One For The Road

5: Talladega

"I just can't pass anyone," I shouted, but it was more to myself than to anyone who was listening.

With thirty laps to go, I needed to somehow find my way to the front, but I couldn't drive myself out of eighth place if my career depended on it. And the absolutely hilarious part was that my career did, in fact, depend on a win.

"There's still time. We're going to have to work a little magic, but we can still pull this off. Everyone still needs one last splash of fuel to make it to the end of the race, and we can try to make up some ground there," Paul said.

I took in a breath. "Right. Right."

I kept on driving right along the wall around turns one and two, and if I made one tiny mistake, I'd damage the car. But I needed a win, and no one was going to stop me.

As I chased after the leader Tyler Bailey, there were only seven cars ahead of me on the score sheet, but a few lapped cars also took up space on the track between us. And the cars that were behind me were close as well. That was the beauty and the chaos of Talladega. When one person wrecked, so did a bunch of cars behind them.

I took a peek in my mirror, and surely enough, I had the sixty-six car right behind me. Both Griffin and I were stuck right where we were, and as we sped across the start/finish line, we both knew I had one less lap to make my way to the front.

The air blowing into my helmet heated up, and I wasn't quite sure if it was actually an issue, or if it was all in my head.

"The seventeen car is running the bottom right on the yellow line behind you and Gallagher, and he's running faster laps than the leader," Chris, my spotter, said.

"What? How?" I asked. There was no way that should have worked. The top line, just barely off the wall, was the best line for maintaining speed.

"His car is just that good, I guess," he replied.

Even after several rounds of adjustments, my car was still looser than me in high school.

"Yeah, Chris, I don't think I can pull that shit off. I've almost hit the wall a couple—" The back end of my car wiggled again, and I shut up to straighten it out before I ran into the wall.

"Don't worry about it. Just keep doing what you're doing," Paul said.

Of course, it was very easy for the two of them to theorize when they weren't the ones behind the wheel of a car that fought every turn.

I crossed the starting line again. Another lap gone.

Time was running out, and I was still stuck in eighth place.

At a chaotic track like Talladega, we drivers needed an extra pair of eyes to watch out for us, and even though I was sure Chris still talked me through each lap, I didn't hear a word he said. All I could hear was Roger Truscott laughing.

I couldn't let him win. I dealt with too much shit over my career to let him end it with a snap of his fingers.

I sat up a little more in my seat as I flew down the straightaway, and even though it wasn't possible for me to drive the ninety-five car any harder, I could make some more desperate decisions behind the wheel. This wasn't about the car anymore; we couldn't fix that. It was about me, and I knew damn well that I could hang with everyone from Tyler Bailey to Griffin Gallagher.

And whoever got wrecked in the process would just have to deal with it.

My next victim was a few car-lengths in front of me, and if I could just get to the back of the car, I would disrupt the airflow and kill the speed and handling, or I'd bump him straight into the wall. Either way, I'd get around.