Banging Wheels (6 page)

Once again he found his thoughts segueing into being with her, lying naked in bed, her hand on his chest, his fingers tracing a sinuous line from her hip up to the swelling of her soft, supple breast. He imagined he and Callie laughing together, play-fighting and exchanging repartee. He’d been with plenty of women, but there was something so different about Callie. As much as he resented her behavior on the podium, she was one of a kind.

Then he realized what he was thinking about and pushed it out of his mind. There was no room for sentiment, not if he wanted to win the championship this year. He had to keep her at a distance; to stop her getting in his head, to stop thinking about her, and, most importantly, to win.

There was palpable tension in the garage at the next race. Every little detail felt like a battleground.

“Hi,” he said as he saw someone walk in, then cursed as he realized it was her, as it gifted her the chance to blank him, which she promptly did of course.

He didn’t have the edge out on the dusty street circuit, either. He just couldn’t seem to find any grip. He did a handful of laps, scratching about on the slippery surface, then pitted to analyze the data. That was his strength — analyze, analyze, analyze. Don’t get emotional about it — it’s just mechanical equipment obeying the laws of physics. If you want to drive more quickly, you need to break it all down to its smallest elements and focus on making each one better. But this approach seemed to work so much better on a smooth track, whereas it seemed to fall short on a street circuit like this.

But this thing with Callie bothered him, because he found it so hard to remove emotions from the equation. He felt something, whether he liked it or not. Plus, he might have won that last race, but there had been a power shift on that podium. It was something unquantifiable, and it bothered him.

He went out again, trying once more to apply his cool logic to the hot streets, but he just couldn’t get his head around this track. He felt the annoyance build, before losing his cool and sliding off into the wall like a rookie. Callie, meanwhile, had been imperious here in practice in a way that he couldn’t understand. As he walked back to the pits, and his broken car was craned away, he tried hard to belittle it — told himself that if anything, he was actually just too good for this circuit; that it suited hacks and hustlers, and that to be fast here was the sign of an amateur. But deep down he knew that he was just feeding himself bullshit to protect his own ego.

Callie, meanwhile, was imperious, chucking her car around in an act of sheer delight. There was a cliche in motor racing circles that driving a car was like making love. It was certainly the case with Callie — she seemed to drive with wild, passionate abandon, like she was in the grip of something. He couldn’t help but admire her ability despite himself. Here she was now, coming back into the pits. She got out the car, pulled her helmet off — shaking out those long locks so they flowed out over her shoulders — and walked past him. Damn it — he couldn’t get near her times. He couldn’t get near her, full stop. He maintained his cool visage, but behind it he was far from sure of himself.

Come race day, as they circulated waiting for the race to begin, he geared himself up.
You’re a winner.
It’s just another race, and another you can pull out of the bag
.

But it was a stretch, even for him. He’d qualified all the way down in fifth place, while she’d aced it and was right at the front of the pack. He was only able to see the back of her car during the moments when the other cars, who were weaving left and right to keep their tires warm, all coincided to be out the way at the same time, like planets aligning.

Finally, they crossed the line, and the race was underway. He had to make early headway — he knew that much. In the mayhem heading into the first corner, he darted ahead of the Mexican Sergio Luis into the first right hander, forcing him out the way in a wheel banging maneuver. But just two corners later, he misjudged his braking and Sergio — or ‘Serge’ as he was nicknamed, partly because it sounded like ‘Surge’ — was right back past him.

And that was it — the impetus was gone. Drake followed Serge around, choking on his dust, for lap after lap. He was marginally quicker than him, but not by enough that he could pass him. Serge wasn’t the fastest of drivers, and he wasn’t in a good car, but boy was he tough to pass. He’d learned his driving skills in the karting leagues of Europe and knew all the tricks. In fact, he seemed to know what you were going to try before you even tried it.

Ten laps in, and Callie was well out of sight. Still, the big digital scoreboard located on the straightaway said the same thing each time he came past — Callie in first place. Serge, meanwhile, continued to frustrate him. He knew the guy from a lower formula. Indeed, they were pretty close for a time — one of the few people in his life he genuinely trusted. It was Serge who had introduced him to Mezcal on a night out in Texas, and they’d both taken shit from their respective team bosses the next day. They’d turned up to qualify still half drunk and stinking of spirits — and each with a girl on their arm — and were barred from taking part. The result was that they started at the back of the grid on race day, where they promptly took each other out at the first corner. It was hilarious looking back, but those days were gone. Things were much more professional now, which was why they’d drifted apart. Racing and personal relationships were incompatible.

Drake tried for the inside once again, then the outside, sliding this way and that, but Serge always had the answer.

“Arriba! Abajo! Al centro! Pa’ dentro!” Serge liked to say, generally a sign that the night was likely to slide into a hazy mess of agave-based alcohol and loose women.

Drake’s hands were stiffening on the wheel, and he could feel blisters forming as he wrenched it this way and that. Damn street circuit. Why do they even have these things? He found himself slamming on hard once again as Serge closed the door on another move. He had to calm down — frustration was the enemy. A cool head was what was required. But there was nothing he could do. Street circuits were hard enough to make a pass on, but against a customer like Serge it was practically impossible. As the raced closed out, he knew the game was up. He kept probing, kept right on his tail, just in case Serge made a mistake, but none came. He trundled dejectedly across the line in fifth place.

Up on the podium, Callie was busy spraying fizzy stuff around. The security had picked up after the incident at the last race, but he had to get up there. He had to do something to disrupt her rhythm.

“Wanna swap?” he said to a nearby track marshal, offering him his helmet and pointing to his access all areas pass.

“Too right!”

Up on the podium, Sam Daniels was enjoying yet another high scoring finish. Second place was nothing to be sniffed at, especially on a circuit like this. That young gun Callie had finished way ahead of him. She was a good driver, although she seemed a bit erratic and kind of scared him a little. She’d barely registered him since that incident on the last podium, telling him that, as he’d suspected, her kiss hadn’t been sincere. They sprayed champagne in each other’s faces, and then Sam tipped it up and poured it over the head of Callie’s Australian mechanic, who was also up there. Another chance to build bridges — one day he might even employ the guy, you never knew.

Then from nowhere, a dark looming shape. It was that teammate of hers — Drake. He looked to Callie, whose facial expression had changed to one of apprehension. But it was Sam he was walking towards, with a weird smile on his face.

Oh Jesus, what now?

At first he thought he was going to hit him but, as Sam tried to back away, Drake grabbed him heartily by his upper frame.

“DON’T KISS ME!”

“I just want to congratulate you. You were the best driver out there today.”

“And how would you know?” said Callie, behind him. “You were miles behind. Literally.”

But Drake ignored her, and shook him in an overly-friendly way that, to Sam at least, seemed forced and insincere.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on,” said Sam, ducking out, “but you two need to sort this out. It’s nothing to do with me.”

He walked away, clutching a near-empty bottle of champagne, leaving the two exchanging distrustful glances behind.

Drake sat prodding at the airline meal chicken, occasionally trying to steal a glance at Callie, who was on the other side of the plane and several rows in front. He wanted her, but he wanted to win, too. He couldn’t have both. Maybe he couldn’t have either. He slid into a daydream and briefly found himself imagining a world where he didn’t care about motor racing, where winning wasn’t important to him. Could it work then? He struggled to hold the idea in his mind. Auto racing was his passion in life. If he gave that up, he’d be giving some part of himself up. And why should it be him, and not her? But then he tried to picture a Callie that wasn’t similarly driven and competitive, a Callie with some office job or other. That passion and drive, that sparkle in her eye, that not taking of bullshit — they were the things that made her who she was. Without them, she wouldn’t be Callie.

It was a long time since he’d had a girlfriend. A real, actual, proper girlfriend. He knew he was good looking, and with his charisma, looks, and penchant for risk-taking, he could get pretty much any girl he wanted. But boy, did it leave him empty. What was it that made him run off like that? He liked to tell himself he was living the life of a playboy racing driver, but deep down he knew the truth was something else.

He sipped at a scotch on the rocks in a plastic cup, and pondered on those times. He was so different now. All these things had made him stronger, more driven. He’d started lifting weights, taken his childhood obsession of karting more seriously. He pulled back his sleeve to reveal a tattoo, written in fanciful script —
crescit sub pondere virtus
— in adversity we thrive. He had grit — he wouldn’t have gotten so far without it.

But he also knew he’d lost something along the way. He’d had sex with plenty of women, but since his ex —
the
ex — he’d never allowed himself to get close. It was always take them home, get laid, bail before there were messy consequences; before anyone could get too attached.

Still, his ex was one of the things that drove him on. Her and his supposed ‘best friend’ — the one that she had cheated on him with her when. Not to mention all the other pricks that had wronged him earlier in life. The thought of them all watching while he crossed the line to victory on the big screen was one of the things that truly drove him on, that made him get out of bed on cold winter mornings to hit the racetrack while it was still empty and practice, practice, practice. He’d show them all. The thought of him failing on that big screen was the thing that meant he could never back down, never give way. The further he progressed, the bigger the stakes were.