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I may, or may not, watch him walk away.
Dante and Cole get secured in their cars. I throw my headset on, then tuck into my spot at my computer. I can hear both drivers going through their rituals. Edmund gives them instructions, updates on weather, and wind speeds.
In just a few minutes, both cars pull out of the garage, and I’m hit with pangs of nervousness and find myself chewing on my thumbnail. I see several other people tapping their feet and fidgeting, it’s not just me.
The whole pack of cars does their formation lap around the track and then line up on the grid waiting for the lights to go out. For a moment, it is silent in the garage, and the tension is palpable.
Then the start lights on the grid drop, and all twenty cars rumble, roar, and push past one another, zinging past our garage on the straight.
&nbs
p; My eyes dart between the data on my computer screen and the monitor above it that shows live action of the cars on track. I need to look at this data and watch it, but I’m also compelled to watch the TV screen. I want to see how Cole is doing, but I’m also suddenly more nervous than ever before.
Be logical, Emily.
Serious accidents are infrequent. Safety is unparalleled in this sport.
I know this. I’ve researched that heavily already, years ago, and many times since. It just feels so much more real now, in person.
Several laps go by, and both of our boys are doing reasonably well for themselves in fourth and fifth place. The cars have spread out around the winding track. I can relax a little bit, not be so afraid that some other driver will cause an accident. There’s always one asshole acting like a torpedo on track, ruining shit for everyone else.
Dante’s on the medium compound tire, and it’s rated by Concordia for twenty-five laps, but his tire data is showing more wear than they should at this stage. Edmund catches it too, as I hear him over my headset tell Dante to cool the tires and change some settings.
That’s no good, it means he’ll have to slow down. Accelerate less, slow down more gradually, go softer into the corners. I can see why the tire performance is critical here, and I start running some numbers to see if we can artificially manipulate the tire temperatures.
I also start watching Cole’s data, he’s diving into corners and quick on the uptake—he trusts the car, right now.
I smile.
Then I decide I need to really need to dig into the differences between all these tire compounds. It’s two nearly identical cars, yet only one is chewing up rubber.
I use the lull in track action to walk around the garage and take a look at our rack of tires in their black heating jackets. Temperature looks right, every tire has a unique identifying number on it and is labeled for the specific driver. Even though I can’t tell anything just by looking at the slick black rubber, I run my hands over several of them.
Olivier hasn’t gotten me that materials data yet. I want to know what’s inside these babies.
“Dante, box this lap. Box, box, box,” his engineer calls over the radio instructing Dante to come in for a pit stop.
“It’s too soon, we’ll lose track position,” Dante answers.
I run back to my computer and look. Dante’s right, he isn’t scheduled to come in for a pit stop yet, but his tire life is showing as virtually gone.
“Copy that, but you’re losing time, box this lap,” his engineer tells him again.
“I can do a few more laps,” Dante argues.
I see an engineer on the pit wall throw his hands up in frustration. Clearly, Dante is always cocky and doesn’t like to follow orders.
Sure enough, Dante zooms right by the pit lane entrance and zips past us in the garage. Just after he passes us, there’s an awful screech, and a plume of black smoke waifs past our line of sight.
I look up to the monitor, and one of the cars on another team has just had a massive blowout. Chunks of rubber fly in all directions as the tire disintegrates like it’s taken a grenade to the sidewall.
The yellow car skids, then moves to the side of the track to get out of the way, its metal rim sparking against the asphalt before he makes it to a run-off area.
“Yellow flag, Sector One,” Edmund tells both drivers, so they know to slow down and use caution in that area.
Good lord, the carnage the tire has made looks terrible on the television monitors. The tire coming apart and flopping around has torn up the floor of the car, and the driver is pissed as he gets out. Pissed, but he’s okay.
This shit is scary in real life, damn.
