Closing her eyes, Mack remembered how the car felt before Jimmy told her to come in for the day. “In the apex of the turn, I’m prepped for the back to swing wide, but on the exit I’m crossing my arms to keep it off the wall.”
Jimmy and Lucie had fallen back from the group and were listening carefully to Mack. They shared a long look, the kind that comes from years working together. The four of them walked in silence until Janet eventually stopped.
“We’ve been keeping the back end tight so she doesn’t spin herself around and smack the wall,” Jimmy said, his face as expressionless as always. “Maybe that dirt track slide is too ingrained to fight.”
Janet was shaking her head before Jimmy finished speaking. “Absolutely not. There’s no backup car for the eleven. She crashes, we’re done.”
Two other engineers spoke up, echoing Janet’s concerns. Mack wasn’t entirely sure what change they were fighting but she was annoyed anyway.It won’t workwas a bullshit excuse without facts to back it up.
“What we have isn’t working, whether it’s my lack of experience here or my style of driving. Iknowwhat I’m feeling from the car, and I can’t drive it like that.”
One of the younger engineers piped in. “We’ve made so many tweaks at this point, I still think we should go back to Leo’s metrics from last year and start from there. He almost won with that setup.”
“That setup was for last year’s cold and damp weather. We didn’t even try running it this year on the eighteen car,” Lucie said.
Janet stood silently with her arms crossed, but her shrewd eyes bounced around the group. “Raisman, you got any bright ideas?”
Leo held out a hand, palm up, in Mack’s direction as if to say,listen to her. “Let the rookie try a loose setup. We have one more day of practice. Start small and see how she handles it. If it works, loosen it up a bit more.”
“And if she slams it into the wall?” Janet asked.
“You wanted someone outside the mainstream.‘Not another karting prick’you said. You picked her, now you have to trust her to know what she needs,” Leo said casually.
I want you to have everything you need to make this race.
Mack couldn’t stop her eyes from flitting around the crew, the echo of his words from the other night ringing in her head. What if there was a camera and someone had seen her throw herself at him? She trusted that Leo wouldn’t tell anyone about their night together, but what if thecrew could pick up on the energy between them? What if they thought Leo was advocating for her because they were sleeping together?
“Sheis right here,” Mack snapped. She could fight her own damn battles. “And I’m telling you that I’ve spent three days doing nothing but trying to keep off the wall. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me on the track and in the garage.” Mack didn’t even know if she wanted to try a different configuration, or if she just wanted to participate in her own fate. “Let me try a looser car.”
Janet’s gray eyes stared down the front stretch. As if tuned to the same frequency, the team followed her gaze down the wide lane of asphalt. The scoring pylon stood tall and dark against the fading afternoon light, reminding them all of what was at stake. If Mack didn’t get her number somewhere on the thirty-three slots, half of the people standing in turn four would be going home before race day.
Including Mack.
She would go home with nothing but mortification, heartbreak, and a shit ton of debt. She had no idea what kind of operating costs she was racking up with JJR, but when a single steering wheel cost thirty thousand dollars, it couldn’t be cheap. The thought of working at the dirt track, and probably a second job, for decades to pay off a failed attempt at Indy made her physically shake. And she still had no idea how Wes had paid for that RV. She hadn’t yet let herself think about the financial consequences for Shaw—no car at sixteen, no college, not a single thing Mack wanted to give her—and she sure as shit couldn’t think about that right now.
She had no other option; she had to make the race and find a sponsor.
Suddenly, Janet stood up straight and rubbed her hands over her face before resting them in their customary perch on her hips. “If you put this car into the wall, it’s over. We don’t have the cash and you sure don’t either. If it doesn’t feel good after a warm-up lap, or if you have an inkling that you might lose it, get on the apron and come in.”
She didn’t wait to see Mack’s reaction; she was already galloping toward the pits, her long legs putting quick distance between herself and everyone else left staring in her wake.
It wasn’t until later that night, when Mack was finally showered and wrapped in the soft cotton of Laurie’s guest bed, that she let herself really think about Leo’s words:trust her to know what she needs.
Wes and Shaw loved her, but they also depended on her. Nearly a decade of serving other people’s needs, and now she wondered if she herself even knew what she needed. What she wanted.
What she wanted and what she needed felt as far apart as Indiana and Indonesia. What she needed was to find speed so that she could hold on to her one shot at the Indy 500. She needed to take advantage of every second of this opportunity, and then return to her real life. She needed to get this out of her system so she could go home and be a better mother, daughter, business owner.
What she wanted ... Dammit, she wanted it all. Security for Shaw, safety for her dad. She wanted them to need her a little less, and hated herself for wanting that. And for herself, she wanted a career in racing. Not one desperate grapple, but a life with fast cars and races week after week, a team she’d worked with long enough that they knew her moves before she did. She wanted a life in the driver’s seat.
Not for a single second did she let herself picture Leo Raisman sitting next to her, riding shotgun.
@Janetjoynerracingofficial
May 15
Teammates Leo Raisman and Mack Williams walk the track before the final day of practice.
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