Braking Points

by Tammy Kaehler

  He let out a loud breath. “Forty-eight years of marriage. I know she hides them on purpose now. There’s a reason she always finds them when I can’t.”

  “The reason is your lack of diligence in looking for them.”

  “That’s terrible. You sounded exactly like her.”

  “Now you’re being mean, Gramps.”

  I rode to the track the next morning with Mike and Leon, since we’d all start with the same team meeting before our ten o’clock practice and end with night practice from seven to nine. It would be a long day, but all three of us were excited to see how the car held up over more running time and different track conditions. A hum of excitement now accompanied the current of fear I’d lived with for a week and a half.

  Jack ran the morning meeting, in which our crew chiefs—Bruce Kunze for the 28 car and Walter Bryant for the 29—talked setup and adjustments with the three drivers from each car. Sam Nichols, who was Aunt Tee’s husband as well as the chief engineer for both cars, discussed track conditions. Jack chimed in about strategy for the three practice sessions we’d have that day.

  Jack also informed everyone about the incident with my helmet and firesuit, telling them to be careful with equipment and watch for people who didn’t belong in the team paddock. Sam assured us the crew checked every bit of safety equipment in the cars, verifying all was in perfect working order. We’d also had a security guard posted overnight to ensure no further damage.

  The drivers stuck around when the others left to get cars to the pits and ready for practice in half an hour. The 29 car drivers—Lars, Seth, and their third driver, Paolo Ramalho, a Brazilian from the Indy Lights open-wheel series—wanted to know the current status of public opinion about me and the wreck at the last race.

  “We know what’s been out there on the Ringer’s site,” Lars said, his Danish-accented English sounding stilted and choppy to ears used to a Southern drawl. “I expect ill-will from the NASCAR side, but the idea of someone acting on their anger, not only spouting bad words, is not good.”

  “Maybe it’s jealousy,” suggested Mike.

  I looked at him in surprise. “Pretty extreme for jealousy.”

  “You’ve gotten a lot of air time—more than some drivers get in their lifetimes. That People article last year, media wanting comment at every race, this sponsorship deal now taking you way beyond the racing world…some people could be angry you’re getting all the attention. Especially if they’ve worked for years with little recognition. I mean drivers, but a team owner could feel the same way.”

  The other drivers nodded, and Leon spoke. “I can see that.”

  I was dumbfounded. Defensive. “I don’t ask for it.”

  “We know that,” Lars said. “You’re the novelty, what sells—and you’re good, so at least you back up the flash.” He winked, to soften the blow. “Plus you look lovely in the photos.”

  “What do I do? Turn the media down, point them to ‘more worthy’ drivers? Besides, Mike, you don’t…” It was hard to finish the question.

  He waved his hands and grinned. “I’m happier in the background. You bring attention to the team and handle media better than me. I’m on Team Calamity over here.”

  Paolo leaned over to Mike. “Wasn’t it Team Violent?”

  Seth, a gentleman driver with a day job running luxury hotels, spoke up. “No one here has concerns, but I expect some out there do. You get a lot of exposure, and jealousy is a fact of life, especially in a small environment with many outsized egos. Is there enough jealousy in this paddock to lash out? I’m not sure.”

  Paolo stood, all five-foot-one of him, fists to hips. “There are two expressions, I believe.” Paolo was infamous for trying to master—and always mangling—English idioms. “The first is, ‘The cream, she will be on top.’ The other is the attitude you take to those jealous ones, ‘If you can’t take the heat, get the kettle off the stove!’”

  I patted him on the shoulder as we got up to head to the pits. “Close, Paolo, and thanks.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The schedule for Thursday gave us an hour on-track from 10:00 to 11:00 that morning, an hour starting at 2:30, and two hours at night to prep for the racing we’d do in the dark. I offered my morning practice time to Leon to give him more laps. So while Mike went out for the first few minutes of the session, I sat in my street clothes on top of the pit cart next to our crew chiefs.

  I kept an eye on Mike’s times, ignored fans and other teams around me, and browsed the Web on one of the team laptops. The Ringer offered sarcastic comments about the combination of my new beauty company sponsor and the team’s hunting superstore sponsor, as well as my suitability to be a representative of either one. The same questions I ask myself, he’s just public and rude. I shrugged and navigated to other motorsports news pages.

  The pit crew started moving around, pulling on gloves and uncurling hoses, in preparation for Mike to bring the car in. No one in a hurry, since Jack decreed we wouldn’t work on driver changes until later that afternoon. Mike turned the car off and got out, stopping to say a few words to Leon at the front of the Corvette before patting the top of Leon’s helmet and climbing over the low pit wall. While the crew inspected tires and topped off the fuel, Leon settled in.

  I saw more than heard Bruce next to me do a radio check with Leon—Bruce wore a radio headset combining ear muffs and a microphone, while I only wore earplugs—and tell him to start it up when ready. A minute later, Leon was gone, forty minutes in hand to get comfortable with the car and track.

  I turned my attention back to the website for Racer magazine, where I found an article by my old friend Mitch Fletcher, titled “The Yin and Yang of Being Kate Reilly.” I was apprehensive about the content, but shouldn’t have worried. While the Ringer spouted gossip and innuendo—with occasional kernels of truth—Mitch and Racer had always been fair. Real journalists. While this editorial capitalized on the recent popularity of Kate Reilly stories and rehashed some of the worst rumors, it also linked to a full transcript of Felix provoking me into an outburst—the only media outlet I’d seen do so. The article was an objective discussion about why I’d become such a story. I was curious, too.

  Mitch examined the recent highs and lows of my popularity and speculated about the impact of bloggers on the story—those who were influential, as well as those actually knowledgeable about racing. In today’s Internet age, he suggested, any individual with a loud enough voice or a big enough platform, credible or not, could influence the story—as might be expected in a culture where people were famous for being famous. He concluded hating me was a trend on its way out.

  His last words were, “I won’t claim Kate Reilly is a perfect driver, because no one is. But she has considerable talent. I’ve read much that’s been written about her and have spoken with and observed her myself. I’ve seen a young woman building a career and simultaneously coping with a lightning-strike of popularity and attention. She’s earned her place through hard work, but she’s also been lucky, and I don’t think she’d disagree. My own hope in any endeavor is to be judged by my work and my character, not by what other people say about me. So, however jealous, astonished, or skeptical I may be of her good fortune, I owe her no less.”

  I dropped my head in my hands, nearly weeping with relief. Boy or girl, I’d have to name my firstborn “Mitch.” I was glad he felt negative sentiment against me was lessening, because I didn’t yet see it in this paddock. His article was a good start.

  After a quick glance to check Leon’s lap times, which dropped steadily as he got more comfortable, I tweeted a link to the article, then sent it to Matt and Lily, asking if they thought things were looking up. Five minutes later, I got a response from Lily who agreed my image was improving slowly, but was concerned over the helmet incident I’d mentioned to her. She asked me to call later that afternoon.

  The essay in Racer made me f
eel confident enough to look at the communications from my strange fan. Though I didn’t have the first two e-mails in the chain, I could deduce their contents. The initial contact would have praised my driving and expressed hope of meeting me some day. To eight or ten messages like that each week, I responded, “Thank you for your kind words. I hope to see you soon at a race, and I appreciate you cheering us on!”

  I made those guesses because the e-mails from “katefangmr” started off by telling me I was welcome and he—had to be “he,” right?—would definitely see me at the Road America race in Elkhart Lake. Another e-mail before the race weekend reiterated how much he looked forward to meeting me. One from Saturday night told me he saw me in the paddock but couldn’t get close enough to say hello, but he’d see me race day at the autograph session. Everything signed “Your #1 fan.”

  The fourth e-mail from him in this collection expressed his condolences for the accident I’d had in the race, as well as his delight at talking to me twice that day. He added, “Please don’t worry about your PR person cutting our conversation short. You’re so busy, and you had to go do something else. We’ll have other opportunities!”

  We would?

  I thought back to the autograph session at the last race and remembered Tom moving talkative, lingering fans along. I always made a point to stay until everyone had the autograph he or she wanted, but these people had their signatures and wanted me to listen to them—which I didn’t have time for on race day. I struggled to picture who’d been there, but only came up with two women and a blond, goateed man, who wore a red shirt tight over his pot belly.

  The last e-mails were more familiar in tone, as if we were close friends. One was short, saying he’d had a bad day, but thoughts of the last race of the season had kept him cheerful. “I can’t wait to see you in Atlanta,” he wrote.

  In another very long e-mail, he told me his life story—without any town or company names to identify him. I didn’t read it all, because my skin was crawling partway through. “Katefangmr” freaked me out, and I sent a message to Lily asking what I should do about him. Then I closed my eyes and took three deep breaths, listened to the cars in the pits and on the front straight, and centered myself on my job. I opened my eyes to see Leon clocking a lap time two tenths of a second off mine from the previous year. I turned to Jack with raised eyebrows.

  He grinned. “Yeah, you’ll have to up your game.”

  I gave Jack a thumbs-up and returned to e-mail for one last action I’d been putting off. I pulled up Tom’s message from the previous weekend and opened the two photos he’d taken of me, Juliana, and Ellie.

  One was a wide-angle shot of the whole Siebkens room, taken while we were moving into position. The other was a close-up, an exquisite photo of all three of us. Juliana outshone us with her pageant-perfect posture and smile, Ellie looked heartbreakingly happy, and I grinned like a school kid. I relived the emotions I’d felt that night: love and excitement, then sadness. I wondered how Ethan was coping.

  The Porsche next to us came in, and I turned my attention to it with relief. I evaluated how they pulled in, how their team maneuvered around the car, and how I’d avoid them if I had to enter my pit stall with their car in place—all topics we discussed at a meeting with our car chiefs after practice.

  We’d just finished that debrief when Stuart arrived in the paddock with eight VIP guests from Kreisel Timepieces, the biggest Series sponsor, hoping Mike and I were available. We stood with them near the cars and talked for ten minutes about what it was like inside the Corvette and how to drive the Road Atlanta track—attracting a small crowd at the barrier to the garage area who were also able to hear us. Then we took questions from the VIPs.

  The fourth man to speak was in his sixties with a full head of white hair and a Tommy Bahama shirt. “How do you deal with two sponsors that conflict so much as BW Goods and the makeup company? I heard the combination is the joke of the paddock.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” I said. “But I did hear something about pink cammo.”

  Mike raised a finger. “I know women who hunt and wear lipstick.”

  “And men get breast cancer or are affected by it,” I said. “I’m proud to partner with an organization that helps people fight a terrible disease. Sure the two sponsors are pretty different, but we treat all companies generous enough to support our racing with respect and gratitude, whether we’re talking motor oil, snack cakes, or deodorant. We take all the support we can get.”

  “Amen to that,” Mike said.

  We posed for photos with the Kreisel guests, and then walked to the rope line to sign autographs for the fans there.

  We’d signed the last hero card when a passing golf cart swerved to a stop in front of us. Dave Hacker, who was driving a Porsche for Holly’s team this year, was at the wheel, Holly beside him.

  “You can’t drive that any better than you drive your racecar,” Mike shouted.

  Dave grinned at us. “Bring it on, big man.”

  “Glad we saw you,” Holly said to me. “Dave, tell her.”

  “Felix Simon is suggesting the biggest risk to safety in the race is you and implying we’d all be safer if someone took you out.”

  I stared at him, my stomach churning.

  Mike recovered first. “He’s officially gone round the bend.”

  Dave assured me no one listening—and no one he knew—would take Felix seriously or act on the suggestion. I hoped not. I was grateful Felix wouldn’t be behind the wheel of a racecar. Felix in the pits was bad enough.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Though Mike and Leon assured me no one would mete out vigilante justice, Jack was unconvinced and made a point of notifying the Series. The rest of us prepared for the next practice session, hoping the Corvette was still fast.

  The first step was driver-change practice, which we did in the pits while the Star Mazda series qualified on track. Lars and I strapped into our respective cars, and the other drivers waited behind pit wall with the crew, who wouldn’t practice fueling and tire-changing with us this time.

  At the wave of a red shop rag, two drivers and a crew member leapt into action at each car. Inside, I removed the steering wheel and hung it on the ceiling hook. I also twisted the lever to release my seatbelts and flipped the two lap belts over the left and right edges of the seat so the next person wouldn’t sit on them. I hadn’t tightened the shoulder belts—I would have loosened them as I rolled down pit lane for a stop—and they retracted toward the ceiling on their bungee cords, out of the next driver’s way.

  Bubs, the crew member who acted as our driver change assistant, had the door open and the window net down in the seconds it took me to remove the belts and wheel, and I pointed my helmet toward the opening, twisting my shoulders so I faced the sky. I reached up, grabbed the car’s tube frame above the window opening, and pulled myself through it, pausing with my torso out and butt on the frame rails protecting the cockpit. I pulled my left leg out and stood on it, hopping backward and pulling my right leg out. I dipped back in for my seat insert. As soon as I got out of the way, Leon dashed in with his insert and Bubs helped him get belted and fastened.

  Behind our 28 car, Lars and Paolo went through the same drill. They slammed their door closed a fraction of a second before Bubs shut the door on Leon.

  Jack looked at his stopwatch. “Could be worse. Next set.”

  I heard crew chiefs behind me radio drivers to unhook their helmet’s air conditioning hose, drink tube, and radio cable and loosen their belts—tasks they’d perform on the way to the pit stall.

  “Go!” Jack said the word and a crew member waved the red “flag.” Seth and Mike jumped over the pit wall with the crew. Another short break, and it was my turn to get back in as Mike got out.

  Once there, I heard Bruce over the radio. “Kate, five minutes to the start of practice. Time on the change was good. Stay there, s
ince you’re out first. You set?”

  “Copy that, Bruce.” I spent the time resolutely pushing the thought of other drivers gunning for me out of my mind. I focused on the car and the track, envisioning its turns, one after the other.

  I roared out of the pits and discovered the car was every bit as good as it had been yesterday. I quelled my bubbling spirits with the thought that track conditions had been similar in every session. The real test would be how setup and tire compounds reacted to cooler temps during night practice later. And possible rain.

  Still, I had a fantastic twenty minutes on the track, finding a rhythm and getting comfortable with the flow of the turns and straights. I remembered where on track I liked to pass, how to vary my entry and exit of corners, and where to watch for my own mistakes. My share of practice flew by.

  Coming down the back straight on my last lap, I unplugged my air and drink tubes. Left-right through Turns 10a and 10b, and then slow, hugging the right line up the hill into Turn 11, making it clear to other cars on track I was pitting. Just over the crest of the hill, I pulled into pit lane, braking hard and downshifting as I wound down the slope.

  I turned right at the bottom and hit the speed limiter button as I crossed the commit line. Loosened my belts and unplugged the radio cable, the car making angry, flatulent sounds as the limiter shut down cylinders in the car’s V-8, restricting me to thirty-seven and a half miles per hour. I veered into our pit stall, pushed the button to turn the car’s engine off, and stopped.

  I was out well before the fueling was done—though for this stop, the crew only pretended to fuel the car for twenty-five seconds. Another signal and two tire-changers on each side of the car lunged forward, wielding air guns on the first wheel nuts as the air jacks lifted the car up. Bubs slammed the door shut and was over the wall as the tire-changers moved to their second wheel. Hands in the air from the driver’s side crew. Hands in the air from the other side. The air hose yanked from the air-jack plug, Leon starting the engine even as it bounced down on four wheels. The crew member who’d held up a hand indicating “stop” waved the driver on. I imagined Bruce on the radio shouting “Go, go, go!”