Authors: Tammy Kaehler
As we ran from the media center to pit lane, Lucas alternately huffed, puffed, and exclaimed over the pace I set.
“You're in shape, use it,” I tossed back over my shoulder. If nothing else, rushing through the crowds of people kept fans from recognizing Lucas.
We shot past the security guard, waving our credentials, and arrived at the end of pit lane to see the celebrity field pass us on the front straight behind the pace car.
“Son of a bitch.” I'd missed her. I spotted Holly in a patch of shade created by one of the media booths above the grandstands and moved toward her. I saw flickers of surprise, awe, and amusement on Holly's face as she recognized the man with me.
“Lucas, Holly Wilson, my best friend and manager. Holly, Lucas. How's Maddie doing? Is she okay? Did you tell her what I said?”
Holly rolled her eyes for effect and held her hand out to Lucas. “A pleasure, Lucas. Kate's told me so much about you.”
“She hasn't told me nearly enough about you. Hopefully you'll fix that.” He deployed his magic, movie-star grin on her.
She basked in it, which irritated me. “Hello? Race time here?”
The cars came around again, still with the pace car in the lead.
Holly patted my arm. “Don't worry, we've got one more lap before green. Maddie is great. I gave her your messages, and she repeated them with me. She understood you couldn't be there, and it's fine. I think she's in good shape.”
“Okay. Thanks. Okay.” I shook loose the tension that had collected in my shoulders and arms and turned to watch the giant screen above us showing the celebrity cars on track. The pros were in their own pack behind the celebs; their handicap was starting thirty seconds behind the celebrity field and having to work their way through it to take an overall win.
I watched the screen as the celebrities rolled down the backstretch and wound their way toward the front straight, talking to Maddie as if she could hear me. “Stay focused. Watch for the flag. Watch what the cars ahead of you do. Think about your braking, turning, shifting.” I felt as nervous as if I were the one behind the wheel. More nervous. If I were behind the wheel, I could control the situation. Watching Maddie, I was helpless. “This is it!”
The pace car peeled off. The field of celebrities surged forward, Maddie tucked up behind the pole-sitter. Right on the leader's bumper. Green flag in the air. The cars sweeping down to Turn 1 slower than any of the racing series did, but still fast for non-professionals. Braking. Cars wiggling around. Starting to turn.
The pole-sitter went in too hot, couldn't brake hard enough, and couldn't turn. He went straight instead and impacted the second-place car to his right, nosing them both into the tires on the outside of the left-handed Turn 1.
Which left Maddie to brake perfectly, hit her line, apex the turn, and move into first place. I couldn't believe my eyes.
“No yellow. No yellow. No yellow.” I chanted the words, willing the two off-track drivers to collect themselves and keep moving. The rest of the celebrities made it past them, as the original second place car backed up and steered around the pole-sitter.
“Oh!” I reacted along with the crowd and the track announcers as the second-place car purposefully nudged the pole-sitter in retaliation. Then the pros took the green flag, with a buzzing of engines roaring past me. I watched the situation at Turn 1, holding my breath until the pros made it through and the pole-sitter extricated himself and moved forward again.
That's when the cameras went back to Maddie, still in the lead and now with a gap on the car behind her. Holly and Lucas stepped forward next to me, mouths similarly agape.
“That's?” Lucas pointed.
I wasn't sure I could speak for the lump of pride in my throat.
“Holy shit,” Holly said.
I reached out to grip her hand. Lucas took my other hand, and we stood that way for the eternity that the next nine caution-free laps took.
When Maddie made the hairpin turn for the last time and surged forward to take the checkered flag, I jumped up and down and yelled. Threw my arms around Lucas, Holly, and the startled paramedic near us. I shouted myself almost hoarse in the five minutes it took Maddie to do her cooldown lap, pull her car into pit lane, and climb out.
She zeroed in on me on the other side of the car and ran. We both whooped as we hugged and jumped up and down. I helped her pull her gear off, and Penny arrived instantly with a towel, baseball hat, and sunglasses.
Once Maddie was settled, I took her hands. “You kicked everyone's ass. You're freaking amazing.” I glanced over her shoulder. “And now you need to do an interview and a victory lap.”
She gave me another quick hug. “Couldn't have done it without you. I'll find you later.”
I turned around and walked right into Lucas again, but this time he was waiting to grab my face with both hands and plant a big kiss on me. I reeled and stepped back. Lucas smoldered and followed, but I held up a hand. “It's not the time for that. I have to go qualify.”
“Butâ”
“Not now. I have to
work
.” I was almost angry as I stepped around him.
Holly fell in beside me and didn't speak until we were halfway to the Indy Lights paddock. “He looked stunned.”
“That I didn't melt in his arms? At a race, of all places?”
I could hear the grin in her voice. “Something like that.”
“The second most stressful moment of the whole weekend for me is right now, when I've got to go qualify this brand-new car.”
“Sugar, believe me, I get it. But Mr. Movie Star doesn't understand.”
I started up the ramp into the sports arena. “He'll have to figure it out.” I dismissed Lucas and everything else from my mind, ready to focus solely on making the Lights car go fast.
Every team had a different strategy for the forty-five minute qualifying session. Some cars went out for only three or four laps. Some went out early, waited to see how their speeds held up, and then went out near the end of the session to try to better their position. And others, like Beermeier, used every minute of the time to work on their cars. Or drivers, in my case.
But it helped. During the session I made another leap in pace, and when the checkered flag fell, I'd qualified in eleventh place. Tristan assured me he and the team were thrilled with that result, and I promised I'd find more speed and rhythm in the race itself.
“I have no doubt you will, Kate.” He patted me on the back. “Even Sasha, with his year of experience in the car, would be looking for a top-ten result here. From you, for your first race in the car, we want to finish. That's the only pressure we're putting on you. Okay?”
“Sounds good.” I didn't tell him the pressure I was putting on myself. To prove myself to the team as capableâof more than only Lights racesâI needed to match their regular driver, if not exceed him. Finishing was a given. A top ten finish would be acceptable; a top seven would be my goal.
I thanked Tristan again and made the rounds of the crew, thanking them for their effort and telling them I'd be there bright and early in the morning, ready to race. I left Pickle my suit and spare balaclava again to air out overnight, and I slung my helmet bag over my shoulder for the trek back to the SCC area.
Holly was outside the arena, a container of street tacos in her hand. The smell of roasted, spicy meat reached me, and my stomach growled audibly. “I hope those are for me.”
“You bet, but we have to walk like civilized people back over to Sandham Swift, not like we're in a footrace.”
I laughed. “I've been a little bit nuts.”
“Focused and busy. But you have forty minutes now to relax. And eat. You only have the Lights series driver meeting before the SCC race, right?”
I steered us down the row of IndyCar setups toward the Beermeier paddock. “Lights meeting at three, pre-race for SCC three-thirty. I missed that autograph session, which feels wrong.” I saw Alexa under her awning, talking with a mechanic. “Let me check in.”
“Do your thing.” Holly moved to a patch of shade.
I passed the fans lined up against a barrier, and I ducked under the belt stretched between two stanchions. Three minutes later, I emerged, feeling reassured, since Alexa had seconded everything Tristan had told me. With that validation, I could relax. Briefly.
My calm lasted until we reached the Sandham Swift paddock, where we discovered a crowd of twenty fans, all waiting for me. I was starving and dying to sit down, but I was touched they'd stuck around after the autograph session ended, wanting a photo or a signature. No way I'd let them down.
I had about twenty minutes to recover before my next meeting. Four tacos, a banana, and two bottles of Gatorade later, I was refueled and on my way again across the track's infield. This time, I was back in a firesuit, but I'd left my helmet and other equipment with Holly, who would ride to the pits with the team. I hoped like crazy I wasn't forgetting some essential item or someplace I needed to be. I'd never been this busy at a race weekend, and I was starting to feel the strain.
This is what success looks like, Kate. Suck it up!
I walked a little faster.
Out of the crowd, I heard my name. I turned and saw Erica, from the Long Beach race committee, waving at me and jogging to catch up. “Do you have a sec?”
I checked the time. “I have seven minutes to get to the Indy Lights drivers' meeting.”
“I'll head that way with you. Walk and talk.”
I started moving again. “What's up?”
“Something odd I remembered from Media Day. I don't know if it means anything.”
I took my head out of cars, speeds, and angles. Remembered Billy. “Why tell me?”
“Don explained he and Nikki pressured you into investigating.”
“I really prefer âlooking into things.' What happened?”
“An argument. Or a conversation. I don't know. It was one voice, but it was a threat.” She sighed. “I don't know who was involved, except I think Elizabeth must have been one of the people. I heard a male voice yelling something about âHolden will never marry you. I won't let him.' I wouldn't have remembered hearing it if you hadn't told me Elizabeth's boyfriend was named Holden.”
“When was this?”
Was it Billy? He didn't have a problem with Elizabeth. Was it Coleman, who didn't approve of his son's girlfriend?
“Right after lunch.”
Coleman.
“You need to tell the police about this.”
“You think it's important?”
“It could be.”
It proves Coleman was here and meddling in others' lives that afternoon.
“Promise to call them?”
“As soon as I have a free minute.” She surveyed the race activity around us and laughed, then saw my expression. “Tonight. Also, I've got a couple journalists wanting quotes from you about Lights versus the Corvette. After the meeting?”
“If they can come to me on the grid, that'd be fine. Or in the pits before race start. Thanks for telling me.” We'd reached the sports arena, and I headed up the ramp toward the drivers standing around the Series truck in the center of the paddock.
The Indy Lights driver meeting was only unusual for the race director singling me out. At the start of the meeting, he welcomed me to the Series, and near the end, he reminded everyone there'd be a new driver in their midst this race, and he suggested they all play nicely.
Sofia Montalvo, stationed at the far edge of the group from me, rolled her eyes at that comment, which provoked chuckles from the drivers next to her. I ignored them. After the meeting ended, I introduced myself to the drivers standing near me, stopped by the Beermeier Racing team to say hello, and took myself off to the SCC pits.
I was ten minutes early for the pre-race ceremonies, though the car was already in place and the team was setting up. I had a word with Mike as he put his earplugs in and pulled his balaclava on. Then I climbed up on the empty pit box, closed my eyes, and got my head back in the Corvette. I hadn't been in the car since the day before, and I'd driven a very different racecar in the meantime. But I had a well-developed habit of visualization, and it proved useful once again.
By the time Mike fired up the Corvette, to drive it on a single recon lap of the track and line it up on the front straight, I'd banished thoughts and sensations of more downforce and less cockpit. I was ready.
Once all the cars cleared pit lane, I hopped the pit wall and crossed the stile at the start/finish stand to join Mike and the Corvette on the front straight. Unlike other SCC races, fans weren't invited onto the pre-race grid here at Long Beach, since the logistics of clearing the grid in the short amount of time we had available were too difficult. But we had officials, dignitaries, cameras, and journalists. Most importantly, we had my grid girls. They attracted a lot of attention.
The four women ranged in age from late twenties to early sixties. They represented all shapes, sizes, and heights, but they all wore jeans with identical pink tee-shirts and pink baseball hats, logoed with Beauté and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Each held a flag of some sort, from the American flag to a solid pink one, and they all were breast cancer warriors. I loved them.
Tara was there, and I went immediately to hug her. “I'm sorry I haven't seen you before now. How are you doing? How's Jenny?”
She braced the flag she held, a pink ribbon on a white background, and grinned at me. “Jenny's holding her own. I'm fantastic. This is amazing.” She looked at the other women. “Thank you so much for including me.”
“You bet. I need to introduce you to Maddie. Maybe right after this race starts?” I thought about how to make that happen, since I expected to see Maddie in our pits for the race.
“We've already been in touch. Don't worry about it. You think about your race.”
“Great. We'll talk later also. If not today, soon.”
I moved on to greeting the other grid girls and the Beauté executive on hand as the roving cameraman from the broadcast network appeared. My friend and sometime-mentor Zeke Andrews trailed the camera and made a beeline for me and the women I was talking to.
Zeke gave me a quick side squeeze, to avoid head-butting me with the giant radio headset he wore. “Let's do a live bit with you and the girlsâsorry, your cancer warriors. You set?”
I waved to the women to stand around us with their flags. We waited two minutes, posed and ready, for the live shot to be tossed to Zeke.
He turned to me. “Thanks guys. One of the best stories on the grid today comes from Sandham Swift Racing, and this bevy of strong, courageous women here with Kate Reilly, one of the drivers in the number 28. Kate, why don't you tell us what your new twist on the classic âgrid girl' is all about?”
I smiled. “Glad to, Zeke. In the last couple months, my primary sponsor, Beauté, has worked closely in partnership with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation to run a contest in each race city from Long Beach forward, asking fans why they're breast cancer warriors. We're picking a couple winners, bringing them out to the race, outfitting them, and sharing their inspiring stories.”
Zeke turned to the women behind me. “Let's have you all introduce yourselves very quickly and tell us why you're here.” He went down the line, holding the mic for each woman.
“Erin Charlton,” said the woman I'd met earlier in the week. “I'm a survivor and supporting my sister-in-law Janel Jernigan through her fight.”
The short, round, sixtyish woman: “Riley Warren. My daughter died a year ago, leaving two gorgeous children. I'm here in her memory.”
“Good name,” I noted, and she winked at me.
A tall, slender woman with a blond pixie cut that formed a halo around her head was next. “Debbie Mariol. I've had breast cancer twice, and I'm still here. Still strong.”
“Tara Raffield. I'm here for my sister, Jenny Shelton, currently fighting her battle.”
Zeke's eyes were as damp as mine. “Ladies, you are an inspiration to all of us. We all wish you and yours continued health.” He turned to me. “Kate, if anyone's interested in joining you at a future race, they can get information on your website?”
I nodded. “Plus social media or Beauté's site.”
“Excellent. Keep up the good work, all of you!” Then he was gone.
Free of the camera's eye, I turned around and thanked the women for being there and promised to visit with them after the race, as well as to answer any questions they had during their visits to the pit. They were all thrilled to be a part of the race weekend and honored to represent the cause.
Before we knew it, it was time for Mike to pull his helmet and gloves back on and slide back in the car. The invocation was given, the anthem sung, and a local business leader gave the command to start engines. Our grid girls, along with the other flag-holders from other teams, filed off the grid, walking to the end of pit lane and around the dividing wall.
I reached in the car and fist-bumped Mike. “See you halfway.”
Back in the pits, I waved at Maddie on our pit box, put on a radio headset, and took up station in front of the display screens on the backside of the pit box. The field did three warmup laps behind the pace car, the tension slowly rising. The pace car dove into pit lane, and the faster prototype class led the field of twenty-two cars down the front straight.
“Green, green, green!”
We held our breaths as the field thundered down to Turn 1.