My fingers are so shaky and clumsy that it takes three tries to get my shoes on.
“Did she say that you’re racing for sure?” Travis asks. He’s kneeling on the bedroom floor, digging through his suitcase.
“She just said that Clayton might need surgery, and that I had to get to track as soon as possible to get my seat fitted.”
“Sounds like you’re racing to me,” he says, holding out one of his sweaters.
“It’s still ninety degrees outside,” I point out.
“Yeah, and I’ve seen you shiver at noon on a beach.”
“It was cold that day!”
He grins. “Sure it was. Do you need anything else?”
“No.” I check my pockets. “I’ve got my wallet and my track pass and—oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“My luggage. It’s got all my race stuff in it, my shoes and gloves?—”
“They’ll sort something out for you,” Travis says. “Don’t worry about it.” He studies my face. “You want me to come with you?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“You sure? I don’t mind walking you over.”
I smile. “I know you don’t. But I’ll be fine. And you need to sleep, you’ve got qualifying tomorrow.”
“Today, technically,” he says, nodding at the clock. “And so do you.”
“Yeah.” My heart skitters anxiously. “I guess I do.”
He steps closer and kisses me. “You’ll call me if you need anything?”
I nod. “I will.”
“Don’t be nervous,” he says.
“I’m not,” I reply.
I’m obviously lying. My fingers are cold with nerves as I ride the elevator down to the lobby. I shove my hands in the pockets of Travis’s sweater to try to warm them up, but it’s no use. They’re still icy as I step outside into the hot, humid air.
The city is dark and quiet, only a handful of people out on the streets this late at night. Their voices are strangely muffled and distant, like I’m walking inside of a bubble, or maybe inside of a dream. It would honestly make more sense if this were a dream. I can’t really be racing in Formula 1 this weekend. That can’t possibly be real.
The pit building is eerily quiet, too, except for the Crosswire garage, where a handful of engineers and mechanics are waiting for me. They’re accompanied by an FIA official who’s there to make sure they don’t make any changes to Clayton’s car, which is absolutely forbidden after hours.
Sofia isn’t there—she’s still at the hospital with Clayton—but Samuel the mechanic fills me in on what happened. It’s probably the least dramatic story I’ve ever heard. Clayton was walking through the hotel lobby, tripped on a marble step, and fell on his outstretched arm. He only went for an x-ray to prove to the team doctor it wasn’t broken, but sure enough, there was some weird fracture that has to be fixed with a minor surgery. They think he’ll be fine to race Austin in two weeks, but he definitely won’t be driving his car this weekend.
I’ll be driving it, instead.
Within minutes of my arrival, the team gives me a spare race suit and race shoes to change into so they can start fitting my seat. The shoes are a size too small, pinching my toes as I climb into Clayton’s car. To fit the seat, they use this strange bag of pink foam that expands against my frame. It takes nearly half an hour, and the foam gets so hot that tracks of sweat itch down my back, but I don’t dare shift an inch, in case I ruin the fitting.
When it’s done, the engineers whisk the foam away to magically turn it into a carbon fiber seat. Usually, the process takes a few days, but they assure me they can put something together by six p.m. this evening, which is when FP3 is scheduled to start. While someone else goes off to hunt for race shoes that might fit me better, Clayton’s race engineer, Cory, sits down with me to review the steering wheel.
An F1 car’s steering wheel has about twenty different buttons and knobs, all of which I’ll be expected to operate while driving two hundred miles an hour. The steering wheel on Crosswire’s factory sim is similar to the one on their current car, but different enough to make me nervous.
“Don’t worry about memorizing every little thing,” Cory says, when I ask him to go through all the settings for the third time. “Just focus on the most important things, and I can help you on the radio if you run into any trouble.”
