Page 19 of Throttle

Elle greets the group, and we begin the tour of the garage and pit road. I smile and take photos with everyone and sign some merchandise. There’s only a brief time before we need to line up for the opening ceremonies. One of the children here was walking out with me during driver intros; after that they would need to head off the track during “hot” times. No minors were allowed anywhere near the pits.

Elle usually accompanies special guests to the box seats and coordinates hospitality from there, while updating social media. I’m not sure what I’d do without her.

***

“Drivers, start your engines!” The command is given, and I flip the ignition switch and steady myself with a few breaths. This all feels very stock car like, but it’s fun.

“Haisley, do you copy?” Saint comes over the radio.

“Roger. Hear you loud and clear,” I answer.

“Good. Bud and Eric are going to take over during the race. I’ll be on the headset monitoring the data. Have your switches where you want them. We’re pulling off pit road in two minutes.”

“Roger. Quick thing. I want to thank all the crew for being here today. I have a good feeling we’ll do well. Let’s put in the effort and strategy, and come back from this penalty,” I share words of wisdom. My wisdom at least.

“Jesus Christ, can we get on with racing?” Bud snips into the radio. ”You have a big hill to climb, missy.”

“I’m sure no thanks to you. Let’s put our differences aside and race safe, Bud.”

“Whatever you say,” he replies as the cars in front of me start to pull off pit road. I turn the wheel and slowly hit the throttle, giving the car a little gas as we exit and take a lap around the track.

Once we come to turn twelve, we’ll get in order before taking the final turn to the front straightaway and the start/finish line. I triple check my gauges, my screens, and do a quick mental rundown of where I calibrated the controls. We might have to start from twenty-second, but I’m going to place top fifteen.

“Here we go,” Eric chirps over the com. “Coming to green in twenty, fifteen, ten, five, go!”

I rev the throttle and upshift through the gears, able to actually pass a couple of people on the first straightaway before we turned into turn one. Okay, only five more spots to master before I hit the goal. I fall into my rhythm. I listen for Eric’s instructions, watch my mirrors, and attempt to keep my car from spinning out or getting into an accident.

People have different opinions on where to be in the pack. Some like the back, some the front. Honestly, I like wherever I’m not going to have a higher chance of crashing. Granted, that depends on a lot of factors I can’t control.

We make it through one lap, and I smile to myself. I have Bud chirping in with directions, when he wants temps, when we need to pit, everything. It’s actually the most he’s talked since we started working together two weeks ago. I wonder if Hunter is on the pit box or if he’s on Chad’s. The one person I want to beat is Chad, but that’s going to be hard. He’s an experienced driver, and I hope to learn from him. I just don’t like the fact Drake is here and is his crew chief. Don’t like it one bit. Instead, I focus on the track and hitting my marks. If I do that, then we have a good chance of hitting top fifteen. Lap after lap, I stay in my rhythm.

“Haisley, we have a crash coming up in the esses; the caution is out. Stay inside on turns seven and eight,” Eric instructs.

“Roger.” We are about twenty laps into the hundred lap race.

“How are the tires? Fuel levels?” Bud barks into the radio.

I read him back the information as requested.

“Let’s pit next time around. We’ll change tires and fuel up,” Bud instructs.

“Ten-four,” I reply into the com. Not sure why we are pitting, but then again, he’s the crew chief.

***

“You did it!” Elle exclaims as she pulls me into a hug while I’m barely out of the car.

“I told you I would.” I free myself from her grasp and finish taking off my helmet. The pit crew all come up and congratulate me on placing fifteenth. I aimed for top fifteen, and I did it.

“Well, I’ll be damned, you actually pulled it off,” Bud snarks as I nod in his direction. The crew is pulling the car off the track and towards the hauler to get loaded.

“Great race, Haisley,” Saint says as he descends the pit box. “I was worried there after you got in the shuffle halfway through.”

I bop my head side to side. “Yeah, well, thankfully it was only a little scratch. The restart helped after that, as did the big crash at the end,” I explain laughing.

“You still drove from the back up through the field to put yourself in a spot to succeed. Can’t wait for Texas.”

I’m about to reply but get pulled to do some media with the pit road reporters. I plaster on my fake smile and entertain.

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