroscreen, taking a moment to catch her breath.
Between the g-forces in the turns, the sheer speed on the straightaways, and the strength required to steer the car, a driver’s heart rate often hit one hundred eighty beats per minute for hours on end, similar to marathon running. Mack was gassed.
Yesterday, she’d been livid. Today, she was scared. What if she couldn’t find the pace in time for qualifications?
Jimmy seemed to have the same worry. He said little, simply tapped her helmet and sighed. “Get rest tonight and we’ll do it all again tomorrow.”
Climbing out of the car, she sat on the pit wall to remove her helmet and gloves.
She was still catching her breath when Leo smoked in the pits, stopping exactly on his marks and killing the engine.
Mack watched as he wriggled out of the car.
His speeds had been great all day, and his engineer looked particularly pleased. As she should; Leo was flying on track.
Across the pit box, Leo flipped his visor screen up and caught her staring. Shit. She couldn’t exactly run away from him with both of their crews watching. Leo sat down on the pit wall next to her and took his time unsnapping his helmet.
“Great practice,” she shouted over the noise of the cars still out running laps.
Leo pulled off his helmet and balaclava, and Mack pretended not to watch as he scrubbed a hand through his sweaty hair. Her fingers could still feel the weight of those thick curls.
“Lucie got us set up right,” he said, removing his earpieces.
She’d only known him for a week and a half, but it seemed natural for Leo to give the credit to his team instead of acknowledging his own skill.
His face was creased from the tight fireproof hood they all wore under their helmets, and he looked wrung out, but the signs of his hard work made him more attractive to Mack.
“You still having a hard time finding speed?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. She heard the defeat in her own voice.
Leo squinted at her as he opened the Velcro tab on his fire suit to let cool air on his skin. It was hot on track, close to ninety degrees with the sun reflecting off the asphalt. “It’s a tense few weeks. Worse when you’re a rookie.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, as softly as she could on pit lane. “The way I talked to you yesterday . . . That’s not who I am, I swear.”
Leo stopped folding his gloves and looked at her. “I know.”
She wanted to say so much more, but she couldn’t. Not here. They sat side by side, watching the few remaining cars whir by.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Mack wasn’t sure what it he meant—their night together, her attitude yesterday, or what was happening in the car—but she chose the safe option.
“It’s like I have understeer and oversteer.
Coming into the turn, it feels like the car wants to go straight.
Exiting the turn, I can feel the back begging to snap around.
The tools don’t seem to help,” she said, referring to the minute adjustments a driver could make from inside the car.
Leo considered that, then blew out a breath. The longer she watched him, the more she could see the fatigue in his face. “Do you want to go over the tools again, talk about how you might use them at each point in the turn? I need to grab a shower first but we can talk in the garage after.”
“Don’t you want to go home and watch SportsCenter and eat carefully balanced macronutrients?”
Leo laughed and Mack felt shamefully proud as she watched some of the tired leave his face.
“We’re teammates, right? Let’s clean up, get some food, and go over the tools.”
She walked with Leo toward the garage, grateful for the help and knowing she didn’t deserve his generosity but accepting it anyway. But in her mind, she kept hearing the way he’d said we’re teammates like it was a consolation prize.