Good riddance.
CHAPTER 4
Travis
The cacophony created by the whirring of my car’s V6 engine, the crackling of the two-way radio in my ear, and the mile-high pile of hopes stacked in this final race of the season would be enough to distract a lesser athlete from their end goal.
Not me.
Here in Abu Dhabi, I’m tied for the lead with Luciano Farina. The next ten laps of this race determine who comes out on top. While it’s Farina’s final season of his career, this will be my first championship.
My mind flashes back to Vegas, the little boy playing with his racing car at the table then to me as an eight-year-old promising my father I’d become a champion.
I ignore the picture of an empty bed when I returned to my suite—devoid of her, that tries to emerge. That memory gets squashed beneath the weight of everything riding on this race.
Nothing short of a win is acceptable.
The urge to press against the throttle of my car and gun it consumes me, but I hold back. Instead, I glance at my side mirror.
My eyes instantly narrow as I take in Farina’s black and green car passing the much slower pink and grey car. The same car I lapped before the safety car came out.
“What’s happening?” I ask into the radio connected to my team principal.
This doesn’t happen when the safety car is out. An accident two laps ago caused the safety procedure to slow all of the drivers down.
“Why are those overlapped cars pulling back?”
Horner doesn’t answer me. No one from my team answers me.
They’re too busy yelling through to the race officials on their radios.
“We’re clearing the debris,” the FIA officiant claims. That doesn’t explain why Farina and another driver who was in third are allowed to pull ahead of the rest of the field.
“That’s not right!” my team principal yells out. “You know that’s not right.”
The tightness starts in my chest, squeezing my muscles and causing my heartbeat to increase. Drake Horner, my principal, rarely displays this much emotion during a race.
“What’s happening?” I ask through gritted teeth, my eyes flashing again over to my mirror. Farina’s coming up behind me fast.
Fuck it.
If cars are being allowed to overtake, safety car or no, I’m not maintaining this slow pace.
I hit the throttle, and my tires slip.
It doesn’t cause me to spin out of control, or even lose much pace. However, it’s a reminder that I chose not to take the last pit stop Drake suggested right before the safety car came out.
With four laps to go, it’s too late to think about a pit stop now.
Another look in the mirror.
Fuck.
Farina’s damn near touching my wing, and he’s on fresh tires. To keep him from slipping past on the next corner, I maneuver to close the hole, but he’s faster on fresher tires.
Another skid of my tires costs me the edge, and I lose the lead position.
“P2,” Drake tells me as if I don’t already know I’ve fucking lost the number one spot.
